Archive

October 04, 2022

Rinse, Repeat

NEED TO KNOW Rinse, Repeat PUERTO RICO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/20e7440e-baf0-4e4c-8dd8-699b2e71c3b0.png"] Five years after Hurricane Maria knocked out Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, it’s déjà vu. Hundreds of thousands of residents of the US territory are without power because of Hurricane Fiona, reviving memories of when Maria killed thousands, turned off the...

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October 03, 2022

The Bear’s Market

NEED TO KNOW The Bear’s Market RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Global economic growth will reach only three percent this year due to the lingering effects of Covid-19 and the economic ructions of the Russo-Ukraine War – think higher energy, food prices and other goods. Next year, for the same reasons,...

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September 30, 2022

Splitting the Chimera

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Splitting the Chimera BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3eb41941-dc99-4c07-a44c-b49cace98355.png"] The leader of Republika Srpska, an enclave of ethnic Serbs seeking to break off from Bosnia and Herzegovina and become an independent state or unify with neighboring Serbia, recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. As...

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September 29, 2022

Take It Off

NEED TO KNOW Take It Off IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] Big protests over little scarves are threatening to destabilize the Islamic Republic of Iran. In mid-September, Iran’s morality police arrested Mahsa Amini, 22, for allowing a few strands of hair to escape her scarf, violating laws Iranian officials say are necessary...

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September 28, 2022

A Good Day

NEED TO KNOW A Good Day CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] While Russian President Vladimir Putin suffers international condemnation and internal dissent, US President Joe Biden faces a test in the upcoming midterm elections, and major European leaders are either new or lack significant power globally, Chinese President Xi Jinping, 69,...

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September 27, 2022

The Best Man for the Job

NEED TO KNOW The Best Man for the Job UGANDA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eae01c28-7782-4a11-9e2b-886217499c6a.png"] An Ebola outbreak is occurring in Uganda, raising fears that the country will not be able to contain and control the deadly disease in the East African nation, reported CNN. Public health officers are scrambling to trace...

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September 26, 2022

The Dangers of Desperation

NEED TO KNOW The Dangers of Desperation RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] The once-vaunted, now-demoralized Russian military could be on the brink of collapse – a retired British Air Marshal put the odds at 35 percent in a recent interview with Sky News. By now, seven months after the invasion of...

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September 23, 2022

Democracy by Fiat

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Democracy by Fiat SWITZERLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2b943183-27c5-4545-a4cd-06237a4dff08.png"] Much has been written about the benefits and dangers of democracy. Some in Europe and the Americas fear that their democracy is under threat. Others say that is nonsense. Chinese leaders, meanwhile, view the US as a decadent democracy while...

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September 22, 2022

Treading Water

NEED TO KNOW Treading Water PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eaf17bc7-6468-493e-bfe1-86954ffb120a.png"] Record floods have turned lowland farms in Pakistan into lakes, highlighting the fragility of an unstable developing nation in the era of climate change. “We are living on an island now,” farmer Muhammad Jaffar said in an interview with the New...

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September 21, 2022

A New, Cloudy Day

NEED TO KNOW A New, Cloudy Day UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] On Monday, hundreds of thousands of Britons lined up and millions more tuned in to say farewell to their queen. It was a spectacle full of pageantry befitting the reverence reserved for this beloved monarch who died this...

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September 20, 2022

Apple from the Tree

NEED TO KNOW Apple from the Tree ITALY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/13ef7d88-e231-4aaa-9970-c3480223c0d5.png"] Over the years, liberal elites throughout Europe have fretted about the premiership of Silvio Berlusconi, the now 85-year-old media tycoon and conservative politician who has led Italy a few times since the 1990s and recently made a bid for...

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September 19, 2022

Humiliating Goliath

NEED TO KNOW Humiliating Goliath RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a702de3c-ba67-009a-ec81-bb85364aae07.png"] In the first few weeks of September, Ukrainian forces retook more than 2,300 square miles of territory that Russia had occupied. In what the BBC called “a potential breakthrough in the war,” Ukraine had control over cities in the northeastern...

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September 16, 2022

Going, Going, Back

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Going, Going, Back EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Jean Blum, a resident of Berlin, Germany, usually uses natural gas to heat his home. But sometimes he uses wood in his stove. Now, as energy prices spike in Europe due to the efforts of Western governments to reduce...

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September 15, 2022

The Tricky Dance

NEED TO KNOW The Tricky Dance CZECH REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4e23e22d-26c3-4ed5-88d4-a441c2b9d079.png"] “Medieval,” a new movie celebrating the military exploits of Czech national hero Jan Zizka, depicts peasants angry over rising living costs and other indignities, Variety wrote. Like any historical film, it is, in a sense, a commentary on today....

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September 14, 2022

The Time To Choose

NEED TO KNOW The Time To Choose BRAZIL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b4df2610-e790-44f6-bec1-f859c705ae8b.png"] Tanks rolled and soldiers marched through the streets of the Brazilian capital of Brasilia recently. They were ostensibly celebrating the 200th anniversary of the South American country’s independence from Portugal. But the military parades on Sept. 7 had a different...

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September 13, 2022

Going A-Courting

NEED TO KNOW Going A-Courting AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b8aca45b-1687-4d5b-b62c-09186470d8a2.png"] In the universe of Marvel Comics, Wakanda is a secret kingdom in sub-Saharan Africa ruled over by the benevolent, super-powered hero, the Black Panther. In the real world, there is not one but four centers of innovation in Africa that now,...

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September 12, 2022

Tectonic Shifts

NEED TO KNOW Tectonic Shifts RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] After World War II, British influence gave way to American power everywhere around the globe except in the heartland of Eurasia. There, the Soviet Union held sway. Today, however, a new page is turning in the history of great empires. In the...

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September 09, 2022

If You Can’t Beat Them…

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW If You Can’t Beat Them… SWEDEN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3c7156af-17ce-455f-85b2-83980fe2f678.png"] A local politician in Sweden, Saida Hussein Moge, recently quit the ruling Social Democratic party after Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said she didn’t want Chinatowns, Somalitowns or Little Italys in the Nordic country. Moge is ethnically Somali. “The...

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September 08, 2022

The Best, the Worst, of Times

NEED TO KNOW The Best, the Worst, of Times SAUDI ARABIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/cb30405d-bd4c-40bf-a603-50857b6bc532.png"] It was a time of lavish spending on ambitious projects. It was a time of brutal repression. In Saudi Arabia, it was business as usual. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently unveiled plans for The...

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September 07, 2022

Wasting Away

NEED TO KNOW Wasting Away SOMALIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/15cd6f05-9c0c-4887-86f7-20dad73138cf.png"] Death has two faces in Somalia these days. If famine doesn’t claim one’s life in the war-torn nation on the Horn of Africa, then Islamic militants might. Drought has brought Somalia to the precipice of its worst famine in 40 years. More...

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