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Self-Serving Justice

NEED TO KNOW Self-Serving Justice SLOVAKIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/def5a447-d17d-4b18-8656-a0934b7c83eb.png"] Thousands of people took to the streets in the Central European country of Slovakia late last week to protest criminal justice reforms proposed by the newly elected Prime Minister Robert Fico and his leftist populist allies. They chanted “Mafia, mafia ...

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Target Practice

NEED TO KNOW Target Practice BALUCHISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eb272fcf-6499-280e-ed70-9060750b87d2.png"] Iran and Pakistan fired missiles and drones at each other this month ostensibly to kill separatists in Baluchistan, a region that straddles the two countries as well as Afghanistan. Iran aimed at bases used by Jaish al Adl, a Baluchi militant...

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Saving Stalin

NEED TO KNOW Saving Stalin GEORGIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e341329d-b90e-4b8e-8e3b-6429d9366897.png"] The late communist dictator Josef Stalin is arguably the most controversial native son of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Mixed feelings about Stalin, who defeated the Nazis, turned the Soviet Union into a world power, but also oversaw an iron-fisted regime...

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Law & Disorder

NEED TO KNOW Law & Disorder SOUTH AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5516b8d6-0af4-46a7-8454-a3339ff1009f.png"] Residents of Rabie Ridge, sick and tired of criminals running rampant through their township outside Johannesburg, South Africa decided to take matters into their own hands. They went house to house and rounded up six people they accused of...

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The Politics of Co-Dependence

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW The Politics of Co-Dependence FINLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/91b0da4b-efc6-40c2-a405-00e958404c77.png"] The former president of Finland and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari died recently at the age of 86. He helped draft peace accords in Namibia in the 1980s, in Northern Ireland and between Serbia and Kosovo in...

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All That Glitters …

NEED TO KNOW All That Glitters … BRUNEI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/664da16e-6086-451b-b6d0-2da3d75c7e07.png"] Prince Abdul Mateen of the small Southeast Asian nation of Brunei was described in Time magazine as “swoon-worthy,” “hot,” and “sexy.” Long considered one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, the 32-year-old helicopter pilot in his country’s air...

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When the Street Wins

NEED TO KNOW When the Street Wins GUATEMALA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db73a011-021f-466b-9b89-77add155facc.png"] Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo’s supporters came out in force outside Congress on Jan. 14. But they weren’t there to witness his inauguration – they were there to make sure it even happened at all. As commentators noted, after much struggle,...

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Ever After

NEED TO KNOW Ever After ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky were two of the more than 240 people whom the Palestinian terror group Hamas kidnapped on Oct. 7. In a video released by Hamas, they appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war...

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A Spoonful of Salt

NEED TO KNOW A Spoonful of Salt THE GAMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/89b5a0c0-046d-402b-bc1b-96a8d9ab5730.png"] Gambian Ebrima Sagnia, 44, in an emotional interview with Al Jazeera, recalled how in 2022, he gave the cough syrup to his four-year-old son to combat his high temperature. The boy became drowsy and couldn’t urinate for days....

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Gross National Gloom

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Gross National Gloom BHUTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/95cb74f9-3e10-4c29-ab01-000d0e49a2f4.png"] In Bhutan’s recent elections – the fourth since 2008, when the Himalayan nation replaced its traditional monarchy with a parliamentary form of government – the opposition People’s Democratic Party received a mandate to solve the economic crisis that has been...

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Trading in Blood

NEED TO KNOW Trading in Blood MEXICO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fcd100e2-d1bb-4cd7-b9f4-53a07a70e41c.png"] Mexico is the United States’ top trading partner – more than 800 billion dollars’ worth of goods move across the border each year, according to the US government. Some of those goods crossing the border, however, are not welcome – namely...

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Troubled Justice

NEED TO KNOW Troubled Justice NORTHERN IRELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e1fa23fe-bd64-4526-9f49-8430fef05250.png"] Violence between British-backed Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland has been relatively subdued in recent memory compared to the street fighting decades ago, when, as one BBC story illustrated, British troops huddled for safety behind their armored vehicles. Peace in...

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The Coming Storm

NEED TO KNOW The Coming Storm ETHIOPIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/bf55b5d2-7db8-404a-b87b-c88a42597d29.png"] When Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1993, the latter retained access to a port on the former’s Red Sea coast. But five years later, Ethiopia lost access to this port during a war between the two countries that lasted...

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Simmer, and Boil

NEED TO KNOW Simmer, and Boil MIDDLE EAST [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7000f0bb-c02b-4438-87c6-002be2c0dfc6.png"] On Jan. 12, the United States and its allies launched more than 100 missiles at 60 targets in Yemen, including “control nodes, munitions, depots, launching systems, production facilities, and air defense radar systems,” reported CNN. Five people perished and six...

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Eternal Turmoil

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Eternal Turmoil COMOROS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3e1e7791-0efb-4c01-bc98-96b7c2eacff0.png"] After he secured power in a coup in 1999, Azali Assoumani ran for the presidency of Comoros in 2002. After retiring from politics in 2006, he ran for office again and won in 2016 and 2019. Now, after a court decision...

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The Loss of Patience

NEED TO KNOW The Loss of Patience TAIWAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/dab1143a-8514-4f63-8098-bd36050d9680.png"] Taiwan’s general election on Jan. 13 will have major implications for the small country that China claims as its own. As the Guardian reported, voters will cast ballots for the presidency and lawmakers who oversee an island the size...

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Nourished By Violence

NEED TO KNOW Nourished By Violence ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Late last year, during an interview in Qatar, Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya told the New York Times that his terrorist group attacked Israel on Oct. 7 in order to revive the flagging revolutionary avidity that once animated Palestinians toward...

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My Rival, My Friend

NEED TO KNOW My Rival, My Friend AUSTRALIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/81d62805-bef8-41fd-9c0c-ed93ea461226.png"] The AUKUS deal signed in 2021 by Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States arguably marked a nadir in relations between Australia and China. The deal gave Australia new technology for nuclear-powered submarines, weapons that were obviously meant...

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Cops & Robbers

NEED TO KNOW Cops & Robbers RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1fcd4036-786d-9ce0-309a-14f74105b898.png"] In 2022, a Russian court sentenced Vladislav Kanyus to 17 years in jail for “torturing, suffocating and stabbing” his girlfriend. Today, following a pardon for his crimes by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kanyus is fighting for Russia in Ukraine,...

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The Fix Is In

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW The Fix Is In BANGLADESH [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/46a3120a-34a1-40f2-8221-240a899a0fd0.png"] The prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, recently launched her ruling Awami League party’s campaign for the South Asian country’s general election on Jan. 7. Speaking at a massive rally in the eastern city of Sylhet, reported the Associated Press,...

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