Archive

January 21, 2022

Divided They Stay

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Divided They Stay NORTHERN CYPRUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0f41b89c-d225-563a-f204-63defe2e1841.png"] Turkish Cypriots for years have been reluctant to reunify with the Greek side of their island. The interethnic conflicts – specifically ethnic Greeks massacring ethnic Turks – and other issues that triggered the Turkish military to invade and partition the...

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January 20, 2022

Worst Crisis Today

NEED TO KNOW Worst Crisis Today YEMEN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ee4609f2-2073-461b-ae67-50c2f07e3c6e.png"] Houthi rebels in Yemen recently launched a drone and missile strike against the United Arab Emirates, blowing up fuel tankers and killing three people. The origins of the drones weren’t clear. But, as the Jerusalem Post suggested, the Iranians, who...

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January 19, 2022

Standing Tall

NEED TO KNOW Standing Tall BARBADOS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f789b0d4-d2ad-44af-8a47-5201502a16bd.png"] When the BBC asked Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley about climate change last year, the interviewer learned a lesson about international perspective. As the Scotland-based National newspaper explained, the BBC correspondent wondered why Barbados was receiving so much Chinese foreign investment...

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January 18, 2022

Unbending Science

NEED TO KNOW Unbending Science WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Australia deported Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic after federal court judges upheld the immigration minister’s decision to override an earlier court decision to allow him to play in the Australian Open. As the Associated Press wrote, officials kicked him out because...

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January 17, 2022

Fed Up, Pushed Down

NEED TO KNOW Fed Up, Pushed Down KAZAKHSTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d52e63cf-06bb-47d0-b573-377bff5ae37c.png"] Officials in Kazakhstan recently announced that, with the help of Russian troops, stability had returned to the Central Asian country. Their definition of stability raised eyebrows around the world. More than 200 people died and more than 5,000 people were...

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January 14, 2022

What’s In a Name

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW What’s In a Name CHINA / INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f955c982-4d44-2ccd-ca8b-843ad6eab684.png"] Indian leaders recently blasted Chinese officials for moves that appear to ramp up pressure in their disputes over territory along their border. According to Indian critics, China has been renaming locations that India claims are part of the...

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January 13, 2022

No More Mr. Nice Guy

NEED TO KNOW No More Mr. Nice Guy ETHIOPIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/bf55b5d2-7db8-404a-b87b-c88a42597d29.png"] Air strikes have become a routine part of life in northern Ethiopia. The strikes are part of the ongoing 14-month-long civil war between Ethiopian central government forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, a group that once held power...

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January 12, 2022

Justice Delayed But Not Daunted

NEED TO KNOW Justice Delayed But Not Daunted LATIN AMERICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/59fbe6be-49eb-3207-4c89-ea2ca4043f2a.png"] The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a Costa Rica-based panel affiliated with the Organization of American States, recently rendered guilty verdicts against two past rightwing governments in Latin America and one from the left. The court found that...

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January 11, 2022

The Long Goodbye

NEED TO KNOW The Long Goodbye BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3eb41941-dc99-4c07-a44c-b49cace98355.png"] Fikret Alic appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1992 during the Bosnian War. Emaciated, he was standing behind the barbed wire of the Trnopolje camp run by Bosnian Serbs. The treatment he suffered recalled the worst of...

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January 10, 2022

Perception is Key

NEED TO KNOW Perception is Key EGYPT [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/180d3d63-0093-422e-a6d2-b3d9896f0053.png"] French automaker Citroën recently apologized for airing a television commercial in Egypt that featured the popular Egyptian performer Amr Diab driving a C4 crossover sport utility vehicle. In the commercial, Diab uses a built-in camera in the car to snap...

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January 07, 2022

Falling From Grace

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Falling From Grace BENIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2f9461ee-c4e6-4b8e-a1ae-3fd929fd2dfa.png"] Benin’s former justice minister, Reckya Madougou, had been planning to run for president against cotton magnate Patrice Talon in April. She would have been the country's first female presidential candidate. And she had a good chance at unseating the incumbent. Instead,...

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January 06, 2022

The Honey-do-list

NEED TO KNOW The Honey-do-list UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3889a598-67d0-4b0d-b019-11292382b589.png"] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a former television star and comedian, has installed friends and colleagues from his comedy studio into the top echelons of his government. That’s his prerogative as the head of state of the former Soviet republic who was elected...

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January 05, 2022

Mission Impossible

NEED TO KNOW Mission Impossible NORTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/081c0373-fb17-4e7d-af63-346faaef42b7.png"] North Koreans were barred from laughing, drinking alcohol or enjoying leisure activities from Dec. 17-28. As Radio Free Asia explained, the enforced misery was part of a mourning period for the late Kim Jong Il, the father of the country’s...

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January 04, 2022

Bloody Passions

NEED TO KNOW Bloody Passions PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eaf17bc7-6468-493e-bfe1-86954ffb120a.png"] Priyantha Kumara was a Christian and Sri Lankan citizen who managed a Rajco Industries factory in Pakistan. When rumors spread that he had trashed some posters of the Islamic prophet, Muhammed, ahead of a planned repainting of his factory, hundreds of...

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January 03, 2022

Once More Unto the Breach

NEED TO KNOW Once More Unto the Breach WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] As the Omicron variant of the coronavirus spread around the globe, the Netherlands instituted a nationwide lockdown that made the Dutch feel like it was 2020 all over again. Non-essential businesses, bars and restaurants are closed until mid-January, the...

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December 31, 2021

A Frightful Old Year

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW A Frightful Old Year WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Fear was the watchword of 2021. People feared the coronavirus. In Africa, where the Omicron variant first appeared, United Nations officials continued to sound alarm bells about the lack of a coordinated international effort to vaccinate people and stop the...

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December 30, 2021

Much Ado About Something

NEED TO KNOW Much Ado About Something CANADA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7ee49a6-d768-4bd1-93d6-b44b086c3c21.png"] School officials forced third-grade teacher Fatemeh Anvari out of her classroom at Chelsea Elementary School in Quebec because she wore a hijab. Anvari didn’t lose her job, per se. She was reassigned to an inclusion-and-diversity literacy program. Her students were,...

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December 29, 2021

Scratches in the Teflon

NEED TO KNOW Scratches in the Teflon UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] The former speaker of the British House of Commons, John Bercow, recently told Good Morning Britain that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the worst premier he had ever known. A formerly Conservative parliamentarian who recently switched to the...

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December 28, 2021

Upstaging Ghosts

NEED TO KNOW Upstaging Ghosts CHILE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/baed026e-8c02-42fc-8c27-383b8bf87a6c.png"] If the legacy of General Augusto Pinochet’s cruel rule haunted Chile for years, the ghost of his predecessor, the late leftwing Chilean President Salvador Allende, is now getting its chance to do the same. Pinochet seized power in a coup that unseated...

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December 27, 2021

After the Fall

NEED TO KNOW After the Fall AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] Two veteran foreign correspondents from the Washington Post recently journeyed along the 300-mile highway from the Afghan capital of Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar. American taxpayers funded the road to the tune of $300 million. Today, four months after...

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