Archive

November 26, 2021

Stacking Decks

Editor's Note: Due to technical issues, we are unable to post the quiz this week. The quiz will resume next week. We thank you for your understanding. NEED TO KNOW Stacking Decks HONDURAS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5e2a67ee-c113-425a-b7dc-9cb08a72f95e.png"] When voters in Honduras go to the polls to elect a new president on Nov....

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November 25, 2021

Red Halo

NEED TO KNOW Red Halo CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] If communists practiced canonization, Chinese President Xi Jinping would be a candidate for sainthood. The honchos of the Chinese Communist Party recently “exalted” 68-year-old Xi as a “historical leader” of the country, Axios reported. Only the founder of the people’s republic, Mao...

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November 24, 2021

Punching Above Its Weight

NEED TO KNOW Punching Above Its Weight ERITREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a90fd977-7674-18bb-a4c1-4c046edb3465.png"] The US government recently imposed sanctions on Eritrea’s sole political party and military forces to punish the East African country’s role in the bloody civil war in neighboring Ethiopia. For the past year, Eritrea has been helping Ethiopia combat a...

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November 23, 2021

When Heroes Fall

NEED TO KNOW When Heroes Fall GEORGIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e341329d-b90e-4b8e-8e3b-6429d9366897.png"] The European Court of Human Rights recently demanded that the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia safeguard former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who had been staging a hunger strike in prison, before ending it over the weekend. Georgian authorities arrested and imprisoned Saakashvili, who...

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November 22, 2021

A Spoon Full of Salt

NEED TO KNOW A Spoon Full of Salt EUROPE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f9c83d42-7d43-4e2f-a6d6-f7bf04744b7d.png"] Austria recently instituted a nationwide lockdown for the unvaccinated, forbidding anyone without a shot over the age of 12 to leave their home unless they’re working, shopping, exercising or seeking a vaccination, the BBC reported. Violating the lockdown...

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November 19, 2021

Eyes Wide Open

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Eyes Wide Open CHILE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/baed026e-8c02-42fc-8c27-383b8bf87a6c.png"] Fabiola Campillai was walking to work in 2019 when Chilean security forces fired a tear gas canister at her, striking her face, blinding her permanently and damaging her brain. At the time, civil unrest was rising in Chile over social...

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November 18, 2021

Chaos Theory

NEED TO KNOW Chaos Theory CENTRAL ASIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2e2ef13c-a42d-db72-25cb-edaa084a6043.png"] The former Soviet republics of Central Asia are following in the footsteps of Russia in exerting control over social media. Users of Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and other apps know that officials sometimes throttle the services in order to silence debates...

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November 17, 2021

Cold Truths, Hot Air

NEED TO KNOW Cold Truths, Hot Air WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] World leaders, diplomats, environmentalists and fossil fuel industry executives who attended the COP26 climate change summit were tasked with forging an agreement to save the planet. In the end, they created a new deal that broke new ground in...

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November 16, 2021

The Marlboro Men

NEED TO KNOW The Marlboro Men MONTENEGRO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4b30f1e1-b1f1-4c0b-8877-a8d9773d57e4.png"] The US and other international observers have turned a blind eye over the years to cigarette smuggling in Montenegro, a small former Yugoslav republic on the Adriatic that achieved independence from Serbia in 2006 and joined NATO nine years later. Montenegrin...

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November 15, 2021

The Vanishing Villages

NEED TO KNOW The Vanishing Villages ROMANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aaceeea-9490-44fc-a4ad-151c831adffc.png"] The bodies of Romanians who perished in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic have been placed in black plastic bags and lined up in a hallway in a hospital in Bucharest, the capital of this eastern European country. Hundreds of people die...

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November 12, 2021

Round and Round We Go

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Round and Round We Go BULGARIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1eb16295-db95-4ff1-8e0b-8bdc4e81cb9c.png"] Bulgarians will vote in a total of four elections this year. Even so, confidence in the Balkan country’s government is still lacking. As Balkan Insight explained, citizens of the European Union’s poorest member voted for new parliaments in April...

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November 11, 2021

Voting With Feet

NEED TO KNOW Voting With Feet ARGENTINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/76e4f41e-d963-4fc8-b435-ba5bf19812a5.png"] Argentine President Alberto Fernández unveiled big spending plans on social welfare programs and other benefits in order to convince voters that they should reelect his Peronist allies in the Justicialist Party during legislative elections on Nov. 14, wrote El Pais,...

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November 10, 2021

Heeding Candide

NEED TO KNOW Heeding Candide MAURITANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/18cc7578-f1a7-4a18-81da-f90716e211fd.png"] Algeria recently accused Moroccan forces of killing three Algerian citizens who were driving a truck from the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott to the Algerian city of Ouargla. As Agence France-Presse explained, Morocco’s regional rival, Algeria, supports the rebels who are fighting for...

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November 09, 2021

Meta Problematic

NEED TO KNOW Meta Problematic WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg had a chance late last year to stand up to the communist leaders of Vietnam. Instead, as the Washington Post explained, he blinked. Vietnamese officials asked Zuckerberg to stop the posts of government critics. Refusing their requests...

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November 08, 2021

Eastern Front

NEED TO KNOW Eastern Front POLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/31d830f6-377a-4afc-861b-7fbf94dce490.png"] Last month, the European Court of Justice ordered Poland to pay $1.2 million a day for failing to prevent political interference in its judicial system. As CNN reported, the Polish government under the control of the Law and Justice Party has...

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November 05, 2021

When Might Is Right

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW When Might Is Right NICARAGUA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b1f74445-4296-4463-949d-e92d66c3e3b1.png"] Nicaraguan law enforcement recently arrested two prominent businessmen on charges of “money laundering, acts that diminish the country’s independence and inciting foreign interference,” according to the Associated Press. Similar charges have been levied against scores of others for similar crimes...

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November 04, 2021

Like Father, Like Son

NEED TO KNOW Like Father, Like Son CHAD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b08925fb-4623-40c3-9563-de5bd3009fa5.png"] Earlier this year, Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno wanted to command his troops fighting against jihadist rebels in his country’s remote north. So he journeyed to the front, where he died in the fight, National Public Radio reported. Deby,...

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November 03, 2021

Fed Up

NEED TO KNOW Fed Up SWEDEN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3c7156af-17ce-455f-85b2-83980fe2f678.png"] A gunman shot and killed Swedish rapper Einar recently in Stockholm. The 19-year-old, award-winning entertainer was the most streamed artist in Sweden on Spotify in 2019, Agence France-Presse reported. Einar’s songs feature drugs, crime and violence. He had public feuds with...

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November 02, 2021

Stuck in Purgatory

NEED TO KNOW Stuck in Purgatory CAMBODIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7961b85-6c8d-4728-b55b-cbaa2e866255.png"] Thirty years ago, diplomats signed the Paris Peace Agreement to bring an end to civil war in Cambodia. The run-up to the agreement was hell on earth, as journalist Sydney Schanberg depicted in his book, “The Death and Life of Dith...

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November 01, 2021

Leadership in Retrograde

NEED TO KNOW Leadership in Retrograde SUDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/224b0e8f-5be6-4e44-b799-a1b865717c98.png"] After widespread protests and violence, President Omar al-Bashir stepped down as president of Sudan in 2019. In his wake, a power-sharing government of military and civilian officials ruled the country. The arrangement was difficult, but it pointed to a better...

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