Archive

February 19, 2021

Eras New and Old

NEED TO KNOW HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] Eras New and Old One of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti, is embroiled in a new political crisis. Protesters recently marched down the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, chanting “Down with kidnapping! Down with the police!” They threw rocks at security forces,...

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February 18, 2021

Natural Invasions

NEED TO KNOW NEW ZEALAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/35e498e9-3807-40bd-bf6c-8c9506c3b2cf.png"] Natural Invasions The kakapos are beautiful, fascinating birds. They are the biggest species of parrot, weighing almost nine pounds, according to the Natural History Museum at Tring. They can live for 90 years. Most interestingly, they do not fly, behaving more like badgers...

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February 17, 2021

Forward, Comrades

NEED TO KNOW LAOS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2c88ac81-3523-4a3b-b94d-88479d0a30a0.png"] Forward, Comrades Laos’ communist leaders recently elected Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith as their new secretary-general. Described by the Bangkok Post as a “veteran of the old guard of the party” that seized power from a Western-backed government in 1975, the 75-year-old needs to...

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February 16, 2021

Health and Wealth

NEED TO KNOW TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0260892f-6ad1-4644-95e3-72b64405f716.png"] Health and Wealth Premier Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson, who runs the British overseas territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands, recently became the first in her nation to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. "We want the people of these Islands not to be consumed...

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February 15, 2021

Vaccination Games

NEED TO KNOW PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eaf17bc7-6468-493e-bfe1-86954ffb120a.png"] Vaccination Games Around the world, covid-skepticism has become a thing – leading to millions saying they will shun the vaccine. In Pakistan that stance has a special twist. Many Pakistanis are skeptical of vaccinations because of a fake inoculation program that the CIA used to...

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February 12, 2021

On the Move

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] On the Move The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t stopped citizens of poor and war-torn countries and leaders in affluent nations from grappling with the political, ethical, logistical, economic and, unfortunately, often deadly effects of the ongoing worldwide migrant crisis. More than 1,000 migrants drowned in...

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February 11, 2021

Fighting the Past

NEED TO KNOW KOSOVO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0999f062-2356-43ad-b3b8-f915c7878425.png"] Fighting the Past In June, 61 out of 120 lawmakers in Kosovo’s parliament voted to install the government of Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti. Hoti’s political opponents, including former Prime Minister Albin Kurti, questioned the vote, however, because the member of parliament who gave the...

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February 10, 2021

Weaponizing Cows

NEED TO KNOW INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1ac703d1-8192-40be-95ea-427a8f7ed9ee.png"] Weaponizing Cows When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi created a National Cow Commission late last year, he aimed to educate his constituents and protect the animals Hindus view as sacred, News 18 India explained. Then Modi announced that the commission would hold a new nationwide...

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February 09, 2021

The Palace and the Underpants

NEED TO KNOW RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] The Palace and the Underpants Alexei Navalny directed some rather unkind words toward Russian President Vladimir Putin before a Moscow court sentenced him to more than two years in prison. “He’ll go down in history as nothing but a poisoner,” Navalny told a Moscow court...

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February 08, 2021

Making Peace, Making War

NEED TO KNOW ETHIOPIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/bf55b5d2-7db8-404a-b87b-c88a42597d29.png"] Making Peace, Making War Asmelash Woldeselassie survived a bombing that cost him his sight during a civil war in his native Ethiopia in the 1970s. Two decades later, he lived through an air attack in a war against Eritrea that resulted in the...

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February 05, 2021

A Government of Ghosts

NEED TO KNOW IRAQ [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7f5678d9-eac3-49b9-9755-dcad8927e883.png"] A Government of Ghosts Sixteen years ago, after the US had occupied Iraq for more than two years, South Africa's Mail & Guardian painted a picture of lawlessness in the country’s capital of Baghdad. “Two and a half years of bloodshed have convinced the...

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February 04, 2021

The Façade Crumbles

NEED TO KNOW MYANMAR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9ef34308-9cd1-4a8e-a2b3-e7a7ab6846ed.png"] The Façade Crumbles Khing Hnin Wai frequently produces videos of herself doing aerobics to electronic dance music near the road to the parliament building in Naypyitaw, the capital of Myanmar. Her backdrop rarely provides much drama. But on Monday, the Los Angeles Times...

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February 03, 2021

Rescue Us

NEED TO KNOW ECUADOR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7dbfcec9-d17b-43ce-97b7-0ce48bb12d1f.png"] Rescue Us Ecuadorans hope whoever wins their upcoming presidential election will throw them a lifeline. That's because in 2020, Ecuador’s economy shrunk by 11 percent, wrote Bloomberg. Covid-19 and lockdowns were mostly to blame for the pain. But policy was also a culprit. In September,...

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February 02, 2021

Of Bullies and Pulpits

NEED TO KNOW UGANDA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eae01c28-7782-4a11-9e2b-886217499c6a.png"] Of Bullies and Pulpits Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, 76, won reelection to a sixth term in January, preserving an administration that has ruled the East African country since 1986. In celebrating his victory, he declared that the vote would probably go down as...

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February 01, 2021

Dissidents in the Desert

NEED TO KNOW SAUDI ARABIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/cb30405d-bd4c-40bf-a603-50857b6bc532.png"] Dissidents in the Desert Saad al-Jabri saved hundreds of lives in 2010 when he warned British authorities of a bomb al Qaeda terrorists had placed on a flight from East Midlands Airport bound for Chicago. The former Saudi intelligence officer worked closely...

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January 29, 2021

Intolerable Brutality

NEED TO KNOW CUBA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/934b8716-56c1-487d-ba72-11a855fa10c6.png"] Intolerable Brutality Outrage and social media are fueling a popular uprising against the government’s power in Cuba. Late last year, Cuban police arrested the rapper Denis Solís. It was not the first time officials had seized a free thinker in the communist country. But...

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January 28, 2021

Globalization MENA-Style

NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e9f003e4-763f-45aa-8bd2-dd52c7067104.png"] Globalization MENA-Style The peace accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has created a tourism boom in Dubai, where Israelis now visit the gold markets and other attractions in the wealthy city on the Persian Gulf. Braving COVID-19 and overcoming decades of suspicion,...

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January 27, 2021

Respect Who’s First

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Respect Who’s First If confirmed as US Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland will become the first Native American to join an American president’s cabinet. A member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, Haaland would oversee the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which...

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January 26, 2021

Blaming and Shaming

NEED TO KNOW PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eaf17bc7-6468-493e-bfe1-86954ffb120a.png"] Blaming and Shaming In September last year, a Pakistani woman ran out of gas on the highway near the eastern city of Lahore. A group of men stopped. Rather than helping her, they raped her in front of her two children. After learning...

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January 25, 2021

All About the Jabs

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] All About the Jabs Palau, which consists of hundreds of isolated islands that stretch 500 miles east of the Philippines, is slated to soon vaccinate all of its 18,000 citizens with the Covid-19 vaccine. The Pacific country never recorded a single case of the...

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