Archive

December 06, 2023

Countdown

NEED TO KNOW Countdown MYANMAR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9ef34308-9cd1-4a8e-a2b3-e7a7ab6846ed.png"] Ye Htut is a 64-year-old retired lieutenant colonel in the Myanmarese army, who also served as a spokesperson and information minister in the military-backed government of President Thein Sein from 2013 to 2016. Recently, he was arrested on charges of corruption and...

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December 05, 2023

Treasure Islands

NEED TO KNOW Treasure Islands CARIBBEAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4581691a-6945-43fc-1156-d55dc4f524b8.png"] The Council of the European Union recently deemed the Caribbean countries of Antigua, Barbuda, and Belize as “non-cooperative” on requests for tax information, governance inquiries, and transparency. They joined Panama and Anguilla, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and...

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December 04, 2023

And the Winner Is …

NEED TO KNOW And the Winner Is … MIDDLE EAST [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7000f0bb-c02b-4438-87c6-002be2c0dfc6.png"] On Sunday, the warship USS Carney, based in the Red Sea, shot down two drones fired at it and the merchant ship it was assisting, CNN reported. Yemen-based Houthi rebels, who have been battling Saudi Arabian forces...

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December 01, 2023

Faltering Resolve

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Faltering Resolve UKRAINE/ RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1fcd4036-786d-9ce0-309a-14f74105b898.png"] The admission shocked Ukrainians who have shown little but resolute courage as they tried to fend off the Russian forces that invaded their country in February last year. In an interview with the Economist, the commander of Ukraine’s forces, General...

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November 30, 2023

Tragedy Redux

NEED TO KNOW Tragedy Redux SUDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/224b0e8f-5be6-4e44-b799-a1b865717c98.png"] In 2003, rebels in Darfur, the western region of Sudan, took up arms against the central government in the capital of Khartoum because they felt officials were mistreating non-Arab citizens. In response, as the Encyclopedia Britannica recounted, the Sudanese government armed...

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November 29, 2023

Germany Divided

NEED TO KNOW Germany Divided GERMANY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/96d66e57-2644-40b9-aed7-fc66370c3077.png"] The far-right, xenophobic Alternative for Germany political party has long concerned observers who fear a resurgence of the fascistic spirit in Europe’s largest, wealthiest country. Now, not to be outdone, German politician Sahra Wagenknecht is launching a new political party that is...

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November 28, 2023

Hitting Pause

NEED TO KNOW Hitting Pause ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Diplomats worked overtime into Tuesday morning to extend the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas by 48 hours beyond the four-day deadline to Thursday morning , the BBC reported. Both sides said that they wanted to prolong...

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November 27, 2023

Rapprochement

NEED TO KNOW Rapprochement VENEZUELA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f52c66cd-9299-42e6-acd8-f970f62c524b.png"] As post-pandemic inflation gripped the global economy and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused energy costs to spike, the United States sought to expand the oil available on world markets by easing sanctions on oil-rich Venezuela. The sanctions date from 2005, when the US...

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November 24, 2023

Hot Top of the World

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Hot Top of the World NEPAL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a519ab91-7b87-4ef0-a6df-573c03bc0303.png"] United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently journeyed to the foot of Mount Everest in Nepal to issue a warning. He and his colleagues want to prevent Earth’s temperature from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial...

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November 23, 2023

Old Money

NEED TO KNOW Old Money BRAZIL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7cee1e0-dcb8-68eb-6ed9-13e370771cbb.png"] Slave trader Jose Bernardino de Sá was one of Brazil’s wealthiest people in the mid-1800s. He trafficked nearly 20,000 Africans to the South American country, using his proceeds to build roads and farms, and to finance the Banco do Brasil, which...

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November 22, 2023

New Beginning

NEED TO KNOW New Beginning NETHERLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/50b9b3d5-1234-443a-9402-f9f624fae487.png"] In a surprise announcement in July, after 13 years in office, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he would retire from politics, after disputes with his leftist allies in government over migration to the Netherlands caused the government to collapse, triggering...

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November 21, 2023

Prelude and Epilogue to War

NEED TO KNOW Prelude and Epilogue to War GEORGIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e341329d-b90e-4b8e-8e3b-6429d9366897.png"] Russian soldiers, currently occupying some 20 percent of the former Soviet republic of Georgia’s territory on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, recently killed Tamaz Ginturi, a Georgian citizen, as he visited a cemetery and a church...

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November 20, 2023

Mirror Image

NEED TO KNOW Mirror Image WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] In the West, there has been staunch support for Israel since the attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas and its affiliates that killed about 1,400 people. It was no different in Africa, Asia or Latin America initially, with leaders expressing sympathy. That was...

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November 17, 2023

Pardoning Politics

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Pardoning Politics SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party achieved a political masterstroke to remain in power, but also probably sowed the seeds to reap bitter enmity from his conservative rivals for the rest of his life. In July, when Spanish...

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November 16, 2023

No Exit

NEED TO KNOW No Exit NORTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/081c0373-fb17-4e7d-af63-346faaef42b7.png"] North Koreans face hunger, forced labor, shortages of medicine and other supplies, and no freedom of expression or assembly, according to North Koreans who managed to escape the so-called Hermit Kingdom and tell their stories to the world. Yet when more...

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November 15, 2023

Shattering Glass, Splintering Peace

NEED TO KNOW Shattering Glass, Splintering Peace EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Eighty-five years ago, the Jewish cemetery in Vienna was one of the main targets of Kristallnacht – a Nazi pogrom against Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues in Germany and Austria. And so it was again, reported CNN. On Nov. 1,...

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November 14, 2023

Hooray for Nollywood

NEED TO KNOW Hooray for Nollywood NIGERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6c258edc-b123-4d47-98e3-f42e226ea64f.png"] In the Nigerian-produced film for Netflix, “The Black Book,” actor Richard Mofe Damijo plays an ex-security forces agent-turned-deacon, who exacts revenge against the crooked police officers who framed and murdered his son. As he tracks down the bad cops, wrote...

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November 13, 2023

Teasing a Detonator

NEED TO KNOW Teasing a Detonator ISRAEL/ WEST BANK, GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] After the Palestinian terror group Hamas killed about 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7, Israeli settlers – sometimes wearing masks or reservist army uniforms – started breaking into Palestinian homes in Zanuta, a village in the West Bank,...

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November 10, 2023

Young Bloods

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Young Bloods ECUADOR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7dbfcec9-d17b-43ce-97b7-0ce48bb12d1f.png"] Ecuador, just a few years ago, was an oasis of relative prosperity and peace in the region. More recently, however, it’s become overly dependent on oil and, therefore, prey to the dramatic economic swings that often occur in energy commodities. Violence...

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November 09, 2023

The Grudge Match

NEED TO KNOW The Grudge Match MADAGASCAR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/cf906d99-8f50-4493-b06f-8a929a73ebeb.png"] A Madagascan court recently postponed the first round of the country’s presidential election by a week to Nov. 16, after security forces injured opposition candidates at unauthorized political demonstrations. Police dispersing the demonstrations fired a tear gas canister that struck and...

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