May 19, 2023

Tough Love

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Tough Love GREECE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/29c83f8b-bf10-474d-8514-5af3443c9a4a.png"] Eight years ago, at the peak of the migration crisis in Europe, around one million Syrian refugees fleeing their country’s bloody war traveled to Greece for safety and economic opportunities. Four years ago, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis defeated leftist Alexis...

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May 12, 2023

Strongman Down

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Strongman Down TURKEY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c729e5f1-8c42-44f8-a040-a59baad60df0.png"] Turkish politicians have been appealing to voters in the Mediterranean city of Mersin in the run-up to the country’s presidential elections on May 14. Mersin is the capital of a swing province whose residents could decide the seemingly tight race between...

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May 10, 2023

A Pyrrhic Victory

NEED TO KNOW A Pyrrhic Victory UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/974a4247-a9f9-49a9-6238-ece8e1dd27b0.png"] Ukrainian commanders have been establishing protected supply lines and funneling soldiers and weapons to Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city that could become a fulcrum for the long-awaited spring offense against Russian-controlled lines, wrote US News and World Report. Russian forces,...

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May 09, 2023

The Wheels of Fortune

NEED TO KNOW The Wheels of Fortune ROMANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aaceeea-9490-44fc-a4ad-151c831adffc.png"] Romania has emerged from its post-Cold War funk to become a more service-oriented economy that is competitive in acquiring slices of global markets, according to Harvard’s Growth Lab’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, declaring that the East European country has...

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May 02, 2023

Hearts and Minds

NEED TO KNOW Hearts and Minds GEORGIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e341329d-b90e-4b8e-8e3b-6429d9366897.png"] The prime minister of the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, Irakli Garibashvili, recently met European and NATO leaders in Brussels to press the case for his country’s admission into both Western organizations. Garibashvili and his fellow citizens felt snubbed when the European...

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April 25, 2023

The 100 Percenters

NEED TO KNOW The 100 Percenters NORTHERN IRELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e1fa23fe-bd64-4526-9f49-8430fef05250.png"] American, British, Irish, and Northern Irish politicians recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that ended years of violence in the disputed British territory. Some Republicans – or Northern Irish residents who want to unify the territory...

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April 20, 2023

Wanted: A Government

NEED TO KNOW Wanted: A Government BULGARIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1eb16295-db95-4ff1-8e0b-8bdc4e81cb9c.png"] Bulgarians have voted in five general elections in the last two years. Voters, meanwhile, are tired. “We’ll probably have to vote again in the fall,” a local election worker told local television. “This has to end at some point …We’ve been waiting...

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April 17, 2023

Fair Weather Friend

NEED TO KNOW Fair Weather Friend BELARUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3dffa11e-ac63-436f-a4ed-735a6dabc4a6.png"] Belarusian authorities recently announced that Russia would station nuclear missiles in their country, placing the weapons closer to NATO members. “This will be done despite the noise in Europe and the United States,” Boris Gryzlov, the Russian ambassador to Belarus,...

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April 13, 2023

Allies, Enemies and Other Horrors

NEED TO KNOW Allies, Enemies and Other Horrors KOSOVO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0999f062-2356-43ad-b3b8-f915c7878425.png"] The former president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, and other prominent politicians who were leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) are now on trial at a special court in the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As...

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April 10, 2023

The Cheerleaders

NEED TO KNOW The Cheerleaders RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, had been a cheerleader for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As Reuters reported, he could be scathing of what he saw as Russia’s incompetent military establishment. But he called for Russia to assassinate Ukrainian...

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April 05, 2023

The Revolution Playbook

NEED TO KNOW The Revolution Playbook FRANCE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d78d9fd2-f0df-4e59-9bd4-334bffdc4974.png"] French authorities last week closed the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and other popular tourist sites as more than 740,000 workers staged strikes and demonstrations over President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the legal retirement age by two years to 64...

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April 03, 2023

Waterfront Property

NEED TO KNOW Waterfront Property MONTENEGRO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4b30f1e1-b1f1-4c0b-8877-a8d9773d57e4.png"] The presidential race in tiny Montenegro, a NATO member with close ties to Russian-ally Serbia, became a proxy political contest between the West and East as tensions in southeast Europe ratchet up amid the war in Ukraine. You could say the West...

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March 31, 2023

Joyful Warriors

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Joyful Warriors FINLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/91b0da4b-efc6-40c2-a405-00e958404c77.png"] For the fifth time in a row, Finns are the happiest people in the world. According to the United Nations’ World Happiness Report, citizens of Finland demonstrate high levels of “eudaimonia,” a term the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle coined to describe “overall...

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March 27, 2023

Legion of Doom

NEED TO KNOW Legion of Doom RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] The prime minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, is worried. He didn’t like the implications of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s recent three-day visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The Chinese president’s visit to Moscow makes us anxious,” Morawiecki said during a...

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March 15, 2023

Call Me

NEED TO KNOW Call Me GREECE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/29c83f8b-bf10-474d-8514-5af3443c9a4a.png"] A young man traveling on the train from Athens to the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Feb. 28 was having trouble speaking to his mother on the phone. “Mum, there are too many people on the train,” he said, according...

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March 06, 2023

The Black Sheep and the Family

NEED TO KNOW The Black Sheep and the Family HUNGARY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f77307e3-d12d-4a63-bcb5-407e519df6dc.png"] Hungarian objections to Finland and Sweden entering NATO might delay a vote of the allies on accepting the two Nordic countries into the pact. As Reuters reported, Finnish and Swedish leaders appealed to join NATO last year after...

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March 03, 2023

Beyond the Horizon

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Beyond the Horizon ESTONIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b7b6acd0-f5d2-4704-9a83-f952a05aa061.png"] Few countries have been more stalwart in their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than Estonia. A former Soviet republic and current NATO member with a nearly 200-mile-long border with Russia, Estonia has for years been ringing alarm bells about Russian...

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February 24, 2023

When Spring Comes

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW When Spring Comes RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/688d90e3-5448-747d-d2c3-d415b6cbbc9b.gif"] As the US and Germany send advanced armored vehicles to help Ukraine’s cause, Russia has lost almost half of its battle tanks, reported the Guardian recently. Half of Russia’s airborne troops have died in the war between the two...

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February 21, 2023

Winter of Discontent

NEED TO KNOW Winter of Discontent UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] The British press is invoking memories of Margaret Thatcher, the arch-conservative prime minister who fought coal mining unions and other workers’ groups in the 1980s, to describe the current labor unrest that is crippling the United Kingdom. British workers...

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February 17, 2023

Les Misérables

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW Les Misérables FRANCE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d78d9fd2-f0df-4e59-9bd4-334bffdc4974.png"] It’s an age-old battle in France: French leaders want more work out of their constituents. Workers, meanwhile, say “non.” “We’re worn out by work,” pensioner Bernard Chevalier said in an interview with Reuters. “Retirement should be a second life, not a waiting...

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