Take It Off

NEED TO KNOW Take It Off IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] Big protests over little scarves are threatening to destabilize the Islamic Republic of Iran. In mid-September, Iran’s morality police arrested Mahsa Amini, 22, for allowing a few strands of hair to escape her scarf, violating laws Iranian officials say are necessary...

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A Good Day

NEED TO KNOW A Good Day CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] While Russian President Vladimir Putin suffers international condemnation and internal dissent, US President Joe Biden faces a test in the upcoming midterm elections, and major European leaders are either new or lack significant power globally, Chinese President Xi Jinping, 69,...

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The Best Man for the Job

NEED TO KNOW The Best Man for the Job UGANDA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eae01c28-7782-4a11-9e2b-886217499c6a.png"] An Ebola outbreak is occurring in Uganda, raising fears that the country will not be able to contain and control the deadly disease in the East African nation, reported CNN. Public health officers are scrambling to trace...

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The Dangers of Desperation

NEED TO KNOW The Dangers of Desperation RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] The once-vaunted, now-demoralized Russian military could be on the brink of collapse – a retired British Air Marshal put the odds at 35 percent in a recent interview with Sky News. By now, seven months after the invasion of...

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Democracy by Fiat

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Democracy by Fiat SWITZERLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2b943183-27c5-4545-a4cd-06237a4dff08.png"] Much has been written about the benefits and dangers of democracy. Some in Europe and the Americas fear that their democracy is under threat. Others say that is nonsense. Chinese leaders, meanwhile, view the US as a decadent democracy while...

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Treading Water

NEED TO KNOW Treading Water PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eaf17bc7-6468-493e-bfe1-86954ffb120a.png"] Record floods have turned lowland farms in Pakistan into lakes, highlighting the fragility of an unstable developing nation in the era of climate change. “We are living on an island now,” farmer Muhammad Jaffar said in an interview with the New...

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A New, Cloudy Day

NEED TO KNOW A New, Cloudy Day UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] On Monday, hundreds of thousands of Britons lined up and millions more tuned in to say farewell to their queen. It was a spectacle full of pageantry befitting the reverence reserved for this beloved monarch who died this...

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Apple from the Tree

NEED TO KNOW Apple from the Tree ITALY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/13ef7d88-e231-4aaa-9970-c3480223c0d5.png"] Over the years, liberal elites throughout Europe have fretted about the premiership of Silvio Berlusconi, the now 85-year-old media tycoon and conservative politician who has led Italy a few times since the 1990s and recently made a bid for...

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Humiliating Goliath

NEED TO KNOW Humiliating Goliath RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a702de3c-ba67-009a-ec81-bb85364aae07.png"] In the first few weeks of September, Ukrainian forces retook more than 2,300 square miles of territory that Russia had occupied. In what the BBC called “a potential breakthrough in the war,” Ukraine had control over cities in the northeastern...

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Going, Going, Back

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Going, Going, Back EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Jean Blum, a resident of Berlin, Germany, usually uses natural gas to heat his home. But sometimes he uses wood in his stove. Now, as energy prices spike in Europe due to the efforts of Western governments to reduce...

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The Tricky Dance

NEED TO KNOW The Tricky Dance CZECH REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4e23e22d-26c3-4ed5-88d4-a441c2b9d079.png"] “Medieval,” a new movie celebrating the military exploits of Czech national hero Jan Zizka, depicts peasants angry over rising living costs and other indignities, Variety wrote. Like any historical film, it is, in a sense, a commentary on today....

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The Time To Choose

NEED TO KNOW The Time To Choose BRAZIL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b4df2610-e790-44f6-bec1-f859c705ae8b.png"] Tanks rolled and soldiers marched through the streets of the Brazilian capital of Brasilia recently. They were ostensibly celebrating the 200th anniversary of the South American country’s independence from Portugal. But the military parades on Sept. 7 had a different...

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Going A-Courting

NEED TO KNOW Going A-Courting AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b8aca45b-1687-4d5b-b62c-09186470d8a2.png"] In the universe of Marvel Comics, Wakanda is a secret kingdom in sub-Saharan Africa ruled over by the benevolent, super-powered hero, the Black Panther. In the real world, there is not one but four centers of innovation in Africa that now,...

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Tectonic Shifts

NEED TO KNOW Tectonic Shifts RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] After World War II, British influence gave way to American power everywhere around the globe except in the heartland of Eurasia. There, the Soviet Union held sway. Today, however, a new page is turning in the history of great empires. In the...

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If You Can’t Beat Them…

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW If You Can’t Beat Them… SWEDEN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3c7156af-17ce-455f-85b2-83980fe2f678.png"] A local politician in Sweden, Saida Hussein Moge, recently quit the ruling Social Democratic party after Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said she didn’t want Chinatowns, Somalitowns or Little Italys in the Nordic country. Moge is ethnically Somali. “The...

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The Best, the Worst, of Times

NEED TO KNOW The Best, the Worst, of Times SAUDI ARABIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/cb30405d-bd4c-40bf-a603-50857b6bc532.png"] It was a time of lavish spending on ambitious projects. It was a time of brutal repression. In Saudi Arabia, it was business as usual. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently unveiled plans for The...

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Wasting Away

NEED TO KNOW Wasting Away SOMALIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/15cd6f05-9c0c-4887-86f7-20dad73138cf.png"] Death has two faces in Somalia these days. If famine doesn’t claim one’s life in the war-torn nation on the Horn of Africa, then Islamic militants might. Drought has brought Somalia to the precipice of its worst famine in 40 years. More...

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Pinned Down

NEED TO KNOW Pinned Down ECUADOR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7dbfcec9-d17b-43ce-97b7-0ce48bb12d1f.png"] Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, managed to drag his country out of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, however, he might be too embattled on two fronts to solve the other major problems facing his South American country. On the one hand, he is trying...

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The Long Road

NEED TO KNOW The Long Road UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/25f6c507-5013-1f57-bcbe-a295d2d6dac9.png"] Just over six months after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Sébastien Roblin at NBC News was thinking that Ukraine’s current counteroffensive to liberate the city of Kherson might prove to be the decisive gambit to bring about the beginning...

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Out of Touch

[featurecontent] NEED TO KNOW Out of Touch CHILE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/baed026e-8c02-42fc-8c27-383b8bf87a6c.png"] Technocrats, scientists, environmentalists, and other experts and policymakers love Chile’s proposed new constitution. As Nature detailed, the new founding document for the South American nation would “boost science, expand environmental protection and improve the nation’s education system.” Problem is, few Chileans...

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