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June 10, 2021

Taxing the Air

NEED TO KNOW CANADA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7ee49a6-d768-4bd1-93d6-b44b086c3c21.png"] Taxing the Air The Canadian Supreme Court this year issued an important decision with worldwide implications when its justices approved Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to tax carbon emissions. "Climate change is real,” said Chief Justice Richard Wagner, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation....

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June 09, 2021

Steppe Politics

NEED TO KNOW MONGOLIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d44c27c0-8811-4785-9bf7-c8eb1cb78277.png"] Steppe Politics Mongolia’s last presidential election in 2017 was extremely close. Incumbent President Khaltmaa Battulga, a former sumo wrestler, won with 50.6 percent of the vote. He did so using a campaign of fear. “Battulga used a combination of Sinophobia, nationalism, and fearmongering to win votes,”...

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June 08, 2021

The Laws of Air

NEED TO KNOW BELARUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3dffa11e-ac63-436f-a4ed-735a6dabc4a6.png"] The Laws of Air Ryanair flight 4978 was over Belarus on a trip from Greece to Lithuania when an air traffic controller announced that they had a bomb on board. Soon after, a MiG fighter jet suddenly appeared to escort the commercial flight to...

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June 07, 2021

Tribal Laws

NEED TO KNOW KENYA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/042c2340-7f46-4be6-b8d2-b99757193837.png"] Tribal Laws Violence frequently mars elections in Kenya. As the Council on Foreign Relations explained, voters in the East African country identify with politicians through their ancestral tribes, setting the stage for political disputes to turn personal. In 2007, for example, clashes after...

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June 04, 2021

Now What

NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL / WEST BANK & GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Now What The Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza have stopped shooting at each other. Now what? The 11 days of fighting that began in early May was the latest in a century of conflict that took a major turn in...

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June 03, 2021

Transformation on the Ballot

NEED TO KNOW MEXICO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fcd100e2-d1bb-4cd7-b9f4-53a07a70e41c.png"] Transformation on the Ballot President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – whose nickname is AMLO – wants to transform his country. On June 6, his constituents will have a chance in crucial midterm elections to have their say on whether he can. As the Americas...

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June 02, 2021

Voices and Choices

NEED TO KNOW IRAQ [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7f5678d9-eac3-49b9-9755-dcad8927e883.png"] Voices and Choices The United Nations believes that free and fair elections can help Iraq move on from the wars and terrors of the past and embark on a new future. “The way to express one’s voice, to make one’s choice, is at the...

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June 01, 2021

Alpine Exceptionalism

NEED TO KNOW SWITZERLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2b943183-27c5-4545-a4cd-06237a4dff08.png"] Alpine Exceptionalism Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset recently admitted that he should have been more skeptical about the advice of scientists during the coronavirus epidemic. A year ago, for example, Berset advised against wearing masks after scientists told him they could prove ineffective....

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May 31, 2021

Unrecognized, Undaunted

NEED TO KNOW SOMALILAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3acb250d-c8fb-ab06-e014-2db36946b098.png"] Unrecognized, Undaunted Somaliland declared independence from Somalia 30 years ago as the latter was collapsing. Today, the self-declared sovereign Republic of Somaliland is extremely stable – an outlier in the Horn of Africa – in part because its government accommodates both indigenous Somali...

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May 28, 2021

The Taxman Cometh

NEED TO KNOW CAYMAN ISLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ac13da7b-8a12-21ad-d010-c12c0a423ca0.png"] The Taxman Cometh The European Union removed the Cayman Islands from its so-called tax haven blacklist late last year. The move made it easier for investors to move money through the jurisdiction, wrote the Devpolicy Blog, a publication of the Australian National...

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May 27, 2021

Tarnished Sunset

NEED TO KNOW GREECE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/29c83f8b-bf10-474d-8514-5af3443c9a4a.png"] Tarnished Sunset A Greek member of the European Parliament, Ioannis Lagos, was recently extradited from Brussels to his home country to serve a 13-year prison sentence for organizing a criminal gang linked to hate crimes. A Reuters reporter covered police taking Lagos in...

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May 26, 2021

Losing the Future

NEED TO KNOW SOUTH AMERICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/59fbe6be-49eb-3207-4c89-ea2ca4043f2a.png"] Losing the Future So many players on Argentina’s powerhouse soccer team River Plate were sick with Covid-19 that they needed to put midfielder Enzo Pérez into a game as a goalkeeper. River Plate still defeated Independiente Santa Fe, a Colombian team, in the Copa...

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May 25, 2021

Worry and Leisure

NEED TO KNOW SEYCHELLES [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/29c9417e-612e-a456-84c7-58c01b8dffdf.png"] Worry and Leisure Americans Shivani Pathak and Bo Sutton were both vaccinated when they went to the Seychelles for a vacation. But, as the Denver Post reported, the married couple recently had to go into quarantine after they tested positive for the virus. Their...

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May 24, 2021

Survivor

NEED TO KNOW SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e4901088-a8f1-4f67-bb93-075f2af0bff8.png"] Survivor Syrian President Bashar al-Assad presided over a civil war that, since 2011, has resulted in 500,000 of his citizens dead or missing – some from chemical attacks that he ordered – along with millions displaced internally and millions more forced to seek...

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May 21, 2021

Precious and Few

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Precious and Few People around the world are stressing out over rare earth metals. As Britannica.com explained, rare earth metals are 17 similar heavy metals that are vital to modern technology, from cars to computers to mobile devices to MRI imaging. Their utility has made...

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May 20, 2021

A Toe Out the Door

NEED TO KNOW SCOTLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e059648e-a464-410c-a812-d6debee7d46c.png"] A Toe Out the Door Brexit was a grueling process that ended 47 years of Britain’s membership in the European Union. Imagine undoing the 300 years of union that currently binds Scotland with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scottish political scientist Mark Blyth, who...

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May 19, 2021

Taxes, and Everything

NEED TO KNOW COLOMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/80e582e1-1ef0-4fb5-a86a-699a8cf7cddf.png"] Taxes, and Everything At first, they took to the streets to protest against a tax plan they called unfair because it sought to make up for lost revenues during the pandemic on the backs of working people rather than the affluent. Now protesters in...

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May 18, 2021

A Rubber Democracy

NEED TO KNOW VIETNAM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3f17a3ec-f2fd-42ee-b8c2-dd23d117cb41.png"] A Rubber Democracy Vietnam and Laos fought against the United States together during the Vietnam War. Laos was essential to the construction of the Ho Chi Minh trail that helped the North Vietnamese forces to ultimately prevail. But Vietnam has been investing heavily in...

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May 17, 2021

By the Numbers

NEED TO KNOW AUSTRALIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/81d62805-bef8-41fd-9c0c-ed93ea461226.png"] By the Numbers Caroline Andersen has been fighting for five years to learn why her son, Wayne Fella Morrison, died in police custody in an Australian hospital. A state ombudsman found that the prisons department failed in its handling and transporting of Morrison –...

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May 14, 2021

Historic Violence

NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL/ WEST BANK & GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Historic Violence We've seen it before, all too often. Hamas fires rockets at Israel. Israel launches airstrikes at Gaza. Dozens or hundreds or even thousands die when it is over – for a moment. The present violence between Israel and...

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