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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 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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May 12, 2021

Middle Eastern #MeToo

NEED TO KNOW KUWAIT [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4005272d-9b09-43b0-93d1-c53d7db8e01b.png"] Middle Eastern #MeToo Farah Hamza Akbar and her family told police that she feared that a man whose marriage proposal she rejected was going to kill her. The police arrested the unnamed man on harassment charges but he made bail. Shortly after, Akbar...

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May 07, 2021

The Middle Child

NEED TO KNOW JORDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8e349f45-1adc-4062-b298-9fdf38aa8f40.png"] The Middle Child Angry Jordanians regularly call into Rainbow Street, a talk radio show, to gripe about unemployment and lack of economic opportunities. In recent weeks, however, the tone has changed. Callers are blaming King Abdullah II, an ally of the West and...

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April 12, 2021

Global Fragility

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Global Fragility Critics of globalization have been repeating a mantra in the wake of the Japanese container ship Ever Given running aground in the Suez canal: We told you so. “Under the irrational, anarchic capitalist social order, with the world divided into rival nation-states,...

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March 23, 2021

Hollow Victories

NEED TO KNOW SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e4901088-a8f1-4f67-bb93-075f2af0bff8.png"] Hollow Victories Syria recently hit a grim anniversary: 10 years of brutal civil war. In addition to more than 400,000 deaths and millions of displaced Syrians, the war has included attacks on civilians with chemical weapons and on civilian facilities such as schools and...

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March 22, 2021

A Desperate Suitor

NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e9f003e4-763f-45aa-8bd2-dd52c7067104.png"] A Desperate Suitor When Israeli voters go to the polls March 23, it will be the fourth time they cast ballots to choose a prime minister in two years. This election stems from the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government late last year....

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March 08, 2021

A Prince, a Reformer, a Murderer

NEED TO KNOW SAUDI ARABIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/cb30405d-bd4c-40bf-a603-50857b6bc532.png"] A Prince, a Reformer, a Murderer A recent American intelligence report has thrust Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman back into the limelight. The de facto ruler of the Middle Eastern kingdom, MBS as he is known, directly approved of the...

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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 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 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 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 14, 2021

Fighting Past Sunset

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c9615f9b-97ee-49de-9ca8-aa4ef1df8326.png"] Fighting Past Sunset President Donald Trump ordered most American troops out of Somalia in early December. But that didn’t mean the troops would be coming back home. Many would be redeployed to Djibouti or Kenya. “To be clear, the US is not withdrawing or...

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January 08, 2021

A Prerequisite for Trust

NEED TO KNOW IRAQ [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7f5678d9-eac3-49b9-9755-dcad8927e883.png"] A Prerequisite for Trust Few people outside the White House defended President Donald Trump’s pardon of four Blackwater mercenaries who massacred 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007. Especially tragically, one of those victims was a 9-year-old boy profiled in Democracy Now! “Shock and dismay” followed...

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December 21, 2020

Singing the Sahara Blues

NEED TO KNOW WESTERN SAHARA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2775f58b-3bd8-427a-ad2d-e43df6f1ceeb.png"] Singing the Sahara Blues Driving from Tan Tan, deep in southern Morocco, it's a long, lonely road along the Atlantic and the vast desert through the Western Sahara. Few cars drive here, mostly trucks carrying supplies to the frontier cities of Laayoune and...

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December 17, 2020

Hope’s Anniversary

NEED TO KNOW TUNISIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1f262cf6-0ed8-4367-aeca-5f0f2b6684d0.png"] Hope’s Anniversary On Dec. 17, 2010, fruit and vegetable vendor Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the central non-descript town of Sidi Bouzid after police seized his produce cart. It was the kind of petty harassment that many Tunisians dealt with...

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December 16, 2020

The Politics of Never Forgetting

NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e9f003e4-763f-45aa-8bd2-dd52c7067104.png"] The Politics of Never Forgetting Yad Vashem is a phrase from the Book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible that literally means “a monument and a name.” It conveys how the Jerusalem-based institution is not only a museum of the Holocaust but also...

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December 11, 2020

Chits and Chips

NEED TO KNOW IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] Chits and Chips The alleged Israeli assassination of lead Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last month sent another political shockwave through an already shell-shocked region. A remote-controlled machine gun shot Fakhrizadeh, adding a dramatic twist to the incident, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted. The...

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November 30, 2020

Preexisting Conditions

NEED TO KNOW AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6ef6eaaa-3634-4c4d-a86c-6833ce8a2814.png"] Preexisting Conditions Palestinian authorities declared a public health disaster on Nov. 23. Hundreds contract Covid-19 every day but there is nowhere to treat them. The region’s infrastructure has been crumbling for years amid an Israeli economic blockade, terrorism and violence,...

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November 10, 2020

Oases and Mirages

NEED TO KNOW JORDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8e349f45-1adc-4062-b298-9fdf38aa8f40.png"] Oases and Mirages Voters in Jordan will head to the polls on Nov. 10 to elect a new parliament. On the day after they cast ballots, the Middle Eastern kingdom will go into lockdown, with a curfew, shuttered businesses and police enforcing rules...

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