NEED TO KNOW Tilting at Windmills AZERBAIJAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/dbbddbae-1c4a-9c7c-f083-79143015dc33.png"] Vafa Nagi is running for a seat in parliament as an independent in Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections Sept. 1. “I have no chance to win,” she told Radio Free Europe. Around the world, opposition candidates like Nagi, a former journalist, often boycott elections...
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NEED TO KNOW The Judicial Wall THAILAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2402d0e7-e99d-f2a5-7e19-773f27db9466.png"] The ruling party in Thailand’s parliament, Pheu Thai, recently nominated Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the 37-year-old daughter of billionaire former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, as the Southeast Asian country’s next prime minister. Usually, such an announcement would signal a resolution to political instability and...
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NEED TO KNOW Atoll Power KIRIBATI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9dae539b-011f-16cb-1078-f5416b010637.png"] Around 1,300 miles south of the American state of Hawaii, Kiribati is a country of 115,000 people living on 150 square miles of atolls that stretch across more than 1.3 million square miles of the South Pacific. This strategic location blessed...
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NEED TO KNOW ‘The People’s War’ BANGLADESH [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b7de63f5-7c9c-8a5a-21d9-09f6627b8cf2.png"] On July 16, two police officers clashing with student protesters at Begum Rokeya University in the northwestern Bangladeshi city of Rangpur allegedly fired 12-gauge shotguns into the chest of 25-year-old student protest organizer Abu Sayed. The birdshot in the shotguns,...
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NEED TO KNOW Baby Onboarding ASIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/07abf1df-0286-1628-c001-b2b23952f483.png"] In Japan, a diapers company recently announced that it would be switching its focus from babies to adults – it’s been years since the sales of its products for seniors vastly outpaced those for infants. Across East Asia and elsewhere on the...
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NEED TO KNOW Big Pockets CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] China could be outpacing the US and Europe in the race to realize fusion, a potentially clean energy source that has attracted massive investment in recent years. According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese crews work 24 hours a day on...
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NEED TO KNOW Little Dirty Gem SINGAPORE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7975032b-ee5e-4c38-bc1f-27c01a1778c5.png"] Holders of Singaporean passports are among the luckiest in the world. They can travel to 195 countries without a visa, wrote the South China Morning Post, more than almost any other nationality in the world, including Americans. They have fortune at...
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NEED TO KNOW The Absence of Embarrassment FIJI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/abc4e099-dc68-e2d5-5961-e1e728a0f1a0.png"] A court in Fiji recently sentenced former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama to a year in prison for seeking to suppress a police investigation into corruption at the University of the South Pacific. Lower courts had initially allowed Bainimarama, who...
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NEED TO KNOW Sharing the Wealth MONGOLIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d44c27c0-8811-4785-9bf7-c8eb1cb78277.png"] Mongolian judges recently visited Plainview, Texas to learn about American justice. They also visited the Cadillac Ranch art installation, which features half-buried, colorfully painted cars, and the Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of the famous 72-ounce steak-eating challenge, reported My...
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NEED TO KNOW Talking Trash NORTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/081c0373-fb17-4e7d-af63-346faaef42b7.png"] The French first used balloons in war for reconnaissance during the battles that erupted after the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Now the inflatable devices have become a mainstay of the psychological warfare underscoring the tensions between North...
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NEED TO KNOW Colonial Democracy NEW CALEDONIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0b159188-f92e-4960-9cfd-19bcbc628d0f.png"] Four people, including a security officer, died recently in riots in the French territory of New Caledonia, prompting French President Emmanuel Macron to declare a temporary state of emergency on the Pacific island. Since unrest broke out in New Caledonia last...
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NEED TO KNOW The Misery of Zugzwang ARMENIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/291ba8a2-3105-41e3-a793-e28cc6a9282e.png"] Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has protected the former Soviet republic of Armenia from Azerbaijan, Turkey and other regional powers. Now, however, as Russian President Vladimir Putin pours more resources into the war in Ukraine, his...
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NEED TO KNOW Stopping the Hopping VANUATU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/360359d3-41f6-4567-9b66-a35c60254187.png"] Voters in Vanuatu, an archipelago in the South Pacific, will decide on May 29 whether to approve two constitutional amendments that would compel their lawmakers to choose – and stick with – a single political party rather than switch in...
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NEED TO KNOW Mixed Messages SRI LANKA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d469a690-58fa-4bcb-9cd4-16e56a24386f.png"] Sri Lanka has been grappling with political and economic instability since the end of its 26-year-long civil war 15 years ago. After the pandemic, miles-long lines began appearing for fuel. Power cuts were the daily norm. And even dal (lentils) and...
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NEED TO KNOW Silencing the Music HONG KONG [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed89ce6f-df7c-493b-809a-681d51fa4904.png"] The chairwoman of Hong Kong’s weightlifting and powerlifting association mistakenly referred to “13 countries” in her sport’s Asian conference recently. That conference includes Hong Kong, a former British colony where Chinese officials have been expanding their control, and Taiwan,...
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NEED TO KNOW A Wan Smile THAILAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aed0fb0-f5eb-4eda-ae64-69e423143eb5.png"] A single clinic on Thailand’s border receives 500 refugees fleeing neighboring Myanmar’s civil war every day as Myanmar’s military fights pro-democracy and local ethnic rebels, reported Sky News. Critics told Nikkei Asia that the Thai government was not prepared to handle...
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NEED TO KNOW Plows to Swords JAPAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ab764327-df98-4918-badd-17c2c79d5685.png"] A recent survey found that more than 92 percent of Japanese respondents held unfavorable views of China, an increase of almost 5 percent compared with last year, reported the Japan Times. The findings hold lessons about geopolitics in Asia, specifically...
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NEED TO KNOW My Enemy, Myself RUSSIA/ TAJIKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b8f7d5f0-07a4-8321-beba-45c71027a713.png"] Life in Russia has become difficult for migrants from Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries since four Tajiks were among those arrested for allegedly killing 145 people in a terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on...
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NEED TO KNOW Kitchen-Table Politics INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1ac703d1-8192-40be-95ea-427a8f7ed9ee.png"] The upcoming parliamentary election in India is expected to go well for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Surveys show that Indians are concerned about unemployment, inflation, and other kitchen-table issues, reported Reuters. But a majority of...
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NEED TO KNOW The Cost of Allegiance SOLOMON ISLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3c7e70b3-a24d-4f3a-95d2-795b0355ebe6.png"] Parliamentary and local elections in the Solomon Islands on April 17 are yet another example of how domestic politics in Pacific countries have become proxy battles between China and the US. In 2022, three years after he rescinded his...
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