February 08, 2022

Chocolate, Beer and Sovereignty

NEED TO KNOW Chocolate, Beer and Sovereignty TAIWAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/dab1143a-8514-4f63-8098-bd36050d9680.png"] Lala Sin has shied away from speaking Mandarin Chinese around her three children. Instead, the resident of Taiwan has been speaking Taiwanese Hokkien, or Taigi, a division of a language that is common in southeastern China and among the...

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February 03, 2022

The Gates of Hell

NEED TO KNOW The Gates of Hell TURKMENISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b168b666-d25a-47b3-9e9e-747b1b8c92c8.png"] Turkmenistan’s autocratic President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov recently went on state television to demonstrate his awesome power. The leader of the Central Asian former Soviet republic wants to shut the gates of hell. Given how Turkmen leaders have a history of bizarre...

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February 02, 2022

Of Chickens and Eggs

NEED TO KNOW Of Chickens and Eggs MYANMAR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9ef34308-9cd1-4a8e-a2b3-e7a7ab6846ed.png"] Aung San Suu Kyi won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her pro-democracy activism in Myanmar, where she spent years in and out of house arrest for opposing her country’s brutal dictatorship. Yet she persisted in opposing the...

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January 17, 2022

Fed Up, Pushed Down

NEED TO KNOW Fed Up, Pushed Down KAZAKHSTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d52e63cf-06bb-47d0-b573-377bff5ae37c.png"] Officials in Kazakhstan recently announced that, with the help of Russian troops, stability had returned to the Central Asian country. Their definition of stability raised eyebrows around the world. More than 200 people died and more than 5,000 people were...

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January 14, 2022

What’s In a Name

NEED TO KNOW What’s In a Name CHINA / INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f955c982-4d44-2ccd-ca8b-843ad6eab684.png"] Indian leaders recently blasted Chinese officials for moves that appear to ramp up pressure in their disputes over territory along their border. According to Indian critics, China has been renaming locations that India claims are part of the...

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January 05, 2022

Mission Impossible

NEED TO KNOW Mission Impossible NORTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/081c0373-fb17-4e7d-af63-346faaef42b7.png"] North Koreans were barred from laughing, drinking alcohol or enjoying leisure activities from Dec. 17-28. As Radio Free Asia explained, the enforced misery was part of a mourning period for the late Kim Jong Il, the father of the country’s...

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January 04, 2022

Bloody Passions

NEED TO KNOW Bloody Passions PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eaf17bc7-6468-493e-bfe1-86954ffb120a.png"] Priyantha Kumara was a Christian and Sri Lankan citizen who managed a Rajco Industries factory in Pakistan. When rumors spread that he had trashed some posters of the Islamic prophet, Muhammed, ahead of a planned repainting of his factory, hundreds of...

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December 27, 2021

After the Fall

NEED TO KNOW After the Fall AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] Two veteran foreign correspondents from the Washington Post recently journeyed along the 300-mile highway from the Afghan capital of Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar. American taxpayers funded the road to the tune of $300 million. Today, four months after...

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December 20, 2021

Olympic-sized Snubs

NEED TO KNOW Olympic-sized Snubs CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] When President Jimmy Carter ordered an American boycott of the 1980 winter Olympics in Moscow, he sought to punish the Soviet Union for invading Afghanistan, as Biography explained. But critics said he simply punished athletes without accomplishing anything tangible. The “diplomatic boycott”...

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December 10, 2021

Pig in the Poke

NEED TO KNOW Pig in the Poke HONG KONG [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed89ce6f-df7c-493b-809a-681d51fa4904.png"] A wild boar infestation in Hong Kong provided fodder for a political cartoonist who was critical of how Chinese authorities demanded to screen candidates who could run in the city’s legislative elections on Dec. 19. As the Washington Post...

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December 08, 2021

King of the Sinking Mountain

NEED TO KNOW King of the Sinking Mountain TURKEY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c729e5f1-8c42-44f8-a040-a59baad60df0.png"] President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nearly 20 years’ long quest to dominate Turkish politics – first controlling the all-important city of Istanbul, then governing as prime minister and, lastly, altering the country’s constitution so he could wield the expanded powers...

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December 03, 2021

Farmers or Bust

NEED TO KNOW Farmers or Bust INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1ac703d1-8192-40be-95ea-427a8f7ed9ee.png"] Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has established a tough guy image in his massive country’s rough-and-tumble politics. But recently, humbled farmers laid him low. Amid huge street protests and intense political pressure, Modi recently rescinded three farm laws that had...

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November 25, 2021

Red Halo

NEED TO KNOW Red Halo CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] If communists practiced canonization, Chinese President Xi Jinping would be a candidate for sainthood. The honchos of the Chinese Communist Party recently “exalted” 68-year-old Xi as a “historical leader” of the country, Axios reported. Only the founder of the people’s republic, Mao...

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November 23, 2021

When Heroes Fall

NEED TO KNOW When Heroes Fall GEORGIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e341329d-b90e-4b8e-8e3b-6429d9366897.png"] The European Court of Human Rights recently demanded that the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia safeguard former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who had been staging a hunger strike in prison, before ending it over the weekend. Georgian authorities arrested and imprisoned Saakashvili, who...

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November 18, 2021

Chaos Theory

NEED TO KNOW Chaos Theory CENTRAL ASIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2e2ef13c-a42d-db72-25cb-edaa084a6043.png"] The former Soviet republics of Central Asia are following in the footsteps of Russia in exerting control over social media. Users of Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and other apps know that officials sometimes throttle the services in order to silence debates...

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November 09, 2021

Meta Problematic

NEED TO KNOW Meta Problematic WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg had a chance late last year to stand up to the communist leaders of Vietnam. Instead, as the Washington Post explained, he blinked. Vietnamese officials asked Zuckerberg to stop the posts of government critics. Refusing their requests...

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November 02, 2021

Stuck in Purgatory

NEED TO KNOW Stuck in Purgatory CAMBODIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7961b85-6c8d-4728-b55b-cbaa2e866255.png"] Thirty years ago, diplomats signed the Paris Peace Agreement to bring an end to civil war in Cambodia. The run-up to the agreement was hell on earth, as journalist Sydney Schanberg depicted in his book, “The Death and Life of Dith...

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October 27, 2021

Headwinds

NEED TO KNOW Headwinds WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] The coronavirus pandemic disrupted global energy supplies. Now it’s not clear if world leaders can fix the problem. In China, where officials curbed coal mining to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets, President Xi Jinping is asking coal companies to dig more and faster...

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October 25, 2021

On a High Wire

NEED TO KNOW On a High Wire INDONESIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ec0c6f24-24ad-434b-bf1d-56e472da6e67.png"] Indonesian President Joko Widodo – known as Jokowi – is urging the world’s rich countries to give his Southeast Asian nation a hand in reaching its climate goals. The fourth most populous country in the world, with the largest Muslim...

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October 22, 2021

Fait Accompli

NEED TO KNOW Fait Accompli UZBEKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/28e3dab6-1896-a95a-90a8-7dc88946c0c3.png"] When voters in Uzbekistan head to the polls to elect a new president on Oct. 24, they will almost certainly pick incumbent President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In office since the death of his predecessor in...

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