April 25, 2024

Goodbye, Utopia

NEED TO KNOW Goodbye, Utopia DENMARK [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/19f78c1e-e0c6-49d6-b264-eb1779028db9.png"] In 1971, hippies began squatting on an abandoned naval base in Copenhagen, Denmark, creating a community called Freetown Christiania. Denizens of the 84-acre commune flouted drug laws, refused to pay their electricity bills, and regarded themselves as bohemians living alternative lifestyles. They...

Read full story →

April 24, 2024

Finding a Foothold

NEED TO KNOW Finding a Foothold NORTH MACEDONIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/25d11fad-43db-4a14-978b-f58e4707a26b.png"] A symbol of international solidarity, University Hall, recently burned down in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje. The hall was built after a major earthquake in 1963 using donations from 35 countries, Euronews explained. The incident was ironic given how...

Read full story →

April 18, 2024

Gangland Elections

NEED TO KNOW Gangland Elections CROATIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/51841b29-ea16-4792-be7e-e5a9b7adc01d.png"] Zoran Milanović caused a stir last month when he announced his candidacy for Croatia’s parliament as a member of the Social Democratic Party – with the goal of becoming prime minister. The problem was that Milanović was the president of Croatia when...

Read full story →

March 29, 2024

The Return

NEED TO KNOW The Return SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] A plan to forgive Catalan separatists in Spain might have seemed like a political masterstroke when it was first conceived, but the future for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his minority government in Madrid is still far from certain. The exiled...

Read full story →

March 22, 2024

Up for Grabs

NEED TO KNOW Up for Grabs SLOVAKIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/def5a447-d17d-4b18-8656-a0934b7c83eb.png"] Thousands of Slovaks took to the streets of their capital of Bratislava recently to protest the pro-Russian stance of Prime Minister Robert Fico and his Smer-SD political party. As Reuters reported, Fico has been critical of European military aid to...

Read full story →

March 15, 2024

Vladimir the Determined

NEED TO KNOW Vladimir the Determined RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, is urging Russians to protest when their country holds its presidential election from March 15 to 17. In a video rebroadcast on the BBC, Navalnaya called for voters to...

Read full story →

March 13, 2024

Being There

NEED TO KNOW Being There EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Saxon State Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor, and Transport Martin Dulig recently said that Germany’s new immigration law would attract skilled Indian immigrants who would help Germany plug its labor shortages. As the Hindu reported, Saxony currently needs four million...

Read full story →

March 12, 2024

The Masterful Player

NEED TO KNOW The Masterful Player ITALY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/13ef7d88-e231-4aaa-9970-c3480223c0d5.png"] Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been confronting twin crises. The first is low economic growth. The second involves the nearly 160,000 migrants arriving in the country’s Mediterranean waters last year, a 50 percent increase over 2022. Meanwhile, she has...

Read full story →

March 08, 2024

Stinky Politics

NEED TO KNOW Stinky Politics PORTUGAL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e9920e0b-df86-4240-9933-aed7de687bff.png"] In November, investigators searched the official residence of Portugal’s Socialist Prime Minister António Costa, as well as the environment and infrastructure ministries, looking for evidence of corruption, explained the Guardian. The prime minister then stepped down. Now, these corruption scandals might tip the...

Read full story →

March 07, 2024

The Language of Families

NEED TO KNOW The Language of Families IRELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7cea72cc-1559-4005-a6ad-f3350418bc77.png"] Irish voters will cast ballots in a nationwide referendum on March 8 – International Women’s Day – to determine how their country’s constitution depicts families and motherhood. Advocates are seeking to alter the constitution in the largely Catholic, Western European...

Read full story →

February 27, 2024

Family Feud

NEED TO KNOW Family Feud HUNGARY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f77307e3-d12d-4a63-bcb5-407e519df6dc.png"] Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whom the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs and others have described as illiberal because of his predilection for authoritarianism and admiration for Russia and China, has long portrayed himself as a defender of traditional family values. That...

Read full story →

February 23, 2024

Forced Predictability

NEED TO KNOW Forced Predictability BELARUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3dffa11e-ac63-436f-a4ed-735a6dabc4a6.png"] Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko recently claimed that his security forces had captured Ukrainian and Belarusian “saboteurs” in a counterterrorism operation on the country’s border with Ukraine. Other than saying these so-called enemies were transferring explosives to use in Belarus and Russia,...

Read full story →

February 22, 2024

Running Out the Clock

NEED TO KNOW Running Out the Clock UKRAINE/ RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1fcd4036-786d-9ce0-309a-14f74105b898.png"] Near the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian soldiers detail how two years of fighting their giant neighbor, Russia, is wearing them down, as they cope with losses, fatigue and shortages. Titushko, 39, explained to the Guardian...

Read full story →

February 16, 2024

Seeding Fury

NEED TO KNOW Seeding Fury EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] In Italy, a sign on the front of a tractor flying the Italian tricolor in Turin in early February read, “Agriculture is dying!” as Euractiv wrote. To the north, in Germany, around 30,000 farmers and 5,000 tractors descended on Berlin,...

Read full story →

February 08, 2024

An Election of One

NEED TO KNOW An Election of One AZERBAIJAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/00e51a13-ac1f-4599-999d-e15e3ad08ea2.png"] President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan recently ordered a snap presidential vote. He was slated to run for reelection next year. Now, for a variety of reasons that highlight the tensions and risks in the former Soviet region in the...

Read full story →

January 30, 2024

Saving Stalin

NEED TO KNOW Saving Stalin GEORGIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e341329d-b90e-4b8e-8e3b-6429d9366897.png"] The late communist dictator Josef Stalin is arguably the most controversial native son of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Mixed feelings about Stalin, who defeated the Nazis, turned the Soviet Union into a world power, but also oversaw an iron-fisted regime...

Read full story →

January 26, 2024

The Politics of Co-Dependence

NEED TO KNOW The Politics of Co-Dependence FINLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/91b0da4b-efc6-40c2-a405-00e958404c77.png"] The former president of Finland and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari died recently at the age of 86. He helped draft peace accords in Namibia in the 1980s, in Northern Ireland and between Serbia and Kosovo in...

Read full story →

January 17, 2024

Troubled Justice

NEED TO KNOW Troubled Justice NORTHERN IRELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e1fa23fe-bd64-4526-9f49-8430fef05250.png"] Violence between British-backed Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland has been relatively subdued in recent memory compared to the street fighting decades ago, when, as one BBC story illustrated, British troops huddled for safety behind their armored vehicles. Peace in...

Read full story →

January 12, 2024

Eternal Turmoil

NEED TO KNOW Eternal Turmoil COMOROS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3e1e7791-0efb-4c01-bc98-96b7c2eacff0.png"] After he secured power in a coup in 1999, Azali Assoumani ran for the presidency of Comoros in 2002. After retiring from politics in 2006, he ran for office again and won in 2016 and 2019. Now, after a court decision...

Read full story →

January 08, 2024

Cops & Robbers

NEED TO KNOW Cops & Robbers RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1fcd4036-786d-9ce0-309a-14f74105b898.png"] In 2022, a Russian court sentenced Vladislav Kanyus to 17 years in jail for “torturing, suffocating and stabbing” his girlfriend. Today, following a pardon for his crimes by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kanyus is fighting for Russia in Ukraine,...

Read full story →