April 08, 2022

Ça Marche

NEED TO KNOW Ça Marche FRANCE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d78d9fd2-f0df-4e59-9bd4-334bffdc4974.png"] Folks in the small town of Moissac in southern France are on edge. The ethnic composition of the medieval town has changed dramatically in the past decade. Around 2,000 Bulgarians – mostly Roma – have settled in Moissac. Last year, concern over...

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April 07, 2022

The Game of Neutrality

NEED TO KNOW The Game of Neutrality WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] As his soldiers fight Russian forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently pledged that his country would become permanently neutral – that is, aligned neither with NATO nor Russia – in exchange for security guarantees designed to prevent more fighting in...

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April 06, 2022

Bullets and Choices

NEED TO KNOW Bullets and Choices MOLDOVA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a19755da-0385-95db-b607-df0d274fdb27.png"] Moldovans looking to the east can see smoke on the horizon as Ukrainian troops fend off Russia’s invasion, the Scotsman newspaper recently reported. As a result, one can understand why many in the former Soviet republic wedged between Romania and...

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April 01, 2022

Little Brother

NEED TO KNOW Little Brother SERBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fd16e594-c67c-41ff-beb7-977236001063.png"] American and Western European diplomats recently expressed their disappointment at Kosovo’s decision to disallow people to vote in neighboring Serbia’s elections on April 3. “Such an attitude of the Kosovo government is not in line with our values and principles and...

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March 31, 2022

Russkiy Mir

NEED TO KNOW Russkiy Mir RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Artur and Vsevolod fled to Istanbul, Turkey from their hometown of Moscow fearing that they might face conscription into the Russian military as the country’s brutal but botched invasion of Ukraine continues. “The atmosphere of fear in Russia is unprecedented,” said Vsevolod,...

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March 30, 2022

Between a Hammer and an Anvil

NEED TO KNOW Between a Hammer and an Anvil HUNGARY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f77307e3-d12d-4a63-bcb5-407e519df6dc.png"] Most Central and East European leaders have been outspoken in their condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Polish, Czech, and Slovenian leaders made a risky visit to Kyiv earlier this...

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March 28, 2022

Just Business

NEED TO KNOW Just Business UKRAINE/ RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] Executives at France-based energy giant TotalEnergies recently announced that they would stop all Russian oil purchases this year in protest against President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian oil accounted for 17 percent of the $190 billion company’s production, reported...

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March 25, 2022

Crisis, Opportunity

NEED TO KNOW Crisis, Opportunity MALTA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/065f7a50-297e-403d-9a34-a904c51f2f61.png"] Maltese Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader Robert Abela recently handed out tax refund checks as large as $150 to 250,000 workers in his country, the bloc's smallest member. Abela said the checks would probably be the last voters would see...

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March 24, 2022

Four Weeks

NEED TO KNOW Four Weeks UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a64959d6-63d7-1d66-6bcc-4a03c878854b.png"] The pregnant woman and her infant who died after a Russian airstrike on a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol might be the most moving, tragic, needless individual story in the war in Ukraine that started one month ago today. Associated...

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March 23, 2022

Egg on Face

NEED TO KNOW Egg on Face EUROPE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f9c83d42-7d43-4e2f-a6d6-f7bf04744b7d.png"] Populist Italian politician Matteo Salvini had egg on his face recently after a press conference in the Polish town of Przemysl, a destination for many refugees from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Recalling that Salvini had praised Russian President Vladimir Putin...

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March 22, 2022

A Caucasian Puzzle

NEED TO KNOW A Caucasian Puzzle ARMENIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/291ba8a2-3105-41e3-a793-e28cc6a9282e.png"] Armenian President Armen Sarkissian recently resigned from office because he felt that he possessed too little power. "The president does not have the necessary tools to influence the radical processes of domestic and foreign policy in these difficult times for...

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March 21, 2022

An Angry Man

NEED TO KNOW An Angry Man RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Recently, Putin declared that any country that interfered in Russia’s special operations in Ukraine would face “consequences greater than any you have faced in history,” raising the specter of mutually assured destruction, as the Atlantic magazine recounted. Is Vladimir Putin’s threat...

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March 18, 2022

When Dreams Become Nightmares

NEED TO KNOW When Dreams Become Nightmares UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/dce492ba-22fe-b9ad-f692-6f5eeb441d37.png"] When Russia recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine shortly before it invaded the country in late February, some locals were thrilled. They thought eight years of war would finally come to an end. "The recognition...

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March 15, 2022

Different Strokes, Different Folks

NEED TO KNOW Different Strokes, Different Folks WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Danish officials don’t think children need Covid-19 vaccinations. They don’t think citizens who are at a high risk of a severe reaction to infection should receive a fourth booster shot. They’ve lifted mask mandates, eliminated vaccine passports and other...

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March 14, 2022

Master and Servant

NEED TO KNOW Master and Servant WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] At least two storylines have formed around Russia, Ukraine and world energy supplies and prices. The first warns of the potential consequences of countries taking a principled stand on the war and violence in Ukraine and rejecting Russian oil outright without...

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March 09, 2022

War Games

NEED TO KNOW War Games UKRAINE/ RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] Ukrainian forces recently attacked Russian vehicles after they received a tip through the encrypted, unmoderated social media app Telegram. As NBC News wrote, Telegram has become an essential tool for Ukrainians in the real world and a battleground in the...

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March 07, 2022

The Great Awakening

NEED TO KNOW The Great Awakening EUROPE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f9c83d42-7d43-4e2f-a6d6-f7bf04744b7d.png"] When Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded the former Soviet republic of Ukraine late last month, he claimed he was pushing back against aggressive Western powers that were impinging on Russian interests. If that was Putin’s strategy, it arguably backfired. A...

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March 04, 2022

Welcoming the Stranger

NEED TO KNOW Welcoming the Stranger UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/83250f40-48a8-4200-5d03-072df5389153.png"] Apartment-sharing app Airbnb is offering free temporary housing to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees who have scrambled across their neighbors’ borders in cars, buses, trains and on foot to flee Russian bombs and bullets. The Silicon Valley company and hosts were underwriting...

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March 03, 2022

The End, the Beginning

NEED TO KNOW The End, the Beginning UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/83250f40-48a8-4200-5d03-072df5389153.png"] A week ago, Russia began bombing Ukraine. Seven days later, it's a different world. That's because in that week, as massively outgunned Ukrainians put up fierce resistance, nations around the world have moved to express outrage in ways big and...

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March 02, 2022

The Kitchen Sink

NEED TO KNOW The Kitchen Sink RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Before the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, the communist Soviet Union was largely cut off from free markets in the West. The result was an economy that, while powerful, failed to evolve as digital technology, high...

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