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 →

January 01, 2024

Self-Serving Justice

NEED TO KNOW Self-Serving Justice SLOVAKIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/def5a447-d17d-4b18-8656-a0934b7c83eb.png"] Thousands of people took to the streets in the Central European country of Slovakia late last week to protest criminal justice reforms proposed by the newly elected Prime Minister Robert Fico and his leftist populist allies. They chanted “Mafia, mafia ...

Read full story →

December 27, 2023

Operation Dismantlement

NEED TO KNOW Operation Dismantlement POLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/31d830f6-377a-4afc-861b-7fbf94dce490.png"] The results of the Oct. 15 parliamentary elections in Poland are still echoing throughout Europe. Women and young voters helped swing the election to the Civic Coalition and other parties opposing the ruling Law and Justice party, a populist political group that...

Read full story →

December 19, 2023

Standing Up

NEED TO KNOW Standing Up ICELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/05c4ecf9-d048-43ef-9046-22a7f3c10f03.png"] Iceland is considered one of the most gender-equal countries in the world based on income, education, and health. The country elected the world’s first female president, noted Time magazine. Icelandic women founded the first all-female political party. So it may be surprising...

Read full story →

December 14, 2023

The Stuntmen

NEED TO KNOW The Stuntmen SERBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fd16e594-c67c-41ff-beb7-977236001063.png"] Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, a 73-year-old American born in California, recently became a Serbian citizen. “Now we can boast that the computer genius is Serbian, who will live most of his life in America but will also come to his Serbia,” said...

Read full story →

December 07, 2023

Help Wanted

NEED TO KNOW Help Wanted PORTUGAL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e9920e0b-df86-4240-9933-aed7de687bff.png"] The Portuguese government is cracking down on so-called “digital nomads,” the remote workers who moved to foreign countries, especially during the pandemic, to take advantage of the joys of new locales, as well as liberal visa rules, favorable exchange rates, lower...

Read full story →

December 01, 2023

Faltering Resolve

NEED TO KNOW Faltering Resolve UKRAINE/ RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1fcd4036-786d-9ce0-309a-14f74105b898.png"] The admission shocked Ukrainians who have shown little but resolute courage as they tried to fend off the Russian forces that invaded their country in February last year. In an interview with the Economist, the commander of Ukraine’s forces, General...

Read full story →

November 29, 2023

Germany Divided

NEED TO KNOW Germany Divided GERMANY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/96d66e57-2644-40b9-aed7-fc66370c3077.png"] The far-right, xenophobic Alternative for Germany political party has long concerned observers who fear a resurgence of the fascistic spirit in Europe’s largest, wealthiest country. Now, not to be outdone, German politician Sahra Wagenknecht is launching a new political party that is...

Read full story →

November 22, 2023

New Beginning

NEED TO KNOW New Beginning NETHERLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/50b9b3d5-1234-443a-9402-f9f624fae487.png"] In a surprise announcement in July, after 13 years in office, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he would retire from politics, after disputes with his leftist allies in government over migration to the Netherlands caused the government to collapse, triggering...

Read full story →

November 21, 2023

Prelude and Epilogue to War

NEED TO KNOW Prelude and Epilogue to War GEORGIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e341329d-b90e-4b8e-8e3b-6429d9366897.png"] Russian soldiers, currently occupying some 20 percent of the former Soviet republic of Georgia’s territory on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, recently killed Tamaz Ginturi, a Georgian citizen, as he visited a cemetery and a church...

Read full story →

November 17, 2023

Pardoning Politics

NEED TO KNOW Pardoning Politics SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party achieved a political masterstroke to remain in power, but also probably sowed the seeds to reap bitter enmity from his conservative rivals for the rest of his life. In July, when Spanish...

Read full story →

November 15, 2023

Shattering Glass, Splintering Peace

NEED TO KNOW Shattering Glass, Splintering Peace EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Eighty-five years ago, the Jewish cemetery in Vienna was one of the main targets of Kristallnacht – a Nazi pogrom against Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues in Germany and Austria. And so it was again, reported CNN. On Nov. 1,...

Read full story →

November 08, 2023

Importing a War

NEED TO KNOW Importing a War EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Police in Europe recently arrested alleged terrorists for supposedly planning attacks in connection with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Germany recently, police nabbed folks who had been previously...

Read full story →

November 01, 2023

Operation Dismantlement

NEED TO KNOW Operation Dismantlement POLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/31d830f6-377a-4afc-861b-7fbf94dce490.png"] The results of the Oct. 15 parliamentary elections in Poland are echoing throughout Europe. Women and young voters helped swing the election to the Civic Coalition and other parties opposing the ruling Law and Justice party, a populist political group that espouses...

Read full story →

October 30, 2023

Something Old, Something New

NEED TO KNOW Something Old, Something New NAGORNO-KARABAKH [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a090b285-d5d2-89d8-d770-d40b6cc60381.png"] Simon Maghakyan, a visiting scholar at Tufts University who studies heritage crime, recently warned in Time magazine that Azerbaijan intends to invade Armenia. This attack would come on the heels of Azerbaijan’s September invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh, a historically Armenian...

Read full story →