October 26, 2023

‘The Champagne Fascist’

NEED TO KNOW ‘The Champagne Fascist’ ITALY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/13ef7d88-e231-4aaa-9970-c3480223c0d5.png"] Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, an icon of the far-right in Europe, recently announced that she would separate from her longtime partner Andrea Giambruno, a television journalist. The split came two days after recordings of Giambruno’s “foul remarks and suggestive comments...

Read full story →

October 20, 2023

Down in the Valleys

NEED TO KNOW Down in the Valleys SWITZERLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2b943183-27c5-4545-a4cd-06237a4dff08.png"] Polls show that Switzerland’s right-wing People’s Party will garner the most votes in parliamentary elections on Oct. 22 on vows to address immigration fears, climate activism and “woke” excesses, reported Bloomberg. That’s though Switzerland avoided the worst economic impacts of...

Read full story →

October 18, 2023

Bloody Franchise

NEED TO KNOW Bloody Franchise UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/02995f03-84bd-afba-0f89-00fc09873ecb.png"] Ukrainians are fighting to defend their country’s sovereignty and, ostensibly at least, democracy. That’s why the US and Europe are supporting Ukrainians’ efforts to defeat Russia. From the Western point of view, it would make sense, then, for Ukraine to hold elections...

Read full story →

October 13, 2023

Sovereign Hearts

NEED TO KNOW Sovereign Hearts POLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/31d830f6-377a-4afc-861b-7fbf94dce490.png"] Senior European Union officials are demanding an explanation from Poland over allegations that Polish diplomats sold temporary work visas to African and Asian migrants for thousands of dollars apiece. Polish media outlets have alleged that officials allowed more than 130,000 migrants into...

Read full story →

October 03, 2023

Roots and Branches

NEED TO KNOW Roots and Branches UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/02995f03-84bd-afba-0f89-00fc09873ecb.png"] Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov resigned in early September. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that, while Reznikov had succeeded in obtaining sophisticated weaponry from the West for Ukraine’s war against Russia, he had presided over “chaos and disorder” in the Ministry of...

Read full story →

September 29, 2023

Fickle Friend

NEED TO KNOW Fickle Friend SLOVAKIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/def5a447-d17d-4b18-8656-a0934b7c83eb.png"] Since the invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia has become diplomatically isolated from the West – but not everywhere in Europe. Russophobes, in fact, are sounding alarms about the candidacy of Roberto Fico in Slovakia’s general election on Sept. 30. “We are...

Read full story →

September 25, 2023

Halal Cash

NEED TO KNOW Halal Cash RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Russia launched a pilot program this month for Islamic banks in the Muslim-majority regions of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chechnya, and Dagestan. Islamic law holds that banks can’t charge interest. But they can share in the client’s profits and risks. Additionally, Islamic banks don’t...

Read full story →

September 22, 2023

The Micro and the Macro

NEED TO KNOW The Micro and the Macro ANDORRA/ MONACO/ SAN MARINO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed203f80-5d84-716a-32c3-40df727bbfb9.png"] Three microstates with a combined population of only 150,000 people could pose macroeconomic threats to Europe. Andorra, a principality that sits on the border between France and Spain; Monaco, a city-state within France near the Italian...

Read full story →

September 11, 2023

Looking for Endings

NEED TO KNOW Looking for Endings UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/02995f03-84bd-afba-0f89-00fc09873ecb.png"] NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recently praised Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces that invaded its territory last year. “The Ukrainians are gradually gaining ground,” Stoltenberg told lawmakers of the European Parliament, according to Reuters. “They have been able to breach the defensive...

Read full story →

September 04, 2023

Next Steps

NEED TO KNOW Next Steps RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] DNA tests prove that the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a plane crash last month, Russian officials said recently. As Reuters wrote, the tests could put to rest speculation that Prigozhin was not on the plane...

Read full story →

August 31, 2023

Europe’s Growing Force

NEED TO KNOW Europe’s Growing Force SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] The conservative People’s Party (PP) won the most seats in Spain’s parliamentary elections last month. Because the PP has joined forces with the far-right Vox party, King Felipe VI has invited PP leader Alberto Nuñez Feijóo to form a government. Many...

Read full story →

August 21, 2023

Bregret

NEED TO KNOW Bregret UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] Seven years ago, a majority of British voters opted to remove their country from the European Union. Now many are having second thoughts – or “Bregret,” as the New Statesman termed it. The United Kingdom’s exit from the EU is estimated to...

Read full story →

August 16, 2023

An Unholy Temperature

NEED TO KNOW An Unholy Temperature SWEDEN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3c7156af-17ce-455f-85b2-83980fe2f678.png"] Parents with children throwing tantrums in public to get attention often just try to move to the side, avoid eye contact with bystanders and pray the outbursts will pass quickly without too much notice. That approach hasn’t been working out too...

Read full story →

August 14, 2023

The War on Culture

NEED TO KNOW The War on Culture UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/02995f03-84bd-afba-0f89-00fc09873ecb.png"] As Ukrainian soldiers dig in to make advances on the battlefield in what many say is a stalled offensive, another front in the war has been more successful: the war on Russia’s cultural legacy. It’s an offensive years in the...

Read full story →

August 09, 2023

There, and Back Again

NEED TO KNOW There, and Back Again EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Tunisia recovered more than 900 bodies of migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea from the beginning of the year through July 20, according to Interior Minister Kamel Feki. The North African country this year has been handling a...

Read full story →

August 07, 2023

Watch Your Step

NEED TO KNOW Watch Your Step UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/02995f03-84bd-afba-0f89-00fc09873ecb.png"] Some say the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia appears to be failing. “I think that the Ukrainians expected the counteroffensive to gather sufficient momentum to allow them to continue to push south at a much faster rate,” military intelligence expert Konrad Muzyka...

Read full story →

July 31, 2023

Going A-Courting

NEED TO KNOW Going A-Courting RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Russian President Vladimir Putin was on a charm offensive at the recent Russia–Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – or the “special military operation”, as it’s called in Moscow – was likely a hot topic of conversation at...

Read full story →

July 25, 2023

Boilergeddon

NEED TO KNOW Boilergeddon GERMANY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/96d66e57-2644-40b9-aed7-fc66370c3077.png"] Many environmentalists, including the eco-minded politicians in the Green Party in Germany, believe heat pumps will save the world. As National Public Radio explained, heat pumps draw heat from the outside to warm homes. Powered by electricity, they are around a third cheaper...

Read full story →

July 24, 2023

The Peace Dividend

NEED TO KNOW The Peace Dividend UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/02995f03-84bd-afba-0f89-00fc09873ecb.png"] Former American President Donald Trump recently said that, if he resided in the White House again, he could negotiate a peace plan between Russia and Ukraine in a day, the Kyiv Independent noted. Hyperbole or not, Trump is just the latest...

Read full story →

July 20, 2023

Winning Minds, Losing Hearts

NEED TO KNOW Winning Minds, Losing Hearts SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] “Sanchismo” might be the wedge issue in Spain’s general election on July 23. That’s because the center-right Partido Popular leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo and other conservative leaders are expected to defeat Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers...

Read full story →