October 27, 2022

Heroes and Villains

NEED TO KNOW Heroes and Villains NORWAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/65102137-137a-414d-a10e-0cd0d00c7aa4.png"] Norwegian authorities recently detained a Russian carrying two drones, photos and videos as he tried to return home via the far northern border, CBS News reported. The arrest followed sightings of drones flying off the Norwegian coast near oil and...

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October 25, 2022

Soft Upper Lip

NEED TO KNOW Soft Upper Lip UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Liz Truss declared that she was not a quitter. The next day, she quit. And four days later, a new prime minister was announced. Truss is leaving after only 45 days in office, the shortest tenure...

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October 21, 2022

The Boogeyman

NEED TO KNOW The Boogeyman SLOVENIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/91af5831-13d6-a440-6055-3beb55c4774a.png"] In April, Slovenian voters tapped Robert Golob, leader of the Freedom Movement party, to replace as prime minister right-wing populist Janez Jansa, a longtime figure in Slovenian politics and an ally of Hungary’s illiberal nationalist Prime Minister, Viktor Orban. But Jansa remains...

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October 17, 2022

With Friends Like These

NEED TO KNOW With Friends Like These RUSSIA/ CAUCASUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/462de142-36fd-4c9d-12d5-2bb0dcbcfea0.png"] Armenians have a unique perspective on Russian power. On the farthest-most edge of Europe, the former Soviet republic in the Caucasus hosts a Russian army base and belongs to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance...

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October 14, 2022

Redefining the Mainstream

NEED TO KNOW Redefining the Mainstream EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] A decade ago, right-wing populism in Europe was still viewed as an outlier, a political philosophy that might take root in Eastern Europe or Russia because of their histories, but not wealthy Western European powers where the free market...

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October 10, 2022

Great Russia

NEED TO KNOW Great Russia RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] When Ukrainian forces recently retook the city of Lyman from Russian occupiers, resident Elena Kharkovska was surprised to learn that Russian President Vladimir Putin had considered her to be one of his constituents for one day. Lacking electricity or communications...

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October 07, 2022

The Alpine Tremors

NEED TO KNOW The Alpine Tremors AUSTRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f03ece7b-c1d7-408a-bbc9-9e81273af469.png"] The president of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, recently suffered a concussion after falling while hiking in the Alps. As the Daily Beast reported, the 78-year-old Van der Bellen was briefly out of commission, a situation that likely made some...

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October 03, 2022

The Bear’s Market

NEED TO KNOW The Bear’s Market RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Global economic growth will reach only three percent this year due to the lingering effects of Covid-19 and the economic ructions of the Russo-Ukraine War – think higher energy, food prices and other goods. Next year, for the same reasons,...

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September 30, 2022

Splitting the Chimera

NEED TO KNOW Splitting the Chimera BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3eb41941-dc99-4c07-a44c-b49cace98355.png"] The leader of Republika Srpska, an enclave of ethnic Serbs seeking to break off from Bosnia and Herzegovina and become an independent state or unify with neighboring Serbia, recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. As...

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September 26, 2022

The Dangers of Desperation

NEED TO KNOW The Dangers of Desperation RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] The once-vaunted, now-demoralized Russian military could be on the brink of collapse – a retired British Air Marshal put the odds at 35 percent in a recent interview with Sky News. By now, seven months after the invasion of...

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September 23, 2022

Democracy by Fiat

NEED TO KNOW Democracy by Fiat SWITZERLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2b943183-27c5-4545-a4cd-06237a4dff08.png"] Much has been written about the benefits and dangers of democracy. Some in Europe and the Americas fear that their democracy is under threat. Others say that is nonsense. Chinese leaders, meanwhile, view the US as a decadent democracy while...

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September 21, 2022

A New, Cloudy Day

NEED TO KNOW A New, Cloudy Day UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] On Monday, hundreds of thousands of Britons lined up and millions more tuned in to say farewell to their queen. It was a spectacle full of pageantry befitting the reverence reserved for this beloved monarch who died this...

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September 20, 2022

Apple from the Tree

NEED TO KNOW Apple from the Tree ITALY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/13ef7d88-e231-4aaa-9970-c3480223c0d5.png"] Over the years, liberal elites throughout Europe have fretted about the premiership of Silvio Berlusconi, the now 85-year-old media tycoon and conservative politician who has led Italy a few times since the 1990s and recently made a bid for...

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September 19, 2022

Humiliating Goliath

NEED TO KNOW Humiliating Goliath RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a702de3c-ba67-009a-ec81-bb85364aae07.png"] In the first few weeks of September, Ukrainian forces retook more than 2,300 square miles of territory that Russia had occupied. In what the BBC called “a potential breakthrough in the war,” Ukraine had control over cities in the northeastern...

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September 16, 2022

Going, Going, Back

NEED TO KNOW Going, Going, Back EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Jean Blum, a resident of Berlin, Germany, usually uses natural gas to heat his home. But sometimes he uses wood in his stove. Now, as energy prices spike in Europe due to the efforts of Western governments to reduce...

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September 15, 2022

The Tricky Dance

NEED TO KNOW The Tricky Dance CZECH REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/4e23e22d-26c3-4ed5-88d4-a441c2b9d079.png"] “Medieval,” a new movie celebrating the military exploits of Czech national hero Jan Zizka, depicts peasants angry over rising living costs and other indignities, Variety wrote. Like any historical film, it is, in a sense, a commentary on today....

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September 12, 2022

Tectonic Shifts

NEED TO KNOW Tectonic Shifts RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] After World War II, British influence gave way to American power everywhere around the globe except the heartland of Eurasia. There, the Soviet Union held sway. Today, however, a new page is turning in the history of great empires. In the wake...

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September 09, 2022

If You Can’t Beat Them…

NEED TO KNOW If You Can’t Beat Them… SWEDEN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3c7156af-17ce-455f-85b2-83980fe2f678.png"] A local politician in Sweden, Saida Hussein Moge, recently quit the ruling Social Democratic party after Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said she didn’t want Chinatowns, Somalitowns or Little Italys in the Nordic country. Moge is ethnically Somali. “The...

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September 05, 2022

The Long Road

NEED TO KNOW The Long Road UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/25f6c507-5013-1f57-bcbe-a295d2d6dac9.png"] Just over six months after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Sébastien Roblin at NBC News was thinking that Ukraine’s current counteroffensive to liberate the city of Kherson might prove to be the decisive gambit to bring about the beginning...

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August 30, 2022

From the Energiewende and Back

NEED TO KNOW From the Energiewende and Back GERMANY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/96d66e57-2644-40b9-aed7-fc66370c3077.png"] German officials this winter may keep open three nuclear power plants that they previously had planned to shut down as part of the Energiewende, or “energy turnaround” in German, that aims to transition Europe’s largest economy to renewable...

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