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...

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October 19, 2023

Twirl, Dip and Turn

NEED TO KNOW Twirl, Dip and Turn ARGENTINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/76e4f41e-d963-4fc8-b435-ba5bf19812a5.png"] Argentina’s financial markets reeled in August after presidential candidate Javier Milei won the largest share in the primary election – 30 percent – on a platform of radically cutting spending and using the American currency in place of the...

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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...

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October 17, 2023

The Before and the After

NEED TO KNOW The Before and the After ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] No matter what one thinks of the plight of the Palestinians who have suffered mightily for years under Israeli occupation, the atrocities that have come to light in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct....

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October 16, 2023

Down and Out, Down Under

NEED TO KNOW Down and Out, Down Under AUSTRALIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/81d62805-bef8-41fd-9c0c-ed93ea461226.png"] Australians over the weekend shot down a constitutional amendment to provide the country’s Indigenous peoples with a “Voice,” an advisory body to the national parliament, serving their interests in the country, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Two-thirds of Australians...

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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...

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October 12, 2023

Plus ça Change

NEED TO KNOW Plus Ca Change NEW ZEALAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/35e498e9-3807-40bd-bf6c-8c9506c3b2cf.png"] The former prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who served from 2017 through early this year, became a global celebrity after she called for tough firearms laws following a terrorist attack on two mosques in the city of...

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October 11, 2023

Goodbye, Status Quo

NEED TO KNOW Goodbye, Status Quo ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Thousands of young people were dancing at an outdoor music festival near the Gaza border in southern Israel on Friday when rockets started flying overhead and gunshots sounded, bringing the party – and a threadbare peace – to an...

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October 10, 2023

The Devils You Know

NEED TO KNOW The Devils You Know LIBERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9eb32998-6471-45a3-a560-2a676df24771.png"] The Supreme Court of Liberia last week called on the West African country’s National Elections Commission to make its voter rolls public before the Oct. 10 presidential ballot. The commissioners said they had posted the information on their website,...

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October 09, 2023

Isthmus, Jammed

NEED TO KNOW Isthmus, Jammed PANAMA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/337297fc-0711-4678-8ee9-a8aa69435261.png"] Officials operating the Panama Canal recently capped the number of ships passing through the commercial waterway to 31 a day, compared with 32 in August and an average of 36 a month, due to a drought that lowered water levels. This seemingly...

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October 06, 2023

Speak, Calliope

NEED TO KNOW Speak, Calliope LIBYA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/bbf539f5-8945-4e8b-9453-35a595c0de45.png"] Poet Mustafa al-Trabelsi penned eerily prescient lines in the days before he would die in a flood in the city of Derna, on eastern Libya’s Mediterranean coast. “The rain /Exposes the drenched streets, /the cheating contractor, /and the failed state,” he wrote...

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October 05, 2023

A Family Affair

NEED TO KNOW A Family Affair INDONESIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ec0c6f24-24ad-434b-bf1d-56e472da6e67.png"] Kaesang Pangarep, a 28-year-old YouTube influencer and entrepreneur who is also the youngest son of Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, recently became the head of the youth-oriented political organization, the Indonesian Solidarity Party. His rise to power is now raising questions...

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October 04, 2023

Looking Outward

NEED TO KNOW Looking Outward CANADA/ INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8412b56a-7633-de79-e4b2-da6875292028.png"] Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar recently said that his government was open to investigating any information that Canadian officials might produce in relation to the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver in June. Jaishankar’s announcement came more than...

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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...

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October 02, 2023

Disappearing the Disappeared

NEED TO KNOW Disappearing the Disappeared MEXICO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fcd100e2-d1bb-4cd7-b9f4-53a07a70e41c.png"] The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, recently announced that prosecutors had sought to arrest 16 more members of the Mexican military in relation to the disappearance of 43 students in 2014. The announcement came after a Mexican judge...

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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...

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September 28, 2023

An Absolute Problem

NEED TO KNOW An Absolute Problem ESWATINI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e564c03c-87c1-b4d7-d7d9-39a3e0290133.png"] Late last year, pro-democracy activists, political dissidents, and others gathered in South Africa to discuss how they might compel King Mswati III, the absolute monarch of the tiny, independent landlocked nation of Eswatini, to resign. Soon after, in January 2023, gunmen...

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September 27, 2023

Despair in the Black Garden

NEED TO KNOW Despair in the Black Garden ARMENIA/ AZERBAIJAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a090b285-d5d2-89d8-d770-d40b6cc60381.png"] Another nightmare appears to be unfolding on the far edge of Europe. Thousands of ethnic Armenians over the past week have fled the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijani forces seized the territory, seeking refuge in the nearby republic...

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September 26, 2023

Bricks and Blood

NEED TO KNOW Bricks and Blood MOROCCO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7407425-5e72-f4fb-9024-3d6b302b6efd.png"] Mohammed Ounasser lost his wife and two daughters when a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Morocco on Sept. 8 and leveled their village of Tnirte in the High Atlas Mountains. “This once-idyllic hamlet, nestled in apple and apricot groves, is now...

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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...

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