July 28, 2023

The Hired Hands

NEED TO KNOW The Hired Hands CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7e5325a-3ac2-4df5-8925-90bdfbdaf0d9.png"] Mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group arrived in the Central African Republic (CAR) around two weeks before a July 30 referendum that would allow President Faustin-Archange Touadéra to run for a third term – which the current law forbids...

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July 27, 2023

A Worrying Popularity

NEED TO KNOW A Worrying Popularity THAILAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aed0fb0-f5eb-4eda-ae64-69e423143eb5.png"] When Thai voters cast their ballots for a new parliament in May, they roundly rejected allies of the military that had ruled the Southeast Asian country for nine years, opting instead for the progressive Move Forward and populist Pheu Thai...

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July 26, 2023

Declaring War

NEED TO KNOW Declaring War BRAZIL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7cee1e0-dcb8-68eb-6ed9-13e370771cbb.png"] Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading the charge to protect the Amazonian rainforest. Following Lula’s example, leaders of eight South American countries are now pledging to end illegal deforestation in the massive region that has been called the lungs...

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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...

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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...

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July 21, 2023

Null and Void

NEED TO KNOW Null and Void CAMBODIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7961b85-6c8d-4728-b55b-cbaa2e866255.png"] Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s chances of winning reelection on July 23 are very good. It’s not a stretch, in fact, to say he is essentially running unopposed. Hun Sen’s government banned the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in 2017...

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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...

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July 19, 2023

Moving On

NEED TO KNOW Moving On ETHIOPIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/bf55b5d2-7db8-404a-b87b-c88a42597d29.png"] Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed claims that he is remaining neutral in the civil war now raging in neighboring Sudan, according to Deutsche Welle. Ahmed has said that, even though Sudan occupied the Al-Fashaga border region between the two countries when...

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July 18, 2023

Past and Present

NEED TO KNOW Past and Present URUGUAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ca7fb39c-8156-49ef-9ea8-c114f0eb8b34.png"] The Admiral Graf Spee was a German warship scuttled in 1939 in Montevideo Bay in Uruguay after the Battle of the River Plate, the first major naval battle of World War II. In 2006, treasure hunters searching the bay discovered...

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July 17, 2023

The Autocrat, the Lapdog

NEED TO KNOW The Autocrat, the Lapdog BELARUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3dffa11e-ac63-436f-a4ed-735a6dabc4a6.png"] Belarussian artist and political dissident Ales Pushkin, 57, recently died in prison from an undisclosed cause. His crime: painting a picture. Prosecutors said, incredibly, that his work glorified Nazism. As the Moscow Times reported, however, the timing of his arrest...

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July 14, 2023

Ubiquitous Aggression and Violence

NEED TO KNOW Ubiquitous Aggression and Violence SERBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fd16e594-c67c-41ff-beb7-977236001063.png"] Throngs of Serbians flocked to the capital of Belgrade recently to protest against Pink TV, a pro-government television station that protesters said contributed to the culture of violence that led to two mass shootings in the Balkan country. “This is...

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July 13, 2023

Twenty Years

NEED TO KNOW Twenty Years SUDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/224b0e8f-5be6-4e44-b799-a1b865717c98.png"] The Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, the rebel paramilitary group fighting against the central government of Sudan in the country’s civil war, has laid siege to the southern city of el-Obeid for more than a month. Located at a strategic crossroads,...

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July 12, 2023

Not Going Anywhere

NEED TO KNOW Not Going Anywhere MEXICO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fcd100e2-d1bb-4cd7-b9f4-53a07a70e41c.png"] Since he began his six-year term of office in December 2018, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the center-left populist has stirred controversy, particularly with his plans to root out corrupt interests and invest in public infrastructure to help the...

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July 11, 2023

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

NEED TO KNOW Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] The Wagner Group, the Russian military contractor, arrived in the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2018 to help President Faustin-Archange Touadéra fight off a rebellion. Since then, the group has deployed thousands of soldiers to Libya, Mali, Sudan, and elsewhere...

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July 10, 2023

The Tiger’s Stripes

NEED TO KNOW The Tiger’s Stripes EGYPT [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/180d3d63-0093-422e-a6d2-b3d9896f0053.png"] Ten years ago on July 3, the Egyptian military under Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi launched a coup against the first democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi – a member of the Islamist organization the Muslim Brotherhood, that supporters describe as...

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July 07, 2023

Community Policing

NEED TO KNOW Community Policing HONDURAS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5e2a67ee-c113-425a-b7dc-9cb08a72f95e.png"] The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has earned plaudits from many of his people – and brickbats from human rights activists – for his crackdown on the gangs that have long run rampant in the Central American country. Now El Salvador’s...

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July 06, 2023

Humbled but Unbowed

NEED TO KNOW Humbled but Unbowed RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Now that Russian President Vladimir Putin has survived Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group’s apparent coup attempt, the world is wondering what happens next. Charges against Prigozhin, who supposedly is in Belarus, and the Wagner military contractors who marched on Moscow...

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July 05, 2023

Come Visit

NEED TO KNOW Come Visit HONG KONG [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed89ce6f-df7c-493b-809a-681d51fa4904.png"] Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, is giving out 700,000 plane tickets to folks who would like to visit the former British colony on the South China Sea. Would-be visitors must apply to receive the tickets, Time Out...

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July 04, 2023

Gassed

NEED TO KNOW Gassed NIGERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6c258edc-b123-4d47-98e3-f42e226ea64f.png"] One of Bola Tinubu’s first actions, when he became president of Nigeria in May, was eliminating the oil-producing country’s fuel subsidy. As the Economist explained, the subsidy that in 2022 reached $10 billion a year has long been a drag on the...

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July 03, 2023

Western Outpost in the East

NEED TO KNOW Western Outpost in the East LITHUANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e7852ed7-2760-4e7e-a300-0fc715ec1ca8.png"] One of Lithuania’s first post-independence leaders after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Vytautas Landsbergis, recently had some choice words for officials in Moscow. “Victory will come when there’s no Russian empire,...

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