June 02, 2023

Seed to Stem

NEED TO KNOW Seed to Stem GUINEA-BISSAU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c68ca5ff-fb6a-431d-be96-939a6f3c5eae.png"] Farmers in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau are planting their maize, millet, and sorghum in anticipation of the June rainy season. Among them are the women known as “seed keepers” in the Bijagos archipelago of islands on the country’s Atlantic...

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June 01, 2023

Balkan Malaise

NEED TO KNOW Balkan Malaise ALBANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0b3746d6-a585-4423-a6b9-37ef4ae614bb.png"] Men from remote mountain regions have been among the majority of the more than 12,000 Albanians who have migrated to Britain in the past year. They ventured from their homes in the Balkans to the West European country due to “a...

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May 31, 2023

Villains

NEED TO KNOW Villains CAMBODIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f7961b85-6c8d-4728-b55b-cbaa2e866255.png"] In a final decision, Cambodia’s Constitutional Council recently rejected the claims of opposition politicians with the Candlelight Party who said they should be allowed to stand for election in July. They had been disqualified because of incorrectly submitted registration papers, officials said. The council’s...

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May 30, 2023

The Meanest of Streets

NEED TO KNOW The Meanest of Streets HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently called for the richest countries in the world to help Haiti, the violence-wracked, impoverished, politically unstable nation in the Caribbean. “In Haiti, we need to act quickly to alleviate the suffering of...

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May 29, 2023

Russian Reveille

NEED TO KNOW Russian Reveille RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Twenty-three years ago, respected Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen penned an op-ed in the New York Times describing the remilitarization of Russian life. She described rules and regulations to funnel boys into the service, the boosting of military spending by 50 percent,...

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May 26, 2023

Swinging Politics

NEED TO KNOW Swinging Politics SPAIN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9867eeee-5129-4a23-af3d-b9c85aeb55a9.png"] Aficionados of Spanish history will likely know that the fascists won the country’s civil war in the 1930s. Socialists took over in the 1980s and 90s, from 2004 until 2011, and again in 2018 when Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the...

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May 25, 2023

Inch By Inch

NEED TO KNOW Inch By Inch MAURITANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/18cc7578-f1a7-4a18-81da-f90716e211fd.png"] Voters in Mauritania cast ballots in parliamentary and local government elections on May 13 and will do so again on May 27. The two rounds of voting are the first since President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani assumed power four years ago....

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May 24, 2023

Terrorist Vs. Terrorist

NEED TO KNOW Terrorist Vs. Terrorist AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] Since the US exited Afghanistan nearly two years ago, the leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has embraced the titles of “commander of the faithful” and “scholar of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.”...

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May 23, 2023

Full Court Press

NEED TO KNOW Full Court Press CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] American and Chinese officials held more than eight hours of “candid” and “constructive” talks in Vienna two weeks ago. Among the breakthroughs, the Associated Press reported, was when White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told senior Chinese foreign policy...

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May 22, 2023

Comforting the Afflicters

NEED TO KNOW Comforting the Afflicters MALI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1f6bfc52-cbc4-4acf-9a51-d98604de3d93.png"] Government troops and foreign fighters – allegedly soldiers affiliated with the Wagner Group, the Russian military contractor – massacred at least 500 people in the town of Moura in Mali in late March last year, according to the United Nations...

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May 19, 2023

Tough Love

NEED TO KNOW Tough Love GREECE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/29c83f8b-bf10-474d-8514-5af3443c9a4a.png"] Eight years ago, at the peak of the migration crisis in Europe, around one million Syrian refugees fleeing their country’s bloody war traveled to Greece for safety and economic opportunities. Four years ago, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis defeated leftist Alexis...

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May 18, 2023

East of Eden

NEED TO KNOW East of Eden EAST TIMOR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e7c0ecda-eb4d-d008-87a9-a6a47986a6da.png"] Timor-Leste, or East Timor, depends on an oil-funded sovereign wealth fund to finance 80 percent of its public spending. Now officials forecast they will deplete the fund in the next decade, raising serious questions about how the Southeast Asian...

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May 17, 2023

Wobbly Dominoes

NEED TO KNOW Wobbly Dominoes SUDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/224b0e8f-5be6-4e44-b799-a1b865717c98.png"] The civil war in Sudan has claimed hundreds of lives and forced more than 160,000 people to flee to Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia since it began in mid-April, according to the New York Times. International observers are now wondering if...

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May 16, 2023

Welcome Back

NEED TO KNOW Welcome Back SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e4901088-a8f1-4f67-bb93-075f2af0bff8.png"] The Arab League recently welcomed Syria back into the fold after suspending the country’s membership 12 years ago, when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched his crackdown on rebels wanting to bring an end to his tyrannical rule. Around half a million...

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May 15, 2023

The Ephemeral Ballot

NEED TO KNOW The Ephemeral Ballot VENEZUELA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f52c66cd-9299-42e6-acd8-f970f62c524b.png"] Venezuelan voters are supposed to go to the polls sometime next year to elect a new government. It’s not actually certain that a ballot will be held, however. That said, as Americas Quarterly wrote, even if an election is held,...

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May 12, 2023

Strongman Down

NEED TO KNOW Strongman Down TURKEY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c729e5f1-8c42-44f8-a040-a59baad60df0.png"] Turkish politicians have been appealing to voters in the Mediterranean city of Mersin in the run-up to the country’s presidential elections on May 14. Mersin is the capital of a swing province whose residents could decide the seemingly tight race between...

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May 11, 2023

Family Business

NEED TO KNOW Family Business THAILAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aed0fb0-f5eb-4eda-ae64-69e423143eb5.png"] Thai political candidate Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 36, who is the frontrunner in upcoming national elections, recently gave birth to a son, Pluenkthasinsuksawat, known by his nickname, Thasin. The baby might have brought her luck. Paetongtarn, the scion of a family of prime ministers...

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May 10, 2023

A Pyrrhic Victory

NEED TO KNOW A Pyrrhic Victory UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/974a4247-a9f9-49a9-6238-ece8e1dd27b0.png"] Ukrainian commanders have been establishing protected supply lines and funneling soldiers and weapons to Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city that could become a fulcrum for the long-awaited spring offense against Russian-controlled lines, wrote US News and World Report. Russian forces,...

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May 09, 2023

The Wheels of Fortune

NEED TO KNOW The Wheels of Fortune ROMANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aaceeea-9490-44fc-a4ad-151c831adffc.png"] Romania has emerged from its post-Cold War funk to become a more service-oriented economy that is competitive in acquiring slices of global markets, according to Harvard’s Growth Lab’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, declaring that the East European country has...

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May 08, 2023

Eldorado’s Slums

NEED TO KNOW Eldorado’s Slums MAYOTTE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f0688887-31f5-7da6-248f-2d284876a427.png"] French authorities have dispatched more than 1,800 police officers and gendarmes as well as 500 prosecutors, social workers, and others to the island of Mayotte, a French territory lying between Madagascar and the coast of Mozambique. Called “Operation Wuambushu”, or “take...

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