March 08, 2023

Second Thoughts

NEED TO KNOW Second Thoughts SUDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/224b0e8f-5be6-4e44-b799-a1b865717c98.png"] Sudan’s military junta has been colluding with an affiliate of Russian military contractor the Wagner Group to plunder the strife-torn African nation’s gold, robbing impoverished Sudanese citizens of critical funds while bolstering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The European Union recently slapped sanctions...

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March 07, 2023

Giving Back Paradise

NEED TO KNOW Giving Back Paradise CHAGOS ISLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/89d7160a-87be-e679-f5a2-cea2b674235b.png"] In the 1960s, British leaders were in the final stages of dismantling the empire that their forebears had built over the preceding 400 years. Yet, as Africans, Indians, and others were establishing their new nations, Chagossians were losing control...

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March 06, 2023

The Black Sheep and the Family

NEED TO KNOW The Black Sheep and the Family HUNGARY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f77307e3-d12d-4a63-bcb5-407e519df6dc.png"] Hungarian objections to Finland and Sweden entering NATO might delay a vote of the allies on accepting the two Nordic countries into the pact. As Reuters reported, Finnish and Swedish leaders appealed to join NATO last year after...

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March 03, 2023

Beyond the Horizon

NEED TO KNOW Beyond the Horizon ESTONIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b7b6acd0-f5d2-4704-9a83-f952a05aa061.png"] Few countries have been more stalwart in their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than Estonia. A former Soviet republic and current NATO member with a nearly 200-mile-long border with Russia, Estonia has for years been ringing alarm bells about Russian...

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March 02, 2023

A Dragon in the Shadows

NEED TO KNOW A Dragon in the Shadows PARAGUAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ee550bff-ea25-4704-9d3e-337485aa4528.png"] When voters in Paraguay go to the polls on April 30, they will vote for every high office in the land – president, vice president, all 80 lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies and all 45 senators, as...

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March 01, 2023

Nintendo and Synagogues

NEED TO KNOW Nintendo and Synagogues PERSIAN GULF [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2ef43bc6-4aa5-34f4-36a6-10052b2a1cae.png"] The Arab nations of the Persian Gulf are normalizing relations with Israel, loosening some of their harsh Islamic orthodoxies, and gradually transitioning their oil-dependent economies to a post-carbon future. These changes could herald a new era of openness and prosperity....

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February 28, 2023

Don’t Leave a Message

NEED TO KNOW Don’t Leave a Message KENYA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/042c2340-7f46-4be6-b8d2-b99757193837.png"] Move over, quiet quitting. Employees who are sick and tired of bosses calling them after the end of the business day and at weekends are pushing for laws to maintain boundaries between work and non-work time. In Kenya, for example,...

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February 27, 2023

Man and Country

NEED TO KNOW Man and Country INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1ac703d1-8192-40be-95ea-427a8f7ed9ee.png"] Indian billionaire Gautam Adani used to claim that the success of his energy and port facilities conglomerate, the Adani Group, reflected the rising power of his massive country’s economy. Then, in January, the New York-based Hindenburg Research investment firm accused Adani of...

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February 24, 2023

When Spring Comes

NEED TO KNOW When Spring Comes RUSSIA/ UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/688d90e3-5448-747d-d2c3-d415b6cbbc9b.gif"] As the US and Germany send advanced armored vehicles to help Ukraine’s cause, Russia has lost almost half of its battle tanks, reported the Guardian recently. Half of Russia’s airborne troops have died in the war between the two...

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February 23, 2023

Quite the Handoff

NEED TO KNOW Quite the Handoff NIGERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6c258edc-b123-4d47-98e3-f42e226ea64f.png"] Rioters in Nigeria recently attacked banks and blockaded roads to express their anger over the scarcity of cash since the country’s central bank began replacing old banknotes with new, supposedly more secure designs of the local naira currency. A shortage...

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February 22, 2023

A People, Betrayed

NEED TO KNOW A People, Betrayed LEBANON [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0326e424-e014-0b21-f1eb-761dce1d14a3.png"] After losing their jobs and selling their cars and other assets, parents in Lebanon are giving their children to orphanages because there is nothing left to sell to feed their children. “It was a hard decision,” Hussein Kassar told the Pulitzer...

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February 21, 2023

Winter of Discontent

NEED TO KNOW Winter of Discontent UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] The British press is invoking memories of Margaret Thatcher, the arch-conservative prime minister who fought coal mining unions and other workers’ groups in the 1980s, to describe the current labor unrest that is crippling the United Kingdom. British workers...

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February 20, 2023

Militants-in-Waiting

NEED TO KNOW Militants-in-Waiting PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eaf17bc7-6468-493e-bfe1-86954ffb120a.png"] In Pakistan late last month, a terrorist disguised as a police officer detonated a bomb in a mosque packed with law enforcement officials in Peshawar, a city in the restive northwestern region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan, killing more than 100 people...

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February 17, 2023

Les Misérables

NEED TO KNOW Les Misérables FRANCE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d78d9fd2-f0df-4e59-9bd4-334bffdc4974.png"] It’s an age-old battle in France: French leaders want more work out of their constituents. Workers, meanwhile, say “non.” “We’re worn out by work,” pensioner Bernard Chevalier said in an interview with Reuters. “Retirement should be a second life, not a waiting...

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February 16, 2023

When the Earth Moves

NEED TO KNOW When the Earth Moves TURKEY/ SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0f15500b-d13e-4a44-afc8-f426e94eea1f.png"] Two brothers rationed protein drinks to survive under the rubble of a collapsed building in the city of Kahramanmaras in Turkey, wrote the New York Times. In the northern Syrian city of Afrin, hospital staff named a new-born baby...

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February 15, 2023

The Other Front

NEED TO KNOW The Other Front UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b369e5e7-6255-18ce-c4c4-f081d330ee03.png"] As their fellow citizens battle the Russian army on the eastern front, Ukrainian authorities recently displayed the mounds of cash, luxury watches and cars that a corrupt chief tax collector in the capital of Kyiv acquired as he overlooked $1.2...

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February 14, 2023

The Puppetmasters

NEED TO KNOW The Puppetmasters ZIMBABWE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/32d2805e-affb-4474-9ba4-8fc5eae44e98.png"] Police in Zimbabwe recently arrested more than two dozen members of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) opposition political party during an “unsanctioned gathering.” It was the latest example of “a wave of politically motivated violence against opposition supporters,” reported Reuters. That...

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February 13, 2023

Revolt of the Incas

NEED TO KNOW Revolt of the Incas PERU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7d13971f-19d8-4bc2-ac9e-119d2f349be4.png"] The Peruvian city of Juliaca recently felt like a warzone. “Burning pyres of rubbish and bullet-pocked walls … troops holed up in the airport with AK-47s and riot shields, waiting for a truce that has no date to come …...

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February 10, 2023

Lights Out

NEED TO KNOW Lights Out SOUTH AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5516b8d6-0af4-46a7-8454-a3339ff1009f.png"] André de Ruyter launched investigations into corruption and organized crime at South Africa’s state-owned energy company, Eskom, where he was CEO. Soon after he tendered his resignation in December, he says someone slipped cyanide into his coffee, Quartz reported. He...

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February 09, 2023

Rumbles in the Household

NEED TO KNOW Rumbles in the Household CANADA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7ee49a6-d768-4bd1-93d6-b44b086c3c21.png"] French-speaking Canadians concentrated in the province of Quebec have long sought more autonomy from the central government in Ottawa and the rest of the mainly English-speaking North American country – to the point of wanting to secede from the...

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