December 14, 2022

Greening Pains

NEED TO KNOW Greening Pains FRANCE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d78d9fd2-f0df-4e59-9bd4-334bffdc4974.png"] The European Union plans on banning new non-electric cars starting in 2035. This big shift in the international auto market is part of an effort to reduce new vehicular carbon emissions to reduce the impacts of climate change. As Yale Environment 360...

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December 13, 2022

Them’s Fightin’ Words

NEED TO KNOW Them’s Fightin’ Words WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] When Twitter first launched, it was celebrated in India as a new kind of town square where free speech, productive dialogues and the exchange of ideas were possible. “What we didn’t realize – because we took it for granted for so...

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December 12, 2022

The Invisible Victims

NEED TO KNOW The Invisible Victims UKRAINE/ RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] Earlier this year, doctors in Kherson, Ukraine immediately took action when they heard that Russians were invading their city. They quickly began making fake documents for orphans that claimed the children were too sick to move. “We deliberately wrote false...

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December 09, 2022

Malthusian Miscalculations

NEED TO KNOW Malthusian Miscalculations WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] In the late 18th century, British economist Thomas Malthus posited that humankind’s population would outstrip the planet’s capacity to feed everyone. So far, he has been wrong. Many people may not have noticed that the total population of their planet passed the...

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December 08, 2022

Give War a Chance

NEED TO KNOW Give War a Chance JAPAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ab764327-df98-4918-badd-17c2c79d5685.png"] Japan is planning on increasing defense spending to two percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) over the next five years. That might not seem like a lot in relative terms but it would be double what the country...

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December 07, 2022

Quitting, Loudly

NEED TO KNOW Quitting, Loudly CHILE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/baed026e-8c02-42fc-8c27-383b8bf87a6c.png"] Irina Karamanos recently resigned from her position as First Lady of Chile. She is still Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s partner. The 33-year-old Santiago-based anthropologist, feminist and political organizer simply didn’t want a public position based on that personal relationship. Writing in the...

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December 06, 2022

Royal Flush

NEED TO KNOW Royal Flush EUROPE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f9c83d42-7d43-4e2f-a6d6-f7bf04744b7d.png"] The fifth season of the Netflix show, “The Crown,” depicts the British royal family in the 1990s, a “famously turbulent time” for the late Queen Elizabeth II and her family, wrote People magazine. Three out of four of Elizabeth’s children separated...

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December 05, 2022

Might and Right

NEED TO KNOW Might and Right UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5abbd8c9-acff-2450-0a94-2b5a85a0848a.png"] Ukraine isn’t letting up. After reclaiming more than half of the territory lost after Russia’s invasion in late February, including the major city of Kherson, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is planning to keep pushing against the Russians on the battlefield and in...

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December 02, 2022

New Money, Old Problems

NEED TO KNOW New Money, Old Problems NIGERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6c258edc-b123-4d47-98e3-f42e226ea64f.png"] Nigeria recently launched newly designed currency notes in denominations of 200, 500, and 1,000 naira that are worth, respectively, 45 cents, $1.13, and $2.25. Leaders in the West African nation, the most populous and with the largest economy on...

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December 01, 2022

Inviting Locusts

NEED TO KNOW Inviting Locusts GUATEMALA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db73a011-021f-466b-9b89-77add155facc.png"] Guatemalan authorities recently detained two Americans for attempting to steal scores of Mayan artifacts – “stone spheres, mortars, sphinxes, yokes, anthropomorphic figures – loaded on a truck,” according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. The arrests were an unfortunately...

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November 30, 2022

The Scramble

NEED TO KNOW The Scramble CYPRUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/880db9d5-aa98-4e2b-a4f2-fec3d1a85ab9.png"] As Russians flee their homeland in order to avoid conscription and the trenches in Ukraine where the Russian army has suffered devastating losses, neighboring countries like Georgia, Kazakhstan, Finland and Norway have tightened visa restrictions to prevent a flood of draft...

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November 29, 2022

On The Fence

NEED TO KNOW On the Fence BULGARIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1eb16295-db95-4ff1-8e0b-8bdc4e81cb9c.png"] The Schengen Area is one of the European Union’s most popular innovations: A travel zone where citizens of 26 nations can cross each other’s borders without passports. It was a big deal, then, when the European Commission, the EU’s executive...

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November 28, 2022

It’s the Little Things

NEED TO KNOW It’s the Little Things QATAR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eb313eb2-840e-4e71-8167-30beddab851f.png"] The World Cup was supposed to be Qatar’s crowning achievement, its entry into the club of the world’s most advanced and exclusive destinations for world-class sports events and entertainment. Now the event might go down in history as the...

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November 25, 2022

The Payoff

NEED TO KNOW The Payoff WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Reducing carbon emissions that cause climate change is possibly the struggle of our lifetime. Telling developing nations that they can’t use fossil fuels to grow their economies is unfair and unrealistic, however, as Time magazine explained. Developed nations in North America,...

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November 24, 2022

Roadblocks for a Generation

NEED TO KNOW Roadblocks for a Generation TAIWAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/dab1143a-8514-4f63-8098-bd36050d9680.png"] While Taiwan debates expanding its democracy, observers are debating whether China will be soon launching a takeover attempt against the country, which Chinese leaders view as a renegade province. Taiwanese voters head to the polls on Nov. 26 to vote...

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November 23, 2022

The Little Country That Could

NEED TO KNOW The Little Country That Could NEW ZEALAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/35e498e9-3807-40bd-bf6c-8c9506c3b2cf.png"] Few people on Earth enjoy clear night skies. Light pollution obscures the skies over where 80 percent of the planet’s population lives. In New Zealand, however, National Geographic reported, the country is on track to become one...

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November 22, 2022

The Wizard of Oz

NEED TO KNOW The Wizard of Oz RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] More than 100,000 Russian troops have died since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, according to American estimates that Agence France-Presse cited. The same experts estimated that Ukraine likely has suffered a similar number of losses. Ukraine...

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November 21, 2022

Voting with the Feet

NEED TO KNOW Voting with the Feet NICARAGUA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b1f74445-4296-4463-949d-e92d66c3e3b1.png"] Jose Galeano, 35, has a degree in veterinary medicine. In his home country of Nicaragua, however, where poverty, corruption, and the suppression of political dissent are commonplace, he has worked as a farm laborer. So recently he took out...

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November 18, 2022

Waving Bye-Bye

NEED TO KNOW Waving Bye-Bye EGYPT [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/180d3d63-0093-422e-a6d2-b3d9896f0053.png"] Shortly before Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi hosted world leaders for the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh, he delivered a scornful message to his constituents. He asked them to stop having...

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November 17, 2022

Rock, Meet Hard Place

NEED TO KNOW Rock, Meet Hard Place NEPAL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a519ab91-7b87-4ef0-a6df-573c03bc0303.png"] Nepali soldiers were recently searching for survivors after an earthquake struck the western region of Doti. At least six people died in the 5.6-magnitude quake, a tragedy but nonetheless relatively good news in a country where nearly 9,000 perished...

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