August 24, 2022

The Old, the New and the Dead

NEED TO KNOW The Old, the New and the Dead ANGOLA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e580f12f-c318-4898-ba82-0cb1373117e3.png"] The recent return of the body of the late president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, to his home from Spain was a fitting prelude to the tensions that have been growing in the country in...

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August 23, 2022

Door Fees

NEED TO KNOW Door Fees SINGAPORE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7975032b-ee5e-4c38-bc1f-27c01a1778c5.png"] In the 2013 novel (and 2018 hit film) “Crazy Rich Asians,” the ingénue travels to Singapore and realizes that her boyfriend is so fabulously wealthy that their backgrounds might be too different for them to share a life together. Spoiler alert –...

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August 22, 2022

A Changing Country

NEED TO KNOW A Changing Country UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/25f6c507-5013-1f57-bcbe-a295d2d6dac9.png"] Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Ukraine had 40 million people. Now it is 6.7 million short. Those missing millions have crossed the border, to Poland, to Romania, to Hungary, to safety. But that is only part of the story:...

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August 19, 2022

Two Diamonds

NEED TO KNOW Two Diamonds INDIA/ PAKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/70dcc710-39f9-4d07-a37e-84a4eff885c5.png"] India and Pakistan had the rare experience of separating from one another at the same time they achieved independence from Britain, 75 years ago this month, on Aug. 15, 1947. Both countries appear to still be in search of themselves...

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August 18, 2022

A Grave Hour

NEED TO KNOW A Grave Hour UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/25f6c507-5013-1f57-bcbe-a295d2d6dac9.png"] The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was among the worst nuclear accidents in world history. Now, the world is bracing for another. “Humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” warned UN Secretary-General António Guterres earlier this month. Thirty-six years...

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August 17, 2022

The War Dividend

NEED TO KNOW The War Dividend CAMEROON [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6863deda-11be-43e3-9033-4bec4b249409.png"] A few months ago, elite government soldiers in Ndop in the Northwest region of Cameroon detained more than 30 young men on motorcycles who were part of a funeral procession, but whom the soldiers said they believed were separatist fighters. “The...

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August 16, 2022

Terror, Redux

NEED TO KNOW Terror, Redux AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] On Monday, the Taliban marked the first anniversary of their takeover of Afghanistan with a national holiday, small victory parades and televised speeches boasting of their “great achievements” over the past year, the Associated Press reported. “We fulfilled the obligation of jihad...

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August 15, 2022

Suffer the Monkeys

NEED TO KNOW Suffer the Monkeys WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] What’s in a name, Shakespeare once wrote. Well for monkeys these days, everything. Since May, monkeypox has been spreading exponentially around the globe, with countries that have never seen a case now reporting surges. Unfortunately, fatigue and anger stemming from the...

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August 12, 2022

Having a Cow

NEED TO KNOW Having a Cow NETHERLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/50b9b3d5-1234-443a-9402-f9f624fae487.png"] Near the prime minister’s office in The Hague, the seat of the government of the Netherlands, lies the Koediefstraat, or ‘Cow Thief Street’. Perhaps it was the Koediefstraat that inspired the Dutch government’s latest measure to combat climate change and reach...

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August 11, 2022

The Girls Next Door

NEED TO KNOW The Girls Next Door BANGLADESH [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/46a3120a-34a1-40f2-8221-240a899a0fd0.png"] Indian investigators recently busted an alleged human trafficking ring that was smuggling ethnic Rohingya girls into India from refugee camps in Bangladesh. It’s just the latest misfortune to befall members of this ethnic group who have been forced from their...

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August 10, 2022

A Tiger’s Tail

NEED TO KNOW A Tiger’s Tail WEST BANK & GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7446631-e728-4689-8f2d-ebddc1f4962c.png"] Palestinian lawyers took to the streets in Ramallah in the Israel-occupied territories of the West Bank recently to protest against the rule of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. As Agence France-Presse explained, the Oslo Peace Accords established...

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August 09, 2022

We’re Jammin’

NEED TO KNOW KENYA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/042c2340-7f46-4be6-b8d2-b99757193837.png"] Everywhere in Kenya these days, people are jamming, on corners, at gas stations, and even on buses. That’s because there’s a presidential election Tuesday and appealing to the youth vote – 40 percent of the electorate – is critical for a win. But...

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August 08, 2022

War-Life Balance

NEED TO KNOW UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/25f6c507-5013-1f57-bcbe-a295d2d6dac9.png"] An emergency worker recently proposed to his girlfriend. Dressed in his first responder gear as his colleagues watched, he went on bended knee and presented his sweetheart with a ring. The moment would not have been a big deal, except that it occurred...

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August 05, 2022

Same Old, Same Old

NEED TO KNOW Same Old, Same Old IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative former judge, won office a year ago promising change. But the same old problems continue to bedevil the country. The collapse of a luxury building in the southwest city of Abadan in May, a...

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August 04, 2022

Il Duce’s Smile

NEED TO KNOW Il Duce’s Smile ITALY Europe’s first fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, once said that “Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice, it is a fallacy.” Democracy might be bringing fascism back to Italy again, however, almost 80 years after Il Duce was executed. That’s because when Italian...

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August 03, 2022

The Bidding War

NEED TO KNOW The Bidding War CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] American and Chinese ships and planes are more frequently encountering each other in the western Pacific Ocean, according to General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during a recent visit to Indonesia. “The message is the...

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August 02, 2022

Floating On

NEED TO KNOW Floating On EGYPT [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/180d3d63-0093-422e-a6d2-b3d9896f0053.png"] The houseboats of the Nile River in Egypt have a storied past. Many believe the pharaohs used them thousands of years ago for long river voyages, the BBC explained, while in the 19th and 20th centuries Ottoman and British military leaders used...

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August 01, 2022

The Revanchist’s Folly

NEED TO KNOW ­ The Revanchist’s Folly UKRAINE/ RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] Russia plans to hold elections in the occupied Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and others as early as September, paving the way for Russian President Vladimir Putin to annex those regions in the same way he seized...

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July 29, 2022

A Grand Companion

NEED TO KNOW A Grand Companion HONDURAS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5e2a67ee-c113-425a-b7dc-9cb08a72f95e.png"] A judge in Honduras recently sentenced Roberto David Castillo, a top business executive and graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, to 22.5 years in prison for his role in the 2016 murder of Berta Caceres, an indigenous...

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July 28, 2022

The Great War, Redux

NEED TO KNOW The Great War, Redux DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed507180-9c5f-4223-b88c-6f054c876a9f.png"] The Great African War, or the African World War, took place in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. As many as six million people...

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