June 01, 2022

But First, Trust

NEED TO KNOW But First, Trust IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] An Iranian engineer recently died and another employee was wounded in an “unexplained incident” at the Parchin military complex where International Atomic Energy Agency officials previously believed the country had been conducting research on nuclear weapons. As CBS News explained, the...

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May 31, 2022

The Old Malignancy

NEED TO KNOW The Old Malignancy WEST AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8bda180e-c600-c3ec-d2fb-e8dfad709a2d.png"] Sixty alleged terrorists on motorcycles attacked a military checkpoint in Kpinkankandi on the Togo side of the border with Burkina Faso recently, killing eight soldiers and wounding 13. The troops were there to stop al Qaeda, Islamic State and...

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May 30, 2022

The Grim Reaper’s Harvest

NEED TO KNOW The Grim Reaper’s Harvest UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b04f8892-ad2c-9be1-f2b6-ab5ebd3fe894.png"] The Russo-Ukrainian War has now crossed the three-month mark. So far, it’s a stalemate. At the Brookings Institution, researchers see “a war of attrition, with neither side capable of a decisive military breakthrough.” How the war will end remains unclear....

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May 27, 2022

Return of the Repressed

NEED TO KNOW Return of the Repressed COLOMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/80e582e1-1ef0-4fb5-a86a-699a8cf7cddf.png"] A Colombian rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN) announced a 10-day, unilateral ceasefire with government forces to allow voters in the South American country to cast ballots for a new president on May 29. As Al Jazeera reported, the...

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May 26, 2022

A Faustian Bargain

NEED TO KNOW A Faustian Bargain CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7e5325a-3ac2-4df5-8925-90bdfbdaf0d9.png"] Soldiers with links to Russia recently beat, tortured and executed civilians in the Central African Republic. The soldiers included mercenaries employed by the Wagner Group, a Russian private military security contractor, said Human Rights Watch. The United Nations...

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May 25, 2022

Cutting Edge, Blunted

NEED TO KNOW Cutting Edge, Blunted EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] American serial entrepreneur Elon Musk’s proposed purchase of social network Twitter has garnered a lot of headlines lately. But Musk’s plan could hit serious roadblocks if he expects Twitter to operate in the European Union, among the world's three...

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May 24, 2022

The Jig is Up

NEED TO KNOW The Jig is Up NORTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/081c0373-fb17-4e7d-af63-346faaef42b7.png"] For more than two years, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un insisted that the coronavirus had not pierced his country's population, even as health experts and media worldwide found evidence that the illness had spread throughout the globe. Recently,...

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May 23, 2022

Payback

NEED TO KNOW Payback UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/976a1d06-3172-737e-86b7-6adaae2bcc0d.png"] Officers with Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) recently seized a man in Sloviansk, a city in the country’s Russian-dominated eastern region, for allegedly collaborating with Russian forces that have invaded the East European country. "What did he ask you for?" a security officer asked...

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May 20, 2022

The New Guard

NEED TO KNOW The New Guard AUSTRALIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/81d62805-bef8-41fd-9c0c-ed93ea461226.png"] Australia is experiencing its most raucous federal elections in years as outsiders seemed poised to disrupt the placid pace of leaders in Canberra after polls close on May 21. Voters in North Sydney, a wealthy, multicultural district of the continent-country’s largest...

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May 19, 2022

Guns and Crypto

NEED TO KNOW Guns and Crypto EL SALVADOR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9d16e98f-6fe6-4329-b9c8-47184d56b2ce.png"] Crime and Bitcoin are the two most powerful forces in El Salvador. The question is whether those forces will be centripetal and bring people together or whether they will be centrifugal and pull the country apart. In March, a record...

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May 18, 2022

The Forever-war

NEED TO KNOW The Forever-war WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Some Ukrainian women in Poland, refugees from their country’s war against Russia, want to have abortions. But Poland has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Poland’s rules fall short...

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May 17, 2022

All Hot on the Cyber Front

NEED TO KNOW All Hot on the Cyber Front RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] On May 9, as Russian soldiers, tanks and other vehicles paraded through the Red Square to celebrate the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, the Russian news website Lenta.ru was running headlines like...

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May 16, 2022

Home Alone

NEED TO KNOW Home Alone CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] A 13-year-old Chinese boy was home alone for 66 days in Kunshan in eastern China while his parents got caught up in a coronavirus lockdown in Shanghai. As the South China Morning Post reported, the boy took care of himself as...

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May 13, 2022

Shattered

NEED TO KNOW Shattered LEBANON [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a353fadd-2d2a-41b3-b0c1-951b96702e16.png"] Lebanese expatriates took to the polls recently before parliamentary elections in their homeland on May 15. Their role in the ballot is important because of the enormous size of the diaspora due to the economic crisis. According to the National news outlet, the...

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May 12, 2022

When the Show Doesn’t Go On

NEED TO KNOW When the Show Doesn't Go On SOUTH AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5516b8d6-0af4-46a7-8454-a3339ff1009f.png"] Environmentalists on the Wild Coast, a region of South Africa, are demonstrating and litigating against a proposed seismic survey that would help Shell’s oil offshore explorations. The activists said the survey will include loud sound waves...

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May 11, 2022

The Boogeymen

NEED TO KNOW The Boogeymen UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9ab09fcd-a2f6-3da1-f121-d5fa811d9ebd.png"] Ukraine’s Azov Battalion started off eight years ago as a group of far-right activists who launched attacks against pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian region of the Donbas. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, they have been incorporated into the Ukrainian military. Russia has...

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May 10, 2022

Outsourcing Futures

NEED TO KNOW Outsourcing Futures UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] Hundreds of migrants are crossing the dangerous English Channel to start new lives in Britain even as authorities in London unveiled a plan last month to permanently settle them more than 6,000 miles away in the African country of Rwanda. Described...

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May 09, 2022

It Runs in the Family

NEED TO KNOW It Runs in the Family PHILIPPINES [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/76f74898-7b3b-4fc1-b7d7-88cadfea2fdf.png"] Boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, a senator in the Philippines who is now running for the president, recently called on authorities to release Filipino Senator Leila de Lima from jail. As the Philippine Daily Inquirer explained, de Lima is one...

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May 06, 2022

Law & Order

NEED TO KNOW Law & Order HONG KONG [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed89ce6f-df7c-493b-809a-681d51fa4904.png"] Gangsters beat up and robbed John Lee Ka-chiu when he was a boy growing up 50 years ago in Hong Kong public housing. Now the man whom Chinese leaders in Beijing have tapped to lead the free-market-oriented metropolis recalled...

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May 05, 2022

Batons and Bucks

NEED TO KNOW Batons and Bucks NORTHERN IRELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e1fa23fe-bd64-4526-9f49-8430fef05250.png"] Sinn Fein, with a history as the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, a militant organization, is now poised to win the largest share of seats in Northern Ireland’s regional parliament when voters in the British territory go...

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