December 15, 2021

Moving On

NEED TO KNOW Moving On SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e4901088-a8f1-4f67-bb93-075f2af0bff8.png"] Syrian President Bashar Assad’s friends and relatives are making billions selling an illegal amphetamine called captagon in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East, a New York Times investigation found. Overseeing the operation is Assad’s younger brother, Maher, who runs...

Read full story →

December 14, 2021

Face-Off

NEED TO KNOW Face-Off RUSSIA AND UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] Russia is amassing troops on the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian leaders say they can’t repel an invasion without American and European help. The potentially biggest battle on the continent since World War II is in the offing, Business Insider wrote. It...

Read full story →

December 13, 2021

Epsilon, Kappa, Pi

NEED TO KNOW Epsilon, Kappa, Pi WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] The experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) believe the speedy infection rate and unknown consequences of the omicron variant of the coronavirus could change the course of the pandemic. Deaths due to Covid-19 increased by 10 percent in the...

Read full story →

December 10, 2021

Pig in the Poke

NEED TO KNOW Pig in the Poke HONG KONG [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ed89ce6f-df7c-493b-809a-681d51fa4904.png"] A wild boar infestation in Hong Kong provided fodder for a political cartoonist who was critical of how Chinese authorities demanded to screen candidates who could run in the city’s legislative elections on Dec. 19. As the Washington Post...

Read full story →

December 09, 2021

Mining Discontent

NEED TO KNOW Mining Discontent SERBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/fd16e594-c67c-41ff-beb7-977236001063.png"] Lithium is a crucial component in the batteries that power electric vehicles. But many Serbs don’t think that makes the shiny metal green. That's why thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Serbian capital of Belgrade recently to call on...

Read full story →

December 08, 2021

King of the Sinking Mountain

NEED TO KNOW King of the Sinking Mountain TURKEY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c729e5f1-8c42-44f8-a040-a59baad60df0.png"] President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nearly 20 years’ long quest to dominate Turkish politics – first controlling the all-important city of Istanbul, then governing as prime minister and, lastly, altering the country’s constitution so he could wield the expanded powers...

Read full story →

December 07, 2021

Backfire

NEED TO KNOW Backfire BELARUS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/40d35092-1c13-4975-b330-a9331d06a01d.png"] Children are sleeping in the woods on the border between Belarus and Poland. Many haven’t eaten in days. Instances of hypothermia are increasing, prompting the United Nations and humanitarian organizations to scale up aid amid a rising death count. The children, their parents...

Read full story →

December 06, 2021

Blame Game

NEED TO KNOW Blame Game WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] If only those incompetent, disease-ridden Africans had worked harder to combat the spread of Covid-19, the world might not be facing yet another threat in the form of the omicron variant. Or at least that’s the line of false and unproductive...

Read full story →

December 03, 2021

Farmers or Bust

NEED TO KNOW Farmers or Bust INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1ac703d1-8192-40be-95ea-427a8f7ed9ee.png"] Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has established a tough guy image in his massive country’s rough-and-tumble politics. But recently, humbled farmers laid him low. Amid huge street protests and intense political pressure, Modi recently rescinded three farm laws that had...

Read full story →

December 02, 2021

The Politics of Atonement

NEED TO KNOW The Politics of Atonement THE GAMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/89b5a0c0-046d-402b-bc1b-96a8d9ab5730.png"] In 2017, after ruling the Gambia for 22 years, former dictator Yahya Jammeh went into exile in Equatorial Guinea after neighboring countries sent troops to enforce the election that resulted in the victory of current President Adama Barrow. Jammeh...

Read full story →

December 01, 2021

Promoting Parenthood

NEED TO KNOW Promoting Parenthood WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Most wealthy countries offer nationwide paid parental leave. Estonia, for example, mandates 82 weeks for new parents, reported the Washington Post, citing World Policy Analysis Center data. British citizens receive 39 weeks. The Japanese enjoy 52 weeks or more. Often, policymakers...

Read full story →

November 30, 2021

Standing Tall

NEED TO KNOW Standing Tall BARBADOS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f789b0d4-d2ad-44af-8a47-5201502a16bd.png"] It’s often forgotten that Queen Elizabeth is the head of state of many former British colonies that have become full-fledged independent countries, including Australia and Canada, where she serves as a “nonpartisan symbol of the nation, constitutional continuity, and moral authority,”...

Read full story →

November 29, 2021

Auf Wiedersehen, Mutti

NEED TO KNOW Auf Wiedersehen, Mutti GERMANY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/96d66e57-2644-40b9-aed7-fc66370c3077.png"] Acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently warned her fellow Christian Democrats that the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic hitting the Central European country could be “worse than anything we’ve seen,” as Bloomberg wrote. The situation, she said, was already...

Read full story →

November 26, 2021

Stacking Decks

NEED TO KNOW Stacking Decks HONDURAS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5e2a67ee-c113-425a-b7dc-9cb08a72f95e.png"] When voters in Honduras go to the polls to elect a new president on Nov. 28, many might be frightened. During the last presidential election in 2017, after President Juan Orlando Hernández won reelection amid fraud claims, mass protests triggered a...

Read full story →

November 25, 2021

Red Halo

NEED TO KNOW Red Halo CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] If communists practiced canonization, Chinese President Xi Jinping would be a candidate for sainthood. The honchos of the Chinese Communist Party recently “exalted” 68-year-old Xi as a “historical leader” of the country, Axios reported. Only the founder of the people’s republic, Mao...

Read full story →

November 24, 2021

Punching Above Its Weight

NEED TO KNOW Punching Above Its Weight ERITREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a90fd977-7674-18bb-a4c1-4c046edb3465.png"] The US government recently imposed sanctions on Eritrea’s sole political party and military forces to punish the East African country’s role in the bloody civil war in neighboring Ethiopia. For the past year, Eritrea has been helping Ethiopia combat a...

Read full story →

November 23, 2021

When Heroes Fall

NEED TO KNOW When Heroes Fall GEORGIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e341329d-b90e-4b8e-8e3b-6429d9366897.png"] The European Court of Human Rights recently demanded that the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia safeguard former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who had been staging a hunger strike in prison, before ending it over the weekend. Georgian authorities arrested and imprisoned Saakashvili, who...

Read full story →

November 22, 2021

A Spoon Full of Salt

NEED TO KNOW A Spoon Full of Salt EUROPE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f9c83d42-7d43-4e2f-a6d6-f7bf04744b7d.png"] Austria recently instituted a nationwide lockdown for the unvaccinated, forbidding anyone without a shot over the age of 12 to leave their home unless they’re working, shopping, exercising or seeking a vaccination, the BBC reported. Violating the lockdown...

Read full story →

November 19, 2021

Eyes Wide Open

NEED TO KNOW Eyes Wide Open CHILE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/baed026e-8c02-42fc-8c27-383b8bf87a6c.png"] Fabiola Campillai was walking to work in 2019 when Chilean security forces fired a tear gas canister at her, striking her face, blinding her permanently and damaging her brain. At the time, civil unrest was rising in Chile over social...

Read full story →

November 18, 2021

Chaos Theory

NEED TO KNOW Chaos Theory CENTRAL ASIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2e2ef13c-a42d-db72-25cb-edaa084a6043.png"] The former Soviet republics of Central Asia are following in the footsteps of Russia in exerting control over social media. Users of Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and other apps know that officials sometimes throttle the services in order to silence debates...

Read full story →