September 22, 2021

Not Yet Convinced

NEED TO KNOW POLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/31d830f6-377a-4afc-861b-7fbf94dce490.png"] Not Yet Convinced Around half of the people in Poland are fully vaccinated. The other half are leery of heeding the pleas of public health authorities and getting their shots. “We get all the information from the internet, from the TV here, and nothing...

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September 21, 2021

Capybaras at the Gate

NEED TO KNOW ARGENTINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/76e4f41e-d963-4fc8-b435-ba5bf19812a5.png"] Capybaras at the Gate Giant rodents called capybaras have invaded an affluent gated community to the north of Buenos Aires in Argentina, where they call the cute, dog-like animals carpinchos. As residents of the well-known Nordelta community complained about the pests in the...

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September 20, 2021

King of the Mountain

NEED TO KNOW CANADA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7ee49a6-d768-4bd1-93d6-b44b086c3c21.png"] King of the Mountain When Canadians go to the polls on September 20, they will have had a mere 36 days to decide who should be their next prime minister. The current holder of that esteemed office, Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party, called...

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September 17, 2021

How to Win Big

NEED TO KNOW RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] How to Win Big Boris Vishnevsky was shocked when he saw the names and faces of his two opponents in the upcoming elections to the Russian lower house of parliament, the Duma. His rivals were both named Boris Vishnevsky. Both were around his age...

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September 16, 2021

The Forever Insurgency

NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] The Forever Insurgency The Taliban claimed victory after the recent end of the US-led NATO occupation of Afghanistan. Now, while they face serious challenges governing their traumatized nation, as Deutsche Welle explained, they at least won’t have to deal with the terrorism that...

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September 15, 2021

Demography, Meet Destiny

NEED TO KNOW INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1ac703d1-8192-40be-95ea-427a8f7ed9ee.png"] Demography, Meet Destiny India is slated to surpass China and become the most populous country in the world before the end of the decade. By 2050, according to the United Nations, as reported in the Hindu, India will have 1.64 billion residents while...

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September 14, 2021

The Price of Democracy

NEED TO KNOW GUINEA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/963d6fc3-90db-4090-ad9a-da882d906f12.png"] The Price of Democracy The lives of Guineans and the wallets of industries everywhere were thrown into disarray after a recent coup in the small Western African country of Guinea. After gunfire erupted in the capital of Conakry, Guinean Army Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who...

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September 13, 2021

Eco Election

NEED TO KNOW NORWAY [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/65102137-137a-414d-a10e-0cd0d00c7aa4.png"] Eco Election Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg might become the first top politician to be ousted due to climate change. Polls forecast that Solberg and her Conservative Party will lose the Sept. 13 general election in the Scandinavian country to Labor Party leader Jonas...

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September 10, 2021

Too Big To Succeed

NEED TO KNOW CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] Too Big To Succeed Chinese President Xi Jinping recently announced the creation of a new stock exchange for small and medium-sized enterprises in Beijing. The announcement might have surprised some observers. As Reuters explained, the world’s most populous country and second-largest economy already...

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September 09, 2021

Remember the Children

NEED TO KNOW NIGERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6c258edc-b123-4d47-98e3-f42e226ea64f.png"] Remember the Children Gunmen in Nigeria freed nearly a hundred kidnapped school children recently. Families in Nigeria's north-central Niger State raised $140,000 and handed over motorbikes to pay the gunmen’s ransom. A relieved Hauwa'u Isa reclaimed her seven children upon their release. "I cannot...

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September 08, 2021

Human Weapons

NEED TO KNOW LITHUANIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e7852ed7-2760-4e7e-a300-0fc715ec1ca8.png"] Human Weapons Lithuania is building a 315-mile-long fence on its southern border. The structure has two functions: keeping refugees and asylum seekers out and snubbing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, whom Lithuanian leaders say is trying to foist the unfortunate migrants on them in...

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September 07, 2021

Testing the Scales

NEED TO KNOW BOLIVIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8ed01a1e-5cea-4b63-b4c0-c3727f7de51c.png"] Testing the Scales A lot is capturing Bolivians' attention these days. Wildfires are raging through the forests. Cases of Covid-19 are rising again. Its national soccer team is playing the World Cup qualifiers. But what really has the country mesmerized – and polarized...

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September 06, 2021

Sweaty Palms

NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] Sweaty Palms Indian envoys recently spoke to Taliban officials who now run Afghanistan after the American withdrawal from the Central Asian country last month. “Discussions focused on safety, security and (the) return of Indian nationals stranded in Afghanistan,” the Indian Ministry of External Affairs...

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September 03, 2021

A Country Named Despair

NEED TO KNOW HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] A Country Named Despair In July, the president of Haiti was assassinated. In mid-August, an earthquake in the south killed more than 2,200 and left a million injured, homeless and destitute. Then came a hurricane. And in between it all arrived an interim government...

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September 02, 2021

Avoiding Sinkholes

NEED TO KNOW MOROCCO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5456929d-d2a4-4505-94be-29745678ea3d.png"] Avoiding Sinkholes Moroccan King Mohammed VI recently denounced “methodical attacks” on his country, alluding to critics abroad who have raised questions about the kingdom’s policies in the disputed territory of the Western Sahara, the alleged use of Israeli spy software in civil rights...

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September 01, 2021

When the Levee Breaks

NEED TO KNOW ETHIOPIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/bf55b5d2-7db8-404a-b87b-c88a42597d29.png"] When the Levee Breaks Rebels seeking to separate their region from Ethiopia, the Oromo Liberation Army, have been on the rampage in the East African country, killing around 150 people in one recent incident alone, the Associated Press reported. The rebels and their affiliated...

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August 31, 2021

RealPolitik

NEED TO KNOW UKRAINE & RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2aaf5c8d-a4e6-42cf-9dd9-f761d6bfed83.png"] RealPolitik Erfan Kudusov and many other Tatars fled Crimea when Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014. To many in Kudusov’s community, the Russian takeover evoked Josef Stalin’s mass deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944. Their fears were not overblown. Tatar friends of...

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August 30, 2021

No Vacancy

NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] No Vacancy Airbnb will offer 20,000 Afghan refugees free, temporary housing around the world as they seek to reestablish new lives after the militant, theocratic Taliban reasserted control over their Central Asian country, reported TechCrunch. Unfortunately, however, the platform can’t offer a sustainable solution...

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August 27, 2021

Brother, Can You Spare a Wage Hike?

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Brother, Can You Spare a Wage Hike? An Iranian immigrant, Zahra Hossein Zadeh, earns $19 an hour cleaning hotel rooms in Sydney, Australia. “Honestly, I don’t have any financial problems,” Zadeh told the Washington Post. When she learned about the US federal minimum wage...

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August 26, 2021

Fighting the Undertow

NEED TO KNOW AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b8aca45b-1687-4d5b-b62c-09186470d8a2.png"] Fighting the Undertow Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema was sworn in as president Tuesday after a stunning defeat of an incumbent bent on staying put and using all the powers of his office to do so. What's remarkable, though, is that former President Edgar...

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