August 25, 2021

Recall Rage

NEED TO KNOW TAIWAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/dab1143a-8514-4f63-8098-bd36050d9680.png"] Recall Rage Is too much democracy a bad thing? If you ask some progressive politicians in Taiwan these days, they would likely answer yes. That's because a mechanism that was intended to deepen democracy is now being wielded as a weapon in "partisan revenge...

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August 24, 2021

The Overachiever

NEED TO KNOW ICELAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/05c4ecf9-d048-43ef-9046-22a7f3c10f03.png"] The Overachiever Iceland has long punched above its weight in tourism, scientific prowess, the arts and other realms – you could call this small country of 368,000 an overachiever. The pandemic has been no exception. Nature noted last year "How Iceland hammered Covid with science,"...

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August 23, 2021

The Winners of Nothing

NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] The Winners of Nothing A week ago, the Taliban toppled the Afghan government and took over the country. Thousands have fled and many thousands more are trying to. Most of the international community is holding back diplomatic recognition. The US has frozen billions...

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August 20, 2021

Weaponizing Passports

NEED TO KNOW UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3889a598-67d0-4b0d-b019-11292382b589.png"] Weaponizing Passports Russian officials have been issuing Russian passports to residents of eastern Ukraine, a region that has declared independence and affiliation with Moscow in a strategy the Atlantic Council called 'the weaponization of citizenship." They plan to distribute about 1 million. Russia annexed the...

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August 19, 2021

Truth & Consequences

NEED TO KNOW THE PHILIPPINES [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/76f74898-7b3b-4fc1-b7d7-88cadfea2fdf.png"] Truth & Consequences Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court want to investigate whether people died unjustly in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. “Information…suggests that state actors, primarily members of the Philippine security forces, killed thousands of suspected drug users and other...

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August 18, 2021

The Crypto Fiat

NEED TO KNOW EL SALVADOR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9d16e98f-6fe6-4329-b9c8-47184d56b2ce.png"] The Crypto Fiat Bitcoin has fascinated and frightened investors who love to watch its value rise (one bitcoin is worth more than $45,000 now) as well as skeptics who keep reminding cryptocurrency advocates that their beloved virtual money is exceptionally risky because...

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August 17, 2021

Weaponizing Secularism

NEED TO KNOW FRANCE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d78d9fd2-f0df-4e59-9bd4-334bffdc4974.png"] Weaponizing Secularism Ever since French officials banned Muslim women from wearing face veils at schools in 2004, the French have debated the limits they can place on Islamic dress and expression in order to preserve the secular nature of French culture. There is little...

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August 16, 2021

The Fall

NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] The Fall Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country Sunday as Taliban fighters entered Kabul, leading to the collapse of Afghanistan’s democratically elected government and the takeover of the country. For anyone watching the country over the past few weeks, it was no surprise. In...

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August 13, 2021

Problem Child

NEED TO KNOW POLAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/31d830f6-377a-4afc-861b-7fbf94dce490.png"] Problem Child From the headlines, one would think Poland is at war with the European Union. The Central European country is “fighting” bureaucrats in Brussels. Local pundits call on the EU to be “tougher.” Newspapers described the 27-nation bloc, the most important conglomeration of...

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August 12, 2021

A Storm Is Brewing

NEED TO KNOW ZAMBIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b35b30bb-8281-f4fe-f15c-397cafc083d1.png"] A Storm Is Brewing Zambian President Edgar Lungu deployed the army after clashes between members of his ruling Patriotic Front and the opposition United Party for National Development resulted in the deaths of two Patriotic Front supporters in the capital of Lusaka. Assailants...

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August 11, 2021

A Page, Borrowed

NEED TO KNOW BRAZIL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b4df2610-e790-44f6-bec1-f859c705ae8b.png"] A Page, Borrowed Protesters staged events throughout Brazil recently after far-right populist President Jair Bolsonaro, citing baseless claims of fraud, suggested he might need to postpone elections next year due to potential vote-rigging in the country’s electoral system. His comments stoked fears that he...

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August 10, 2021

Energy Chess

NEED TO KNOW RUSSIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db8acf88-8b4f-4b1c-bf9a-1e71d4eee94b.png"] Energy Chess The US and Germany recently reached a deal wherein the US would agree to drop its opposition to Nord Stream 2, an approximately 750-mile-long pipeline through the Baltic Sea that would allow Russia to export natural gas to Europe, as the...

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August 09, 2021

Hunting Equilibrium

NEED TO KNOW EUROPE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/f9c83d42-7d43-4e2f-a6d6-f7bf04744b7d.png"] Hunting Equilibrium Italian officials recently banned massive cruise ships from the fabled lagoon of the City of Canals. The ships’ hastened erosion and polluted the ancient lagoon’s sensitive ecosystem, said critics who welcomed the move. Others worried that the absence of the floating behemoths...

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August 06, 2021

It’s Getting Hot in Here

NEED TO KNOW MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7000f0bb-c02b-4438-87c6-002be2c0dfc6.png"] It’s Getting Hot in Here As Americans and Turks worry about hazy skies from fires in the western US, Turkey and southern Europe, and deadly floods strike northern Europe and China, the Middle East is facing one of its...

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August 05, 2021

The Invasion of the Nurdle

NEED TO KNOW SRI LANKA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/d469a690-58fa-4bcb-9cd4-16e56a24386f.png"] The Invasion of the Nurdle First, smoke from the burning container ship X-Press Pearl polluted the skies off Sri Lanka’s west coast. Now, Sri Lankans are watching as the vessel’s cargo pollutes the sea around their island nation to the south of...

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August 04, 2021

Little Brother

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Little Brother Azerbaijani authorities filmed journalist Khadija Ismayilova in intimate situations in her home in Baku, alleged that she drove a colleague to suicide and charged her with tax fraud. Sentenced to seven years in prison, she was released on bail after 18...

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August 03, 2021

Hats, White and Black

NEED TO KNOW PERU [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7d13971f-19d8-4bc2-ac9e-119d2f349be4.png"] Hats, White and Black Peruvians living in the Andean town of Niño Jesús de Huarapite feel as if nobody in the capital of Lima is in their corner. Many remember how Peruvian troops and US-trained counterterrorism forces perpetrated a massacre in the town...

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August 02, 2021

Papers, Please

NEED TO KNOW EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] Papers, Please Imagine a lamp-lit cobblestone street on a dark, foggy night in Paris. As an innocent civilian walks down the street with the intent of boarding a bus out of the city, a uniformed man approaches from the shadows. “Your papers,...

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July 30, 2021

A Land of No Yield

NEED TO KNOW MADAGASCAR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/cf906d99-8f50-4493-b06f-8a929a73ebeb.png"] A Land of No Yield Hungry people in Madagascar are eating raw cactus fruit, leaves and locusts to survive the country's worst famine since the early 1980s. A woman identified as Tamaria who lives in Amboasary on the African island’s southern coast told the...

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July 29, 2021

Pandemic+’Coup’/geopolitics=Crisis

NEED TO KNOW TUNISIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1f262cf6-0ed8-4367-aeca-5f0f2b6684d0.png"] Pandemic+'Coup'/geopolitics=Crisis For some, the coronavirus pandemic feels like it’s ending. For Tunisians, it’s as if it has just begun. Hospital beds, oxygen and other medical supplies are running low in the North African country that managed to avoid the worst of the first wave...

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