July 28, 2021

Sparking Tinder

NEED TO KNOW SOUTH AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/5516b8d6-0af4-46a7-8454-a3339ff1009f.png"] Sparking Tinder The BBC video of a woman throwing her baby out of a burning building illustrates the violence and suffering that has racked South Africa in recent weeks. The baby and mother survived the fire, which looters lit amid widespread civil...

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July 27, 2021

Pride Goeth…

NEED TO KNOW CHINA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/198e41ed-dcee-4398-8f9e-af928160f105.png"] Pride Goeth… China is building more than 100 new nuclear missile silos in its northwestern desert, according to the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Reported in the Washington Post, the facilities represent a significant increase in the country’s nuclear capabilities. The...

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July 26, 2021

Patria y vida

NEED TO KNOW CUBA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/934b8716-56c1-487d-ba72-11a855fa10c6.png"] Patria y vida Food shortages and price spikes were the initial motivations for the anti-government demonstrations now rocking Cuba. Gross national product declined a whopping 11 percent in the past year as the tourism industry plunged due to the coronavirus pandemic. But now many...

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July 23, 2021

Laurels in Silence

NEED TO KNOW JAPAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ab764327-df98-4918-badd-17c2c79d5685.png"] Laurels in Silence Victorious Olympic athletes will put on their own medals at the Tokyo games this summer. "The medals will not be given around the neck," International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said in an announcement covered by Newsweek. "They will be...

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July 22, 2021

Offshoring Humans

NEED TO KNOW UNITED KINGDOM [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/db250264-45f9-48fa-be6e-ab4d2ef0d6a5.png"] Offshoring Humans Nigel Farage, the former British member of the European Parliament who masterminded his country’s exit from the European Union, recently called the Royal National Lifeboat Institution a “taxi service for illegal immigration” when it picks up migrants in danger at...

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July 21, 2021

The Heat’s On

NEED TO KNOW CANADA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7ee49a6-d768-4bd1-93d6-b44b086c3c21.png"] The Heat's On Cherries roasting on trees, crops baking in fields, mussels being boiled alive in the ocean – these are some of the casualties – alongside humans and their villages – of a record-setting wildfire season in the wake of a record-setting...

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July 20, 2021

Holding On Tight

NEED TO KNOW ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e9f003e4-763f-45aa-8bd2-dd52c7067104.png"] Holding On Tight Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is a far-right leader who cobbled together opposition parties from across his country’s broad political spectrum, including an Islamist party, in order to replace Benjamin Netanyahu. The deal could bring an end to Israel’s incredibly unstable...

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July 19, 2021

The Plot to Nowhere

NEED TO KNOW HAITI [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/49e3c059-ec02-49d2-b8d4-2a7e10c83ff3.png"] The Plot to Nowhere The alleged conspirators who plotted the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse met repeatedly in Florida and the Dominican Republic in the months before the July 7 killing. Haitian authorities have specifically targeted Haitian-American doctor and pastor Christian Emmanuel Sanon,...

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July 16, 2021

Falling Down

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Falling Down The tragic collapse of the Surfside condominium in Florida last month highlighted how such accidents are unfortunately common around the world, often due to larger systematic reasons that are beyond any building manager or even local official. Take the photo of a...

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July 15, 2021

No Borders

NEED TO KNOW EUROPEAN UNION [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/597ff6f5-aa2a-4913-81c8-7a38f364a41b.png"] No Borders Leaders at Volvo, ArcelorMittal, BASF, Daimler, Iberdrola, Orsted, Thyssenkrupp, Titan Cement, Siemens, Shell and other storied and gigantic European companies recently issued a public letter in the run-up to the European Union unveiling new measures for the bloc to reach...

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July 14, 2021

Alphabet Pandemic

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Alphabet Pandemic Just when the world thought it was safe to go inside without a mask again, the delta variant of the coronavirus showed up. Luckily, many vaccines protect against the delta, which CNBC predicted would cause high infection rates in the US in...

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July 13, 2021

Atonement

NEED TO KNOW SUDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/224b0e8f-5be6-4e44-b799-a1b865717c98.png"] Atonement Around 18 years ago, the Sudanese region of Darfur was synonymous with violence and tragedy. Not much has changed. Violence continues to mar the region today. “The expression ‘forgotten crisis’ is a problematic one – no crisis is forgotten by the people living through...

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July 12, 2021

Time Off

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Time Off A stereotype of Japanese culture would depict it as workaholic. In reality, Japanese officials are pushing companies to offer an optional four-day workweek for employees who want to devote their free time to “further their education, take care of family members or...

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July 09, 2021

New Normal

NEED TO KNOW BULGARIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1eb16295-db95-4ff1-8e0b-8bdc4e81cb9c.png"] New Normal Bulgaria could be at a turning point. Voters are scheduled to go to the polls on July 11 to elect a new parliament after Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and his Gerb political party failed to form a coalition despite three attempts since...

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July 08, 2021

Thinner

NEED TO KNOW NORTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/081c0373-fb17-4e7d-af63-346faaef42b7.png"] Thinner North Koreans are worried about their supreme leader’s weight loss. "Our people's hearts ached most when we saw (Kim Jong Un’s) emaciated looks," said North Korean state-owned media, according to USA Today. "Everyone says their tears are welling up in their eyes...

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July 07, 2021

Cats and Dogs

NEED TO KNOW WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Cats and Dogs The experiences of our cats and dogs are windows into how humans suffered and endured during the coronavirus pandemic. Cats had taken over an island near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after their owners abandoned them due to coronavirus-related deaths or impoverishment,...

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July 06, 2021

The Hardest Word

NEED TO KNOW WEST AFRICA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8bda180e-c600-c3ec-d2fb-e8dfad709a2d.png"] The Hardest Word President Emmanuel Macron recently apologized for his country’s role in the massacre of thousands of Rwandans in the 1990s when Paris supported the African country’s murderous regime. “In ignoring the warnings of the most clear-sighted observers…France bore damning responsibility...

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July 05, 2021

‘Just Little Savages’

NEED TO KNOW CANADA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/c7ee49a6-d768-4bd1-93d6-b44b086c3c21.png"] 'Just Little Savages' Canadian First Nation leaders found the remains of more than 200 former students – all Indigenous – at a school in British Columbia. A month later, they found another 200. And then there were those 750 unmarked graves near Marieval...

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July 02, 2021

Leave No Man Behind

NEED TO KNOW AFGHANISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2beac6fe-a680-4765-a2ff-d329629a897c.png"] Leave No Man Behind Interpreters were crucial in the US-led effort to root out Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. Now they feel betrayed. As the US and other countries plan to pull out their soldiers in the coming weeks from...

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July 01, 2021

Ever Collapsing

NEED TO KNOW LEBANON [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a353fadd-2d2a-41b3-b0c1-951b96702e16.png"] Ever Collapsing Lebanon keeps lurching from crisis to crisis. The currency amid the coronavirus pandemic shrunk 90 percent. Last summer, a massive blast in Beirut harbor killed more than 200 people, destroying much of the city center. Today, fuel shortages are the emergency. The diverse...

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