May 06, 2024

The Last, Wobbly Domino

NEED TO KNOW The Last, Wobbly Domino CHAD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b08925fb-4623-40c3-9563-de5bd3009fa5.png"] When polls in the landlocked central African country of Chad open on May 6, it will be the first of coup-hit states across Central and West Africa to use the ballot box to try to emerge from years of...

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May 03, 2024

Staying in the Ring

NEED TO KNOW Staying in the Ring UKRAINE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/16e65182-4bbd-d2e9-5056-d970ee1ccd24.png"] More than two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to invade his western neighbor, Ukrainian forces are showing signs of breaking. In recent months, the Russians have reclaimed territory that Ukraine had seized back. Putin has been striking...

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May 02, 2024

Mining Discontent

NEED TO KNOW Mining Discontent PANAMA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/337297fc-0711-4678-8ee9-a8aa69435261.png"] Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals is waiting for the results of Panama’s presidential election on May 5 before deciding what to do with the shuttered Cobre Panama copper mine. As the Canadian Press reported, First Quantum Minerals closed the mine in...

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May 01, 2024

A Wan Smile

NEED TO KNOW A Wan Smile THAILAND [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9aed0fb0-f5eb-4eda-ae64-69e423143eb5.png"] A single clinic on Thailand’s border receives 500 refugees fleeing neighboring Myanmar’s civil war every day as Myanmar’s military fights pro-democracy and local ethnic rebels, reported Sky News. Critics told Nikkei Asia that the Thai government was not prepared to handle...

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April 30, 2024

The Lost and the Found

NEED TO KNOW The Lost and the Found NIGERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6c258edc-b123-4d47-98e3-f42e226ea64f.png"] Nigerian military forces recently found one of the 276 schoolgirls abducted 10 years ago from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok in the West African country’s Borno State. Troops rescued Lydia Simon, who was pregnant, and her three...

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April 29, 2024

Silent Treatment

NEED TO KNOW Silent Treatment KOSOVO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/0999f062-2356-43ad-b3b8-f915c7878425.png"] Responding to a request from Serbia for a boycott, only around 1 percent of the ethnic Serb voters in the towns of Leposavic, Zubin Potok, Svecan, and North Mitrovica in the tiny Balkan country of Kosovo turned out last week to...

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April 26, 2024

Plows to Swords

NEED TO KNOW Plows to Swords JAPAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/ab764327-df98-4918-badd-17c2c79d5685.png"] A recent survey found that more than 92 percent of Japanese respondents held unfavorable views of China, an increase of almost 5 percent compared with last year, reported the Japan Times. The findings hold lessons about geopolitics in Asia, specifically...

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April 25, 2024

Goodbye, Utopia

NEED TO KNOW Goodbye, Utopia DENMARK [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/19f78c1e-e0c6-49d6-b264-eb1779028db9.png"] In 1971, hippies began squatting on an abandoned naval base in Copenhagen, Denmark, creating a community called Freetown Christiania. Denizens of the 84-acre commune flouted drug laws, refused to pay their electricity bills, and regarded themselves as bohemians living alternative lifestyles. They...

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April 24, 2024

Finding a Foothold

NEED TO KNOW Finding a Foothold NORTH MACEDONIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/25d11fad-43db-4a14-978b-f58e4707a26b.png"] A symbol of international solidarity, University Hall, recently burned down in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje. The hall was built after a major earthquake in 1963 using donations from 35 countries, Euronews explained. The incident was ironic given how...

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April 23, 2024

Breeding Ground

NEED TO KNOW Breeding Ground MOZAMBIQUE [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/145ea551-3c3e-4af3-915f-9d349351d3b2.png"] A jihadist insurgency with links to the Islamic State terror group has plagued Mozambique’s lawless Cabo Delgado region for more than six years. Recently, however, an upsurge in violence has forced more than 70,000 people to flee the area, reported News...

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April 22, 2024

My Enemy, Myself

NEED TO KNOW My Enemy, Myself RUSSIA/ TAJIKISTAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b8f7d5f0-07a4-8321-beba-45c71027a713.png"] Life in Russia has become difficult for migrants from Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries since four Tajiks were among those arrested for allegedly killing 145 people in a terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on...

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April 19, 2024

Kitchen-Table Politics

NEED TO KNOW Kitchen-Table Politics INDIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1ac703d1-8192-40be-95ea-427a8f7ed9ee.png"] The upcoming parliamentary election in India is expected to go well for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Surveys show that Indians are concerned about unemployment, inflation, and other kitchen-table issues, reported Reuters. But a majority of...

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April 18, 2024

Gangland Elections

NEED TO KNOW Gangland Elections CROATIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/51841b29-ea16-4792-be7e-e5a9b7adc01d.png"] Zoran Milanović caused a stir last month when he announced his candidacy for Croatia’s parliament as a member of the Social Democratic Party – with the goal of becoming prime minister. The problem was that Milanović was the president of Croatia when...

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April 17, 2024

The Cost of Allegiance

NEED TO KNOW The Cost of Allegiance SOLOMON ISLANDS [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/3c7e70b3-a24d-4f3a-95d2-795b0355ebe6.png"] Parliamentary and local elections in the Solomon Islands on April 17 are yet another example of how domestic politics in Pacific countries have become proxy battles between China and the US. In 2022, three years after he rescinded his...

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April 16, 2024

Like Father Like Son

NEED TO KNOW Like Father Like Son TOGO [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/bb466bd7-9e9a-7c5d-0be4-ffae7064b9b9.png"] For years, Togolese citizens have been calling for the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbé. The man has held the office since 2005, but his critics say his political machine stretches beyond those 19 years – his father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma,...

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April 15, 2024

The Wedge Between Two Giants

NEED TO KNOW The Wedge Between Two Giants MALDIVES [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e808e12a-9c97-7e3a-2d92-f3b344e1fae9.png"] In January, the president of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, suspended ex-Deputy Youth Minister Mariyam Shiuna for her disparaging remarks about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The move came as Muizzu was preparing to order Indian troops to leave...

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April 12, 2024

Pointillistic Terror

NEED TO KNOW Pointillistic Terror WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] Russian officials continue to blame the March 24 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow on Ukraine, PBS News Hour wrote. But American intelligence officials say they told the Russians that the Islamic State terrorist group planned to carry out...

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April 11, 2024

Stuck in Celestial Hades

NEED TO KNOW Stuck in Celestial Hades SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e4901088-a8f1-4f67-bb93-075f2af0bff8.png"] Residents of the upscale Mazzeh neighborhood in the Syrian capital of Damascus were stunned when an airstrike recently reduced the Iranian consulate to rubble. Thirteen people, including two generals and five others in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, perished in...

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April 10, 2024

The Third Wheel

NEED TO KNOW The Third Wheel SOUTH KOREA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/96aac4ab-2540-4b79-8f3f-2a21e22e27fe.png"] Politicians from the ruling People Power Party and the opposition Democratic Party have traditionally held the top offices in South Korea. Currently, the two parties hold 270 out of 300 seats in the legislature, for example. However, only 24 percent of...

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April 09, 2024

Sowing Justice

NEED TO KNOW Sowing Justice LIBERIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/9eb32998-6471-45a3-a560-2a676df24771.png"] A French court recently sentenced Kunti Kamara, a former rebel leader in Liberia, to 30 years in prison for war crimes during the West African country’s first civil war between 1989 and 1997. Kamara, now 49, committed “acts of torture and inhuman...

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