Cannot change news source country

[Collosa]

const response = await fetch( https://api.mediastack.com/v1/news?access_key=${process.env.MEDIASTACK_API_KEY}&languages=en&countries=us&categories=${topic}&limit=${process.env.PER_TOPIC_NEWS_LIMIT}`
);
const data = await response.json();`

This code snippet is the one that calls media stack and determine country source. Once you change the country code in the snippet above , curl --header "X-Epigram-Secret: 54321" http://localhost:3000/api/news/populate stops to function. It just gives no response.