All The Monitor's View
- Trump’s demand for reciprocity with allies
On trade access and defense spending, he seeks an equality that requires rewriting the West’s social contract.
- Mexico as a haven for asylum seekers
As fewer Mexicans venture north, the country is working with the US to be a better haven for Central Americans fleeing fear.
- A big question for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee
If the high court is ever to be depoliticized, nominees must show how their decisonmaking process reflects the virtues of self-government that lie at the heart of the Constitution.
- Thai cave rescue: a metaphor on climate adaptation
The world’s empathy toward the boys and rescuers shows what is possible in unifying behind adaptation to other weather risks, including the effects of climate change.
- Why Trump can’t ignore Central America
As Europe has discovered with Africa, the US is learning again with its migrant crisis that poor and troubled neighbors cannot be shut off simply by more border security. Being secure requires being neighborly.
- Can NATO use truth against Russian lies?
The alliance’s coming summit can be used to support nations in Europe that are learning how to counter Kremlin disinformation with ‘critical thinking’ among their citizens.
- An impending revolution in Mexico
The incoming president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, promises a radical approach to ending corruption, one based on a view of people as moral. Yet he also assumes people only need to see a leader who sets a good example.
- AI can have values if not a conscience
The author of ‘Frankenstein’ started us on a long path to steer new technologies to a higher good.
- EU’s migrant plan is about more than migrants
The plan aims to relocate migrants in ways that both help them and relieve pressure from Europe’s anti-migrant parties. It will also assist the EU in rediscovering its reasons for unity.
- How to use Justice Kennedy’s legacy in picking his replacement
The nation’s intense battles over Supreme Court nominees could use a few lessons from the retiring justice’s main theme: dignity.
- Shifting views of seniors: less burden, more asset
The average age of Americans may be rising and creating financial worries for younger workers, but also rising are expectations of what the senior years can really mean.
- Extending compassion beyond migrant kids
The outcry over family separation at the border has sparked a rise in help for the migrant children. Now that concern can be broadened to include other children in the US also taken from parents in legal difficulty.
- Is love a winning message for Ethiopia?
A new prime minister, even in the face of a brutal attack, preaches ‘love wins’ to a country in need of a new political narrative.
- A nonviolent movement challenges Pakistan’s military
Since January, peaceful protests against military abuses of civilian minorities have emboldened others to challenge the Army’s grip on democracy.
- Why nations are not alone in fighting graft
Despite its faltering steps against corruption, Romania shows how foreign support and pressure can bring progress toward clean governance.
- After a long war, Colombia embraces peace at the ballot box
The election of a new president after a 2016 peace pact was marked with historic firsts that can help reconcile Colombians.
- In immigrant detention, a role for children
Beneath the moral debate over Trump’s actions on the children of detained immigrants lies a potential to see their innocence as common ground.
- The high court’s hint on partisan gerrymandering
Individual voters must first show how such party-driven redistricting harms them, the justices ruled, which calls for voters themselves to cooperate in this very partisan age to end the practice.
- Clues of peace in Afghanistan
A declared cease-fire by each side, a peace march, and other steps hint that both the Taliban and the government are reacting to a new public mood for a political settlement.
- A model of peace to help end Yemen’s war
Amid the country’s fighting and humanitarian crisis, one province has become both a sanctuary and an example of what a peaceful Yemen could look like.