2018
March
01
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

March 01, 2018
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Pretty much everything about the Nowzad "Conrad Lewis" animal clinic and shelter in Kabul, Afghanistan, is a miracle.

The mere existence of an animal shelter is a curiosity in Afghanistan, where animal welfare is often a low or nonexistent priority.

Funded entirely by contributions, the Nowzad clinic offers veterinary services and also takes in stray and injured dogs, cats, donkeys, and other animals.

But what may be the most unusual thing of all about the clinic is that it is run by three 20-something Afghan women, all trained veterinarians. Their ultimate goal, they say, is to change views in their country about both animal welfare and gender equality.

A special service the Nowzad clinic offers is to help foreign soldiers who have fallen in love with stray dogs and cats ship those animals home. According to the group’s website, it has assisted in the rescue of more than 900 animals from war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Kuwait, and Libya, and has successfully reunited them with soldiers in their homes in the United States, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.

But now they’ve moved on to a new project as well: turning street dogs rescued from war zones into service dogs to help vets with PTSD. The fact that the dogs, too, have endured conflict heightens the bond the soldiers feel with them, they say. Seven of their rescued service dogs are now at work in the US.

“We hope that this is only the beginning!” the group says on its website.

Now, here are our five stories for today.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Gun issue opens window on CEOs’ shifts on politics of social issues

SOURCE:

Media-General, Associated Press, Gallup, J. Walter Thompson survey October 2016, ThinkProgress.org

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Jacob Turcotte, Mark Trumbull, Laurent Belsie/Staff
Vanessa Schatz/Courtesy of Science Galaxy
The annual Girls & Science Event at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (shown here in March 2017) is facilitated by groups like Boulder-based Science Galaxy. Researchers and others are hoping to guide parents on how to talk about science at home, suggesting activities such as observing nature and discussing it.

The Monitor's View

Travis Long/The News & Observer via AP
More than 2,000 students walked out of Green Hope High School in Cary, N.C. on Feb. 28, 2018 calling for political change to try to end school gun violence following the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
Journalists watch as Russian President Vladimir Putin gives his annual state of the nation address in Moscow March 1. Mr. Putin set a slew of ambitious economic goals, vowing to boost living standards, improve health care and education, and build modern infrastructure in a state of the nation address. He also boasted of Russia’s having tested powerful new nuclear weapons systems.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris, with apologies to Charles Schultz. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow. We’re working on a story from Congo about the Catholic Church’s leading role in pressing an embattled president to step down – a bold political stance that might be surprising elsewhere in the world, but that isn’t to most Congolese today. 

More issues

2018
March
01
Thursday
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