2018
October
16
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

October 16, 2018
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Laurent Belsie
Senior Economics Writer

If you remember the 1970s, you remember Sears. It was where your dad went for tools, your best friend’s mom bought clothes for the family, and where everybody shopped for a Kenmore stove or refrigerator. In Chicago, the Sears Tower – then the tallest building in the world – was a constant reminder of the retailer’s reach and might.

The company is even credited with helping create a style of blues music.

But competition has a way of felling the mighty. By the time the Sears Tower was completed in 1974, Sam Walton had already listed Walmart on the New York Stock Exchange and had more than 50 stores, infused with a philosophy of low prices and innovation. In 1994, the same year that Sears sold the Sears Tower, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon as an online bookstore, which innovated in cyberspace to become the world’s largest internet retailer in terms of revenue.

Sears’s bankruptcy this week is a reminder that, in business at least, nothing lasts forever. Good ideas trump stale ideas. You can build monuments to yourself. But if you want to survive and thrive in a competitive economy, it’s better to be open – and humble.

Today’s five stories include a look at the deeper strategic US-China conflict, Arab women in Israel running for office, and how art revived an Italian town.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

Chris Wattie/Reuters
A sign warns travelers against carrying cannabis at the Ottawa International Airport. Canada moved to legalize recreational use of marijuana nationwide beginning Oct. 17.

Did we say the ’70s? Canada goes counterculture tomorrow, becoming the first major industrialized nation to legalize recreational marijuana. The world is watching the experiment.

Patterns

Tracing global connections

All eyes are focused on trade as a source of the strains in the US-China relationship. But a much wider range of issues is in play and could affect everything from US diplomatic initiatives to support for foreign aid.

Dina Kraft
Fidaa Shehadeh, one of the many Israeli Arab women competing for positions on local councils across Israel, is running in her native Lod, a mixed Arab-Jewish city in the center of the country.

Paths to progress must often pierce both tradition and discrimination. But as one Israeli Arab woman tells us: "It’s time for people to take us seriously.... We can contribute, too."

Air quality: Can China extend success of its short-term measures?

Giving Beijingers more breathable air means cutting coal and other pollutants. But long-term climate solutions need to account for ripple effects – something China is confronting today.

SOURCE:

Berkeley Earth, US State Department, International Energy Agency

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Asia Palomba
A mural of a young boy and his shadow, by Brazilian street artist Alex Senna, helps color the historical part of Civitacampomarano, Italy. Mr. Senna and other artists were invited to make their respective marks on the town to help lure tourism.

To revive itself, Civitacampomarano, Italy, invited the world’s artists to paint on its walls. They did.  


The Monitor's View

Reuters
Lawyers and journalists attend a court hearing of Kenya's Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu after she was arrested over alleged corruption.

Kenya’s official body for fighting corruption conducted a survey last year, and it was shocked at the results. The number of people paying bribes for government services had risen to 62 percent, up from 46 percent two years earlier. The survey found corruption was now seen as the country’s leading problem.

Yet the real shocker was this: Nearly two-thirds of Kenyans had done nothing to promote ethical behavior or fight corruption.

The results pushed the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to focus more on graft prevention – starting with the people themselves – while still going after corrupt officials. Last month, it launched an unusual public campaign. It issued a Bible study guide aimed at inspiring individuals to better understand the role of integrity in private and public life.

“Every member of our society has an opportunity to contribute to the success of the war against corruption. Regardless of your status in the society, you can make a difference,” the commission stated on Twitter.

“The fight against corruption is winnable but everyone must commit to live a life that enhances the virtues of integrity, justice, patriotism and love for one another.”

Kenya has many laws and institutions to curb corruption. It now audits the personal wealth of civil servants, for example. Under President Uhuru Kenyatta, who recently vowed to end a culture of impunity among the political elite, dozens of officials have been arrested in recent months. “A time has come for every Kenyan to realize no matter how powerful you think you [are] or how much money you have ... that will not save you,” the president says.

Still, an estimated one-third of the government budget is lost to corruption each year. And compared with other African countries, Kenya ranks low on Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index.

“When the instruments of the State are captured by those interested solely in the primitive accumulation of wealth, the State itself cannot survive for long. It is for this reason that Kenyans must act...,” writes Samuel Kimeu, Transparency International’s executive director in Kenya, in a commentary.

The EACC’s Bible study campaign is intended to help Kenyans discover God’s “direction on living a corruption-free life.” In a democracy like Kenya’s, the moral compass of citizens can help elect honest leaders and assist prosecutors and judges in ensuring rule of law. It is also the starting point in refusing to pay bribes and in calling out officials who ask for them.

But the first task is a better understanding of individual integrity, a quality that has helped many countries keep corruption in check.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

In every moment and every situation, the limitless love of our divine Parent is right there to lift anger, sadness, and hate and lead us forward.


A message of love

Altaf Qadri/AP
A young girl browses through books while sitting on a railway track in New Delhi Oct. 16.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for reading! Tomorrow we'll look at the Saudi journalist whose disappearance is having a chilling effect on Arab dissidents.

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2018
October
16
Tuesday
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