2018
November
01
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

November 01, 2018
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Noelle Swan
Weekly Editor

“Someone needs your help.”

The text alert came on a particularly busy Monday morning.

“A blind or visually impaired person is calling for help,” the message continued.

I accepted the call and was instantaneously transported into a stranger’s living room.

He asked me to read the amounts on some checks he was holding up in front of the camera on his phone. The whole exchange took about 20 seconds. But the satisfaction of being able to help someone in need has lasted all week.

For the past year, I’ve been receiving these calls periodically through an app that connects sighted volunteers with users who need a quick set of eyes. The calls are rare. And with 1.7 million volunteers helping 100,000 users, I know that if I can’t answer, someone else will. But I always try.

I’ve helped people microwave frozen meals, start their laundry, and avoid fashion faux pas. But my favorite call came from a man who asked me what his dog looks like because he wanted to know how other people perceive his furry friend.

I’ve discovered that I get as much out of these calls as the people asking for help. Because they help me to see, too – to see from someone else’s perspective. At a time when so much of our lives is curated to fit our particular lens that’s a valuable commodity.

Now onto our five stories for today, delving into the roots of compassion, the limitations of tribalism, and the wonders of an ever-changing universe.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Bill Swersey/HIAS
Fadi Kassar (l), hugged his daughters Hnan, 8, and Lian, 5, last year for the first time in more than two years as his wife Razan looked on. HIAS, a global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees, had assisted the Syrian family after their initial reunion attempt was unsuccessful.

For many, the question of whether to accept refugees into the United States comes down to politics. For many Jews – as well as Muslims and Christians – it is “a matter of moral commitment.”

In an era of political tribalism, does a bipartisan centrist represent the past or the future? That’s the question at the heart of a Senate race in Tennessee pitting partisanship against statesmanship.

On the move

The faces, places, and politics of migration
Carlos Garcia Rawlin/REUTERS
Migrants walk the road to Huixtla, near Tapachula, Mexico, Oct. 31. The gap is growing between messages the US intends to send to would-be migrants – such as plans for a 2,000-mile border wall, or declaring that gang violence is not grounds for asylum – and the information people receive and believe.

Making public policy work isn’t just a matter of enforcing it. Policies also need to be communicated clearly. With US border policy, that’s more complicated than it seems. This is part four in a series.

Points of Progress

What's going right

Industry and environmental interests are often opposed. But in Indiana, a river cleanup requiring both sides to negotiate with each other offers an example for conservation partnerships everywhere.

Looking up at the heavens from below, it can be easy to think of the universe as a fixed constellation of stars. But, as a new study illustrates this week, the cosmos is ever changing – as is our understanding.

The Monitor's View

Can peace have a ripple effect?

Abiy Ahmed, the new prime minister of Ethiopia with a PhD in conflict resolution, certainly believes so.

In the six months since he took office as Africa’s youngest leader, Dr. Abiy has not only transformed the often-violent ethnic tensions of his own country with an approach he calls “love can win hearts,” he has also become a whirlwind diplomat in East Africa with an olive-branch touch.

He has settled a dispute with Egypt over sharing the Nile waters. He ended Ethiopia’s two-decade-old conflict with Eritrea, which in turn helped Eritrea to restore ties with Somalia and sign an accord with Djibouti over a border dispute. The region is now ripe for economic integration.

“There is a wind of hope blowing in the Horn of Africa,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in September.

Now Abiy can claim a large part of the credit for a breakthrough in South Sudan, home to one of Africa’s worst civil wars.

On Oct. 31, after months of Abiy-orchestrated talks among South Sudanese groups, the country’s main opposition figure and former vice president, Riek Machar, landed in the capital of Juba for a celebration of reconciliation with his rival, President Salva Kiir. Their reunion, more than two years after Mr. Machar had to flee the country in a violent political dispute, was the public manifestation of a power-sharing deal the two signed in Ethiopia on Sept. 13.

For his part in the dramatic ceremony, President Kiir apologized to South Sudanese citizens for the five years of war, saying the responsibility fell on him. And Machar said “the past is gone” and promised a new chapter for peace and unity. Both men have given credit to the Ethiopian leader for his peacemaking role.

The peace deal could still fall apart. Two precious pacts since 2013 failed. But what makes this one different was the rigor of negotiations led by Ethiopia and other neighbors of South Sudan. Estranged stakeholders from refugees to armed ethnic groups were included, not just the two top rivals.

The peace process befits the words on a T-shirt that Abiy often wears. It shows a picture of Nelson Mandela with the slogan “No one is free until the last one is free.”

South Sudan has far to go to regroup itself as a unified country. It was only formed in 2011, spun off after a civil war in Sudan. Yet the ripples of peacemaking, coming out of Ethiopia, have started the country down that path.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Today’s contributor writes about a different kind of pressure, stemming from the desire to share God’s love, which gives rest to our souls, confidence for our tasks, and joy to face each day.


A message of love

Jeon Heon-kyun/AP
A South Korean marine participates in a regular drill on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Nov. 1. The United States and South Korea are to decide by December whether they will conduct large-scale military exercises next year. South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo told reporters at the Pentagon that if more exercises are suspended, the two countries will conduct other training to mitigate the lapse. He said the review will be complete by Nov. 15.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back tomorrow when staff writer Story Hinckley takes us to the US-Mexican border, where children from Palomas, Mexico, embark on a daily commute through US customs to attend school in New Mexico.

More issues

2018
November
01
Thursday
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