2019
July
10
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

July 10, 2019
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Welcome to the Monitor Daily. Today's lineup includes a new legal challenge to “Obamacare,” the view from inside an abortion clinic, the quandary of immigration in a depopulating Japan, empowerment in Kenya, and a model of hope in the opioid crisis.

But first, at a time when a lot of the news in global economics is about rising tariffs and risks of trade war, here’s something completely different. It’s about Africa coming together – and it’s about the relevance of open trade as a lever of progress, even when globalization has lost its former shine

This week marks the formal launch of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which ultimately promises a free-trade zone for 1.2 billion people in more than 50 nations. Already, it represents transformed attitudes for many countries. 

“We are creating a new Africa. The Africa of dependence, we are putting it behind us.” That’s the aspiration as voiced recently by Albert Muchanga, African Union commissioner for the Department of Trade and Industry.

African nations currently have a very low rate of trade with one another. Most exports remain raw materials like oil and minerals. Freer trade won’t be a panacea for development challenges that range from poor infrastructure to corruption. But a key holdout nation, Nigeria, has signed on alongside smaller nations in the hope of developing the continent both from within and through external trade.

“When you do agro-processing Africa is going to transform itself from a net importer of food to a net exporter of food,” Mr. Muchanga predicts. He says, “It’s a cultural mindset that this is impossible. Nelson Mandela said, ‘It seems impossible until it’s done.’”

Also, before today’s stories, a quick promo: The Monitor is following the sex-trafficking allegations against multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, and the pressure on Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to resign over his handling of those allegations in his past career as a U.S. attorney. Stay tuned for our coverage.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

The Explainer

Looking past Roe

How abortion shapes U.S. politics
Ann Hermes/Staff
Kathaleen Pittman, administrator at Hope Medical Group For Women, stands in the waiting room on April 1, 2019, in Shreveport, Louisiana. Hope Medical Group For Women is one of the few remaining abortion clinics in the state of Louisiana.

Hard choices, sweet tea: A day at a Louisiana abortion clinic

Hard choices, sweet tea: A day at the abortion clinic

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Like many southern states, Louisiana has sharply restricted access to abortion in recent years. Our reporters spent a day in one of the state’s last remaining abortion clinics, speaking to the staff and patients, and hearing their stories.
Malcolm Foster/Reuters
Workers from Thailand work at Green Leaf farm, in Showa Village, Gunma prefecture, Japan, June 6, 2018. As Japan’s population shrinks and ages, foreign workers are becoming an important part of the economy.
Halima Gikandi
Children walk on burning garbage in Deep Sea, an informal settlement that is home to some 12,000 people in Nairobi, Kenya. A planned road project would slice through the center of the community and displace many of its residents.

Conversations on hope


The Monitor's View


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Seth Wenig/AP
Members of the U.S. women’s soccer team were showered with confetti in New York on Wednesday to celebrate their victory in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Team forward Megan Rapinoe (c.) told the crowd gathered at a rally at New York City Hall, ‘This is my charge to everyone: We have to be better. We have to love more and hate less, listen more and talk less. It is our responsibility to make this world a better place.’
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

That’s your Daily. We’ll see you tomorrow, with stories including a tribute by Columbus, Ohio, to humorist James Thurber.

More issues

2019
July
10
Wednesday
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