2024
January
03
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

January 03, 2024
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Salvadorans are ready to essentially give up on democracy, and no wonder. Today’s Daily explores how democratic rule failed to lower the country’s crushing murder rate. President Nayib Bukele has done better, so Salvadorans aren’t complaining as he now runs roughshod over the constitution.

But our story on a gifted program in a New York school notes something else important. A community’s real power is in its people’s potential. Failing to capitalize on that means squandering huge amounts of human capital. El Salvador may have good reason to turn from democracy, but ultimately, only democracy can unleash the full potential of its people.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Today’s news briefs

Salvador Melendez/AP
Supporters greet El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele after he presented himself as the presidential candidate for the Nuevas Ideas party in San Salvador, Oct. 27, 2023. Mr. Bukele asked for a six-month leave of absence at the end of November to dedicate himself to his reelection campaign.
Kelly Field
Fifth graders practice their chess skills Nov. 27, 2023, at Harlem Academy, a K-8 private school for gifted students in New York.

A Letter From

Kushtia, Bangladesh
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
An artisan draws a design on handmade pottery at Khyapa Baba Pottery, Sept. 24, 2023, in Kushtia, Bangladesh, a town filled with cultural history. The 100 workers in this factory create about 4,000 items per day.

The Monitor's View

Michael Knief/AP Content for Services for Global Partnership for Education
Girls in class at a war refugee camp in Chad in December 2023. Across Africa, demands for public services like education underscore citizen expectations for better governance.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

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Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
Ukrainian former prisoners of war get a warm embrace after a prisoner swap with Russia at an unknown location in Ukraine. This picture was released Jan. 3, 2024.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. We hope you’re enjoying our news briefs feature in the Daily, which we started yesterday. We’re eager for feedback. You can reach me at editor@csmonitor.com.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the widespread concern in some quarters that a second presidential term for Donald Trump could destroy American democracy. Are the worries overheated or on target? We’ll examine the various arguments and lay out the facts we know at this point.  

More issues

2024
January
03
Wednesday
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