2024
March
13
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

March 13, 2024
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Here’s something I’m sure you’ve noticed. The media covers something comprehensively when it goes bad. Not so much when it shows signs of turning around. Take violent crime. Many Americans think it is much worse than it is because of how we talk about it – often in a distorted or negative way.

Today, we’re taking on U.S. housing prices, which are high and don’t tend to turn on a dime. But there are some signs of a nascent shift. And you should know that. Potentially good news is still news.   


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Courtesy of Bob Johnston
Francesca Lampert sits on the porch of her new home with her dog, Finn, in Redwood City, California, July 2022.

Mortgage rates are down a full point since peaking last October – raising hopes that an extraordinarily tough housing market is finally about to ease, a boon for those eager to build wealth through homeownership. 

Today’s news briefs

• Aid to Gaza by sea and land: A ship carrying more than 200 tons of aid for Gaza leaves Cyprus in a pilot project to open a sea corridor to deliver supplies to starving Palestinians on the verge of famine.
• U.S. moves to limit “judge shopping”: Federal courts are moving to make it harder to file lawsuits in front of judges seen as friendly to a point of view, a practice known as judge shopping. 
• Uvalde police chief resigns: The Uvalde, Texas, police chief who was on vacation during the Robb Elementary School shooting resigns.
• It’s official, Biden vs. Trump: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both clinch their parties’ nomination, kicking off the first U.S. presidential election rematch in nearly 70 years. 

Read these news briefs.

Washington has long been grappling with how to curb the influence of a popular social media app linked to the Chinese Communist Party. The House bill passed with strong bipartisan support, but faces an uncertain path in the Senate.  

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
Yekaterina Duntsova speaks to journalists after filing to run in Russia's presidential election as an anti-war candidate, in Moscow, Dec. 20, 2023.

Russia’s presidential election appears largely a rote exercise, as a popular, unchallengeable leader faces only nominal competition from three “systemic” opponents. The Kremlin has worked for years to make it this way.

Washington is wrestling with a slow and difficult recovery from the pandemic, making the nation’s capital a symbol of wider challenges facing many U.S. cities in redefining their future.

In Pictures

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Keith Haring’s carousel and mural are part of Luna Luna, a restored art carnival in a Los Angeles warehouse, Jan. 17, 2024. The original park opened in Hamburg, Germany, in 1987 with 30 original works; 16 are on display in the LA exhibit this spring.

Amusement parks offer an escape from the doldrums of everyday life. But rather than thrills, this art carnival peddles whimsy and joy.


The Monitor's View

AP
A child watches from a security gate as residents flee their homes due to gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

When a government collapses, the immediate challenge is how to protect innocent civilians. They need security, leadership, and aid. In Haiti, the Caribbean island nation descending into gang chaos, the people are grasping for more than protection. They deeply desire an opportunity to reset their democracy.

The basic building block for that desire is trust among ordinary Haitians. “We can’t reduce the country to just a small minority of people without taking into account the voices of the majority,” Liné Balthazar, a Haitian political party leader, told The Miami Herald.

By tapping into trust, the country can rely more on a transitional governing council recently set up with the help of nearby countries. It might see multinational security forces finally arrive to quell gang violence. One big step would be international sanctions targeting officials tied to corruption.

Trust, a recent University of Essex paper on Haiti noted, “has been given increased attention as a salient feature of post-conflict societies.” Trust not only determines legitimacy of governments and institutions, but also influences how and whether citizens engage in the work of building stable and productive societies. It thrives amid effective governance that promotes and recognizes local “ownership” and “authorship,” the study found.

Haitians have sought democratic and economic stability for decades. The immediate crisis has its roots in the 2021 assassination of then-President Jovenel Moïse. His replacement, Ariel Henry, resigned earlier this week after years of putting off elections. On his watch, corruption and gang violence flourished. Some 200 gangs now control more than 80% of the capital, according to the United Nations, and perhaps 100 more hold power elsewhere across the country.

“This is too much of a good crisis to waste,” Fritz Alphonse Jean, a former central banker, told The New York Times. At an emergency summit in Jamaica on Monday, regional leaders announced the framework for the transitional council made up of political leaders, civil society groups, and religious leaders.

Those varied interests are now jostling for the seven seats and two observer positions on the council. Observers worry the competition just shows that Haiti is ungovernable. But the process rests on years of vibrant, inclusive work by civil society groups to restore grassroots trust and chart a restoration of democracy.

The Jamaica summit, in fact, acknowledged the need to build legitimacy through local agency. Some 39 Haitian political and civil society groups helped shape the structure of the transitional presidential council. The multinational security force, to be led by Kenya, includes accountability measures to protect the local population from abuses by foreign troops and will function in close coordination with the Haitian national police.

“It became clear that the country needed a rupture – a clear break with the criminal past,” Monique Clesca, a Haitian civil society leader and former U.N. official, wrote a year ago in Foreign Affairs. She foresaw then that “the goal of the transitional period would be to strengthen government institutions, increase security, and build trust.” 

Mr. Henry’s departure has opened a path for renewing governance in Haiti and rethinking international support in fragile states. Such transitions can take years, but Haitians may now be setting a strong foundation.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Getting to know God and His creation as truly and entirely good empowers us to overcome difficulties.


Viewfinder

Matt Rourke/AP
Amish men size up the offerings at an auction of farm equipment during the 56th annual Mud Sales to benefit the local fire department in Gordonville, Pennsylvania, March 9, 2024. The tradition began about 60 years ago in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country, and takes its name from the early spring, when the ground begins to thaw but it’s too early for most farm work. Amish people make and donate many of the items for sale, and make up most of the buyers for horse-drawn farm equipment and buggies. But many outside the Amish community attend as well, looking for deals on everything from quilts to used fencing.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. Tomorrow, Ned Temko will explore an old rule of Mideast peacemaking in his Patterns column. U.S. diplomats have always had a golden rule: “We can’t want peace more than they do.” But what does that mean when Israelis and Palestinians cannot contemplate even speaking to each other?

More issues

2024
March
13
Wednesday
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