2024
August
01
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 01, 2024
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Clayton Collins
Director of Editorial Innovation

July was a monumental news month, and August appears set to sustain the trend. We’re on it. 

In U.S. politics, the parade of “isms” – the wrongheaded application of broad, pejorative labels as a competitive tactic – may be marching now at double time. Are we entering a period of redoubled racism and sexism? Politics writer Cameron Joseph explores that question with care. 

And in what must have been an Olympian feat of diplomacy, some two dozen political prisoners from seven countries were part of a history-making swap with Russia. Diplomacy writer Howard LaFranchi is our news responder there, along with Fred Weir in Moscow.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Nathan Howard/Reuters
Relatives of Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva look on as President Joe Biden speaks about their release from detention in Russia, at the White House in Washington, Aug. 1, 2024.

With little fanfare, the United States and its allies negotiated the freedom of Russian captives Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva, and others – and showed that diplomacy with the Kremlin may still be viable.

Today’s news briefs

• Accused 9/11 plotters plead guilty: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accomplices in Al Qaeda’s 2001 attack on New York’s World Trade Center are expected to enter the pleas at the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as soon as next week.
• Iran, allies weigh next move: Iranian officials meet with regional allies to discuss potential retaliation against Israel. The region faces a risk of widened conflict after the assassination of Hamas’ leader in Tehran and the killing of Hezbollah’s senior commander in an Israeli strike near Beirut. 
• Olympic swimming stars: American Katie Ledecky bumps her career total to 12 medals with a dominating Olympic-record victory in the 1,500-meter freestyle. France’s Léon Marchand wins the 200-meter butterfly and the 200-meter breaststroke about two hours apart at the Paris Games.
• Video game performers strike: Hollywood’s video game performers, members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), picket at the Warner Bros. Studios lot to protest what they call an unwillingness from top gaming companies to protect voice actors and motion-capture workers equally against the unregulated use of artificial intelligence. 

Read these news briefs.

Vincent Alban/Reuters
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks on a panel of the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, July 31, 2024.

A debate over racism and sexism has surged to the forefront of the presidential campaign, after Republican nominee Donald Trump’s latest remarks. It’s about a polarized nation as well as a provocative candidate.

Vahid Salemi/AP
Iranians follow a truck carrying the coffins of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard during their funeral ceremony at Islamic Revolution Square in Tehran, Aug. 1, 2024. The two were killed in an assassination Wednesday for which Israel is blamed.

The search for a Gaza cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas has been long and difficult, with only fleeting glimmers of hope. Now a pivotal figure has been assassinated, and trust has been shattered.

Patterns

Tracing global connections

Fears of a wider regional conflict in the Middle East and fresh incursions by Russia into Ukraine dominate headlines. But a less-noticed foreign policy push in Asia reveals American priorities to contain China and North Korea. 

Essay

Our essayist’s approach to wanderlust – setting off without plan or guidebook – may seem radical. It’s his way of preserving moments of serendipity and finding delight in the unexpected. 


The Monitor's View

AP
People in Lagos, Nigeria, protest against economic hardship, Aug. 1.

By 2035, more young Africans will enter the workforce each year than in the rest of the world combined, according to the World Economic Forum. This youth bulge represents a wellspring for boundless innovation and enterprise. In recent weeks, it has also shown itself to be something else – a force for integrity.

In Nigeria, protesters on Thursday launched a weeklong campaign across Africa’s most populous nation to “end bad governance.” The spark is economic misery. Prices for basic goods have reached a 30-year high in real terms. One in 6 children face acute malnutrition, up 25% from a year ago.

Yet as the name of the marches indicates, Nigerians are looking deeper than their immediate needs. “The integrity of our institutions is in question, and it is imperative to restore trust and confidence so that citizens can once again believe in their country,” Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, executive director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, told the Daily Independent.

What are known as Nigeria’s Generation Z protests follow similar youth-led demands elsewhere in Africa. Last week, anti-corruption demonstrations in Uganda resulted in scores of arrests. Those came after June protests in Kenya over a proposed tax hike to fund debt payments; the government backed down, promising to address the debt through spending cuts instead. “The biggest grievance is the conspicuous consumption of the [President William] Ruto regime,” John Githongo, a former anti-corruption czar in Kenya, told The Economist.

The push for honest governance reflects an attitudinal shift across the continent as better-educated Africans demand more from elected leaders. That is the conclusion in the latest survey by Afrobarometer. It found that “Africans want more democratic governance than they are getting, and the evidence suggests that nurturing support for democracy will require strengthening integrity in local government and official accountability.”

The 55-nation African Union devoted this year’s African Anti-Corruption Day, on July 11, to protecting whistleblowers. It urged member states to “promote the exposure of corruption offenders.” One anti-corruption program in Nigeria run by the London-based think tank Chatham House, however, shows why citizens hold the key to more honest governance.

“Anti-corruption efforts are far more likely to succeed when they’re driven by the community itself rather than being imposed from the top,” says Raj Navanit Patel, a lead researcher on the project. When ordinary citizens insist on honesty and accountability, he told a panel discussion last month, they “see integrity and ethical behavior as the kind of norm, and corruption as socially unacceptable. That leads to a more enduring kind of social change.”

Across Africa, from Nigeria to Kenya, citizens are telling officials to take note. Their expectations for integrity in public service have changed.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each of us is created by God to express qualities such as strength, joy, and ability in unique ways – whether or not we’re an Olympic-caliber athlete.


Viewfinder

Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Jaqueline Dubrovich of the United States (right) competes against Canada's Jessica Zi Jia Guo in the women's team foil semifinal match at the Grand Palais in Paris, Aug. 1, 2024. The U.S. beat Canada 45-31, guaranteeing it at least a silver medal.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for engaging with today’s Daily. Join us again tomorrow. We’re working on a story about a careful calculation for both the White House and the Harris campaign: Where and when should President Biden appear between now and November? 

Also, our “Why We Wrote This” podcast returns with a conversation between Whitney Eulich and Ryan Lenora Brown, moderated by Amelia Newcomb, on how we work with local reporters across Latin America and Africa to make our stories from those regions stronger.

More issues

2024
August
01
Thursday
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