2024
October
22
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

October 22, 2024
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Every day, news tells the story of how peace seems to be in retreat. The challenges are significant. But there is also another view. Last week, people from around the world gathered in Geneva for Peace Week. Columnist Keith Collins was there and caught a glimpse of what the world looks like when peace is the priority. You can read the story here.   


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Riley Robinson/Staff
Rancher Jim Chilton (left) and Gail Kocourek, a volunteer with Tucson Samaritans, share a laugh in Mr. Chilton's truck Sept. 7, 2024, near Arivaca, Arizona. Mr. Chilton and Ms. Kocourek have different political views about the border, but they are friendly and say they hold each other in high regard.

On Arizona’s southern border, there’s both public division and common ground over immigration. Part of a series on the issues that may tip key swing states: GeorgiaMichiganNevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin

Today’s news briefs

• Louisiana Ten Commandments: A new Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom is being challenged in court.
• Rohingya refugees: About 140 Rohingya Muslims, mostly women and children, are on a wooden boat anchored about one mile off the coast of Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh. Local residents have refused to allow them onto land since Oct. 18.
• Migrants head for U.S.: A group of about 2,000 migrants has left Mexico’s southern border hoping to reach the country’s north and ultimately the United States.
• Peru corruption: Former President Alejandro Toledo has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in a case involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

Read these news briefs. 

European countries such as Italy are trying to reduce immigration by moving asylum-seekers’ processing offshore – in Italy’s case, to Albania. But while the approach is increasingly popular, its legality remains suspect.

An unusual election year is providing teachers with something they need: engaged students. Here’s why some high school civics classes keep teens coming back for more.

Podcast

Sifting hopes and realities for Election 2024

How are the logistics of voting playing out in key states like Georgia, and what might U.S. voters expect near the finish line? We looked at those questions against a backdrop of rumors, mistrust, and concerns – about postvote chaos, and about the robustness of a strained political process. Second of two parts.

Election Unprecedented, Part 2

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Difference-maker

Kate Okorie
A group of 14- and 15-year-old girls learns in a “safe space” session organized by the Stand With a Girl Education Project in Abuja, Nigeria.

Many Nigerian girls displaced by insurgency don’t attend school. “Safe space” educational sessions are giving them access to education again.


The Monitor's View

One of Europe’s most crucial votes this year – an Oct. 20 referendum in Moldova on whether to eventually join the European Union – ended up with a squeak-by approval of just over 50%. The slim margin of victory came as a shock. Years of polling indicated strong support for EU membership in one of the Continent’s smallest and poorest countries.

Yet a closer look suggests that the win was quite remarkable, only confirming why so many countries in Eastern Europe seek to live under EU values.

An estimated 10% of Moldova’s electorate was targeted with bribes from inside Russia to vote against EU membership, according to officials. Such wholesale corruption of low-income citizens – costing some $16 million in bribe money – is exactly why a majority of Moldovans want to join the graft-fighting bloc. Without the bribery, the victory margin might have been much wider.

After the referendum, Moldova’s pro-EU and Harvard-trained president, Maia Sandu, explained the task ahead. “Unfortunately, the justice system failed to do enough to prevent vote-rigging and corruption,” she told a news conference. “Here, too, we must draw a line, correct what went wrong, and learn the lesson. We heard you: we know we must do more to fight corruption.”

Perhaps just as remarkable in the referendum was the relatively high turnout of voters under 35 years old. That rings true across many countries in the region. A new survey of young people ages 14 to 29 in a dozen countries from Albania to Turkey finds that nearly two-thirds say their biggest concern is corruption – even more than employment, climate change, and other worries. In other words, a desire for honesty and transparency in government is driving change in these countries, as it is in Moldova.

“The prospect of EU membership maintains a high level of optimism among young people in non-member countries,” stated the survey, which was commissioned by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German foundation. “Most young people in the region adhere to democratic values despite a general decline in trust in democracy as the preferred form of government.” 

One notable find among youth: “Those with higher levels of fear of joblessness share a stronger belief in democracy as a favourable political system.” As see in Moldova’s vote, young people in southeast Europe embrace pro-democratic values, especially civic equality and rule of law, that nurture honest governance.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

Gaining an understanding of God as Love enables us to move past anger and find real unity and progress.


Viewfinder

Norlys Perez/Reuters
An employee gazes out over his darkened restaurant, the Cucana, in Havana, Oct. 21, 2024. The Cucana has been closed since the country plunged into darkness late last week in the most prolonged blackout Cuba has experienced since the collapse of its former patron, the Soviet Union. Cuba’s power-grid operator said it had restored electricity to parts of the city on Monday. Meanwhile, Hurricane Oscar hit eastern Cuba, complicating repair work as well as safety and rescue efforts.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

We’re so glad you could join us today. We hope you’ll come back tomorrow for our second of three stories this week about a crisis that has largely escaped world attention: the war in Sudan. We’ll be looking at emergency response rooms, the Nobel Prize-nominated efforts by displaced people to run community kitchens and provide aid to one another.

More issues

2024
October
22
Tuesday

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