2024
November
13
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

November 13, 2024
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Sometimes wake-up calls are important. As American politics shows us, the fight against climate change has its advocates and its detractors. But polls show most people are concerned. Most people say they want action.

In her story today, Stephanie Hanes reveals the limits to that sentiment. It’s not that people don’t care. It’s that they care about other things more, and they’re also not super excited about making sacrifices, surprisingly enough. It’s a reminder that Election Day is often the best gauge of what voters really want, not of what they say.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

The richest person in the world is taking aim at the federal bureaucracy, looking to cut waste and reduce regulations. Will Elon Musk bring real change or just a slew of conflicts of interest?

Today’s news briefs

• Biden and Trump meet: President Joe Biden hosts President-elect Donald Trump at the White House for a meeting designed to demonstrate a smooth transition between administrations.
China’s mass killing: Authorities in Zhuhai are removing wreaths, candles, and other offerings laid at the scene of the deadliest mass killing in the country in a decade as the government scrambles to respond and censor online reactions. 
• Senate rushes on judges: The U.S. Senate’s Democratic majority begins a crusade to confirm as many new federal judges as possible to avoid leaving vacancies that Republican Donald Trump could fill after taking office Jan. 20. 
• Guardian quits X: British news publisher The Guardian says it will no longer post to X, citing “disturbing content” on the social media platform, including racism and conspiracy theories.
• U.S. prohibits flights to Haiti: The Federal Aviation Administration is prohibiting U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot at two planes.

Read these news briefs.

By picking South Dakota Sen. John Thune as majority leader, Senate Republicans elevated an institutionally minded, old-school conservative. Mr. Thune promised to enact President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda.

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, center, and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch carry wreaths as they take part in the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in London, Nov. 10, 2024.
Alberto Pezzali/AP
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer (center) and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch carry wreaths as they take part in the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in London, Nov. 10, 2024.

After a record defeat in Britain's last parliamentary election, many Conservatives decided that they needed to be more populist and right-wing. Their selection of Kemi Badenoch as party leader locks in that agenda.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor
A local resident holds a prayer rug with an image of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid the rubble of two homes struck by Israel in a Shiite Muslim enclave in Deir Billa, a largely Christian area in northern Lebanon, Oct. 13, 2024.

In times of peace, Lebanon’s stability depends on a frail political balance. Now for many Lebanese enduring a punishing war with Israel, Hezbollah’s unique status as a heavily armed state-within-a-state is increasingly a problem.

Charlie Riedel/AP
Wind turbines are silhouetted against the rising sun, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kansas. Solar and wind power are now economically competitive with fossil fuels.

Polls show most Americans view climate change as a threat, but they put pocketbook concerns first. A test for whether the clean energy transition can succeed is by tying it to economic benefits.

Points of Progress

What's going right

As delegates at COP29 express both urgency and optimism, our progress roundup takes a look at what’s been accomplished around the world to fight climate change so far. 


The Monitor's View

When young people in America are disgruntled with their economic prospects, they can vote against the ruling party. In the Nov. 5 election, for example, men under 30 years old opted against incumbent Democrats. Yet in China, where elections are nil, what do unhappy youth do?

They ride bikes at night. En masse.

On Nov. 8, more than 100,000 university students – many with grim hopes of finding a job – pedaled more than 30 miles from Zhengzhou in central China to the historic city of Kaifeng. The nocturnal spin, mostly on rental bikes, was for the joy of it. At first, the Chinese Communist Party praised the spontaneous swarm of bright-eyed bicyclists. Kaifeng is known for its soup dumplings, its ancient temples, and a theme park. Tourists are welcomed.

Yet many of the riders were also glad to be part of a mass movement that expressed their values. “Young people in mainland China are very eager to take part in public life,” Zhengzhou-based teacher Li Na told Radio Free Asia.

They are also well connected through social media. In the days that followed, young people in other Chinese cities began to copy this exuberant expression of freedom by taking nighttime rides together. The ruling party’s security forces quickly put an end to all the fun.

Any large gathering outside the party’s control, especially among youth, is seen as a threat. In 1989, the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests were led by students. Many had biked to the Beijing square.

Today’s young Chinese people know the limits of staging protests driven by fear or anger, even if they are experiencing record-high unemployment. Instead, their public expressions are often affirming, even joyful.

“I want to be a normal person in an abnormal society,” one woman told China expert Ian Johnson in a book last year about the country’s unofficial historians. “I want to be able to say truthful things and express what’s in my heart.”

The real foes of the Communist Party, writes Mr. Johnson, are “the lasting values of Chinese civilization,” such as righteousness and freedom of thought. “As strong as the party is, is it stronger than these deep reservoirs of resilience?” he asks. Independent thought lives in China, he states, and has not been crushed.

When China’s leader Xi Jinping said after taking power in 2012 that young people should dream big, he probably did not imagine they would take night rides by the tens of thousands. One of the riders to Kaifeng, Xia Tian, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., “I’ve been feeling a bit down and anxious lately, and when I saw a night cycling event, it looked so spirited and free.

“I decided to tell my friend and join in and unwind.

“Everyone was so polite, cheering each other, and even people at the intersections were giving us encouragement.”

The pedalers and their supporters were living democracy. Even if they don’t live in one.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

We’re all innately capable of seeing ourselves the way God, divine Love, created us – which empowers us to love ourselves and our neighbors in ways that heal and bless.


Viewfinder

Denis Farrell/AP
People watch images of the Milky Way projected at the Wits Anglo American Digital Dome in Johannesburg, Nov. 13, 2024.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for spending time with the Monitor Daily. Tomorrow, we’ll take you Pokrovsk, Ukraine, which is hanging on, months after Russian forces began advancing on the city.

Also, a quick note: A story on nostalgia for relics of East Germany, published Nov. 8, misspelled a German word. The correct spelling is Ampelmännchen.

More issues

2024
November
13
Wednesday
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