2017
June
12
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

June 12, 2017
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Iowa had to do something. By 2018, every health-care insurer in the state was planning to leave. The Affordable Care Act was collapsing. So now Iowa has proposed changes to "Obamacare" as a fix. One insurer is already on board. As a Republican-run state, Iowa will be watched.

But there’s something deeper than red and blue at work. Along the coasts and in urban areas, Obamacare is lauded. And in those areas, it is showing signs of financial stability. But in rural areas like Iowa, it is failing.

The tendency is to see Obamacare solely through a partisan lens. But as with so much, that can obscure. What Obamacare shows is that rural and urban America – different since the days of the American Revolution – are becoming dramatically more so. The question is whether politics cements those differences into tribal divides or opens itself to solutions flexible enough to encompass all.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

The weeks are becoming more precious for President Trump. Between congressional investigations and the first outlines of the 2018 election, the window to get things done is shrinking.   

Ted S. Warren/AP
Protesters demonstrated against President Trump’s revised travel ban May 15 outside a federal courthouse in Seattle. On Monday, a three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously turned down a request to lift an injunction blocking key parts of the revised order from going into effect.

Though Monday brought another court decision against President Trump, the deeper question still looms: Is Mr. Trump acting differently or are courts just treating him differently? That, ultimately, is what the Supreme Court is gearing up to decide. 

Tasnim News Agency/Reuters
Members of the Iranian civil defense run to the site of an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, on June 7, 2017.

ISIS is morphing before our very eyes. While once it touted itself as a radical Islamist Utopia on earth, it is now turning into something more ephemeral: a clearinghouse for every variety of violent Muslim grievance worldwide. 

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Typically, big cities send their trash and pollution to the lowest-income neighborhoods. But one plucky town in Massachusetts might have something to say about that. 

Mark Baker/AP
A female great spotted kiwi was held by a native-species keeper at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch, New Zealand. People across New Zealand are embracing an environmental goal so ambitious it’s been compared to putting a man on the moon: ridding the entire nation of every last stoat, possum, and rat. The idea is to give a second chance to the unusual birds that were widespread in this South Pacific nation before humans arrived 800 years ago.

We've long known that it's a problem when nonnative species invade a new place. But New Zealand is taking its plans to deal with them to a whole new level.


The Monitor's View

Reuters
China's President Xi Jinping arrives for a session of the National People's Congress in Beijing March 12.

As nations from Russia to Brazil try to deal with popular resentment against corruption, they should take note of China’s anti-corruption campaign. Since 2012, the ruling Communist Party has relied heavily on the fear of punishment in a campaign to curb widespread graft. More than 100,000 party or government officials have been disciplined or jailed. Yet as Chinese officials admit, fear is not enough.

Last year, the number of prosecutions for corruption in China began to decline. This is seen as a sign that the party wants to move from purifying its 87 million members to what President Xi Jinping calls improving the “working style” of the party. To achieve clean governance, more Chinese officials will need to embrace qualities such as honesty, transparency, and service.

Mr. Xi has often said corruption is the “greatest threat” to China and its need for reform of a slowing economy, which is now the world’s second largest. Yet beyond preventing corruption by individuals, the next step for the party is to reform entire departments. And nothing is more basic to the official handling of the economy than honesty in economic statistics.

In telling change of course on June 11, the party’s internal anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), issued a criticism of fake data from two provinces, Jilin and Inner Mongolia. In the past, such fingering of falsified statistics came from the government’s Bureau of Statistics. But the party is now taking the lead in ensuring truthful data.

CCDI has also begun to turn its attention to the finance sector, hoping to bring about better governance to an industry critical to economic reform – and to attracting foreign investment. The powerful CCDI leader, Wang Qishan, hopes China can turn a corner from merely deterring wrongdoing with fear to encouraging officials to do the right thing by their own impetus.

If China can achieve this transition in moral development, it will be a genuine cultural revolution. And perhaps a model for other countries still struggling with corruption.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

While reading news about Syrian refugee women gaining legal freedom to separate from abusive relationships, contributor Kari Mashos was inspired to support their progress. She began by praying – not through a personal plea to God for help, but by realizing that God is a universal power that touches everyone’s life. As she prayed, she had an immediate and unexpected opportunity to intervene on behalf of a woman in an abusive situation. It was another proof to her that God’s love and power are available to all. The founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, defines prayer this way: “True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us” (“No and Yes,” p. 39).


A message of love

Anton Vaganov/Reuters
Riot police seized a demonstrator during an anticorruption protest in St. Petersburg, Russia, today. Thousands of people came out here and in Moscow, and hundreds were held by police. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was reportedly detained at his home ahead of the protests, which were called some of the largest since 2012.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. For tomorrow’s edition we have Peter Ford in London probing this question: What happens to Brexit after Britain’s fractious election? 

More issues

2017
June
12
Monday
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