2017
October
13
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

October 13, 2017
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When it first opened its doors in 1971, the Ivory Coast’s Museum of Civilisations in Abidjan was celebrated as one of the richest collections of African art in the world. Sadly during the country’s civil war in 2011, the museum was brutally looted. About 120 items – including some of the museum’s major works and some pieces considered sacred – were taken.

This month the museum is mounting its first new exhibition since it reopened to the public this summer. The new show is called “Renaissance” and it will feature 100 of the museum’s finest remaining pieces.

“We’re living through a renaissance … with cultural and artistic development,” museum director Silvie Memel Kassi told the Agence France-Presse.

Ms. Kassi admitted that it’s hard not to feel bitter about the museum’s losses. But museum staff members are focusing on the future, setting aside special spaces to celebrate contemporary artists.

“We wanted to show that the artists whose creations are today regarded as ‘ancient works’ are the very same as Africans producing contemporary work,” says Kassi.

Consider it just one more example of the amazing resilience of the human spirit.

Now for our five stories showing resoluteness, shifts in thinking, and a search for solutions.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

David Goldman/AP
A man walks past debris from homes on his street that were damaged by hurricane Harvey as an oil refinery stands in the background in Port Arthur, Texas, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2017. The biblical amounts of rain that submerged Houston are primarily due to the storm stalling out over the city – something that is hard to explain with current climate models.
Joel Page/Reuters
Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine speaks at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Rockport, Maine, where she announced she intends to keep her Senate seat – and not run for governor of her home state.

The challenge – and opportunity – in America's geography of distress

SOURCE:

Distressed Communities Index from the Economic Innovation Group, using US Census data

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

On Film


The Monitor's View

AP Photo
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari during a 2015 graduation ceremony of a group of the guard's officers in Tehran. Iran's Revolutionary Guard faces new sanctions from the U.S. after an Oct. 13 speech by President Trump.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Frank Montgomery and his Jack Russell terrier, Bentley, compete in the Skyhoundz MicroDog Freestyle event at the Hyperflite Skyhoundz World Canine Disc Championships in Chattanooga, Tenn. They have two minutes in which to impress the judges.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks so much for joining us. Come back Monday. We're working on a story about how people in a small Texas town have rallied around their high school football team – and each other – to help overcome the effects of a disastrous hurricane.

More issues

2017
October
13
Friday
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