2020
January
15
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

January 15, 2020
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Today’s five hand-picked stories look at the latest impeachment twist, why the U.S.-China trade war is thawing, Israel’s view of U.S. leadership in the Mideast, a new bid to protect wild horses, and the remarkable language being invented by the deaf-blind community. But first, a new political discovery.

Political polarization, it turns out, might not really be what we think it is. At a time of Brexit and impeachment, we think of polarization as growing from passionate viewpoints on political policies and personalities. But a recent study suggests it might grow as much from a lack of self-awareness.

Metacognition is a fancy word that touches on how well we can analyze our own thinking. Some people, for example, have a decent sense of when they are wrong, while others don’t. It’s that second group that is much more prone to extreme political thinking, according to the study by researchers at the University College London.

Basically, political extremism seems to be connected to a confidence out of whack with accurate views. Interestingly, even when those holding extreme political views were wrong – and were given more information to show they were wrong – they reiterated their confidence in their answer.

The good news is that the solution, research also shows, is a matter of simply pausing and paying more attention to how we think. In that way, the most polarized moment in our lifetimes is likely to be fixed not alone by changing policies or politicians but by changing thought to be more honest with ourselves.  


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

The Explainer

Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testifies before the House Intelligence Committee Nov. 15, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Newly released documents contain menacing messages regarding Marie Yovanovitch, suggesting that her safety may have been compromised.

The American impeachment drama has taken a fresh turn with the release of new documents. Here, we help you sort through what they mean and what their importance might be.

The trade war between the world’s two largest economies has been a drag on global growth. President Trump may have reached the limit of what tariffs can do to force China to change.

SOURCE:

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Darko Bandic/AP
Crew enters Bradley Fighting Vehicles at a U.S. military base in northeastern Syria, Nov. 11, 2019. The redeployment of U.S. forces away from positions supporting Syrian Kurdish forces contributed to Israeli concerns over the direction of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

President Trump’s decision to take out Iran’s top general has Israel talking. What is the U.S. role in the region going forward?

A deeper look

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Wild horses graze in the Desatoya Mountains in Nevada. Wild horses, burgeoning in number, are overrunning rangeland in the West. Now a solution may be emerging that can help save an American icon – and the land.

The United States goes to extraordinary lengths to save wild horses. The most extraordinary step of all, however, might be finding a solution that strikes a balance between ranchers and nature, too.

Watch

In one revolutionary language, a community taps the power of touch

For deaf-blind people, sign language has long been a meager way to feel the connections that sight and sound convey. This is the story of their amazing efforts to create their own language based on touch, transforming how they relate to each other and the world.   


The Monitor's View

AP
Migrants from different African countries sit in an overcrowded wooden boat in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast Jan. 10.

Europe’s destiny, Angela Merkel often says, could be determined by the way it deals with mass migration. Indeed, the German chancellor’s own future was determined by how she dealt with nearly a million people flooding Europe from Africa and the Middle East four years ago. She welcomed them. By 2018, anti-immigrant politics had forced her to announce she will step down in 2021 – but not before she once again tries to shape the way migrants enter Europe.

On Sunday, Ms. Merkel hosts a high-level summit in Berlin to end the civil war in Libya, a major conduit for migration. Last year, nearly 95,000 people crossed the Mediterranean from both Libya and Turkey. At least 1,200 died during the treacherous journey. The current fighting in Libya threatens to turn it into a failed state – or a “second Syria” – and end its fledgling attempts to curb migration from the rest of Africa. About 600,000 migrants are currently stuck in the country.

At the summit, Ms. Merkel will not only be balancing Europe’s competing views of migration. She will also be dealing with foreign meddling in Libya by Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and many other countries. Last week, Turkey and Russia tried to arrange a truce in the war but failed.

Libya, whose longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi was ousted in 2011, is an oil-rich Arab nation under threat from Islamic radicals lying north of some of Africa’s poorest and more terrorism-troubled countries. In fact, the Pentagon refers to much of northern Africa as “the arc of instability.” Ms. Merkel has pushed the European Union to send money and troops to the region to attack the root causes of African migration. “Africa needs a self-supporting economic boom,” she said on a trip to the continent last year.

Much of her effort to deal with the migrants already in Europe and to stem the flow of new ones has had some success. But now Libya’s near-collapse could open the floodgates again. In addition, the World Bank estimates climate change will force 86 million people in sub-Saharan Africa to migrate by 2050. Many would attempt to reach Europe.

Ms. Merkel, like the EU, has been on a long learning curve about migration. The issue even played into Britain’s vote to exit the EU. Within Germany, Ms. Merkel’s chosen successor, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has called on politicians to value “the binding over the divisive.” At Sunday’s summit in Berlin, Ms. Merkel will try again to seek common ground for peace in Libya so that her own country and the EU can find peace on the divisive issue of migration.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

The realization that God is Love, ever present and forever embracing us, brings healing and renewal to every aspect of our lives.


A message of love

Darren England/AAP/Reuters
Kangaroo and wallaby joeys that have been orphaned due to a mixture of road accidents, dog attacks, bushfires, and drought conditions rest in a cart at Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital in Beerwah, Queensland, Australia, Jan. 15, 2020.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. We hope you’ll come back tomorrow when we look at Vladimir Putin’s plan for Russia after he steps down as president. Unexpectedly, it points in a direction that might actually bolster democracy.

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2020
January
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Wednesday
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