2023
April
26
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

April 26, 2023
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The French ambassador’s residence is one of the grandest diplomatic homes in Washington, a Tudor-style manse nestled in towering trees on a bluff overlooking the capital’s Rock Creek.

Over my years as the Monitor’s diplomatic correspondent I’ve attended many press breakfasts there, the mini croissants and pains au chocolat almost as big a draw as the topic that the ambassador or a minister from Paris has summoned the press to discuss.

And before the pandemic disrupted Washington’s social calendar, the residence’s reception rooms played host to some of the city’s most desirable galas and benefits.

Still, no foreign diplomat’s life in Washington is just a string of parties. Over my years here, the French ambassador has had to maneuver delicate moments in Franco-American relations, including France’s opposition to President George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion. Remember when a snitty Congress changed french fries to “freedom fries” on the Capitol’s cafeteria menu?

Given the rigors of the ambassador’s job, one might imagine that the mundane matter of managing a grand residence would be left to others. But I’ve learned that such an assumption is not quite correct.

Earlier this month I attended a press breakfast with Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, minister for international development, to discuss France’s vision for reforming international financing for low-income countries. It was also an opportunity to meet France’s new ambassador to Washington, Laurent Bili, recently reassigned from Beijing.

Arriving at the residence, I noticed scaffolding hugging the walls and workers on the roof. Minutes later, Ambassador Bili was interrupted by the sounds of power tools as he introduced Minister Zacharopoulou. He dispatched an aide to quiet the saws, but the calm was short-lived. Next it was banging hammers – at which we all laughed.

Later, as we departed, Ambassador Bili was out on the front steps, bidding everyone au revoir – and surveilling the project up on the roof.

I told him I recalled that not many years ago, the residence had been shuttered while the building’s systems and interior were totally renovated. True, he responded, but now it’s a leaking roof and unstable chimneys. With a shrug, he added, “Apparently with these old residences, there’s always a new problem to tend to.”

At which my colleague Tracy Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times quipped, “That’s homeownership!”

Even, it seems, for the French ambassador.


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

For years corporations have faced pressure from the left to pivot beyond “shareholder value” to think of wider stakeholders and longer-term risks such as climate change. But that so-called ESG movement faces rising criticism.

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Freed from harsh COVID-19 restrictions, Chinese people are living normal lives again. And discovering the possibilities to be found in an unmasked smile.

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African kids have long grown up on a diet of Western TV cartoons featuring characters whose lifestyles do not match their audiences. Now, African animators are offering an alternative.


The Monitor's View

Few people in Russia speak out against the war in Ukraine these days. Repression of almost all dissent has tightened. Yet more than half of Russians want peace, according to a poll by the independent Levada Center. That quiet sentiment is finding new forms of expression, not so much in words as in action.

Take, for example, an initiative by many Russian citizens to help Ukrainian refugees travel to Europe. A similar American-style underground railroad assists young Russian men in fleeing the military draft. More than 300,000 were able to leave last fall during the first wave of conscriptions.

One of the few remaining activist groups fighting for civic rights, OVD-Info, filed a complaint this week with the Constitutional Court. The complaint seeks to overturn a law that bans people from speaking out against the invasion. The legal plea has little chance of success; Russian courts are not independent. Yet the action at least draws attention to the official terror on dissent.

Another type of action is the unexpected popularity of a new book, “The End of the Regime: How Three European Dictatorships Ended,” by exiled Russian scholar Alexander Baunov. Now in its fourth printing, the book is about the return of democracy to three European countries (Spain, Greece, and Portugal) in the late 20th century after periods of dictatorship. The parallels to the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin are obvious.

Simply buying the book is a political statement, writes the author in The New York Times. “Russians have not stopped asking questions about what comes next,” he says.

Street protests against the war were suppressed soon after the invasion in February last year. But many Russians still signal their opposition in public, from tattoos to graffiti to yellow ribbons. To get around media censorship, new forms of news distribution have sprung up.

“The Kremlin failed to destroy civil society,” writes Grigory Okhotin, co-founder of OVD-Info. Many groups that were banned continue their work in different ways. “Hundreds of thousands of people, despite all the risk, have continued to support public structures and take part in their work as volunteers,” he states.

Mr. Putin has been fighting a second war in Russia itself, writes Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Foreign Affairs, “and this war is unlikely to go away even if the conflict in Ukraine becomes frozen.”

More than a year into the war, dissent by many Russians is a cry for their country to be based on individual rights rather than displays of national power, says Mr. Okhotin.

Mr. Putin still seems secure in the Kremlin. But, according to Damon Wilson, the president and CEO of the National Endowment for Democracy, “History tells us the most repressive and seemingly secure regimes can crumble, brought down by ordinary people demanding freedom.”

For now, Russians are making those demands in new and fresh ways, living in the truth of their inherent rights.


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.

When it seems as though the world is plagued by overwhelming threats, we can yield to the truth that God’s creation is, in fact, good and prove that life is harmonious.


Viewfinder

Michael Probst/AP
A cyclist navigates a ribbon of road on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, April 25, 2023.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Please come back tomorrow, when columnist Ned Temko will look at the implications of India soon overtaking China as the world’s most populous nation.

More issues

2023
April
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