2018
June
20
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

June 20, 2018
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It’s always encouraging to hear that a Monitor story has had a particular impact. We thought you’d like to know of a recent example.

In April, staff writer Howard LaFranchi wrote about the dramatic change achieved by a group of teenage girls in India who decided they’d had enough of the alcohol-fueled mismanagement of their rural community. Their story caught the eye of Anagha Krishnan, a young Indian-American who founded TheGirlCodeProject in 2016 to connect girls with technology. Anagha, who immigrated to the United States when she was 12, and who hails from the same Indian state as the teens, contacted Howard.

What followed was a Skype call between Howard in the United States, Anagha in Vietnam (where she was setting up another project), and the girls in India. The teens cheerfully waved their copies of the Monitor Weekly so Howard could see they’d received them. Anagha asked the girls if they would commit to sharing with other villages what they have learned about driving change and progress. They enthusiastically said yes. This week, Anagha is talking to her organization’s board about making Thennamadevi its first undertaking in India.

Today is World Refugees Day. The United Nations reports that 68.5 million people were displaced as of the end of 2017. Of those, 16.2 million became displaced during 2017. As the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said, “We are at a watershed, where success in managing forced displacement globally requires a new and far more comprehensive approach.” 

Now, to our five stories.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

The issue of immigration surfaces sharp political divides. But dismay over the handling of children at the US-Mexican border has disrupted the usual party lines.

Martial Trezzini/Keystone/AP
The United States nameplate at UN headquarters in Geneva adorns an unoccupied seat June 20, a day after the US announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Under President Trump, the US has backed away from global institutions and agreements. Now its exit from the Human Rights Council, critics say, has deprived the group of a voice for needed reforms.

Pursuing justice can be hardest when cases cross international boundaries. But something as simple as a plane ticket may help establish new precedents.

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor
Mayor Jason Lary is viewed as the architect of the one-year-old city of Stonecrest, Ga. A 95 percent African-American city so new that it still registers as a neighboring town on Google Maps, it has a population of 53,000. Stonecrest and the neighboring city of South Fulton last year became the first black cities of their size to incorporate since Reconstruction.

Often, newly formed cities are largely white and more affluent than the surrounding county. Stonecrest, near Atlanta, is part of a modest countertrend, as communities of color aspire to control their destiny.

On the rare occasion that a country changes its name, its leaders frequently cite a storied past. But their choices say just as much about the present – and the future they envision.


The Monitor's View

Reuters
Former members of the leftist guerrilla groups ELN and FARC, members of the right wing paramilitary groups, and victims of the armed conflict in Colombia participate in a soccer match for the peace in Dabeiba, Colombia, June 19.

After ending a half-century of civil war with a peace pact two years ago, Colombia held its first presidential election last Sunday. The presence of peace was palpable.

For the first time in generations, there was no political violence on voting day. The use of misinformation in the campaign was minuscule. The ballot count was finished in less than an hour. Most of all, many Colombians voted for a leftist candidate for the first time without fear or shame, a sign of an emerging national reconciliation.

In the end, the right-leaning candidate, Iván Duque, won with an 11-point margin. In his victory speech, he acknowledged that “peace has to be above political calculations.” He will need to keep that promise in order to fully implement a peace settlement that found the right balance between justice and mercy for the war’s combatants.

Mr. Duque was born before the war even began in the 1960s between the government and the Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). When he takes office in August, he will become the country’s youngest elected president. His running mate, Marta Lucía Ramírez, will become the first female vice president.

Just as historic was the fact that his opponent, Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and former Bogotá mayor, garnered 42 percent of the vote. In conservative Colombia, this was quite a feat. It shows a new sense of freedom and a desire for peace after a war in which more than 200,000 Colombians were killed.

Duque will need to govern from the center to help consolidate the gains of the peace pact as well as finish up negotiations with a smaller rebel group called the National Liberation Army (ELN). Voters are most concerned about corruption, the economy, and urban security. And they mostly accept the reintegration of former FARC rebels into society and into politics.

With its new peace, Colombia is now searching for unity. “No more divisions,” Duque said after the election. “I will not govern with hatred.” If he succeeds, it will help show that peace is far more than an absence of conflict.


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.

Today’s column explores how the sunshine of God’s love is able to break through and heal what may feel like very dark and cloudy situations.


A message of love

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Women model wedding gowns during the 14th Annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest in New York June 20. Top designers compete for a grand prize of $10,000. The sponsor, Quilted Northern, asks that entrants use only its brand of toilet paper, tape, glue, and needle and thread.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow, we'll turn our attention to the Russians and Saudis. Are they planning to reshape the oil industry ahead of Friday's OPEC meeting? 

More issues

2018
June
20
Wednesday

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