2019
February
07
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

February 07, 2019
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Tomorrow will mark something that didn’t happen in the Netherlands – one more sign of the slow disappearance of one of the nation’s most beloved traditions.

As a former Olympics reporter, I can attest to the Dutch passion for speedskating. We’ve written about it many times before. There is something spiritual in the sport – something that speaks deeply to the Dutch sense of joy, community, and identity. And all those emotions are wrapped into a single race, the daylong 11 Cities Tour, or Elfstedentocht, which is held whenever the canals in Friesland ice over.

Friday will mark the longest gap between races in modern history. It was last held in 1997 and only three times since 1963. From 1909 to 1963, it was held 12 times. Dutch scientists calculated a 6.7 percent chance of an Elfstedentocht in 2017. In 1950, it was 25 percent, The New York Times reports.

The potential consequences of climate change go far beyond speedskating races. And the whole topic can be politically fraught. For the Dutch, the race has shaped thinking about climate. But they still hope. Says one race organizer: “There will be a year that makes up for all the years we wait.”

Now, on to our five stories today, which touch on a different kind of sexual misconduct investigation in New Hampshire, justice for women in Mali, and counting bees.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Rich Pedroncelli/AP
Pacific Gas & Electric crews worked to restore power lines in Paradise, Calif., in November. Facing potentially colossal liabilities over deadly California wildfires, the utility company announced last month that it would file for bankruptcy protection.

Our first story is also about how the changing climate is driving change – in this case, in the energy industry itself. The changes are incremental, but portend a potentially important shift in thinking.

New Hampshire’s Attorney General’s office has been conducting a sexual misconduct investigation at a prep school for more than a year. In a twist, it says its goal is not just a conviction, but change.

Police can play an outsize role in helping communities that feel marginalized grow in their sense of safety and inclusion – or not. A recent case in Toronto offers a fresh perspective.

Anna Pujol-Mazzini
Women who fled ethnic violence in central Mali gathered at the entrance to a makeshift camp in Dialakorobougou, Mali, in November 2018.

Behind a new approach to prosecute sexual violence in Africa is a new message to survivors: Your experiences matter, and the world's courts are paying attention.

Collin Andrew/The Register-Guard/AP
Researchers in Australia have found that the honeybee, ‘Apis mellifera,’ is capable of simple addition and subtraction.

Math is often considered a uniquely human construct. But new evidence that bees can calculate simple addition and subtraction is pushing thinking about abstract thought.


The Monitor's View

Reuters
An amusement park reopens in the Iraqi city of Mosul, once a stronghold of Islamic State.

Sometime next week, President Trump hopes to declare a victory over Islamic State. The militant group’s last stronghold is expected to fall in Syria, a tiny remnant of a caliphate that once spanned almost half of Syria and a third of Iraq. He may then use this territorial triumph as a reason to withdraw the remaining United States forces from Syria.

Yet the president, like many political leaders, would be wise to expand the definition of victory over terrorists far beyond the retaking of land or the number of fighters killed. The causes of jihadi violence lie deep, requiring different kinds of victories that often go unheralded. They lie in the rebuilding of Muslim societies and the lives of individuals prone to terror.

While the four-year US-led military campaign against the caliphate has succeeded, thousands of determined Islamic State (ISIS) fighters remain at large. Many have returned to insurgent tactics of bombing and assassinations, seeking to undermine weak societies from within. The group has affiliates from Asia to Africa. The ultimate battle in such places, perhaps after a military campaign to clear a village or city of jihadists, is to transform the social, political, economic, and even theological conditions that help breed terrorism.

Worldwide, such victories are adding up. The number of deaths from terrorism has steadily fallen from a peak in 2014, according to the latest Global Terrorism Index. While the numbers are still too high compared to pre-2001 levels, many countries have become better at addressing root causes.

Iraq has a new government since the defeat of ISIS that is better at reconciling Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. In Nigeria, which suffered frequent attacks by Boko Haram, politicians compete in elections to build schools and improve livelihoods in the embattled northeast. In the Philippines, a plebiscite last month will create a self-governing entity in the Muslim south, scene of Islamic insurgencies for decades.

In Afghanistan, after 17 years of rebuilding democracy, negotiations have started to end the war with the Taliban, with the hope that the Taliban will turn against an ISIS affiliate. Tunisia keeps setting a model for Arab countries in expanding liberties and showing how an Islamist political party can embrace democracy. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, is a model in rehabilitation of Muslim militants and creation of an inclusive society for their reintegration.

Such examples show that quality of peace can matter more than the quantity of war-fighting capabilities. Are countries improving systems of justice, security in everyday life, opportunities for work, and harmony between religious and ethnic groups? Have they made a convincing case against religious violence?

These victories do not always carry the euphoria of a military victory. They are more difficult to measure and often harder to achieve. They are seen in reconciliation between once-opposing hearts and less in parades of conquering soldiers.


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.

Is it inevitable that a traumatic experience causes lasting damage? Today’s column explores how an understanding of one’s innate spiritual purity can bring mental peace to victims and inspire remorse and repentance in perpetrators.


A message of love

Henry Nicholls/Reuters
A Cirque du Soleil cast member displays a place stick for a guest during preparations for the British Academy of Film and Television Awards ceremony at the Royal Opera House in central London Feb. 7.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Tomorrow, we’ll be taking a look at the scandals enveloping Virginia politics. How do you balance the achievements of a long political career with accountability for old transgressions?

More issues

2019
February
07
Thursday

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