2019
October
10
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

October 10, 2019
Loading the player...
Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Today’s Daily explores the perils of Joe Biden attacking President Trump, how even legal migration to the United States is fraught with trouble, an Arab twist on populism and democracy, the Nobel Prize for new views of the universe, and museums reconsidering their mission.

But first, today I am thinking about Cameran Sadeq.

I met him a year after 9/11 to tell his story. He had been mistaken for a terrorist and imprisoned in Miami for 4 1/2 months. He had lost his job, his car, and – most important to him – his dignity, having to borrow $7,000 to settle down with his newlywed wife in Canada. He did not want to live in the United States anymore.

Cameran Sadeq is Kurdish. In Iraq, he had fought in a U.S.-backed rebellion against Saddam Hussein, who killed thousands of his fellow Kurds with poison gas. After that, he worked through Syria, Lebanon, and Cyprus to get to the U.S. America, he thought, was a friend.

This week, the Trump administration is allowing one of its stronger friends, Turkey, to pulverize Kurds in Syria. The power dynamics and ethical fault lines in the Middle East are notoriously tangled. But without the Kurds, thousands of American troops would have been needed – and put in harm’s way – to defeat the Islamic State. America, they thought, was a friend.

Is it in America’s self-interest to allow the mutual unleashing of pent-up prejudice and fear? That is one view of power. But there is a different view. After my article, Monitor readers sent Cameran $1,600 to help with his debts; it changed his life. That goodwill and generosity of spirit is neither naive nor impractical but speaks to the forces that move the world out of darkness and into light.


You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.

Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Charlie Neibergall/AP
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden works the grill during the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry, Sept. 21, 2019, in Des Moines, Iowa.

In attacking President Trump, Democrat Joe Biden runs a risk – having his own résumé as a Washington insider turned against him.

Looking for jobs in the U.S. through legal channels can seem to promise safety to would-be workers. But even these avenues are rife with fraud, showing how hard it is to immigrate the “right way.”

As the Arab world’s only democracy, Tunisia is giving world politics a twist. Yes, populism is rearing its head here, too. But the anti-establishment fervor is driven by poverty not migration.

Courtesy of ESO/M. Kornmesser/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)
This artist’s view shows the hot Jupiter exoplanet 51 Pegasi b, sometimes referred to as Bellerophon, which orbits a star about 50 light-years from Earth in the northern constellation of Pegasus (The Winged Horse). This was the first exoplanet around a normal star to be found, in 1995. Twenty years later this object was also the first exoplanet to be directly detected spectroscopically in visible light.

The work of three scientists has helped launch a revolution in our views of the cosmos, grounding grand theories about the composition of the universe and planets beyond our solar system in hard data.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Among the works that visitors will see in the reopened Museum of Modern Art in New York is this 1954 painting by María Freire, from Uruguay.

U.S. museums are rethinking how their walls can better reflect the communities they serve. That could change whose work gets shown.


The Monitor's View

AP
OECD chief Angel Gurria announces a plan for international taxes on digital giants like Amazon and Google at an Aug. 29 press conference with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.

For a small place, the Cayman Islands just made a big give. On Wednesday, the notorious tax haven in the Caribbean promised to publish the identities of everyone who owns a company there by 2023. Its premier, Alden McLaughlin, said the move is simply part of “a shift in the global standard and the practices used to combat illicit activity.”

Global norms are indeed moving toward stronger curbs on illegal tax evasion and legal tax avoidance by multinational corporations, the corrupt, drug cartels, and terrorist groups. The commitment from the Caymans, according to finance watchdog Global Witness, “shows how company transparency is now the global standard in financial integrity.”

The former British colony was well known as a hiding place for billions in cash from such firms as Enron that set up empty corporate “shells.” Now Cayman accountants and law enforcement officials are being trained in making ethical decisions and spotting high-profile money laundering.

For the past decade, international pressure has been building to eliminate tax havens. The 2009 world recession exposed major tax fraud and forced governments to retrieve revenue secretly squirreled away in other countries. Both Britain and the European Union have set high standards for accessibility and transparency in financial transactions.

As a British territory, the Caymans along with other crown dependencies such as Isle of Man is slowly being forced to comply. To its credit, the Caymans has not made good on a threat to legally challenge a 2018 British law on disclosure of public ownership.

“In such a globally interconnected framework, transparency standards must be widely adopted and effectively implemented in order to have a tangible impact,” the government said in a statement.

The bright light being shined on black money in off-the-grid financial institutions will require more than changes in laws and procedures. Each tax haven must experience a shift in attitudes about corruption and sleight-of-hand accounting. The Caymans just set an example for others to follow.


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.

Here’s a hymn that could be considered a prayer: that all those around the world facing conflicts old and new can feel God’s presence with them.


A message of love

Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
People mourn outside the synagogue in Halle, Germany, Oct. 10, 2019, after two people were killed in a shooting on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining the Monitor today. Please come back tomorrow when our Simon Montlake offers a profile of the gun enthusiast who is determined to take down the National Rifle Association from within – and explains why.

More issues

2019
October
10
Thursday

Give us your feedback

We want to hear, did we miss an angle we should have covered? Should we come back to this topic? Or just give us a rating for this story. We want to hear from you.