2020
February
11
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

February 11, 2020
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In today’s edition, our five selected stories cover Amy Klobuchar’s voter appeal, privacy versus safety in Brazil, the rise of a four-day workweek, fewer suicides in Latvia and Lithuania, and signs of progress worldwide.

The coronavirus story, to date, has mostly been a narrative of fear and rising, faceless numbers. But for Hong Kong-based journalist Yuli Yang, this is personal. She grew up in Wuhan, China. Her parents are OK, but struggling with three weeks of quarantine and the death of a friend.

Last week, Ms. Yang was “looking for a way to send beams of light into that darkness.” First, she published a “love letter” highlighting her hometown’s lakes, spicy noodles, and local hero, Li Na, a tennis star. The Wuhan vignettes were her effort to “open up a small space ... a space for compassion ... to support ... my fellow Wuhaners.”

Then, Ms. Yang organized a digital “get well soon” card on Twitter. “The people of Wuhan are fighting this virus and they need us ... so that we can all heal, collectively,” she told CNN Friday. The global response was swift and mostly inspiring.

“For those of you who have the virus, for those of you who are waiting and waiting ... you are not alone. We do care about you! We are praying for you. For strength, for healing, for peace ... Sending lots of love! #GoWuhan,” posted Celia Evenson, a French woman in Russia.

Ms. Yang translated and posted the notes on Weibo, a Chinese website. In one small corner of the internet, she is shattering the walls of isolation and indifference, sending light and love to the people of Wuhan.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar throws back her head and laughs as she speaks at the Nashua Rotary Club meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire, Feb. 10, 2020.

What does a surge by the senator from Minnesota tell us about the New Hampshire electorate? It suggests a desire for pragmatism, Midwestern values, and yes, a sense of humor. 

We look at why the fight against violent crime is leading many Brazilians to sacrifice their personal privacy in the quest for safety.

Comic Debrief

Four-day workweek: Why idea of shorter hours gains support

The 40-hour workweek has been U.S. law for eight decades. But now, worldwide, there’s a nascent effort to boost productivity by working fewer hours. Is less, more?

Eoin O'Carroll and Jacob Turcotte

Thanks to shifting attitudes about treating mental health, suicide rates are dropping. But prevention and education efforts are still at an early stage.

Points of Progress

What's going right
Staff
Countries where the world saw progress, for the Feb. 17, 2020 Monitor Weekly.

We find progress busting out in five places around the world, including gender equity in Greek leadership and in box office receipts, the judiciary checking Pakistani military reach, and using radar to protect Japan’s forests.

Staff

The Monitor's View

AP
Protesters shake snow off their tent Feb. 11 in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, one center of protests since Oct. 1.

Iraq’s capital of Baghdad was carpeted with a rare snowfall Tuesday. It brought people onto the streets to make snowmen together and join in friendly snowball fights. The collective experience was an apt reflection of the past four months in Iraq. Since Oct. 1, tens of thousands of young people have maintained nonviolent and leaderless protests in major cities, hoping to redefine the meaning of community for Iraq. So far, despite the killing of more than 500 demonstrators, neither the protesters nor their shared vision has melted away.

With nearly half of Iraqis under age 21, the protesters are as difficult to ignore as are their idealistic aims. They focus on creating a secular state that respects civic rights and an end to a type of government in which power and oil wealth are divvied up by religious and ethnic groups. They also want foreign powers (namely Iran and the United States) to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs.

Such aims are similar to those raised during months of protests in nearby Lebanon. In both countries, the uprising has led to the downfall of a prime minister and an uneasy tension with the political elite over who will run government. In Iraq, the protesters have a powerful ally, the revered Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He has called for an end to the killing of protesters and for free and fair elections “as soon as possible.” A new government, he says, must earn the people’s trust.

Because of Iraq’s pivotal position in the Middle East, its protests may be the most significant of the many youthful protests that erupted worldwide in 2019 from Chile to Algeria to Hong Kong. If one element binds these grassroots movements, it has been the rejection of how governments have been organized and an embrace of inclusive democracy based on universal principles.

In a speech Monday, Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Program, described this global trend in its broadest meaning:

“From the grassroots, to the business communities, to people voting with their feet in protest, mature democracies and autocracies alike are experiencing a new form of community today – a new form of people power – representing a profound shift in the global landscape of collaboration and dissent. ...

“We once thought of a community as a group of people who live in the same geographic area, or who share socio-economic, ethnic, linguistic, or religious characteristics. The evolving global context, including the extent to which new technologies have empowered communication and information-sharing at the individual-level, requires us to embrace a far wider definition.

“Many communities that drive change now cut across the boundaries of class, geography, language, religion, political orientation, and identity. They do not ‘respect’ the typologies of the past.

“What binds them together is shared experience, understanding, belief, and common visions and ways of working.”

His explanation helps justify the close attention to the protests in Iraq. A new meaning of community may be forming, one that could reshape a troubled region. Like a blanket of snow, young Iraqis are bringing a country together in a way it rarely experiences.


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.

There are many influences out there, digital and otherwise, some beneficial and others corrosive. But each of us can contribute to a happier, healthier, and more just world by welcoming the all-embracing influence of God, good.


A message of love

Toby Melville/Reuters
Large waves hit the harbor wall at Newhaven, England, Feb. 11, 2020. Britain is bracing for another storm this weekend after powerful wind and rains took out power for 20,000 homes this past Sunday.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a story about what our sun can teach us about finding planets in other solar systems.

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2020
February
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