2022
August
25
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 25, 2022
Loading the player...
Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Last summer, Khalida Popal knew the Taliban were winning before they got to Kabul. As program director of the Afghan women’s national soccer team, she hoped “my girls” had begun to make plans to leave.

It had been 10 years since Ms. Popal herself had fled, attacked at gunpoint for daring to play soccer and not be ashamed. But this was different. The players who remained had continued to speak against the Taliban. Western powers held them up as a model of a new Afghanistan. Now, “all of a sudden, the enemy was outside their door,” she says.

Ms. Popal’s story could so easily be one more example of the failed promise of equal rights for Afghan women – herself a refugee in Denmark, her team in danger of terrible retribution. 

Instead, she’s writing a dramatically different ending. With her help, all her players escaped Afghanistan safely. Next month, she’ll travel to Australia, where the team is thriving as a special member of an Australian league, supported by one of the country’s biggest professional clubs, Melbourne Victory. And her own Girl Power organization in Denmark is helping female refugees find opportunities to play sports across Europe.

But in that moment 12 months ago, the women of her team “were crying. They desperately needed help. And I asked myself, what can I do from Denmark?”

She could think of one answer: “I am the voice for voiceless sisters. I have a tool.” She could do media interviews. She could call for help.

And help came, first in getting her team out of Afghanistan, then in bringing them together again on the field – half a world away in Australia. Ms. Popal had already been a refugee once – when she was a young girl and the Taliban rose to power the first time. “I have lived this life,” she says. Now, “I’m trying to use my experience to help these young women.”


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

Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Would President Joe Biden’s student debt plan help offset the inequities of college tuition or would it give some people an unfair boost – all while fueling inflation? That’s the core question.

Darko Vojinovic/AP/File
Russia players react at the end of the 2019 Women's EuroBasket European Basketball Championship match between Russia and Sweden in Belgrade, Serbia, July 6, 2019.

The Ukraine war’s ramifications may not be hitting the Russian public hard, but Russian sports are suffering as foreign players and organizations boycott them.

Five years ago Hurricane Harvey revealed growing flood risks in southeastern Texas. But without any quick or easy fixes, residents are turning to perseverance to cope.

Shane Brown/Courtesy of FX on Hulu
Devery Jacobs (left) and Paulina Alexis star in “Reservation Dogs,” a Peabody Award-winning comedy now in its second season.

Indigenous artists say a shift is underway in Hollywood. They’re shedding the sidekick or villain image for more modern and well-rounded representations that give a fuller picture of American life.

Book review

Eric Risberg/AP/File
A humpback whale breaches off Half Moon Bay, California. “The more we learn about other animals and discover evidence of their manifold capacities, the more we care, and this alters how we treat them,” writes author Tom Mustill.

A new book inspired by a whale encounter at sea argues that when people understand more about animal behavior, they start to feel greater unity with other species.


The Monitor's View

AP
A person passes in front of the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, Aug. 25,

This may be a record in a national surge for activism in honesty. Between 2017 and 2020, the percentage of Malaysians who told pollsters that ordinary people can make a difference against corruption rose 13 points, to 68%. The number is probably even higher now after a political earthquake hit the Southeast Asian nation this week.

On Tuesday, people in Malaysia watched in awe as the highest court sent a powerful former prime minister, Najib Razak, to prison to serve a 12-year sentence for a massive corruption scandal involving a state fund called 1MDB. The scandal is known as the world’s largest kleptocracy case, involving billions of dollars.

While much of the credit for Mr. Najib’s imprisonment went to five justices for their integrity in withstanding political pressure, many others – from whistleblowers to lawyers to members of the public – were praised.

“This proves that the people are in power,” said a prominent opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. He cited a shift in the public mood during a 2018 parliamentary election that ousted Mr. Najib and his party from power.

That election, in the predominantly Muslim country of some 33 million people, also helped elevate a powerful voice for an independent judiciary. Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat became chief justice in 2019, the first woman to hold the post. She remains outspoken about the role of the courts in treating everyone with equal justice under the law.

“It is common to hear judges being labeled as a conservative or a liberal judge. As far as I am concerned, only one label matters, namely, an impartial judge,” she said in 2021.

She also said the ability of a judge to resist corruption must be matched by a respect for core values of independence, personal integrity, propriety, equality, competence, and diligence.

Those qualities, in both Malaysia’s courts and the public at large, have now helped bring a major financial scandal to light, sending a big politician to prison. “This makes a significant change in political norms in the Southeast Asia region where leaders often enjoy unofficial ‘immunity’ from their successors,” wrote commentator James Chin in Channel News Asia.

That shift in norms began with what one civic activist called “the collective spirit of Malaysians” in understanding that ordinary people can demand honest governance.


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.

Upheaval in the world might suggest that there’s no hope for finding order in it. But as this author discovered, acknowledging and evidencing God’s control in our daily lives helps us understand how peace and harmony truly prevail.


A message of love

Carlos Barria/Reuters
This view of cars on the road during a rush-hour traffic jam in San Francisco was taken yesterday, Aug. 24, 2022. Today, the California Air Resources Board banned the sale of new gasoline-powered cars beginning in 2035.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. Please come back tomorrow when our Ann Scott Tyson looks at what China’s military exercises and new strategic thinking suggest about its plans for Taiwan.

More issues

2022
August
25
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.