2024
April
12
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

April 12, 2024
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

I’ve been doing Monitor journalism for nearly 28 years, but there’s something I never really realized until I read Cameron Pugh’s story today. The best Monitor stories are both big and small. 

There’s a largeness to Cameron’s story about many Black families turning to doulas for childbirth – a broad societal question that must be wrestled with to see progress. Yet there is also an intimacy that is deeply human. I smiled at the “labor DJ.” 

The world often tries to force us to choose among seeming opposites. Big or small. Red or blue. Us or them. The most meaningful Monitor journalism shows we get the best of both.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Erica Dischino/Reuters
Cary Pallas prepares to vote in the presidential primary election in Superior, Wisconsin, April 2, 2024.

Doubts about election integrity vary by party. But in general, they’ve been growing in recent years, raising concerns about the peaceful transfer of power in U.S. democracy. 

Today’s news briefs

• Russian attacks on Ukraine: Russian missiles and drones destroy a large electricity plant near Kyiv and hit power facilities in several regions of Ukraine, ramping up pressure on the embattled energy system as Kyiv runs low on air defenses.
• U.S. international aid deal: House Speaker Mike Johnson is negotiating with the White House as he prepares for the treacherous task of advancing wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel through the House.
• Biden administration oil project: In a move that activists called a betrayal, the Biden administration approves the construction of a deepwater oil export terminal off the Texas coast that would be the largest of its kind in the United States.
• Ecuador embassy raid: Mexico asks the International Court of Justice to suspend Ecuador’s membership until the country issues a public apology for its raid on Mexico’s embassy in Quito.
• Shohei Ohtani interpreter charged: Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter is charged with bank fraud in federal court and accused of stealing $16 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers player to cover gambling debts.

Read these news briefs.

Election integrity relies heavily on America’s state election officials, yet these roles have grown increasingly politicized. The latest sign is tension over whether two states might leave President Joe Biden off the ballot.

Shifting demographics are challenging Japan’s reputation as a homogeneous society – and creating unprecedented openings for immigrants to participate in local government.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Birthing doula Melody Cunningham poses in a park, in Weymouth, Massachusetts, April 10, 2024. The mother of five became a doula for Black women to make sure others had more positive experiences giving birth than she did.

Having someone to talk to helps many first-time parents feel more confident. For Black expectant mothers, doulas have helped restore trust in a medical system that has a history of mistreating them.

Umer Asif
Migratory birds fly in Hokersar, Kashmir’s second-largest wetland reserve. It is spread over 8 square miles on the outskirts of Srinagar.

Winter skies can be gray and bleak. But in the Kashmir Valley, flocks of migrating birds brought cheer to this wetland reserve.


The Monitor's View

AP
Iranian women wait to watch a soccer match between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 3, 2023.

Since Oct. 7, the day that Hamas attacked Israel and triggered a war in Gaza, the world has worried that the conflict might spread and become even more violent. Other proxy militias of Iran, such as the Houthis in Yemen, have launched their own attacks. Months of rocket attacks on Israel by Hezbollah in Lebanon led to an Israeli missile strike last week on Iran’s Embassy in Syria, killing a top Iranian commander supporting Hezbollah. That strike in particular raised concerns because Iran has since vowed to retaliate with a direct hit on Israel.

This heightened tension has prompted a rare unity of calls for restraint from the United States, Russia, Europe, and China. Iran may yet make good on its threat, but there are signs that the sort of tit-for-tat logic that has long ensnared the Middle East may be losing its force.

Voices in Iran, for example, are calling for cool heads to prevail. One is Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, former head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy committee. He cautioned, “We should not see the issues emotionally” and must keep “the balance between diplomacy and the battlefield.” Iran cannot risk “a conflict that serves none of its national interests,” he added.

His advice for temperance over vengeance may reflect deeper shifts in the Middle East. Three trends mark that shift.

One is a widespread desire, mainly among young people, for equality and rule of law from their autocratic regimes. Protest movements in both Iran and many Arab states since the 2011 Arab Spring have forced rulers to think twice about igniting a conflict. In Iran itself, 80% of people reject rule by Islamic clerics, according to a Gamaan poll last year. That percentage probably keeps rising as authorities further crack down on women who don’t cover their head.

The second shift is a yearning for peace that is not merely the absence of violence. Before the war in Gaza, the region was alive with deals and dealmaking to expand trade and investment. Saudi Arabia, especially, was eager to appease its restless youth by building non-oil industries and perhaps recognize Israel.

A third shift is an increase in peacemakers. Qatar, a key regional ally of Iran, has sought to build a bridge of peace between Israel and Hamas. Last month, Oman hosted the first direct contact between Iranian and U.S. officials seeking cooperation to end attacks by Yemeni rebels against cargo ships in the Red Sea. Iraq has helped in reconciling Iran and Saudi Arabia.

“We never think about going to war because we know the results,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told the Wilson Center last year. His government’s focus, he said, is: “First, laws. Second, implementing laws. And third, changing the culture” of governance.

If Iran does not retaliate against Israel’s attack on its embassy, it may be for internal reasons. The regime has serious social, political, and economic troubles, says Iranian journalist Saeid Jafari in an essay for the Atlantic Council this week. Its military response, in other words, may be more muted than its rhetoric.

The Middle East keeps changing from the violence of major wars that took place more than a half-century ago. It is more interlocked by public demands for better governance, shifts within Islam, trade, the internet, and the rise of norms such as one pushed by Oman – the “ideology of politeness.”  Peace isn’t just a noun for “no violence.” It is a verb defining ideals in action.


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.

Even when we feel we’ve let ourselves and others down, we can humbly and reliably turn to God to lead us forward in ways that bless.


Viewfinder

Parco Archeologico di Pompei/Reuters
Archaeologists shared images this week of new discoveries from Pompeii, the ancient city that was frozen in place after Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 and covered it in ash. This handout picture shows one fresco from a large banquet hall that speaks to the owners’ ‘elegant lifestyle,’ according to a statement from the Pompeii Archaeological Park. The frescoes were drawn from Greek mythology – in this case, Helen of Troy and Paris, whose abduction of Helen led to the Trojan War. The walls were painted black to mask the smoke from oil lamps.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for spending time with us this week. Next week, we will be tracking several stories, including the felony case moving forward against former President Donald Trump, the trend lines on inflation, a primer on Indian elections, and Taylor Swift’s new album. 

More issues

2024
April
12
Friday

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