2018
July
24
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

July 24, 2018
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Arthur Bright
Europe Editor

In international soccer, when a national team player retires, it is usually a bittersweet affair. But in the case of German midfielder Mesut Özil, it has set off a firestorm over immigration and racism.

Mr. Özil has been one of Germany’s biggest stars over the past decade. Of Turkish descent, he has been held up as a symbol of German multiculturalism.

But his Turkish heritage has posed challenges, particularly when he appeared in a photo in May with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has a famously tense relationship with Germany. Özil said the shot was innocent, but for many, it was politically loaded.

Then came Germany’s crash out of the World Cup last month. Though it was hardly his fault, Özil became a scapegoat, even for football association leadership. He lost sponsorships. He was lambasted in the press.

For Özil, it looked as if the football world that once feted him had turned racist. “I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose,” he tweeted in his retirement announcement Sunday.

But Özil’s decision has set off a greater discussion. Has Germany done enough to embrace its citizens of multiple national loyalties? What should be done about the xenophobic undertone that has been exposed in German society?

Now to our five stories of the day.


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Kayhan Ozer/AP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addresses supporters at a rally in Istanbul on March 11, 2017, in advance of the national referendum the following month that created a more powerful executive presidency.

The Özil controversy owes much to German frustration with the state of democracy in Turkey. President Erdoğan ended a two-year state of emergency, but its contribution to his grip on power may be lasting.

In the decades since its creation, leaders of Israel have sought to preserve a balance between its "two nonnegotiable identities": Jewish and democratic. A new law, critics say, has upset that balance.

Courtesy of Chuck Graham/USFWS
Once teetering on the edge of extinction, the Santa Cruz Island fox has since rebounded enough to be removed from the endangered and threatened species list. Advocates say that protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act aided in its recovery.

Proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act rocked the conservation world last week. At the heart of the debate lies a fundamental issue: how to balance the needs of people and nature.

Voting rights, peaceful polls, transparency: All are key to fair elections. Another building block is an independent media, which many Pakistanis say is under threat ahead of tomorrow's vote.

As the immigration debate charges forward, artists are offering a different vantage point. Art provides a powerful and insightful – and safe – space to explore a topic as charged as immigration. 


The Monitor's View

Amid the controversies swirling around  the White House, you might have missed President Trump’s launch of an initiative on workforce development. His actions flag the need to address serious problems the US economy and America’s workers face: growing skills shortages, an increasing gap between unfilled jobs and workers to fill them, and solutions for the expected effects of rapid technological changes on future jobs and workplaces.

The United States and most other countries are poorly prepared to handle the waves of new technology, which some call Industry 4.0. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that as many as 375 million workers worldwide may need to change jobs or learn new skills by 2030 because of technological changes.

The anticipated challenges, in addition to a globalized economy and the rise of China, has left many American workers sidelined and left behind. Political leaders have fallen far short of providing solutions while the marketplace has failed to offer good alternatives for millions of workers and many communities hit by plant closures and industry moves.

At the same time, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, there are not enough unemployed workers in the current labor pool to match demand. Some 6.6 million jobs are currently unfilled. Even before this, 45 percent of employers told a Manpower survey that they struggled to fill job vacancies. There is a big mismatch between work and workers in the economy.

Mr. Trump’s move is a welcome response to these issues. He signed an executive order creating a National Council for the American Worker made up of senior officials charged with developing better training and retraining of workers for high-demand industries. The council will be aided by an advisory board to help craft ideas for improving such opportunities for workers.

The president also launched an initiative in which companies, business associations, and others pledge to generate and implement job-training programs that produce results. And the council and its advisory board will also focus on ways to better connect business, workers, and educational institutions.

These efforts should link up with other steps needed to bolster the economy, such as investment in education, research, and critical infrastructure. The president and others should also push Congress to reform the system to permit more immigrants who can bring special skills and talents needed in the economy.

The success of Trump’s proposals will depend on funding and implementing them, and how well they are linked to initiatives already under way in various US states and cities.

The US can also learn from best practices in other countries. This year, the Group of 20 – representing the world’s 20 largest economies – and the smaller Group of Seven both focused on preparing for jobs of the future. And a Wilson Center report called for coordination across North America. Canada and Mexico are the two largest partners of the US for building things together.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution sweeps through world markets, learning from others and sharing best practices is essential. America should lead the way by ensuring its workers are up to the tasks of the 21st century.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

When worry and regret kept today’s contributor up one night, a more spiritual perspective brought her peace and welcome ideas for how to go forward.


A message of love

Yorgos Karahalis/AP
A man stands among charred trees and a burned-out car near the village of Neos Voutzas near Athens on July 24, 2018. More than 600 firefighters were battling the fast-moving blazes, and the country's fleet of water-dropping aircraft has been deployed. Greece has sought international help from its European Union partners as fires on either side of Athens left lines of cars torched, charred farms and forests, and sent hundreds of people racing to beaches to be evacuated by Navy vessels, yachts, and fishing boats. So far, at least 74 people have been killed, and the Greek prime minister has called for three days of mourning.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thank you for accompanying our exploration of the world today. Please do come back tomorrow, when we will examine how same-sex married couples in France, despite having the legal right to adopt, are finding a deep resistance in the French establishment.

More issues

2018
July
24
Tuesday
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