2019
January
11
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

January 11, 2019
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Clayton Collins
Director of Editorial Innovation

If you were in Hawaii a year ago this Sunday, the phrase “this is not a drill” might recall 38 minutes of soul-searching.

That’s how long it was before a text alert about an incoming missile was rescinded by the state’s emergency management office. Tensions were high with North Korea, adding credibility to the threat.

Todd Schauman, a colleague then living there, was at a youth basketball tournament. The gym doubled as a shelter. “We were there with many local families,” he says. “There were some good conversations, and the tournament organizers helped promote calm.”

Another dad, who worked in civil air defense, talked about the systems in place and calmly worked his phone. His own “stand down” came before the state’s. Play resumed.

The Hawaiian musician Makana had a more prolonged reaction. After confirming that most of the world’s nuclear arsenal is gripped by the US and Russia, he went to work – and then he went to Russia.

Inside an old Soviet bunker he recorded a song – the acoustics are dramatic – that’s been released for the Hawaiian anniversary. In the video that accompanies it he passes through a crowd of young Russians who look as though they, too, might have gathered for some game. It’s a scene of personalities, not politics.

“My intention is to inspire and remind us all to humanize one another,” Makana says, “to dignify and be curious about each other.” Those connections, he says, are the path to security and peace for us all.

Now to our five stories for your Friday.


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Look away from the US southern border. Bravado and self-assurance have stoked tensions over trade for the world’s two largest economies. We look at what’s shifting as both sides see the risks of a trade war.

Santiago Billy/AP
People gather in Guatemala City Jan. 9 to show support for the Constitutional Court, which blocked President Jimmy Morales' decision to end the United Nations International Commission Against Impunity.

Now look well south of the US-Mexico line. In Guatemala, a leader who vowed to curb corruption has changed his tune. We wanted to explore what could happen if institutions can’t check him.

A deeper look

The outsider presidency has challenged core conservative principles, such as commitment to free markets and limited government spending. So is a new “official conservatism” taking shape?

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor
Lesly Melendez, deputy director of Groundwork Lawrence, stands near Oxford Park, a former brownfield site in Lawrence, Mass. Brownfields, properties at which redevelopment is stalled due to potential contamination, are predominantly found in poor, minority communities.

Residents of New England’s old mill towns might be excused for feeling left behind. But in Lawrence, Mass., locals have refused to let abandoned buildings and polluted landscapes define their future.

Reporter’s notebook

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor
Ethnic Tuareg nomads ride through Agadez, Niger. For centuries Agadez has been a crossroads of the desert, an oasis where caravans of camels, guided by desert-dwelling Tuaregs, would stop to replenish as they carried gold, ivory, and ebony northward, or silks, beads, and pottery south.

To two longtime Monitor correspondents on assignment, a step into the Sahara meant adventure. But to others, it represents peril. And to still others, it can mean life and livelihood. 


The Monitor's View

In case you have yet to send thank-you notes for holiday gifts, perhaps this rare story of public gratitude might give you a nudge. In Greece this week, government leaders gave a big thank-you to a visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel for helping the country become free of massive bailouts and get itself back on its fiscal feet.

Just five years ago, Alexis Tsipras, the current prime minister, told Ms. Merkel during a visit to “go back” because of the financial austerity and strict reforms imposed on a Greece long used to entitlements, tax evasion, and lying about official debt.

The gratitude was more than warranted.

The size of emergency loans from foreign creditors ($331 billion) from 2010 to 2018 – especially from German taxpayers – was the largest ever to a country on the brink of bankruptcy. And Germany certainly had an interest in rescuing Greece. Collapse of the economy or a default on debt might have destroyed the euro, the single currency for much of Europe.

Yet the gratitude expressed by both Mr. Tsipras and Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos was more than a “debt of gratitude” or an acknowledgment of mutual dependency. Both sides spoke as if a virtuous cycle of friendship and partnership had replaced past resentments and fear.

Gratitude for good can have that power. It can replace an instinct for willpower to solve a problem. It allows for patience and an openness to further good.

“The difficulties now lie behind us,” said Tsipras, who had once opposed budget belt-tightening. “Greece is a different country that can regard the future with greater optimism.”

For her part, Merkel appreciated the new trust and frankness that helped the countries find solutions. She also paid tribute, with some empathy, to the continuing sacrifices of Greeks. “I know people went through great difficulty and had to undergo very hard and harsh reforms.”

The Greek economy still has a long way to go to maintain its steady but small growth. About a third of the population lives near poverty. But Merkel’s visit marks another step in the thinking of Greeks as they emerge from crisis. Being thankful is a critical threshold.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

After a fish bone lodged in her throat, today’s contributor found that God’s help is always right at hand.


A message of love

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Tourists take photos near a replica of a medieval homestead during a “Game of Thrones” tour in southern Iceland. An otherworldly landscape and low airfares have long attracted visitors to the country. Now, fans of the megahit HBO series come to walk in the footsteps of their favorite characters with the help of specialized tours that shuttle aficionados to key settings from the show. Subarctic Iceland was initially scouted as a location only for snowy scenes from “beyond The Wall.” But in warmer months, iconic locales have doubled for other series locations.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Have a good weekend and come back Monday. We’ll preview the confirmation hearing of the new US attorney-general nominee and look at why many “emerging adults” are putting off traditional markers of the grown-up world such as marriage, children, and home ownership.

More issues

2019
January
11
Friday
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