The World and Everything in It — September 2, 2020

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The United Arab Emirates recognized Israel last month. We’ll talk about what this means for the Middle East and the world.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also World Tour. 

Plus a folk instrument that makes it easy for anyone to create his own music.

And WORLD founder Joel Belz on our call to pray.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, September 2nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: President Trump tours Kenosha, Wisconsin » President Trump visited the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday where he toured some areas hard hit by looting and rioting after a police shooting last month.

TRUMP: So this store was here 109 years, and we’re going to help them a lot. I think we’re going to help them a lot. 

The president heard there alongside a small business owner—amid the charred remains of his camera shop. 

Trump also met with law enforcement and community leaders. 

TRUMP: So I came to thank the law enforcement, the police, they’re incredible. And the National Guard has been truly amazing. 

And he thanked Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Tony Evers for asking for federal help to quell violent protests. He criticized Democratic leaders elsewhere for rejecting federal help in restoring order. 

Evers, though, had asked the president not to make the trip to Kenosha, saying his visit would only stoke division. 

Protests began after the August 23rd shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake. 

The president told reporters Monday that he was not meeting with Blake’s family while in Kenosha because the family wanted attorneys present.

Protest erupt after police shooting in Los Angeles » AUDIO: [Sound of protest]

Meantime, protests have erupted in Los Angeles after a police shooting there on Monday. 

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a black man that family members later identified as Dijon Kizzee. 

Sheriff’s Lt. Brandon Dean told the LA Times that deputies “tried to stop the man for riding his bicycle in violation of vehicle codes,” when he “dropped his bike and ran. When they caught up to him he punched one of them in the face and dropped a bundle of clothes he was carrying. The deputies spotted a handgun in the bundle and opened fire.”

Dean added that the suspect was—quote—“in possession of a firearm and did assault a deputy.”

But protesters are questioning why the officers fired if Kizzee wasn’t actually holding the weapon. 

Trial of suspects in 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks begins » The first trial begins today for more than a dozen people charged in the 2015 terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo.

And to mark the occasion, the French satirical paper has reprinted the caricatures of Mohammed that prompted the attack. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Thirteen men and a woman accused of providing the attackers with weapons and logistics go on trial today. 

Islamic terrorists staged the attack at Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices in January, 2015. They killed 12 people during an editorial meeting, as well as two police officers. The attackers cited the paper’s caricatures of Mohammed as the reason for the killing. 

On Tuesday, the paper reprinted the Mohammed cartoons, declaring “history cannot be rewritten nor erased.”

In an editorial this week accompanying the caricatures, Charlie Hebdo said that although it had declined to publish caricatures of Mohammed since the attacks, doing so for the opening of the trial was necessary. It said “The only reasons not to stem from political or journalistic cowardice.”

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin. 

COVID-19 surge recedes across Sun Belt as Fla. lifts ban on nursing home visits » After an alarming surge of coronavirus cases across the Sun Belt, the numbers are now moving in the right direction in most of those states. 

New cases, the percentage of positive tests, and COVID-19 deaths have dropped recently from California to Georgia and Florida and every state in between, except one. Those numbers are still rising in Alabama. 

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday that he’s lifting the state’s ban on visiting nursing homes. 

DESANTIS: It’s not back to fully normal, but it is allowing visitation, which is important. So all visitors have to wear the PPE and then pass through a screening. 

All visitation will be by appointment only, with only two visitors at a time. 

Facilities have to go 14 days without any new cases of the virus to allow the visits.

FAA approves Amazon drones, Walmart launches answer to Prime » Amazon.com is one step closer to delivering packages from the sky while Walmart launches its answer to Amazon Prime. WORLD’s Anna Johansen has that story. 

ANNA JOHANSEN, REPORTER: The Federal Aviation Administration said this week that it has granted Amazon approval to deliver packages using drones.

Last year, the online retailer unveiled self-piloting drones that are fully electric and can carry 5 pounds of goods. They’re designed to deliver packages within 30 minutes by dropping them in customers’ backyards. 

Amazon is still testing aerial delivery. No word on when it might roll out a fleet of drones. 

Meantime, Walmart is launching a new membership service to compete with Amazon Prime. 

The service is called Walmart+. It will cost about $13 a month or roughly $100 a year if paid annually. It will give members same-day delivery on 160,000 items. And the company says members will also get fuel discounts and can check out at Walmart stores without having to wait at a register.  

Walmart has a long way to go to catch up with Amazon Prime. Launched in 2005, Prime has more than 150 million members worldwide.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: A new chapter for diplomacy in the Middle East.

Plus, Joel Belz with a special call to prayer.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: It’s Wednesday the 2nd of September, 2020.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: Washington Wednesday. 

On August 13th, President Trump made a surprise announcement from the Oval Office.

TRUMP: Just a few moments ago, I hosted a very special call with two friends: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates where they agreed to finalize a historical peace agreement. Everybody said this would be impossible.

Here’s what Israel gave up: It will postpone the annexation of Jewish settlements in the disputed West Bank. That area is part of land the Palestinians hope to claim for their future state.

No matter: Palestinian officials called the deal a stab in the back and the Palestinian street responded.

AUDIO: [Sound of protesters chanting]

REICHARD: Hundreds of protesters in Gaza chanted “No to normalization.” A senior Hamas official said the deal “serves and promotes the occupation in its projects that target Palestine and the whole region.” Occupation, meaning Israel.

But that did not deter the new diplomatic friendship from progressing. On Monday, the first commercial flight from Israel landed in Abu Dhabi. It carried high-ranking delegations from Israel and the United States.

EICHER: During a post-flight ceremony, President Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser, Jared Kushner, hailed the agreement as a step toward peace. And he urged the Palestinians to stop living in the past and move into a more hopeful future.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about what this all means for a larger, regional peace deal is Michael Rubin. He’s a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in the Middle East. Good morning!

MICHAEL RUBIN, GUEST: Good morning! 

REICHARD: We just heard audio of President Trump announcing the agreement. The news broke as quite a surprise, at least as far as the general public is concerned. But clearly this has been in the works for a while. What role did the United States play here?

RUBIN: Well, certainly the United States and the Trump administration played a facilitation role—especially when it came to encouraging the Gulf allies, of which the United Arab Emirates is front and center that they had far greater interests to make peace now. The other thing that came into play was the Trump administration’s role in negotiating an agreement that would forestall Israeli annexation of some portions of the West Bank in exchange for this normalization.

REICHARD: The United Arab Emirates is not the biggest player in Arab politics in the Middle East. So how significant is it for them to make this move?

RUBIN: Well, it’s extremely significant. The United Arab Emirates may not be the most populous state—that’s Egypt—or any of the most politically significant states, but it really has been punching above its weight in recent years. And it’s been promoting a model of tolerance and of business first, and therefore, it seems to be a natural fit. 

I mean, certainly there’s also the factor which overshadows all of this peace dealing, which is both Israel and the United Arab Emirates, as well as many other Arab states, now face a common perceived threat with regard to Iran. And therefore they may want to get all their ducks in a row.

REICHARD: Everyone gets something in a deal like this, so what’s in it for both sides?

RUBIN: Well, what’s really interesting in this case as opposed to previous deal-making—the Israeli-Egyptian peace, the Israeli-Jordanian peace, for example—is that this for the first time is more a peace among equals. The economies of Israel and the Emirates are both fairly similar. They both have similar emphases on high-tech industries and being business friendly. 

And what makes this peace deal more significant than anything else is while Jordan and Egypt were about security, were about ending a state of war, this really is the first opportunity for a peace with Israel that’s going to be a warm peace instead of just a cold, formal peace.

REICHARD: President Trump said he expects other countries to follow in the UAE’s footsteps, and you’ve said you agree with that. So who are the most likely candidates and what does each of them bring to the table, in terms of significance?

RUBIN: Well, you know, there are so many candidates right now, which shows the sea change which we’ve seen in Arab politics. Some people are putting their bets on Sudan, which recently overthrew a rejectionist dictator. I mean, just over a decade ago we were talking about genocide in Sudan and now it seems to want to rejoin the community of nations. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was just out there. 

Or it could be Bahrain. Bahrain is the smallest Arab state. It’s an island nation in the Persian Gulf, but it’s also known to be one of the most tolerant. Just a few years ago, Bahrain sent a Jewish female ambassador to the United States. And so it’s also a host to our fifth fleet and so they also have some security concerns which unite them with Israel and the United States. 

This El Al flight, this historic El Al flight, which took Jared Kushner and the Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi, flew over Saudi airspace, which really has never been done before because Saudi Arabia has traditionally banned Israeli overflights. And so a lot of people are saying Saudi Arabia could be next. 

Bibi Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, had an open visit to Oman, the Sultan of Oman, and so there’s another candidate there. Or we could look to North Africa where both Morocco and Tunisia have strong historic ties to Israel simply because so many of their Jewish community not only left to Israel but also returned regularly to Israel at the encouragement of the king.

REICHARD: When do you think we might see one of these countries recognizing Israel? Could it be weeks or months, or are we talking more like years?

RUBIN: This could be a matter of weeks. Certainly that’s what the Trump administration hopes because many of these states are also wary that American foreign policy has become a bit of a political football. 

And, therefore, they feel that if they don’t make this deal—or, at least this is what the Trump administration is saying—that under a Biden administration there could be a more strategic orientation of the United States, more towards Iran, trying to vitalize that Iranian diplomacy, trying to give incentives to make that diplomacy happen, which could come at the expense of interests of some of these Gulf states. 

So, the Trump administration on one hand is saying, “Hey, let’s get this deal done now.” Some of the other states in the region, however, are saying, “You know, it’s too close to an American election. We don’t’ want to fall into this dynamic of being a political football, so maybe let’s put it on ice until after we see what happens in November.”

REICHARD: Of course, the Palestinians are not happy about this at all. If more Arab countries do recognize Israel, where does that leave the effort to end the conflict over the Palestinian territories?

RUBIN: Well, the Palestinians are saying in many ways this is a betrayal of their desire for statehood, but after decades, a lot of the Arab states aren’t buying this anymore. They say, “Hey, look, under the Oslo accords, you agreed to a two-state solution.” Under the Oslo accords, there’s an understanding that there’s going to be compromise on territory and so forth—even on Jerusalem—therefore why should we keep abiding by your veto when, after all, the Israelis offered a peace deal in 2000, under Bill Clinton. They offered a peace deal in 2008 at the end of the George W. Bush administration that actually would have given the Palestinians more than 100 percent of the territory they had claimed and the Palestinians still said no. 

So a lot of the Arab states are kind of exasperated by this. The last thing to keep in mind is that within the Palestinian community, a lot of people are saying, “Hey, look, on one hand, the Palestinian leadership is calling for a boycott, but on the other hand, is it really our interest?” No other than Suha Arafat, who was Yassir Arafat’s widow, she recently said, “You know, the Palestinian leadership’s just got to get over this and actually join and help shape a future instead of simply vetoing everything.” 

REICHARD: Lastly, I wanted to ask you about a bit of advice you offer to U.S. diplomats and officials going forward: step out of the way. What do you mean by that?

RUBIN: Well, I mean, basically what we need to understand is that we really have a historic confluence of interest here. In many ways we could get a sense of this with the Arab Spring, which was about everything but the Arab-Israeli conflict. And so if Arab states are saying, “You know, we want to get involved with Israel.” We shouldn’t do anything that say, “Hey, look, let’s wait. Let’s try to bring this into a more comprehensive, multilateral peace deal like we’ve been trying to do for the last 50 years or so.” 

Rather, we should just—if these states want to have bilateral deals with Israel, let’s see where momentum goes and stop putting impediments or brakes in their path and let’s also stop trying to look at this solely through the lens of the American political calendar to recognize that other states have other interests and no state should be fearful of what the United States’ reaction should be should they decide to make peace with Bibi Netanyahu.

REICHARD: Michael Rubin is a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute specializing in the Middle East. Thanks so much for joining us today!

RUBIN: Thank you.

MARY REICHARD: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with Africa reporter Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Sudan signs peace deal with rebels—We start today here in Africa.

AUDIO: [SUDAN PEACE DEAL APPLAUSE]

Sudan’s government has signed a peace deal with the rebel alliance to end 17 years of conflict. A coalition of five rebel groups signed the agreement Monday at a ceremony that capped off almost a year of negotiations.

About 300,000 people have been killed in the region since rebels took up arms in 2003. Former President Omar al-Bashir tried to crush the unrest with more violence, sometimes targeting civilians. The military ousted al-Bashir last year and a transitional council has ruled ever since.

The final agreement covers key issues dealing with land rights, security, and power sharing. People who fled their homes because of the war can return home. Rebel forces will disperse and fighters will integrate into the national army.

Paul Rusesabagina arrested—Next, we go to Rwanda.

AUDIO: [RUSESABAGINA ARREST ANNOUNCEMENT]

A man known for saving more than 1,000 people during the Rwandan genocide has been arrested on terror charges. During the 1994 slaughter, Paul Rusesabagina is credited with sheltering thousands of ethnic Tutsis in a hotel he managed. That story was later told in the film Hotel Rwanda.

But on Monday, Rwandan police announced they had arrested Rusesabagina for sponsoring and arming violent terror groups. Rusesabagina’s daughter says the charges are completely made up, and that officials targeted him because he has frequently criticized the current government.

Rusesabagina has received several international awards, but some Rwandans still contest his story of protecting survivors during the genocide.

China expands Uighur camps, Uighur model imprisoned—Next, we go to Asia.

AUDIO: [CHINA UIGHUR PROPAGANDA]

A young Uighur man has disappeared after leaking video footage from inside a Chinese internment camp. Merdan Ghappar is a prominent fashion model. Officials placed him in a so-called “reeducation camp” in January.

A few weeks later, Ghappar managed to send a few text messages and a video of himself to his family. The video shows Ghappar handcuffed to a bed in a tiny cell. Propaganda announcements blare in the background. In his text messages, Ghappar said he is covered in lice. Sometimes he hears people screaming all day. No one has heard from Ghappar since he sent those messages.

China calls the camps “vocational schools,” and denies any human rights abuses.

Reports estimate that more than 1 million Uighurs are imprisoned in the camps, and that China continues to expand its fortified detention facilities.

Israeli teenagers find trove of gold coins—Finally, we end today in the Middle East.

AUDIO: [ISRAELI TEENAGER]

Two Israeli teenagers unearthed a trove of gold coins from 1,000 years ago. The teens were working at an archaeological site, and originally thought they’d found some very thin leaves buried in a clay jar.

But the jar actually contained more than 400 coins, all pure 24-carat gold. Such a large collection of coins is a rare find: Gold was often melted down and reused by later civilizations. These coins date back to the end of the 9th century when an Islamic caliphate ruled the territory from Algeria to Afghanistan.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER: Suppose you hear something like this.

AUDIO: [BUZZING]

Like a, what?, like a swarm of angry bees overhead, but all you can see is what appears to be some kind of futuristic flying motorcycle sidecar.

That’s no modernist beehive. It’s SkyDrive—specifically its new SD-03 flying electric car. That’s what the Japanese company that made it calls it. 

Though, for a “flying car,” one design feature is conspicuously missing. It has no wheels! It has skids, more like a helicopter.

It’s being billed as a way to fly right over all the gridlocked commuters on the highway below.

It’s powered by electric motors and eight small propellers, similar to many drones now on the market.

No word yet on the price tag. But SkyDrive says it aims to put customers behind the proverbial wheel of the vehicles within the next three years.

So you can skip the big-city traffic, but then you’ve got another big-city problem on your hands: parking. This single-passenger vehicle takes up the space of two cars.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MUSIC: [OLD JOE CLARK]

NICK EICHER: Today is Wednesday, September 2nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. 

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Well, it might be awhile before we can hear a live music performance again. So why not make your own music?

Today, WORLD Radio Intern Vivian Jones introduces us to an instrument that’s easy to learn.

VIVIAN JONES, CORRESPONDENT: You’ve probably heard this sound before, but you might not have recognized what it is. It’s an instrument called the mountain dulcimer.  

SIEFERT: Now there’s three strings on here. I am going to strum two of them, but I’m going to leave them alone other than that. They’re going to provide an almost bagpipe quality to the music and this is, this is the traditional way of, of playing the instrument.  

AUDIO: [TUNING UP] 

That’s Steven Siefert—he’s a world-renowned mountain dulcimer player. 

SIEFERT: I’ve been a professional mountain dulcimer player since about 1996.

So what is a mountain dulcimer? It’s a stringed instrument—kind of like a small, narrow guitar. 

MUSIC: [BOIL THEM CABBAGE DOWN]

SIEFERT: My dulcimer has an hourglass-shaped body, on top of that, running from one end to the other, is a fingerboard. The strings run over that fingerboard. You see instruments like this all over Europe. This is the American version of the fretted zither.

You don’t hold a dulcimer like a guitar–it sits flat on your lap while you play. Strumming with one hand, you hold down the strings with the other to change the pitch of the notes.  

SIEFERT: I want to tell you about what’s neat about these instruments. The wrong notes have been removed. So when you run your finger along one string and strum, you don’t have to avoid wrong notes. So here’s an example. 

MUSIC: [SCALE]

Siefert says no one really knows the exact origin of the mountain dulcimer. 

MUSIC: [SCARBOROUGH FAIR]

SIEFERT: I always liken it to something like a spoon. Who invented the spoon. You know, who invented the ball? Well, they could have popped up everywhere. 

There’s no specific record of pioneers with dulcimers, but the instrument most likely came to eastern Tennessee with European immigrants who settled in the Appalachian mountains.   

SIEFERT: If you follow the wagon road that comes down out of Virginia, and then goes into Eastern Kentucky and then floats West. That’s where we find the old instruments, is along those trails. 

In the 1970s and 80s, there was a revival of mountain dulcimer music. Reader’s Digest published a book called Back to Basics that had instructions on how to build a dulcimer. 

SIEFERT: All of that revival did create written music, did create recordings, instructional methods. That’s when the instruments started to get refined. 

Siefert learned the dulcimer after he first heard the sound on a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album. Back before the internet, he did some research at the library, and found a magazine for dulcimer players. 

SIEFERT: I saw photographs, some of them from a decade earlier where people were at festivals, lots of mentions of festivals. You know, I’ve never heard I’ve never even heard of a dulcimer. So I started slowly and I, I got busier as the years went on. I started finding the people in those pictures and asking them who should I talk to? 

He moved to Nashville to study at the Middle Tennessee State University, and later traveled and taught with Appalachian folk musician David Schnaufer, who’s widely credited with restoring the popularity of the dulcimer.

SIEFERT: I started off as a piano major. But at some point I was having a lot of fun with the dulcimer. I did feel like I was discovering some hidden gem really. 

MUSIC: [THE OLD RUGGED CROSS]

Siefert has worked more than 1,000 dulcimer festivals, and performed all over the world. 

SIEFERT: There’s a lot of people I would say age 50 to 80 doing this. And then there’s all the dulcimer players we don’t know about. One of the best things about this instrument is, every once in a while you run into somebody who’s been playing for years and has never met anyone.

Siefert is not only a renowned performer: he’s also passing the dulcimer craft on to the next generation. He’s taught at Vanderbilt and also to private students. Since the coronavirus pandemic, he’s taught dulcimer classes virtually, using Zoom. 

One of his students had grown up singing with a shape note hymnal, but had never played an instrument before. Siefert put pieces of paper with the seven shapes—do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti—on the dulcimer, and put the shape note hymnal in front of them. 

SIEFERT: They were able to play what was on that book, because they knew how to read shapes. I remember thinking this is powerful. Somebody who’s never played an instrument, just played a hymn with almost no mistakes, and then to look up and see the joy in their face that was priceless. Amazing, really. 

Siefert says the ease of playing the mountain dulcimer makes music accessible to anyone who wants to play. 

SIEFERT: Nowadays we’d like to give everybody this idea that you have to be an expert. But really, music is supposed to be a part of your life just like going for a walk, having a cup of tea, you know, going swimming.

MUSIC: [WILDWOOD FLOWER]

The mountain dulcimer is an instrument that puts music—and all of its joys—into the hands of anyone who gives it a try.

SIEFERT: Music, you know, we don’t know how. But it heals. It seems to heal. And you can say that it does that in small ways or big ways. But I like to think it’s simply putting something beautiful into somebody’s hands. And then they can go do the same for other people. I don’t feel like I’ve dedicated my life to dulcimer, although you might think that looking at my track record. Really, I love just showing people you can make music too. 

MUSIC: [WILDWOOD FLOWER]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Vivian Jones in Nashville, Tennessee.

MARY REICHARD: Today is Wednesday, September 2nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. WORLD founder Joel Belz now with a call for more prayer in these divisive times.

JOEL BELZ, FOUNDER: Calling someone a “single-issue voter” may be accurate—but still not be the fastest way to win a friend. When someone says I’m a “single-issue thinker,” I hear them calling me shallow and simplistic.

But it’s a rare week that I don’t hear someone say I need to broaden my public policy perspective. Specifically, they want me to know there are topics other than abortion for thoughtful, voting Christians to keep in mind. 

These critics often paint WORLD with the same brush. A recent letter from a Phoenix woman is a good example. We’ll call her Bertha. She asked, “Why doesn’t WORLD admit that on Judgment Day God is going to be talking about a lot of other sins besides abortion?” She suggested we deploy our staff to some big cities to report on racism in evangelical churches. 

My first inclination was to scold Bertha and dare her to get off her high horse, check her facts, and admit maybe she’s the one with a lop-sided focus on a “single issue.”

But wait, I thought. Where is this getting us? If Bertha’s view of WORLD and me is skewed—and it is—then maybe my view of her is also less than accurate. How could we sharpen our perceptions of each other and enhance our teamwork as fellow believers?

A few days later, I reached Bertha by phone. I said, “I’m frustrated that we can agree with each other that abortion is evil, and we can agree with each other that racism is evil—and then we tend to part ways just because we can’t seem to agree on a few priorities.”

“Maybe,” she said perceptively, “that’s why there are so many different organizations out there—somebody to cater to every preference!” 

Frankly, I worried Bertha might cancel her membership, but my bigger fear was that we Christians might continue to fragment on key issues. That’s when it struck me that we might be well-suited to do something valuable. 

I asked Bertha: “How often do you pray specifically for deliverance from our nation’s dark racist habits?”

“I try to do that,” she said, “but not nearly as often as I should. It seems easier to read and talk about it than to pray about it.”

“So let me be just as open,” I said. “I am not nearly as faithful as I should be in praying for an end to the evil of abortion. If the two of us aren’t even diligent in praying for the issues we tend to identify with most, who’s going to be praying for those we see as less important? What would happen if great companies of us… were to spend the next 30 days praying regularly for issues and causes we perhaps have never prayed for before?”

I hope you’ll think about it. 

I’m Joel Belz.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow: Trouble in Belarus. Its president has been in power for almost 30 years. We’ll tell you why so many voters are protesting the latest election. 

And, we’ll introduce you to the first of this year’s Hope Awards finalists.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from trouble.

I hope you’ll have a great rest of the day. We’ll talk to you tomorrow!

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.