‘Sharing the burden’ of military service in Israel

The World

In Israel, the ultra-Orthodox community has been exempt from military service. But Israel’s Supreme Court just ruled that yeshivas — Jewish religious seminaries — are being cut off from government funding because they don’t send students into the military. And, National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek talks about his time in Cyprus, where he found the vestigial border line that divides the island’s Greek and Turkish communities. He walked through an abandoned tourist city, a relic of a border war that has never been fully resolved. Also, Spain is where quartz countertops first took off and where hundreds of cases of silicosis from dust inhalation soon developed. Today, modern machines and clearer safety rules are meant to keep workers healthy. But some worry that silica dust still reaches workers’ lungs. Plus, 30 years after Rwanda’s genocide, questions remain.

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