Keeping up with the news is a daunting task. In fact, it’s so overwhelming that we’ve taken it upon ourselves to bundle the most striking, odd, or downright mind blowing stories of the week into one tidy package.
This week we decided to shake things up a bit. After a marathon of editions filled with endless Supreme Court battles, we’re deliberately steering clear of U.S. politics – no mention of Kavanaugh, Haley, or Swift here. Instead, we’ll whisk you away on a whirlwind tour of seismic happenings in Brazil, South Korea, China and beyond, before looping back to a few domestic, non‑political shockers. Buckle up for the 10 mind blowing moments that defined the past seven days.
10 China Arrested The Head Of Interpol
Amid the deluge of headlines that flooded the end of September, one major story managed to slip through our net. The president of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, disappeared while on a visit to his native China. This week we finally learned why: Beijing kidnapped him, slapped corruption charges on him, and forced his resignation from the world’s top police‑coordinating body. Wow, right?
Interpol is no small‑time agency, and China was quite proud to have one of its own at the helm. For Meng to end up behind bars, he must have seriously irked President Xi Jinping. The Economist suggested that Meng may have overstepped by voicing criticism of the Communist Party line, assuming his lofty position would shield him. It didn’t.
China has been cracking down hard on both dissent and corruption lately. Just a couple of months earlier, top actress Fan Bingbing (X‑Men) vanished over unpaid taxes. It appears Beijing is sending a clear message to its elite: nobody is untouchable.
9 A Saudi Hit Squad Appeared To Murder A Writer In The Istanbul Embassy
Last week, Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to verify his divorce paperwork. A native of the Wahhabist Kingdom, he had fled the country in 2017 after speaking out against the new regime. He was never seen again, and his fiancée waited outside the consulate for eleven hours.
This weekend the mystery turned into a full‑blown scandal when Turkey accused Saudi Arabia of murdering Khashoggi. The prevailing theory is that a fifteen‑man hit squad lay in wait inside the consulate, killed him, and dismembered his body to smuggle it out piece by piece.
As of Thursday, Turkey has demanded a search of the consulate for evidence of the murder. While Riyadh denies any involvement, Khashoggi’s disappearance fits a broader pattern of crackdowns in Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s moderate reforms have been shadowed by the abduction and execution of dissenters. If Khashoggi joins that list, we may be witnessing the mother of all diplomatic rows.
8 Romania’s Gay Marriage Referendum Was The Dampest Squib Imaginable
Last month we reported that Romania had passed a bill allowing a referendum on gay marriage. Unlike most recent referenda, the question wasn’t whether to legalise LGBT partnerships but whether to amend the constitution to ban them outright. Given how socially conservative the Eastern European nation is, it was expected that the referendum would pass. Instead, it was virtually ignored.
The turnout threshold for validity was set at a pitiful 30 percent. Yet the actual participation on Sunday was a dismal 20.41 percent, invalidating the vote. The estimated cost of this damp squib hovered around €40 million.
Rights activists and opposition parties called for a boycott, seeing it as a tactic for the ruling centre‑left PSD – which supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage – to shore up dwindling support amid multiple corruption scandals. Ironically, the move appears to have left them weaker than ever.
7 The Florida Panhandle Was Hit By Its Strongest Hurricane On Record
The last time a storm as powerful as Hurricane Michael struck the United States was back in 1992. George H.W. Bush was still in the White House, Donald Trump was just a New York businessman, and Bill Cosby was still someone you wouldn’t mind sharing a room with. When Michael made landfall on Wednesday, it left a trail of destruction not seen for a quarter of a century.
Michael surprised everyone. Starting out as a Category 2, it suddenly surged just before reaching Florida into a Category 4, prompting a massive evacuation warning.
While most people managed to escape the storm’s path, it still caused devastation on a grand scale. Houses were ripped apart like match‑stick toys, towns were flooded, and emergency services struggled to operate amid the blasting winds. No other Category 4 has ever struck the Florida Panhandle.
Fortunately, the reported death toll remains low: only two have died in the United States, with another 13 killed as the storm passed over Central America. Hopefully, the toll won’t climb any higher.
6 Brazil’s Right‑Wing Candidate Surged In The Presidential Elections
In the end, he didn’t quite make it. Despite polls suggesting an outright win was in the offing, former army captain Jair Bolsonaro just failed to secure the magical 50 percent of votes required to avoid a runoff in Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday. Instead, the right‑wing candidate pulled down 46 percent, far ahead of his closest rival, leftist Fernando Haddad, who trailed with just under 29 percent. The two will now head to a runoff vote in two weeks’ time.
Bolsonaro has styled himself as the Brazilian equivalent of the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. He plans to crack down hard on crime and has previously been outspoken in vicious attacks on women, gays, and blacks. He’s also on record supporting Brazil’s military dictatorship, which ruled the country from 1964‑85. It should be noted, however, that he has since reinvented himself as a more mainstream champion of free markets.
Whether Bolsonaro ultimately wins or not (and he probably will), the election signals an ongoing decline in left‑wing politics in Latin America following multiple corruption scandals over the last decade.
5 South Korea Jailed Yet Another Former President
It wasn’t that long ago that we reported on South Korea jailing its last president, Park Geun‑hye, for corruption. Well, Park now has good company in her disgrace. Last Friday, a court in Seoul sentenced another former South Korean president, Lee Myung‑bak, to 15 years on graft charges. Lee is now the fourth former president of South Korea to receive jail time after leaving office.
For a democracy, South Korea has a terrible track record of impeaching or imprisoning its own leaders. While some, like former coup leader Chun Doo‑hwan, definitely deserved it, the jury is still out on others.
Roh Moo‑hyun committed suicide in 2009, a year after leaving office, when Lee Myung‑bak’s government opened a corruption investigation into him. Since Roh was the mentor of current incumbent President Moon, some think Lee’s jail term is simply a piece of revenge politicking from a ticked‑off Moon.
That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of evidence that many of South Korea’s presidents engaged in some unethical behaviour while in office. Maybe Seoul is simply better at bringing its own to justice.
4 Serb Nationalists Claimed A Big Victory In Bosnia’s Elections
Oh, look, more demagogic politicians bringing ethnic strife to Bosnia. What could possibly go wrong?
On Sunday, residents of Bosnia and the autonomous ethnic‑Serbian enclave Republika Srpska went to the polls to elect new leaders for their insanely complicated power‑sharing government. The results were destabilising, to say the least. The Serbian seat on Bosnia’s tripartite presidency was won by Milorad Dodik, the militant leader who wants to make the Republika Srpska an independent nation and has promised to rule on behalf of, and only for, Serbs.
At the same time, the winner of the Croat seat, Zeljko Komsic, was accused by his rival of relying on Bosniak (Muslim) votes. As a result, many Croats in Bosnia are now campaigning to ethnically segregate their voting districts. To top it all off, separatists won in Republika Srpska, too. There is no part of those last four sentences that couldn’t potentially trigger an ethnic war all on its own.
Ever since the Dayton Accords were signed in 1995, Bosnia has been a tinderbox waiting to reignite. With candidates now openly embracing violent ethnic rhetoric, it could be that the peace accords crumble in the not‑too‑distant future. We hope not.
3 A Horrific Limousine Crash Killed 20 In New York
For a crash involving a single occupied vehicle, the death toll from New York State’s limo accident on the weekend was virtually unbelievable. During celebrations for a woman’s 30th birthday, a hired limo shot through a stop sign, mowed down two pedestrians, and slammed into a parked, unoccupied car. The accident killed a staggering 18 people inside the limo, including the driver, plus the two pedestrians.
The crash was the worst single transportation disaster in the entire United States since 2009, when a plane crashed in Buffalo, New York, killing 50. For a traffic accident this bad, you have to go all the way back to 2005. That was when a bus carrying nursing‑home residents away from Hurricane Rita’s path burst into flames, leaving more than 20 dead.
At the time of this writing, reports say the limo company’s operator has been arrested. The car failed an inspection in September, and drivers had complained that it was unsafe. By cutting corners, the company may have cost 20 people their lives.
2 Guatemala Finally Made Its Rich And Powerful Accountable
To see the true level of impunity with which Guatemala’s rich and powerful think they operate, you need look no further than the jaw‑dropping “magic water” scandal. During her tenure in office, former Vice President Roxana Baldetti negotiated an $18 million deal with an Israeli company to decontaminate Lake Amatitlan using a special solution.
Only it turned out that “special” was a euphemism for “fake.” The liquid poured into the lake was later inspected and revealed to be basically just water with some salt mixed in. Meanwhile, Baldetti was skimming millions off the fund to line her own pockets. With Guatemala’s appalling track record of holding its rich and powerful to account, who could blame her?
This week, that may have all changed. On Tuesday, a court sentenced Baldetti to 15 years and six months in jail for corruption. If her conviction isn’t overturned on appeal, it will mark one of the first times that Guatemala’s elite has had to face serious consequences for their actions.
1 Spain Freed A Doctor Who Helped The Dictatorship Steal Babies
In the pantheon of cartoonishly evil crimes, stealing babies is only slightly below tying scantily clad women to train tracks while twiddling your mustache. Yet that’s exactly what Eduardo Vela did. A doctor in Spain, he spent the years of the Franco dictatorship helping a network of gynecologists, nuns, nurses, and priests snatch newborn babies from left‑wing and poor families and sell them to rich, Catholic, and pro‑Franco families.
While this was official policy during the dictatorship, Vela carried on even after democracy was restored. He finally shuttered his black‑market practice in 1987. Three months ago, he was formally brought to trial. On Monday, he was found guilty of kidnapping newborn Ines Madrigal in 1969. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations had expired. Despite having stolen newborn babies, Vela was set free.
Still, his guilty verdict at least represents a step forward in a country still struggling to make sense of its often vicious past. It is estimated that there are at least 2,000 other Spaniards alive today who were stolen from their parents as newborns. Some of these cases may even be within the statute of limitations (25 years after the abducted baby becomes an adult). If so, Vela and his evil ilk may yet see justice.