Life in the 2020s increasingly feels like we are always barrelling towards some kind of end, holding our breaths, and this week was no exception.
All eyes are on the U.S. as election night is right around the corner. In this final sprint of the presidential race, more controversies have arisen around Donald Trump as comedian Tony Hinchcliffe delivered blatantly racist jokes at the Republican candidate’s New York rally on Sunday night. Hinchcliffe, who tested out his jokes at a comedy club the night before and was seemingly not concerned with the “awkward” reactions, stood on stage for 11 minutes while he described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” and went on about racist stereotypes. In an attempt to defuse the situation, Trump claimed that he did not know the comedian, while his VP pick, J.D. Vance, dismissed the situation as nothing more than a joke. For the last few days of the campaign, Harris and Trump held rallies in Wisconsin on Friday, before moving on to North Carolina on Saturday, two of the many swing states which hold the key to this election. Other concerns, such as fake videos of voter fraud in Georgia supposedly spread by Russia, are out to shape the remaining votes that could still change Harris’s lead in the polls, which is one point at the time of writing.
The U.S. election is not the only one stirring the pot in world news at the moment, as the results of the Georgian parliamentary elections on October 26th are heavily disputed. Though polls were announcing a win of the pro-European groups, the conservative ruling party won the election amidst claims of falsification of the votes, according to opposition groups and the current President of Georgia. It was announced by the electoral commission on Thursday, however, that a partial recount confirmed the initial results with only minimal changes in numbers.
While Saoirse Ronan went viral for giving male celebrities a reality check about life as a woman on The Graham Norton Show, deafening silence ensued. The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan announced that it has now banned women from speaking to each other, after it had previously banned women from speaking and showing their faces in public. The exact content of the laws, as well as the timeline of entry into force, remains unclear. The dire situation in Afghanistan had started out with women and girls being unable to return to school after the Taliban takeover in 2021. In the meantime, other voices are rising as major scandals of sexual abuse and rape are coming under the scrutiny of the judiciary in Western Europe: the Mazan rapes trial is still underway in Avignon (France), the first day of French actor Gérard Depardieu’s trial for sexual assault was on Monday, though he did not show up, and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, has been accused of sexual misconduct.
The Climate Clock is still ticking. On Tuesday, Spain was hit by its “worst natural weather disaster this country”, in the words of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Flash floods in Valencia caused over 200 deaths and countless others are still trapped. An additional 10,000 troops were sent on Saturday to help with the rescue operations. Despite over 4,500 rescues announced so far, the operations are muddied by the lack of a proper and timely response by the Spanish government while citizens are left to rely on each other.
The next days will be decisive for every region of the world. Time is not necessarily in our favour, so one must pick a side. Whether you think that journalists have the responsibility to endorse a position, or that they should remain neutral, like the Washington Post announced it would, readers deserve objective reporting with principles. Hopefully, then, democracy does not die in darkness.
Comments