By Gabrielle Beacken
Nation & World Editor
The Americas
• Former comedian Jimmy Morales was elected as the new President in Guatemala on Sunday, Oct. 25, after campaigning as a non-corrupt government outsider.
• A whale-watching boat carrying at least 27 people sank near the popular vacation spot Tofino, located on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, on Sunday, Oct. 25, causing five people to die from drowning. Twenty-one people were injured and one person remains missing.
• Despite meteorologists’ claim that Hurricane Patricia would cause unprecedented destruction to Mexico over the weekend, there were no immediate reports of death or serious damage to infrastructures. This was the result of the hurricane’s passing over two populated cities and Mexico’s preparedness for fending off destruction from large scale natural disasters.
Europe
• Poland’s right-wing political party that has been out of power for nearly a decade, the Law and Justice Party, gained a surprising and victorious 39.1 percent of the vote in Parliamentary elections, putting them back in governmental power, on Sunday, Oct. 25.
• Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told CNN on Sunday, Oct. 25, that “there are elements of truth” to viewing the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq as an event that allowed the rise of the Islamic State, by removing Saddam Hussein from power.
Africa
• Famous Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius, who was convicted for fatally shooting his girlfriend in 2013, left prison and was placed under house arrest on Monday, Oct. 19, in South Africa.
• The giving of the Chinese Confucius Peace Prize (China’s equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize) to the President of Zimbabwe was widely criticized, on Thursday, Oct. 22. Zimbabwe’s president is one of the harshest leaders in Africa.
