The Weekend Behind, The Week Ahead

Reader, welcome to Monday. There’s not much to watch this week. Hardly anything at all, really. It should be a quiet week on this, our peaceful, small, blue dot, save for Tuesday’s American presidential election and the subsequent reaction/fallout/Armageddon. But first, let’s see what’s transpired over the past 48 hours or so.

Russian nationalists are accused of being behind the plot to assassinate the prime minister of Montenegro in October, according to Podgorica’s chief prosecutor. The prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, is considered pro-Western, and many think Montenegro will join NATO in 2017 despite Russian opposition. Those arrested in connection with the plot were originally thought to be Serbian paramilitaries.

In other Eastern Europe news, Bulgarian state television announced Sunday that presidential elections will go to a second round (as no one candidate gained the necessary number of votes in the first).

In neighboring Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his administration continue to arrest political opposition and journalists and restrict the internet. The U.S. government has announced it is “deeply concerned” over these developments; Kurdish militants, meanwhile, announced Sunday they were taking credit for a car bomb attack in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir the previous Friday. The Kurdish militant claim comes after ISIS had taken credit for the same attack.

Protests broke out in Hong Kong over Chinese involvement in a dispute as to whether two lawmakers should be allowed to take office. Many Hong Kong residents are indignant—the two lawmakers, after all, are pro-independence.

Also in indignant weekend news: FBI Director James Comey announced that, even after reviewing the emails found in the course of an investigation of Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, the FBI is not changing their conclusions in July. In other words, No — no charges are being brought against Hillary Clinton. This comes roughly a week after Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement to Congress that he would be reviewing these new emails to see if they were pertinent to the investigation. NBC’s Pete Williams reported that almost all of the emails in question were duplicates of those the FBI had already reviewed. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton’s rival for the presidency, responded by telling a rally in Minnesota that Clinton is “protected by a rigged system.” Democrats responded by knocking their heads against nearby walls. The Mexican peso responded by rising 1.9 percent.

Have a great week! We’ll see you here as the United States heaves its hulking presidential election across the miserable finish line.

Photo credit: YASIN AKGUL/AFP/Getty Images