Even as one story dominates, the news cycle is not dormant

Every now and then one story dominates the news so much there’s no room for anything else.

So it is with Meghan and Harry. One newspaper even devoted 25 pages to the subject. Novels have been shorter.

That leaves little space for anything else, as if there are no other stories happening in the world. But there has been plenty happening in the past few days, some with the potential to have a longer-lasting impact on the world than Archie’s chicken coop.

While many turned their gaze to a cozy chat in Santa Barbara, China was being accused of “trying to destroy” its Uighur population, and putting up to 2 million people in internment camps where officials also carried out a systematic policy of rape, according to a Washington think tank.

In Equatorial Guinea a series of explosions at a military barracks, likened to an atomic bomb by one eyewitness, has so far claimed around 100 lives and left more than 600 injured. The tragedy, in one of Africa’s smallest countries, could end up having political implications for long-time leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago.

Nearer to home, the senior Catalan leader who declared independence from Spain in 2017, Carles Puigdemont, moved one step closer to a possible jail term after the European parliament stripped him of immunity.

The UN reported that one woman in three globally is subjected to physical or sexual violence during their lifetime; Irish political leaders declared the island might be united within “decades”; and jury selection began in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former US police officer charged with killing unarmed black man George Floyd last year, in another story which dominated headlines at the time.

This is not to deny the importance of the Meghan and Harry claims and their possible ramifications for the British monarchy. But what it shows is that however one story dominates – and could dominate for the next few days – the news cycle is not dormant.

There is plenty of other troublesome news out there; sometimes you just have to look beyond the main headlines.

Yours,

David Harding

International editor