A murder and an outbreak

Worldly

On a special episode of Worldly with two main segments, Zack talks with Alex about the latest in the Jamal Khashoggi saga and then interviews Vox health writer Julia Belluz on the worrying Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Zack and Alex examine how the US political system is responding to the mounting evidence of Saudi guilt, and Julia explains why this looks like one of the worst Ebola outbreaks in history. This is a pretty dark episode, so not a lot of jokes — sorry fam. Vox has been following the Khashoggi story closely. You can find some of the latest articles here, here, and here. We talked about Sen. Lindsey Graham’s and Sen. Marco Rubio’s strong pushback against Saudi Arabia. Here’s a video of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo telling the press he doesn’t “want to know any of the facts.” But it does look like Pompeo pressed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hard in private during their meeting this week. President Donald Trump says he doesn’t want to punish Saudi Arabia to the point that it jeopardizes $110 billion in arms sales and because Khashoggi was a US resident, not citizen. But it turns out the $110 billion weapons sale is fake news. Trump compared the Khashoggi case to the controversy over Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged past of sexual assault. Yes, really. American leaders have rarely done much to change Riyadh’s behavior. Here’s an interview Alex did with an expert that touches upon that. The Washington Post published Khashoggi’s final column posthumously. Julia recommends this article for more details about the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC. She also discussed a recent outbreak that was successfully contained using vaccines. Zack mentioned that conflict zones in Syria have also had problems controlling the spread of infectious disease. Here’s the survey Julia mentioned of people’s attitudes towards vaccines and clinics.

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