大象传媒

Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from Moldova, Cuba, the US and Indonesia.

Moldova is a small country, but an outsized showcase for concerns over Russian influence in Europe. While Moldova was once part of the USSR, in recent years it's been moving towards the West - and last weekend voted narrowly to continue its bid to join the European Union. Sarah Rainsford reports on what she saw at polling stations near the unrecognised breakaway territory of Transnistria.

Power cuts are nothing new in Cuba: the country's national grid is creaking and its ageing electricity-generating plants in poor repair. But last week's nationwide blackouts were the most drastic for years, and were not predicted. Will Grant visits a village just outside Havana where living without electricity has become the new normal.

Election day and Halloween draw near in the USA - and in Wisconsin, there are all sorts of eerie stories in circulation. In the town of Black River Falls - where the spate of uncanny events chronicled in cult classic book and film "Wisconsin Death Trip" took place - Mike Wendling found no trace of historic traumas, but plenty of worries about the present and the future course of the presidential contest.

It was one of the most distressing stories the 大象传媒 has ever investigated: a virtual torture ring, where customers in the US and UK planned, commissioned and paid for videos of monkeys being abused. The torture itself happened in Indonesia, where long-tailed macaques were bought, held captive, and tormented for profit. Now many of the key players in the torture ring are facing prison - while one of their victims, a baby monkey named Mini, has been released back into the wild. Rebecca Henschke helped take her back to the jungles of a protected island off Java.

Image: A man casts his ballot in Moldova's October 20, 2024 presidential election and referendum on joining the European Union. (Photo by DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP via Getty Images)