(AFP) – From Donald Trump leaving America a monument to his good taste to the land where elections can really be a toss-up. Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world:
– **Trump’s golden legacy** – Spare a thought for Donald Trump. A week which began with the US president taking the blowback from a tussle over toilets with Norway ended with him at the wrong end of an almighty dumping from voters in the midterm elections. Irked at being passed over again for the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump called Norway a “shithouse country” at a campaign rally. But Oslo leaned into the insult, with its tourist board declaring that “we do have some of the most spectacular toilets in the world”, posting pictures of architecturally amazing public WCs set against breathtaking natural backdrops. “Norway makes s**thouses great again!” it added, turning the Trump slogan on its head. “These toilets are worth a visit, both when you really have to go — and when you don’t,” Visit Norway said.
But worse was to come for the US leader smarting from defeat in the midterms, with a judge blocking the start of work on his pet project for a triumphal “Arch de Trump” in Washington, topped with an enormous gold statue of Lady Liberty. Clearly rattled that his legacy was being threatened, Trump officially declared his “gaudy” golden makeover of the White House’s Oval Office a national monument. He said this would “make it impossible for anybody ever to destroy this incredible space”, which rock star Jack White accused him of turning into a “wrestler’s dressing room.” And to show he is ready to fight to the last for his fixtures and fittings, Trump signed the order next to one of his trademark red baseball caps emblazoned with the word “VETO.”
– **We’ll toss for it** – They do elections a little differently in Peru. When the two candidates to be mayor of a village high in the Andes got the same number of votes, there was no question of interminable recounts of “hanging chads”. The rivals simply tossed a coin to decide who had won. Ruben Quispe, the newly sworn-in mayor of Conima, near Lake Titicaca, said he felt blessed. “I always wanted to win, and God decided it.” Peruvian law allows for such tie-breakers if both candidates agree to trust in their luck.
– **Watch this space** – In the most Japanese story of the year so far, a Swiss watch worth $290,000 was returned to the Tokyo store it was stolen from with an apology note from the thief. A customer who tried on an Audemars Piguet timepiece made a swift exit from the shop with the watch still on his wrist. Days later, the contrite crook sent it back with a handwritten note saying how sorry he was. But police are not ready to forgive and forget, as four luxury watches worth $1.3 million were stolen from a jewellers in the same complex in August.
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