Indholdsfortegnelse for 21 April 2023 i Guardian Weekly

A large batch of leaked classified US government information, including top-secret briefings, were discovered online this month, with many relating to perhaps the most sensitive arena of intelligence gathering in the world today – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What do they say? The most significant parts of the leak concern Kyiv’s level of preparedness for an expected counteroffensive, but there are plenty of lines about other countries’ involvement in the conflict that may cause serious diplomatic difficulties. Here are some of the revelations so far. Ukraine: US intelligence officials were pessimistic in February, saying Kyiv could fall “well short” of recapturing territory seized by Russia. There are also details of serious shortages of air defence and a risk of running out of anti-aircraft missiles completely by May. Russia: The leaks…

Jehad Ashraf is the first member of her family to grow up not understanding her mother tongue. “I lived in Aswan my whole life,” said the 29 year old, who was born and raised in Nubia, southern Egypt, “but none of my family spoke Nubian to me at home.” In just two generations the language, once widely spoken, has almost vanished. In her village, a datefarming community on the Nile, “the youngest who speak Nubian are 61 or 62. It is becoming extinct,” said Ashraf. It is the same throughout Egypt and that’s something she wants to change. Last year, she helped launch the online service Nobig Koro (Learn Nubian) to encourage young people to learn the language. It is one of a number of initiatives in recent years to…

John F Kennedy set the template for US presidential forays to Ireland with a rapturous visit in 1963 that he called the best four days of his life. Joe Biden’s visit last week did not quite match that fervour but at times it came close, alchemising politics, diplomacy and the personal into a feelgood glow. Standing in Ireland’s legislature, Biden raised his arms to heaven, saying: “Well, Mom, you said it would happen. I’m at home. I’m home. I wish I could stay longer.” It was corny but true. This is the most Irish of presidents since Kennedy, a man steeped in Irish ancestry who cannot make a speech without citing Irish poets, proverbs, myths. He had visited before, but to come as president was to consecrate the relationship between…

‘THIS POOR LADY DIDN’T CLOSE HER LOFT HATCH PROPERLY AND THE SQUIRREL GOT INTO THE FLAT,” recalls John Silby, a pest controller. “She thought she’d been burgled. The telly was off the wall, plates were smashed, furniture was ripped. We put traps in. When we went back and opened the door, we could smell dead rodent. But the traps hadn’t gone off.” Silby’s grey squirrel stories have the urgency, mystery and gore of a Sherlock Holmes tale. Once, one of his colleagues was bitten by a squirrel, whose massive incisors went through his thumbnail and out the other side. Silby couldn’t get the animal off, because it was locked on and wriggling, so he had to decapitate it, then wrap the thumb – and the squirrel’s head – in a…

Just what is Germany’s Zeitenwende, the latest coinage in a language famous for its compound nouns? The “change in times” announced by the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, rolled like a thunderclap across a country that, since unification in 1990, had flourished on the benefits of the post-cold-war peace dividend, its status as Europe’s powerhouse economy and being de facto regulator of the single currency, calling the shots in eurozone squeezes. For obvious reasons of 20th-century experience, today’s federal republic is an entity more comfortable with its role as a proponent of restraint and cautious multilateralism than decisive action. The Ukraine crisis blew up that placidity. Last week, a newspaper leak revealed that a pledge by Scholz to supply a fully equipped…

Barack Obama’s 2008 election victory gave a jubilant opening to Diana Evans’s third novel, Ordinary People; the horrific Grenfell tragedy begins the sequel-of-sorts, A House for Alice. The blaze is described as “a massacre by negligence, a criminal activity, a corporate atrocity, an obliteration of families”. Evans imagines the fire with a righteous rage rarely seen in British contemporary fiction. The narration is nobly elegiac, too, envisioning in the flames “families rich in entireties of love […] wars remembered and seas remembered and sections of homework completed and others pending, and rows of dolls in children’s bedrooms […] and rivers of futures flowing through shared water pipes […] and mothers lying on their sides with headscarves on and their eyelids moist and warm and gently flickering”. It’s a sequence of…

Across 1 Kind of flour (9) 8 Greek cheese (4) 9 Travel plan (9) 10 __ Drake, 2004 film directed by Mike Leigh (4) 13 Dog lead (5) 15 Marked with deep grooves (6) 16 Like some peanuts? (6) 17 Quick mission on another’s behalf (6) 19 Too (6) 20 Between then and now (5) 21 Palindromic supergroup (4) 24 Hit the water stomach first (5-4) 25 Lions and tigers? (4) 26 Superior cabin accommodation on a ship (9) Down 2 Basic dwellings (4) 3 Part of a chain (4) 4 Distinct (6) 5 Throughout (6) 6 Works regularly performed by an artist (9) 7 One’s youth? (5,4) 11 An axe to grind (9) 12 Assign (9) 13 Tips (5) 14 Bisect (5) 18 Go out of one’s way (6)…

1 UNITED STATES Fox-Dominion trial delayed amid settlement reports The trial in the closely watched $1.6bn defamation lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox was due to begin on Tuesday this week, a day later than scheduled, the judge overseeing the case announced amid reports of settlement talks. Eric Davis, the Delaware superior court judge overseeing the case, did not say why the trial was being delayed. The Wall Street Journal reported that Fox had made a late push to settle the case out of court. A settlement could theoretically come at any time. Dominion is asking a Delaware jury to award damages because it says Fox knowingly or recklessly disregarded the truth when it broadcast outlandish lies about its voting equipment. Dominion’s case, experts say, is strong. Dominion has produced…

CONSERVATIVES Poll pressure on Sunak as investigation launched A prolonged crisis within the NHS stoked by further strikes risks derailing Rishi Sunak’s local election plans amid Tory concern that the prime minister is already facing pressure over pledges on health and the economy. Sunak this week attempted to shore up Tory heartland seats where traditional supporters had been put off by the chaos of the Johnson and Truss regimes. However, opposition parties have reported that the NHS remains the most salient issue among soft Tory voters. The decision by the Royal College of Nursing to reject the government’s pay offer and announce further strikes, together with the threat of coordinated action by junior doctors, has heaped new pressure on Sunak before local polls in England that represent his first electoral…

Dawn did not break over wartime Kyiv on Orthodox Easter Day. It was more that the darkness gradually paled, leaving the pinnacle of the 18th-century bell tower wreathed in a wan mist. Soon after 5.30am, the faithful began to trickle into Dormition Cathedral, which stands at the heart of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, or Monastery of the Caves. Families carried wicker baskets, covered with hand-embroidered cloths and filled with sweet Easter bread, eggs dyed with onion skins, salt and meat. Members of the congregation lit candles; the great golden candelabra in front of the iconostasis was soon bristling with flames. Easter has been celebrated on this spot since the 11th century, when monks from Mount Athos first hollowed out the rocky hillside to form their cells and shrines, establishing the…

Since his death in 1991, fans of the singer-songwriter and French cultural icon Serge Gainsbourg have turned his home in a quiet street in the chic 7th arrondissement of Paris into a shrine. For more than 30 years they have painted graffiti and portraits on the outside walls and left quotes and messages of love and affection in homage to the controversial artist hailed as both a great poet and a grandstanding provocateur. Now the property, owned by his daughter, the actor Charlotte Gainsbourg, and kept as it was when he died – complete with overflowing ashtrays of filterless Gitanes cigarettes and a collection of police badges – is to open to the public as Maison Gainsbourg. It was at 5 bis rue de Verneuil that Gainsbourg composed music at…

In a dimly lit room in Beirut, five friends sit around a table with a map of Lebanon in the middle. They each have a handful of markers and a card placed face-down in front of them. The card, which has a drawing of a vintage chair on the back – symbolising power – determines the entire game. It assigns you the secret role of either “reformist” or “corrupt elite”. “It is just like in real life, you don’t know who is corrupt and who is not,” said Jean-Michel Chemaly, one of the developers of the board game. Machrou3 Ra2is: A Game of Corruption was released in December. The task is to control districts of Lebanon and win the presidential election – either through bluff or fair play. Chemaly said…

Joe Biden was in his element last week on his genial tour of Ireland, meeting the politicians, meeting the people, being Joe. But in keeping with the strange – often absurd – state of US national politics, the really big event, his amble into the 2024 race for president, took shape a few days earlier at the White House Easter egg roll. Speaking to Al Roker, the weather presenter for NBC News, Biden made his plans all but official. “I’m planning on running, Al,” Biden said when Roker asked whether the president planned to take part in this frivolity after next year. “But we’re not prepared to announce it yet.” The setting, however, is far from the only absurdity about the presidential contest, still more than 18 months away. Consider…

I always make a classic vinaigrette, but what other dressings should I have in my arsenal? Sarah, York This sounds like a job for Emily Nunn, the American food writer behind cult newsletter The Department of Salad. “I’m going to sound as if I work for the International Salad Federation,” she says, “but the advice I would give Sarah is not to fence herself in.” That’s to say, don’t dismiss vinaigrette. “A light lemon vinaigrette is perfect for spring, but if you want something stronger, chop up shallots, add them to the jar, shake and leave to sit in the fridge overnight.” The simplest adjustments will keep it interesting – Nunn’s suggestions include anchovies, capers, sherry vinegar. “I would then get Sarah thinking about green goddess,” adds Nunn, who makes…

GREENHAM COMMON West Berkshire, England, UK As I get out of my car, beside the old control tower at this former RAF and US airbase, I hear a woodlark. It barrels over, a fluttering round ball with a melancholy twist on its hallelujah. I’m helping to lead a walking, writing and photography workshop with young people from Wiltshire, for the charity Thriving Through Venture. Despite its association with the military, this is a wild space, shaped by human stories of freedom, hope, war, resistance, peace and refuge. It has its own communities: volunteers, conservationists, historians, runners, dog walkers, families and wildlife. The military aviation enthusiast Christopher Netherclift guides us round the cold war relics: a decontamination suite, American fire hydrants on open heath. The young people are unaware of this…

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Locals living close to the sprawling military base in Cape Cod where 21-year-old Jack Teixeira worked for a US air force intelligence unit have been asking the same questions as everyone else. Was his alleged leak of national security documents some kind of principled stand or an immature attempt to impress two dozen members of a closed chat group called Thug Shaker Central on Discord, a video game chat platform, that he lost control of? And why did the Massachusetts air national guardsman have such apparently wide access anyway, from details of Ukrainian military vulnerabilities to surveillance of US allies – something that President Biden has called for an investigation into. At a veterans club in Falmouth, 1 5km from Otis, better known as the Cape Cod joint airbase, where…

UKRAINE An Easter like no other for Kyiv’s faithful Page 18 → Fighting between rival government factions intensified across much of Sudan early this week as diplomatic efforts to end a conflict gathered momentum. By Tuesday, the UN envoy to Sudan said at least 185 people had been killed and 1,800 wounded as clashes spread since last weekend. Many more bodies lay uncollected in the streets. Violence erupted last Saturday between army units loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional governing Sovereign Council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council. In Khartoum, initial fighting centred on key sites such as the international airport, presidential palace and the army headquarters, where…

Time was, people would stop Feargal Sharkey in the street to talk about the song Teenage Kicks. These days, he says, “it’s always about shite in rivers”. The former Undertones singer, now the vocal frontman for the campaign to highlight the scandal of sewage in Britain’s inland and coastal waters, does not particularly welcome the change. “I’m really happy to get back to talking about gigs and records again as soon as anybody else is ready,” he says. But neither is he about to give up his cause. Particularly now he is winning. He has known for a couple of years that he has discovered that rare beast: an issue that can unite the whole of the UK. He says: “There is literally no street anywhere these days I can…

At kerbside tables, down shadowy alleys and in underground arcades, coffee in Chile’s capital is still served con piernas – with legs. Waitresses in short skirts and high heels serve coffee at the joints that form part of a curious, anachronistic hangover from the 1980s. In the exotically named cafes, the staff – who are nearly all migrants from other countries – wear swimwear. “It’s odd that these places, which objectify women, exist today in the centre of a city like Santiago,” said Amanda Bruna, a teacher from Santiago. “But women have to work, and where there aren’t other opportunities, they will always take these jobs.” Marcela Hurtado, an academic at Chile’s Austral University who has researched the cafes extensively, said: “These places often operate on the margins of the…

Red sand shifts under the boots of the crew members. In the distance, it appears that a rocky mountain range is rising out of the Martian horizon. A thin layer of red dust coats the solar panels and equipment necessary for the year-long mission. However, this landscape isn’t actually 230m km away. We are in a corner of the Nasa Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a large white warehouse right next to the disc golf course and on the tram route used by tourists and school groups. Starting this June, four volunteer test subjects will spend a year locked inside this building, pretending to live on Mars. Nasa researchers say they are doing everything they can to make their Martian bunker as realistic as possible so they can learn…

AT THE AGE OF 17, TOM TURCICH HAD ENJOYED A GOOD LIFE SO FAR. He had wonderful parents, great friends, did well at school and was a gifted sportsman. But two things gnawed away at him: he thought he was too timid, and he was terrified of death. As a little boy, he would run down the stairs at night to check that his parents were still alive. At the age of 11, he’d lie in bed trying to simulate death so he could prepare for it. “I’d lose the sensation of my body,” he says, “and I would cover my ears and close my eyes so I couldn’t see and couldn’t hear, and I’d try to imagine what death was like. But then you can’t because you’re thinking. And…

When BBC Music Magazine last year canvassed dozens of international composers about who they thought was the greatest of all time, Kaija Saariaho was their most frequently nominated living colleague. She was ranked at No 17, between Brahms and Haydn. The esteem in which the Finnish composer, now 70, is held helps explain the anticipation around her latest opera, Innocence, as it reaches London’s Royal Opera House in Simon Stone’s production. So do the reactions of many of those who saw its premiere at the Aix-en-Provence festival in 2021 – and those who performed in it. “I’m absolutely sure that this is one of the most important works of our time,” says Susanna Mälkki, who conducted that premiere with the London Symphony Orchestra in the pit, and is in London…

There’s a feeling you get rewatching a movie that ends in disaster. A hope against hope that this time the hero will cheat fate. Though the jacket of The Best Minds, novelist Jonathan Rosen’s extraordinary account of his friend Michael Laudor’s mental illness, speaks only of a “horrific act” committed by its subject, readers are well aware that something dreadful is coming. It is testament to the author’s ability to immerse us in the world he builds that this doesn’t stop us from willing a different outcome. In doing so we mirror the reactions of those around Laudor at the time, from friends to teachers to the titans of media and Hollywood – reactions that arguably helped seal his fate and that of his fiancee, Carrie Costello. Though Rosen’s lens…

All solutions published next week Across 5 No 1 story from part of India (6) 6 Samurai sword found in trunk at an armoury (6) 9 Rage after husband produces something unwearable from wardrobe (6) 10 Ponder, as referee, about extra time (8) 11 Part of range seen after symphonist’s fifth? (4) 12 Satire, oddly, about stable employee in secure accommodation (10) 13 Duel as result of rant or challenges like this, with second intervening (5,6) 18 The box containing novelties I repacked (10) 21 Call to stop article by multinational medical group (4) 22 Predator concealing most of his weapon (8) 23 Repair broken fencing tool (6) 24 Highly formal attire that’s used outside work (3,3) 25 American people taking old islander from East to West (6) Down 1…