Indholdsfortegnelse for 19 January 2024 i Guardian Weekly

Political upheaval and street protests, gun battles and floods. José Luis Calderón has seen it all in 23 years as one of Guayaquil’s top television journalists. Never had the Ecuadorian reporter been the story himself. That changed just after lunch last Tuesday when the 47-year-old reporter heard shouts and the sound of people running in the corridors of TC Televisión, the channel where he works. “At first … we thought it was a fight,” he remembered. But as the yelling intensified, it became clear it was not. Calderón had been in the newsroom next to the channel’s studio when the pandemonium began. Sensing something was badly wrong, he bolted into the bathroom with two female workmates and called his brother-in-law. “I just told him: ‘I don’t know what’s happening ……

‘A sinking ship” was how Antonia, an administrator from Middleton, described Britain at the start of 2024. That assessment, while damning, isn’t unusual, with “broken”, “mess” and “struggling” the top words used to describe the UK today. But Antonia, and her fellow focus group participants – former Conservative voters from the “red wall” seats of Heywood and Middleton, Great Grimsby and Dudley North – weren’t planning on expressing their exasperation with the state of Britain by voting Labour. Instead, they were tempted by the successor to the Brexit party – Reform UK. Since October, Reform has enjoyed a steady rise in support, hitting 10% in some opinion polls. While unlikely to win seats of its own, Reform could play the role of spoiler. An analysis by the thinktank More in…

The first place that Max Schranz moved into after leaving his family home is the kind that many young professionals dream of inhabiting at the peak of their career. At only 26, he lives in a bright fifth-floor apartment with high ceilings overlooking a European capital city, 10 minutes from the central station and within walking distance of cinemas, theatres and bars. No lottery win or parental trust fund was needed: Schranz, who is a master’s student, pays €596 ($654) a month for his 54 sq metre two-bedroom apartment – a fraction of typical rents for similarly sized and located apartments in other major European cities. What’s more, he didn’t have to put down a deposit and his rental contract is unlimited – in theory, he’s allowed to pass it…

If you thought that we were about to finally get the truth about UFOs, think again. At the end of last year, a US government bill that would have mandated the controlled release of all classified documents and artefacts relating to UFOs was significantly watered down so that it would get through Congress. Interest in unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), the new term for UFOs, reignited in June 2023 when ex-US intelligence agency whistleblower David Grusch told the Debrief website that during his official duties he had discovered the US had indeed been retrieving spacecraft of non-human origin for decades. The claims led to a congressional hearing, in which Grusch and others described what they had gleaned of this super-secret project or seen with their own eyes during military service. Their…

When my daughter went overseas on her gap-year adventure, my son and I found ourselves alone at home with the cat. Except for the odd Sunday morning at a local junk market and dinners with friends, we spent much of our time in separate rooms, coming together late in the day to eat dinner and maybe watch an episode of something, if we could agree. I know it’s natural for teenagers to spend more time sequestered away in their bedrooms, but sometimes I found myself trying to think up ways to lure him out. As a single parent, much of our household communication involves me reminding him to clean his room or eat his vegetables or do his homework. Little time is spent on the fun stuff, like the random…

‘When you travel as a girl, you don’t learn anything about the world. All you learn is that there’s a way of looking at the world that doesn’t belong to you,” says Sofie Lakmaker, who shares a surname and major biographical details with her author. She is recalling a trip around Europe she made at 18, with the possibility of danger at every corner: “At every hostel I stayed in I made sure to get a top bunk just so I could keep a lookout.” For Sofie, passivity is a constant feature of being alive. Growing up in the well-heeled Oud-Zuid district of Amsterdam, things seem to happen to her, rather than by her. She is an aspiring writer who wishes to be one of “the Greats”, but one problem…

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Who did this, and why? The immediate spark for last week’s chaos was the escape on Sunday 7 January of Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, from his cell in a prison complex in Guayaquil, the country’s largest city and its chief port. Macías is the leader of Los Choneros, one of Ecuador’s most powerful criminal gangs, which is believed to have links to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. He was serving a 34-year sentence, and previously escaped for several weeks in 2013. He was said to have been tipped off shortly before he was due to be transferred to a maximum-security facility. Macías was living in a spacious cell decorated with murals and had been shown in a music video, for The Lion’s Ballad, relaxing in the prison courtyard and petting a fighting…

Israelis last weekend marked 100 days of war with a 100-minute pause in the working day and rallies to call for the return of hostages held in Gaza, but little relief from the anxiety that has gripped the country since Hamas launched its 7 October attacks. Many Israelis remain deeply shaken by the incursion, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 240 taken hostage. Israel is “in the middle of a terrible dream, and I want to wake up from this terrible dream and create a new Israel”, Arnon Bar-David, the leader of the Histadrut confederation of trade unions, told a mass meeting in Tel Aviv. “We will rebuild everything they have tried to destroy.” Normal life is returning to the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other…

An aerial view from last Sunday shows flowing lava close to a road leading to the south-western town of Grindavík, where houses caught fire after a volcano erupted for the second time in less than a month. Two fissures formed after an increase in seismic activity that prompted authorities to evacuate the fishing town the day before. A first eruption began at 8am when a crack opened 450 metres from the town. Protective barriers of earth and rock pushed lava from the first fissure away from Grindavík. However, a second crack then opened around midday, with that lava engulfing homes. “In a little village like this one, we’re like a family – it’s tragic seeing this,” one local resident, Sveinn Ari Guðjónsson, told Agence France-Presse. “It’s unreal, it’s like watching…

When the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, appeared on the balcony of Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen last Sunday to announce the new monarch, she was met by a sea of cheering faces. Tens of thousands of people gathered on the streets of the Danish capital to greet Frederik X and bid farewell to Margrethe II, who became the first Danish monarch in nearly 900 years to abdicate voluntarily. But one figure in the crowd showing no support for the new king was Mads Rundstrøm. Instead, the 27-year-old unfurled anti-royalist banners in the square outside the Danish parliament, where he was joined by protesters from Denmark and Sweden. Inspired by protests in Britain during last year’s coronation of King Charles, Rundstrøm, the new chair of anti-monarchy group Republik Nu (Republic Now),…

He is a former general who was dismissed from the military amid allegations he was involved in kidnapping and torture. But today, Prabowo Subianto, frontrunner in Indonesia’s looming election, projects a very different image: a grandpa with awkward dance moves and a softer side. At campaign events, Prabowo, 72, has wiggled his hips and waved his arms around – moves captured on Tik-Tok, where users call him gemoy, meaning cute. Supporters wear hoodies with a cartoon version of the politician. It’s quite the rebrand for Prabowo, a former son-in-law of the late dictator Suharto but despite his controversial past, Prabowo, whose running-mate is the eldest son of outgoing president Joko Widodo, is leading in election surveys ahead of next month’s vote in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy. A recent poll…

RECENTLY MY MOTHER WAS GATHERING UP THE LAST OF MY CHILDHOOD TOYS in a bin bag, for me to either pass on to my own kids or dispense with. It happened to be just at that moment in the summer when Barbie was making a fortune at the box office. Greta Gerwig’s movie about a Mattel-made doll was a sensation, and dozens of other toy-to-screen adaptations were said to be coming in Barbie’s wake, for instance a Lena Dunham-written version of the 1990s toy line Polly Pocket and JJ Abrams ’ take on those miniature Hot Wheels cars. Film-makers and other creatives were looking again at the playthings of their youth to see what brilliant contemporary stories might be spun out of He-Man, Thomas the Tank Engine, Cluedo and Uno.…

To the widely voiced reasons to admire Alan Bates, the heroically dogged leader of the campaign to achieve justice for the victims of the Post Office scandal, let me add another. The man is the master of under statement. When the government was finally impelled to announce it will legislate to quash hundreds of wrongful convictions, he said: “It’s about time.” Most of us would have inserted at least a “bloody” into that response. This swamp of malignancy has been devouring innocent people for a quarter of a century, since the Post Office started its vicious persecution of branch managers by falsely accusing more than 3,000 of crimes that included fraud and theft. The Post Office ruined reputations, livelihoods and health, and stole the liberty of the 236 who were…

Can you make good ramen at home, and is it worth the effort? Maria, Salford Yes, and yes, according to Tim Anderson, author of Ramen Forever. “It’s straightforward to make a really good version at home, and you can surpass the quality of most ramen available in high-street restaurants,” he says, although he accepts it is something of a project. First you’ll need kansui, AKA the alkaline salts sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, which isn’t a matter of “being pedantic; it’s what gives ramen noodles their chewy, springy quality”, plus it’s easily available online. Then start with a 40% hydration dough (the percentage just refers to how much water is used in relation to flour). “Trust the dough, and if it’s too crumbly to work with, rest it in a…

1 US/YEMEN Houthi attacks continue as US cargo ship hit by missile The Iran-backed Houthi militia group has continued to attack commercial shipping, hitting an American-owned cargo ship with a ballistic missile in defiance of a wave of US and UK strikes on Yemen. The strike hit the cargo hold of the ship, and while it was thought to have caused no major damage, will add to fears that the US and UK strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen have not degraded the group’s threat to commercial shipping. Qatar became the latest major user of cargo ships to announce it will not send liquid gas through the Red Sea for the foreseeable future. The level of traffic was said to have dropped markedly overall since the US and UK strikes last…

LAW Private prosecutions face reform in wake of scandal Plans to overhaul the growing “cottage industry” of private prosecutions are being urgently examined by ministers in the wake of the Post Office scandal, including measures that could see untrustworthy bodies barred from pursuing them. Labour was understood to be drawing up its own reform package after the outcry prompted by the Post Office’s use of private prosecutions against more than 700 post office operators. It means there is growing scope for a cross-party commitment to complete any reforms after the election. A new inspection regime for private prosecutors, a binding code of standards and a new power to strip an organisation of its power to conduct them are all being discussed in Whitehall. It follows one of the biggest miscarriages…

Luis Chonillo was on his way to be sworn in as the mayor of Ecuador’s most murderous city when the gunmen came to murder him. “I’ve got two minutes left to live,” the 39-year-old politician remembers thinking as he cowered in a bathroom after sprinting into a nearby home when his convoy came under attack. Two police bodyguards and a bystander were killed in the shootout on 15 May last year. Chonillo fled the country with his family, who remain abroad. The assassins have yet to be caught. And eight months later, as Ecuador reels from one of the worst outbreaks of violence in its recent history, Chonillo has yet to occupy his office in Durán’s city hall. “I call myself a nomad mayor,” he said from a safe house…

Global leaders have congratulated Lai Ching-te for winning Taiwan’s presidential election, praising the high turnout and democratic process – and drawing ire from Beijing, which had hoped to see the ruling party ousted. Lai won an unprecedented third term in power for the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive party (DPP) in last Saturday’s election, with more than 40% of the vote. He is taking over from the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen, who has been president since 2016, and has promised to continue her foreign policy efforts in resisting China’s plans to annex Taiwan. A spokesperson for the US state department congratulated the Taiwanese people “for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process”. Speaking to reporters shortly after the result, US president Joe Biden, who sent an unofficial…

Serhii Dovbysh was defending his home in Chernihiv when something inside him snapped. The Russians were a few kilometres away. Enemy planes bombed the city. Shells landed among its gold-domed cathedrals. And young soldiers under his command were dying in battle. Dovbysh, a major in Ukraine’s armed forces and a deputy commander, felt responsible. “Everything broke in my head and soul. And my body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive,” he said. He estimated that about 10% of the men in his battalion were killed during fighting, and another third wounded. Russia’s full-scale invasion exacerbated his pre-existing mental health issues, he said, in a stressful period when there was scarcely time to eat or sleep. Now discharged from the army, Dovbysh, who was suffering from depression, works with…

When King Frederik X took the throne last Sunday, the Danish crown passed from his mother, Queen Margrethe II, a monarch who has cast doubt on the fact that human pollution is heating the planet, to one who feels bound by duty to call for stronger action on climate breakdown. “I think it’s important for me to have a message for other people,” Frederik told the Financial Times in 2010 after a trip to the melting Arctic with the heirs to the Norwegian and Swedish thrones, “to convince the broader population there are changes happening and that we are making the change.” Denmark is not the only country in Europe whose monarchy is using its reach to help people understand the damage done by heating the planet. Norway’s King Harald…

Aviation is an abundant source of metaphors, but not always as self-generating as the terrifying Alaska Airlines incident that has once again brought Boeing low: a hole blown in the side of an ascending plane, a gap that was not properly plugged, passengers staring into the void. The safe landing of flight 1282 on 5 January after a boy literally lost the shirt from his back as the air was sucked out at 4,300 metres means Boeing can count itself lucky that it does not face far worse than the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation and a further audit announced last week and a handful of lawsuits from distressed passengers. Only one variant of Boeing’s 737 Max model, the Max 9 with a sealed mid-rear exit door, has been…

ANDREW RAWNSLEY The Post Office and a wicked abuse of power Page 48 → There was so much history and so much tragedy in that room. For two days, ending last Friday, the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague witnessed a clash between two nations, each shaped by acts that live on in the global lexicon of good and evil. In one corner, South Africa, which only a generation ago emerged from apartheid, still the universal shorthand for the wickedness of racism. In the other, Israel, established just three years after the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews. In a global courtroom, those who bore the scars of those two great crimes – apartheid and the Holocaust – squared up against each other, as one accused the other…

You might think, with the completion of the Human Genome Project more than 20 years ago, and the discovery of the double helix enjoying its 70th birthday last year, that we actually know how life works. In physics, the quest for a so-called Grand Unifying Theory has preoccupied the most ambitious minds for generations, alas to no avail. But in the life sciences, we managed to find four grand unifying theories in the space of 100 years or so. Three are well known: cell theory – all life is made of cells, which only come from existing cells; Darwin’s evolution by natural selection; and universal genetics – all life is encoded by a cypher written in the molecule DNA. The fourth, no less important, goes by the chewy name chemiosmosis,…