Innehållsförteckning för 30th Jult 2021 från Guardian Weekly

Drifting off Hot air balloons float over paddleboarders during the Golden Ring balloon festival near Ilyinsky meadow, Suzdal, Russia. The Golden Ring refers to a chain of ancient and picturesque towns lying to the north-east of Moscow. Suzdal is widely known as an open air museum for its historic buildings, including Unesco world heritage sites. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Guardian Weekly is an edited selection of some of the best journalism found in the Guardian and Observer newspapers in the UK and the Guardian’s digital editions in the UK, US and Australia. The weekly magazine has an international focus and three editions: global, Australia and North America. The Guardian was founded in 1821, and Guardian Weekly in 1919. We exist to hold power to account…

Beware of the summer! The season that was once anticipated as the lightest, brightest, balmiest time of the year now comes with a health warning. For the first time, the UK’s Met Office issued an extreme heat advisory this month. The warning was very staid, very British, but a clear shift away from the ethos of Keep Calm and Carry On. The amber alert urged precautions against adverse health effects for vulnerable populations, while flagging pressure on water resources, potential power cuts and increased likelihood of transport delays. Given the temperatures were only a little over 30C for a few days, this might seem risible to people living in far hotter parts of the world, but it is part of a growing global conversation challenging how we think about summer…

The Pegasus project In 2019, when NSO Group was facing intense scrutiny, new investors in the Israeli surveillance company were on a PR offensive to reassure human rights groups. In an exchange of public letters, they told Amnesty International and other activists that they would do “whatever is necessary” to ensure NSO’s weapons-grade software would only be used to fight crime and terrorism. But the claim, it now appears, was hollow. Unknown to the activists, NSO would later hatch a deal that would help a longtime government client with an awful human rights record. Dubai, a monarchy in the United Arab Emirates, wanted NSO to give it permission to expand its potential use of the spyware so it could target mobile phones in the UK. It needed to do so,…

Among families bereaved by the US opioid epidemic, there is growing anger at pharmaceutical companies “buying their way out of accountability” with multibillion-dollar settlements that specifically exclude any admission of wrongdoing. The opioid maker Johnson & Johnson and the country’s three largest drug distributors last Wednesday agreed to pay $26bn to settle a raft of lawsuits accusing them of acting recklessly and illegally in pushing prescription opioid sales when they knew the painkillers were driving an epidemic of addiction and overdoses. But Johnson & Johnson continued to insist its actions were “appropriate and responsible”. The distributors said they still strongly disputed the allegations made in the lawsuits, even though they have previously paid significant fines to settle federal claims that they broke the law. Families bereaved by the opioid epidemic,…

The empty seats in the stadiums of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics are a blessing in disguise, for the sporting spectacle, no matter how good, will not be able to dispel the fact that this super-spreader event is being held in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis and against the wishes of the majority of the Japanese public. In so doing, the International Olympic Committee has been revealed as no more than the travelling circus of the global sports industry, making sure broadcasters get what they need come what may. Not that these Games and the IOC’s standing weren’t deeply flawed prior to the pandemic. As at every Olympics, costs have spiralled and Japan will have to stump up more than $30 bn, of which the IOC will not…

John Lennon was startled as he was watching Top of the Pops. He rang Ringo Starr. “You won’t believe what’s on television,” he reportedly said. “Marc Bolan is playing a song with Adolf Hitler.” This was Sparks in 1974, performing their glorious pop opus This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us. “It was equidistant between the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and the Daleks on Doctor Who. Fifteen million people saw it. Think of the next generation of bands watching: the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Duran Duran, Joy Division, Squeeze, Vince Clarke. They’re all watching and they’re all thinking the same thing,” says Edgar Wright, the director of Baby Driver and Shaun of the Dead, and now a documentary about the duo, The Sparks Brothers. After more…

Memoirs by battered veterans of the Covid-19 wars are likely to be a growth industry. These two are both revelations in their own way. Vaxxed, by the two women who led the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine, is a tale of hard work and victory against steep odds. It’s a unique insight and eye-opening for anyone worrying that Covid jabs were made too fast, or that we don’t know what’s in them (the book includes a list of ingredients, with explanations). Spike, a top scientific insider’s account of the political handling, and mishandling, of England’s pan demic, is a different tale entirely. It isn’t over, either, as Boris Johnson was determined to lift all pan demic controls, despite rising cases and scientists’ appalled protests. His insistence on making Covid control…

In matters of lunch, I am not a sunny individual. I try to be. When the northern hemisphere’s summer months roll around, I imagine myself as one of those heat-kissed, care free types doing sensitive things with nature’s seasonal bounty. I desperately want to be the man who halves the pertest of cherry tomatoes, then showers them with the petals of purple chive flowers. He adds glugs of peppery olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, a crunch of sea salt, then pushes the plate into the middle of the table while whispering: “When the ingredients are this good, you just need to let them shine, don’t you?” I want to be this man but I am not. My heart and, more important, my stomach aren’t in it. I am a…

Anas Alakkad and Faris Allahham, Germany When Anas Alakkad, a Saarland-based translator and paramedic from Damascus, saw pictures of the flooded German towns on his Facebook feed, he fired off messages to Syrian friends around Germany. “There was a debate whether we should somehow try to help,” said the 28-year-old, who arrived in Germany as a refugee six years ago. “The answer was pretty obvious to me: we had to.” Alakkad and his best friend, Faris Allahham, a graphic designer, started by translating messages from German volunteering organisations into Arabic. Then they drove two-and-a-half hours to the disaster zone . “The destruction was so emotionally shocking,” he recalled. “No matter what you’ve seen on television, it’s more devastating.” He and six other Syrians spent a whole day clearing debris from…

The more we’ve learned about global surveillance, ever since the Guardian’s Snowden revelations in 2013, the more the world has become accustomed to the idea that governments, democratic or otherwise, are keenly interested in using technology and the phones in our pockets to keep tabs on us. The Pegasus revelations by the Guardian and 16 other media organisations working with Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based media nonprofit, illustrate how journalists, human rights campaigners, politicians and others can be targeted using spying software, or “spyware”. Investigations such as these are legally fraught and technically complex, involving dozens of journalists, IT experts and lawyers. Those being investigated are often highly secretive and extremely well resourced, financially and technologically. For the Guardian, such investigations are at the heart of our mission. Because of our…

As monikers go, Subak may seem an odd choice for a new organisation that aims to accelerate hi-tech efforts to combat the climate crisis. The name is Indonesian, it transpires, and refers to an ancient agricultural system that allows farmers to coordinate their efforts when irrigating and growing crops. “Subak allows farmers to carefully synchronise their use of water and so maximise rice production,” said Bryony Worthington, founder and board member of the not-for-profit climate action group. “And that is exactly what we are going to do – with data. By sharing and channelling data, we can maximise our efforts to combat carbon emissions and global warming. Data is going to be the new water, in other words.” Subak was officially launched last week to select and fund non-profit groups…

The story of Canfranc, a village more than 1,000 metres above sea level on the Franco-Spanish frontier, is one of vainglorious ambition and abject failure, of incompetence and corruption, of intrigue, smuggling and a century-long run of bad luck. However, its monumental and ill-fated train station, once called the “Titanic of the mountains”, is to get a new life as a five-star hotel, half a century after the rail link through the Pyrenees which it served was closed. Spain had wanted to show it was capable of building something on the scale of Europe’s great “railway cathedrals”, says Alfonso Marco, author of El Canfranc, historia de un tren de leyenda (Canfranc, the story of a legendary train). The problem was that the station was conceived in 1853 but not completed…

Not a week goes by without Elliot Swartz receiving at least one request from researchers asking him where they can find cell lines (a culture developed from a single cell) for use in cellular agriculture – an essential tool for creating lab-grown meat. “One of the most important things that cell lines offer is that they enable researchers to just get started in this new field,” says Swartz, who works in New York as a senior scientist at the Good Food Institute (GFI) – a nonprofit focused on advancing cellular agriculture and bringing its products to market as quickly as possible. Helping researchers is a core part of his role. In the case of cell lines, however, there’s little he can do. Swartz’s response to the researchers is, unfortunately, always…

After extraordinary revelations that the Israeli company NSO Group’s cyber-surveillance tool, Pegasus, was allegedly used to target dissidents, activists, journalists and politicians around the world, Israel should be asking itself a few questions. Does its hi-tech industry have a dark side? Do the actors involved in exporting lucrative surveillance products – including the defence ministry, which must approve such sales, or the top levels of the previous government – bear responsibility? While Israeli officials are taking the revelations seriously, Israelis appear neither shamed nor shaken. The day after the NSO story broke, Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would cease the sale of its products in the “occupied Palestinian territories ”. By mid week one had to squint to find NSO in the Israeli media, as the ice - cream…

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1 UNITED STATES Biden and Kadhimi agree to end US combat role in Iraq President Joe Biden and the Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, have sealed an agreement formally ending the US combat mission in Iraq by the end of 2021, more than 18 years after troops were sent to the country. Biden has also ordered the withdrawal of the last US forces in Afghanistan by the end of August thus completing combat missions that George W Bush began under his watch. Biden and Kadhimi met in the Oval Office on Monday for their first face-to-face talks. There are currently 2,500 US troops in Iraq focusing on countering the remnants of Islamic State. The US role in Iraq will shift to training and advising the Iraqi military to defend itself.…

CORONAVIRUS No 10 stays cautious despite case numbers dropping Downing Street and scientists remained cautious about declaring a turning point in the outbreak on Monday despite a huge drop in Covid case numbers for the sixth day in a row. No 10 said it was “encouraging” that infections had fallen to their lowest level in three weeks at 24,950 confirmed cases, with Boris Johnson taking the decision to allow more double-vaccinated key workers to avoid isolation with a daily testing programme. But the prime minister’s official spokesman said he still believed the UK was “not out of the woods yet” and highlighted the fact that the full impact of the 19 July unlocking has not yet been reflected in case numbers. Several Whitehall health sources said the government was still…

Record numbers of civilians have been killed and injured in Afghanistan in intense fighting since 1 May, when international forces began their final drawdown and the Taliban launched a major offensive . The heavy toll comes largely in rural areas, according to the UN. If the conflict were to spill into more densely populated towns and cities, the consequences could be catastrophic, it says in its report, The Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict. Swathes of the country have fallen to the insurgents since they launched their offensive two months ago to coincide with the original deadline the authorities set for US and other forces to leave. the UN report is the first nationwide account of the impact of the fighting on civilians. It notes near-record levels of casualties in…

More than 250 people in the UK and Ireland have been convicted of child sexual abuse offences committed while they were Scout leaders or in other positions of responsibility within the Scout movement since the 1950s, according to analysis that raises questions about the organisation’s safeguarding procedures. For decades, the Scout movement has been promoted as offering the chance to experience adventures and gain life skills, but a review of offenders shows that for scores of children it has led to abuse at the hands of someone entrusted with their welfare. The 255 cases include convictions for rape, indecent assault, voyeurism and the possession, creation and distribution of indecent/pornographic images. The cases date back to the 1950s but also include contemporary examples such as Oliver Cooper from Bognor Regis, who…

As some of the world’s largest companies invest billions to advance battery technology, Dominic Spooner has been working at solving the next problem: the impact of unwieldy – and environmentally unfriendly – battery casings. Spooner runs Vaulta, developing lightweight battery-casing technology, from a shared garage in Brisbane. “Batteries will change our lives in ways that we’re maybe not even totally aware of, but … we can create our own new group of problems if we’re not careful,” he says. Spooner and his team have caught global attention. Vaulta has signed agreements with aerospace and car battery companies, including one with Braille Battery – a US manufacturer of ultra-lightweight batteries for Nascar, IndyCar and the Australian Supercars. Last month, the company received an A$297,500 ($218,500) federal grant to commercialise its technology.…

Ben & Jerry’s announced last week it would no longer supply ice-cream to Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories, saying that doing business there was “inconsistent with our values”. The decision is one of the highest-profile rebukes by a well-known brand of Israeli settlements built on land captured in the 1967 war, which are regarded as illegal under international law. The boycott has dominated the news agenda in Israel, generating far more outcry than revelations about the country’s role in the Pegasus spyware project. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, declared the ice-cream - maker’s decision “a new type of terrorism”, while the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, warned the chief executive of Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent, there would be “serious consequences” for the “anti-Israel” move. Other voices in the media and…

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, this week readied the committee that began its investigation into the attack on the Capitol to press ahead with an aggressive inquiry into Donald Trump, as she seeks to exploit Republicans’ refusal to participate that could leave the former US president unguarded. The move by the top Democrat in the House last week to block Jim Banks and Jim Jordan – vociferous allies of the former president – from serving on the House select committee, prompted the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, to boycott the inquiry, pulling his three other Republican picks from the panel. But Pelosi won strong support from Democrats. “We have the duty, to the constitution and the country, to find the truth of the 6 January insurrection and to ensure that…

Ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer. The Northern Ireland protocol is a stupid answer: it imposes a complex bureaucracy on the movement of ordinary goods across the Irish Sea. But it is the only response to a problem created by Boris Johnson. The reason it keeps coming around, like a ghoul on a ghost train, is that it requires Johnson and his government to do something that goes against the grain of the whole Brexit project: to acknowledge that choices have costs. There used to be a gameshow on American radio and TV called Truth or Consequences. In each episode, the contestant was asked a deliberately daft question – and when they failed to answer it, they had to perform a zany or embarrassing stunt. We’ve…

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a scientist creates life and is horrified by what he has done. Two centuries on, synthetic life, albeit in a far simpler form, has been created in a dish. What Shelley imagined has become possible. As Jeanette Winterson points out in this essay collection, the achievements of science and technology always start as fiction. Nothing can be realised if it hasn’t been imagined first. Take artificial intelligence. AI is a tool we train to address specific tasks, but plenty of people have imagined that it could be a multitasking problem-solver with the capacity to understand and learn that is equal or superior to ours. Many labs are working on this concept, which is called artificial general intelligence, and it could be a reality within decades. That’s…