Innehållsförteckning för 25 March 2022 från Guardian Weekly

If nothing else, Vladimir Putin’s packed stadium rally in Moscow last week revealed there is no shortage of Russian people who believe the Kremlin’s grotesquely doctored version of the “special operation” in Ukraine. But it’s not just a matter of state propaganda in Russia: a wider battle for informational truth is under way, exemplified last week by a deepfake video in which Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy purportedly called on his own soldiers to surrender. That the video was rapidly debunked by Ukraine highlighted what appears to be its success in combating Russia’s disinformation weaponry. But, as Dan Milmo and Pjotr Sauer find, the matter of who is winning the infowars is not particularly clear. In our special report, Jon Ungoed-Thomas looks at the Russian disinformation outlets under sanction by the…

GLOBAL HEATING Concern over heatwaves at both Earth’s poles Startling heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles are causing alarm among climate scientists, who have warned the “unprecedented” events could signal faster and abrupt climate breakdown. Temperatures in Antarctica reached record levels last weekend, an astonishing 40C above normal in places. At the same time, weather stations near the north pole also showed signs of melting, with some temperatures 30C above normal, hitting levels normally seen far later in the year. At this time of year, the Antarctic should be rapidly cooling, and the Arctic only slowly emerging from its winter. ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE Long naps could be early warning of cognitive decline Taking long naps could be a precursor of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study that tracked elderly people’s daytime…

Speaking behind a podium bearing the Ukrainian state emblem, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his now signature green attire, calls on his soldiers to lay down their weapons and return to their families. The one-minute clip is a deepfake, the term for a sophisticated hoax that uses artificial intelligence to create a phoney image, most commonly fake videos of people. What unfolded next was one of the latest episodes in the infowar that has accompanied the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a war being waged across social media, via satellite images of battlefields and on hackers’ keyboards. Zelenskiy posted a bona fide response on his Instagram account last week dismissing the “childish provocation” and telling Russian troops to return home. His response to the deepfake, which remains of unknown provenance and is not of…

High in the Bolivian Altiplano, Challapata is where the road from La Paz splits: one way to Potosí and the other to Uyuni and the salt flats. It seems an unremarkable place; tourists stream through without even realising. But Bolivians know it to be home to the country’s biggest contraband car fair, a hub in a trade network reaching from Japan to the Bolivian Amazon. Contraband cars – known as chutos – are nothing new in Bolivia. But those behind the business have recently received a fresh burst of attention, as a younger generation has taken to posting videos of their adrenaline-fuelled border runs on Tik Tok. Efraín, 35, started out as a chutero when he was 12. In the ensuing years, the fundamentals of the trade have stayed the…

WHEN WRITING A STORY ABOUT MANI-FESTING – the new-age trend making a pandemic-inspired comeback – everyone you meet will proclaim they’ve manifested you. It’s a feature, I suppose, rather than a bug: when you believe that desires can be made real by concentration alone, as those in the manifesting game do, and when that desire is for a journalist to cover the mani-festing company you set up, then, well, who I am to say that they didn’t? The practice of manifesting is hardly new – it dates back to the New Thought movement of the 19th century, with a resurgence in the noughties thanks to the 2006 self-help book The Secret, which sold 30m copies, and Oprah Winfrey, who is a fan. Yet the latest surge is down to millennials…

IF YOU ARE EVER IN NEED OF A STARK REMINDER THAT SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT REAL LIFE, I can recommend Zooming with Charli XCX. Moments before I am due to speak to the pop star, she posts on Instagram to trail the release of her new single, Baby. On all fours in a tasselled leather bikini, with dramatic eye makeup and talon-like nails, she is the epitome of the provocative, vampish pop star. So when she appears live on my computer screen, it is slightly jarring to see Ithe 29-year-old looking utterly ordinary: dark hair scraped back, no makeup, grey baggy jumper and cradling a mug of coffee. Instead of dramatically writhing, she is thoughtfully musing – in the kind of unclipped, middle-class English drawl that makes everything sound deadpan…

CLR James died on a May morning in 1989. He’d had a lot of practice. For years previously the sad news had been broken to those who called on the old revolutionary, sportsman and critic unannounced: “CLR James is dead.” For James it had become, John L Williams tells us in this biography, something of a catchphrase. Much about James is contained in the gag. His love of mischief, his sometimes shocking asociality, a hint of his chronic health problems. It reveals something else too: his extraordinary appetite for drama. That appetite – that audacity – was evident from James’s first job, as a teacher in Trinidad, organising, choreographing and directing his choice of school play: The Merchant of Venice. To James’s delight, the all-Black student body “picked up the…

Twelve key disinformation outlets used to bolster Vladimir Putin have been hit with sanctions in an online crackdown on “false and misleading” reports claimed to be orchestrated by Russian intelligence. The UK Foreign Office announced last week that sanctions would be imposed on the Internet Research Agency, the notorious Russian-based troll factory. Two other alleged disinformation websites, New Eastern Outlook and Oriental Review, were also targeted. The Internet Research Agency has been exposed in the past for paying Russia-based bloggers $650 a month to flood the internet with pro-Putin comments on chat forums, social networks and the comment sections of western publications. Government investigators also claim Russian intelligence supports international news and analysis websites that promote the Kremlin’s view of the Ukraine invasion. Tom Southern, of the Centre for Information…

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said she should have been released from detention in Iran six years ago and challenged the British government to explain why they had not paid the £400m ($530m) debt to Iran that Tehran said would bring her release earlier. Speaking publicly on Monday, for the first time since she was released, she described the “black hole” in her heart caused by the detention, and that it was her faith that kept her from losing hope. She also urged an end to the detention of other dual nationals still held in Iran, saying without their release “the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete”. She paid tribute to her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who said he would be going into campaigning retirement after six years of “conspicuously…

Emílio Teixeira Alarcón thinks he knows exactly how he will feel after slaying his first Russian soldier. “Mission accomplished,” shrugged the Brazilian army reservist. “In war, it’s either kill or be killed.” “If I get someone in my crosshairs and don’t shoot, he might shoot me. It’s just like a game of paintball,” he added, as the mid-morning sun bathed his home in north Rio. Paintball is the closest Alarcón, 43, has ever come to active combat. He served in his city’s 21st Field Artillery Regiment in the late 1990s before throwing himself into political activism and the battle against what he calls “the scourge of communism”. He has never left Brazil. But, with the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Alarcón said he saw an unmissable chance to wage real-life…

Attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers. Strikes claiming the lives of civilians, including children. A growing humanitarian crisis, with vast numbers forced to flee their homes. A flagrant disregard for human life. These terrible scenes are not only in Ukraine but in other wars that have largely slipped from the public’s attention – in Myanmar, where the military tries to crush resistance to its seizure of power just over a year ago; in Ethiopia, where the prime minister believed he could win a swift victory against the Tigray region’s leaders, but fighting continues; in Yemen, riven by conflict since 2014; in Syria, where the war has entered its 12th year. Ukraine’s war was once in the shadows too: largely forgotten until Russian troops began massing at the country’s borders. In…

Reputation By Sarah Vaughan Vaughan’s timely and chilling novel highlights how female politicians are judged more harshly than their male counterparts, and also receive more online abuse. High-profile MP Emma Webster, who has launched a campaign to protect women from revenge porn, is the recipient of rage-fuelled messages from internet trolls as well as threats from an angry constituent. It isn’t only her own life that becomes more perilous; her 14-year-old daughter is being bullied by her schoolmates. And then Emma finds herself on trial for murder. Vaughan never shies away from the moral complexities in this exploration of the pressures that women face in private and public life. Run Rose Run By Dolly Parton and James Patterson After working his way through a small army of co-authors, including Bill Clinton,…

Prep 15 min Cook 1 hr Serves 6 • VEGETARIAN • DAIRY-FREE OPTION • GLUTEN FREE Ingredients 2 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil1 onion, peeled and cut into 1cm dice2 carrots, scrubbed and cut into 1cm dice1 small celeriac, peeled and cut into 1cm dice3 celery sticks, cut into 1cm dice1 leek, white part only, trimmed and cut into 1cm dice3 big garlic cloves, peeled1 bay leafSalt and black pepper6 baby potatoes100g sorrel, sliced75g young nettle tops (the top few leaves on each stem)50g wild garlicleaves, sliced (flowers kept for garnish)3 spring onions, thinly slicedA handful of chopped dillA handful of chopped parsleyCreme fraiche, to serve (optional) Ukrainian-born food writer Olia Hercules serves up a simple recipe from her homeland to highlight a fundraising initiative for Unicef Towards the end of…

Peter Bowles Actor best known for playing Richard DeVere in BBC series To the Manor Born and hugely admired by Harold Pinter for his stage work. He died on 17 March, aged 85. Sumaya Sadurni Photojournalist whose work featured in the Guardian and New York Times. She died while on an assignment for the Guardian on 7 March, aged 32. Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein Leader of the Iraqi Constitutional Monarchy political party, who claimed to be the legitimate heir to the late King Faisal II. He died on 14 March, aged 65. Eugene Parker Physicist who proposed the existence of solar wind. Nasa named its Parker Solar Probe in his honour, the first time it had named a spacecraft after a living person. He died on 15 March, aged 94.…

BORIS JOHNSON Civil servants ‘lied over PM’s orders for animal airlift’ A second whistleblower said it was “widespread knowledge” in government that Boris Johnson ordered the prioritisation of an evacuation of an animal charity based in Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover last summer. Josie Stewart, who worked in the Foreign Office for seven years, including a stint in the Kabul embassy, suggested senior civil servants in the department had lied to cover up the embarrassing episode. She told parliament’s foreign affairs select affairs committee that the direction from the prime minister was evidenced in multiple messages on Teams, emails and in conversations around the crisis centre, which was set up to help Afghans trying to flee. Johnson has denied that he had anything to do with the decision for the…

Ukraine authorities reject Moscow’s demand for Mariupol surrender Ukraine on Monday rejected an ultimatum from Moscow to surrender the devastated city of Mariupol, as authorities in Odesa accused Russia of striking residential areas. Elsewhere, shelling in Kyiv reduced a large shopping mall to rubble and killed at least eight people. On Monday night, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy again urged direct talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, saying: “Without this meeting it is impossible to fully understand what they are ready for in order to stop the war.” Putin may be about to deploy chemical weapons, warns Biden Russia’s false accusation that Ukraine has biological and chemical weapons is a “clear sign” that Vladimir Putin is considering using them himself, the US president, Joe Biden, said. “He’s already used chemical weapons…

What’s the plan, Joe? Maintaining the unity of the Nato alliance and keeping out of the war has been an objective of the US president and, in that, he has succeeded. Joe Biden wants Russia to lose, to be seen to fail. But bold, decisive action to that end has been lacking. The US approach is essentially reactive, tactical, detached. As Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told Congress last week, weapons and sanctions are not enough. US fears of escalation are well understood in Kyiv. But Ukraine still needs combat planes, aerial protection and safe humanitarian corridors. More than that, Ukraine’s people need effective, inspiring western leadership in support of the democratic ideals Biden champions. They need a plan. “You are the leader of your great nation. I wish you to…

Hank Balfour, a virologist at the University of Minnesota Medical School, was studying the long-term survival prospects of kidney transplant patients when he noticed that a small proportion of them went on to develop a rare form of cancer known as post-transplant proliferative disorder. He was particularly intrigued when he discovered, back in the 1970s, that almost all of these patients had been infected with a virus called Epstein-Barr or EBV, a curious pathogen that has captivated and puzzled virushunters for decades. “EBV can maintain latency within human cells,” says Balfour. “When we began studying it, it seemed that certain people were more prone to difficulties managing the virus immunologically, perhaps due to their genetic makeup, which allows the virus to put a damaging footprint on the immune system, causing…

Dotted across Europe and America, families of as many as 17 dual nationals still held in jail in Iran are watching nervously to find out whether their loved ones will follow Anoosheh Ashoori and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a plane to freedom, or be left behind. Many fear their freedom is not being made a precondition of the west agreeing a nuclear deal with Iran. Without an acknowledged debt to repay like the UK, some countries may have trouble striking deals. In Germany, Mariam Claren, the daughter of 68-year-old Nahid Taghavi, said: “It is a bittersweet moment. I am so happy for Richard [Ratcliffe], and his family, but I am very, very nervous that only American prisoners will be freed. “In one and half years, there has been no proper movement…

FOR THREE MONTHS everyone argued about whether there would be a war, whether Vladimir Putin was bluffing or serious. Some of the Russia experts who had long told people to take it easy were telling people to get worried. Others, who had long criticised Putin, said he was just trying to draw attention to himself, that it was all for show. Among the analysts, there was a debate between the troop watchers and the TV watchers. The troop watchers saw the massive concentration of Russian forces at the border with Ukraine and in Crimea and warned of invasion. The TV watchers said that Russian TV was not ramping up war hysteria, as it usually does before a Russian invasion, and that this meant there would be no war. The question…

Zelenskiy has what Putin has lost: youthful vigour Vladimir Putin will never forgive Volodymyr Zelenskiy for making him look old (Ukraine invasion, 18 March). Putin aped the tough-guy look with his photo ops (bare-chested horse riding etc), whereas Zelenskiy has looked the part without even trying. Furthermore, Zelenskiy has displayed passion, an overused word lately, but apt here, whereas Putin can only achieve a cold dispassion, fed by vanity. Celia BodenTiverton, England, UK • It appears that Nato’s preferred outcome is a Russia that is militarily victorious but economically crippled. I cannot imagine a more frightening combination. The outcome we all seem reluctant to discuss is the only non-catastrophic one: that Putin will be removed by internal forces. Common sense and history dictate this will happen eventually. Even Robert Mugabe…

★★★★☆ Jacques Audiard’s freewheeling ensemble picture Paris, 13th District, or Les Olympiades, is a sexy film about sexiness. The movie lives in the jittery longing of before-sex, the woozy residue of after-sex, the urgency of during-sex. People here have a lot of sex. But when the sex is withdrawn, it leaves resentment. Les Olympiades is the name of the high-rise blocks in the 13th arrondissement where the action is mostly located, and the film is shot in a black-and-white that never makes the city look beautiful in any Nouvelle Vague style. It is adapted from stories in the 2015 collection Killing and Dying by American comic-book artist Adrian Tomine. Audiard’s film may not deliver the sweetness and empathy of Tomine’s stories, but he gets strongly engaged performances from his cast,…

QUIZ Thomas Eaton 1 John Bradshaw wore a bulletproof hat during whose trial? 2 Which British group had the first CD to sell a million copies worldwide? 3 What utensil was introduced to the west by a Byzantine princess? 4 Which African river is the world’s deepest? 5 Tipsy laird is a Scottish type of what dessert? 6 Which film inspired the revival of the Ku Klux Klan?  7 What starts unu, du, tri, kvar, kvin?  8 Which boxer takes their nickname from the Spanish for cinnamon? What links:  9 Dog (78); potato (48); human (46); cat (38); fruit fly (8)? 10 Gamelyn; Eustace the Monk; Fulk FitzWarin; Hereward the Wake? 11 Yola Letellier; Colette; Lerner and Loewe?  12 Boris Johnson; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; Jacques Chirac; Willy Brandt? 13 Meissen…