Innehållsförteckning för 22 April 2022 från Guardian Weekly

Floods uncontained Shipping containers lie scattered in Durban after devastating floods in and around the port city. Roads and hillsides were washed away and homes collapsed with 443 people reported dead after the heaviest rains to pummel Durban, which sits on the western edge of the Indian Ocean, in 60 years. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol 206 | Issue № 17 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…

Far away, at the other end of the pitch, a Ukrainian footballer is scoring what later turns out to have been a beautifully worked goal. That is something remarkable in itself but Oksana is talking and the backdrop has become a detail. She is thinking about the train she will board in around nine hours; it will return her to Kyiv, at last, and from there she will join the volunteer eff ort in Bucha. The home she left is 15km further south, in Boyarka. Like most of the capital’s satellite towns, it has undergone its own visit to hell. “Tomorrow they are burying one more of my friends, but I won’t make it in time,” she says. “Two close friends were killed while they were helping to evacuate people.…

It wasn’t as if things had been going brilliantly for Boris Johnson as he attempted to spend some precious down time last week at Chequers, a bubble of countryside tranquillity away from the escalating cost of living crisis and political woes that had punctuated his year. By last Tuesday, one MP had been expelled from the party after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. Another had caused outrage for issuing a statement supporting his former colleague – all just weeks before looming local elections. Then, came the phone call from the Metropolitan police. The prime minister would be among those fined for attending a Downing Street gathering for his birthday. It is a measure of the threat it posed that last weekend, after the deployment of a…

At a bout noon last Tuesday, Yu Wenming, an 82-year-old man in Shanghai, called his local residential committee for help. “I’ve used up my medicines. Nor do I have anything to eat. I’m feeling awful,” Yu, who had tested positive for Covid, told the party secretary, Zhang Zhen. Zhang said he had already referred the case to his superiors and there was nothing he could do. “Do you mean I should just wait here until I die, then?” Yu asked. Zhang responded with an angry rant, complain ing that he, too, was completely powerless in this situation: “I’m worried too … But there’s nothing we can do …” Zhang revealed calls for help had been piling up but that his superiors were not dealing with them. “Perhaps one day, when…

Darcy Ogada rarely spots raptors from her home in central Kenya any more. The birds were once a common sight in the industrial town of Thika, 40km north of Nairobi, but the region’s forests are rapidly declining, and the few remaining raptor populations face the added threats of poison and persecution. “It is a disaster,” said Ogada, “Every day I go out of the house and look into the sky, I am disappointed. I might see the extinction of these birds in my lifetime.” Ogada works for the Peregrine Fund and was among a team of Kenyan and international scientists who recently published a report detailing widespread declines of Kenya’s birds of prey over the past 40 years. Numbers of common kestrel were down by 95%; secretary bird and long-crested…

When a trio of paying customers and their astronaut chaperone were blasted off to the International Space Station, their voyage was touted as a milestone for the commercialisation of spaceflight. For the Michelin-starred Spanish chef José Andrés, however, the mission ushered in another – albeit more niche – breakthrough: the first time paella was sent into orbit. “Astronauts from different countries and nationalities and backgrounds – and they are all going to be eating, at once, paella Valenciana,” he said on social media. Andrés is the latest in a string of top chefs who have turned their attention to space food, seeking to push fine dining beyond a frontier long marked by offerings such as dehydrated versions of mac’n’ cheese or prawn cocktail. Among the first to pioneer chef-approved space…

Sex and gender have come to represent one of the hottest fronts in the modern culture wars. Now, on to this bloody battlefield, calmly dodging banned books, anti-transgender laws and political doublespeak, strolls the distinguished Dutch-American primatologist Frans de Waal, brandishing nearly half a century’s worth of field notebooks and followed, metaphorically speaking, by an astonishingly diverse collection of primates. Given the world it enters, De Waal’s new book, Different: What Apes Can Teach Us About Gender, would arguably have failed if it didn’t stimulate debate. It seems safe from death by indifference, however, since it is dividing opinion even before it is published. “I found the book to be as wise as it was humane,” the American primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy told me, while US palaeontologist and writer Riley…

As a child, in the back of the car on drives along the motorway, I would look for connections between the number plates on surrounding cars. How many started with an odd number? How many with an even number? The search for patterns is a common human trait. People also see images in TV static, or non existent patterns in the goals scored in football games. There is a term for this: illusory pattern perception, the human tendency to try to make sense of the world by finding relationships between stimuli. It has been found to be a “central cognitive mechanism” accounting for conspiracy theories and supernatural beliefs. I see this in the inclination to stitch together disparate cultural events (see, here I am, looking for meaning) that has become…

Raphael is a revelation. It could hardly be otherwise, since this is the first exhibition outside Italy ever to encompass every aspect of his stupendous career. It runs through paint, chalk and print, wool, bronze and ink, and from the earliest drawing of himself at 15 to the last startling self-portrait (above) where Raphael paints himself with a fellow artist who points to the mirror as if looking to the future, at themselves and also us: one of the great est double acts in art history. It is a testimony to the extraordinary pulling power of the National Gallery and its exemplary curators that they have been able to bring together 89 works from all over the world. Here are his apprentice works and the final masterpieces made just before…

There’s a dreamy moment halfway through Geoffroy Delorme’s brief, sensuous book in which one of the young deer he gets to know curls up beside him, its head resting on his leg. The image is both touchingly familiar and surreal. A couple of walkers nod in greeting as they pass, as if it’s customary for a wild deer to snooze in the lap of a human. No doubt, Delorme notes, they mistake the deer for a dog. Even more startling, the little deer, whom Delorme names Daguet, begins to twitch and wriggle. “He is clearly dreaming,” Delorme writes. Of what, one wonders, do roe deer dream? Deer Man follows the story of someone who turns his back on society and spends seven years living in a forest among roe deer.…

I’m married with two children, aged seven and 12. Maybe it’s the effects of the pandemic, but both my husband and I feel exhausted and beaten down by life (which sounds very whiny, since we are healthy and OK financially). We have no family close by, though we do have supportive friends. My older child is coping with low mood and depression (and speaking to a counsellor, which is helping), has angry meltdowns and worries about climate change and the war in Ukraine. I share their concerns but try to encourage them not to think about it before bed. I worry whether ours is a happy house. I feel we are in a negative pattern of feeling frustrated by the kids’ behaviour, their fussy eating patterns, and just generally. It…

When Boris Johnson’s position was at its most precarious two months ago, he had to convince Conservative MPs sticking by his side was worth it. A plan – dubbed “Operation Red Meat” – was devised to give those losing faith in his administration some belief that there was a higher purpose than just defending their leader through scandal after scandal. The prime minister knew he needed to shore up support, prove himself a proper conservative and enact more of the policies that had him clinch an 80-seat majority at the last election. A major theme of the Tories’ campaign in 2019 was Brexit – and, in the years since, Johnson has been mindful that the message about “taking back control of our borders” was particularly potent for some. Senior advisers…

Facebook is struggling to contain pro-Russian and anti-western posts that are contributing to political instability in west Africa, investigators and analysts have said. The platform, which has expanded rapidly across the continent, has made significant investment in content moderation, but still faces challenges in curbing deliberate disinformation campaigns. One major area of concern is the Sahel region, which has suffered a series of military take overs in the past 18 months. Campaigns on Facebook appear to have prepared the ground for many of the coups, pushing an anti-western, pro-Russian agenda. The efforts are similar to the “hybrid warfare” campaign launched by Moscow in Ukraine and elsewhere. A report by investigators from the Digital Forensic Lab, a global network of digital forensic researchers run by US-based thinktank the Atlantic Council, reveals…

In terms of elusiveness, it is the Bigfoot or Loch Ness monster of the bird world, so rare and undetectable that the US government declared it extinct last year. But the ivory-billed woodpecker is, in fact, alive and pecking in the forests of Louisiana, researchers have claimed. A series of grainy pictures and observations of the bird, which had its last widely accepted sighting in 1944, show that the scrupulously furtive woodpecker is still holding on in the swampy forests of the US south, according to the team’s new research, which is yet to be peer-reviewed. A three-year quest to find the woodpecker involved scientists trudging through an undisclosed portion of Louisiana woodland to observe the bird and take audio recordings. Unmanned trail cameras, set up to take pictures on…

The focus of Japan’s quest to open its first casino is a human-made island in Osaka that, if the city’s government gets its way, will end decades of wrangling over poker tables and slot machines. Six years after the government legalised casino development, Osaka is vying with Wakayama and Nagoya to open Japan’s first “integrated resort” – a ¥1tn ($8bn) complex of hotels, conference halls and entertainment facilities, with a casino as its money-spinning centrepiece. Osaka is considered the frontrunner after the local assembly, where the rightwing populist Osaka Ishin no Kai is the strongest party, approved a bid that will be sent to the central government by the 28 April deadline. The envisaged resort will “be an engine of sustainable economic growth”, Osaka’s mayor, Ichiro Matsui, told assembly members.…

The latest inflation report from the US labor department, released last week, showed US prices increased by 8.5% between March 2021 and March 2022 – the highest level since 1981. The White House tried to downplay concerns last year by arguing price increases were caused by the coronavirus pandemic and would prove “transitory”. Now, more than a year after vaccines became widely available, Democrats are grappling with how to help families struggling under the weight of inflation. Unless Democrats come up with an effective plan, Republicans could be on the way to a historic victory this November. The president’s party usually loses seats, particularly the House, in midterm years. Biden’s approval rating, in the low 40s for months, is not helping matters. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said the…

There’s a sweet spot after a few days when they can stand up, open their eyes, show that first bit of life They say not to work with babies or animals, but the photographer Gerrard Gethings chose to combine the two for his latest project, young animals alongside their adult counterparts. Baby Animal Match was conceived as a memory card game; players are asked to pair duckling with duck, owlet with owl, hoglet with hedgehog, piglet and pig – and so on, through 44 combinations. These fluffy, tousled, bug-eyed babies are, inevitably, adorable. But not always in obvious ways. “There is a universal cuteness,” Gethings says. “But that wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. The baby racing pigeon, for example – that goes through an incredible transformation from an…

In my time working for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, a stark fact was often mentioned: the vast majority of the world’s displaced people are hosted by the world’s poorest countries. Today, 85% of refugees live in developing countries, while the richest nations host just 15%. While Rwanda might be developing economically, it is still among the world’s 2 5 poorest countries. The UK is among the world’s 10 richest countries. To acknowledge the disparity of wealth between the two nations and decide that Rwanda is better able to accommodate people attempting the treacherous journey across the Channel takes a huge leap of the imagination. The deal announced by home secretary Priti Patel in Kigali last Thursday demonstrates the government’s tenacious commitment to positioning Britain as…

WHEN JACK WHITE WAS 14, HE WAS ALL set to become a priest. “I’d been accepted at the seminary and everything,” he grins, and it’s not too hard to imagine Father Jack White preaching with missionary zeal, even with his hair dyed blue, as it is today. “But something happened to me in that summer. The priests seemed really old and I thought, ‘Who’s gonna speak for my generation?’” White was raised a Catholic, and his conversation is still peppered with words such as “sinner” and “judgment” – but that didn’t stop him changing his mind about holy orders. “To be fair, they don’t turn anyone into a priest unless they really want to be one,” he says. “I never got the calling.” Instead, of course, he found music. Born…

I love anchovies, but often have a couple of fillets or mashed-up bits left over. What can I do with them and the oil? Jane, Ludlow, England, UK Ah, anchovies. The little fishes with the big flavour equally at home in pasta sauces, stews, a dressing, butter (to rub a roast chicken) or simply on toast. Happily, a little goes a long way, which is good news for Jane and her near-empty tins. “I love anchovies and have them all the time,” says Patrick Martinez, the founder of the Tinned Fish Market. If you’ve got a fillet or two going, Martinez recommends this “very rich, very quick” spaghetti dish. First, get your pasta cooking, and tear some bread (“you want generously sized breadcrumbs”). Mash your anchovies then fry them in…

My name is Oleksandr Ruchko and I am a birdwatcher. Because I am 59, there are still a few more months when I could be called to fight in the war with Russia. Lately, I have been leading birdwatching tours around the parks in Lviv, my home. The tours are for refugees from cities around Ukraine, including Kyiv and Kharkiv. The se people have lost their homes and some of them have lost family members. I’m trying to help them take a break from thinking about what is happening. Spring is the best time for birdwatching here and the best thing to see is the white stork, Ukraine’s national bird. It is sacred, a symbol of spring, of babies, and of peace, believed to protect your house against evil. At…

1 UNITED STATES Two teenagers shot dead at house party in Pittsburgh Two teenage boys were killed and eight other people were wounded after gunfire erupted at a party in Pittsburgh early last Sunday, one of at least three mass shootings across the US on Easter weekend. The other two shootings – both in South Carolina – left a total of 18 people with bullet wounds, once again reigniting calls among advocates for meaningful gun control legislation. In Pittsburgh, police said equipment that detects gunfire prompted officers to go to an address on Suismon Street, where at least 10 people had been shot at about 12.30am on Sunday. First responders brought several of the victims to a hospital, including two 17-year-old boys whom doctors later pronounced dead. Others who were…

IMMIGRATION Archbishop critical of Rwanda deportation plan Boris Johnson’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda does not “stand the judgment of God”, according to the archbishop of Canterbury. In a scathing intervention, the head of the Church of England, Justin Welby, used his Easter Sunday sermon to say that the principle of deporting asylum seekers 6,400 km from where they sought sanctuary is akin to “subcontracting our responsibilities” and the “opposite of the nature of God”. Welby’s intervention came amid mounting questions over the legality of the plans, announced by the home secretary, Priti Patel, in Kigali last week, that would mean asylum seekers arriving in the UK would be given a one-way ticket to the autocratic central African country. The government faced fresh criticism after immigration experts said…

For days after the Moskva cruiser sank in the Black Sea, Yulia Tsyvova had been desperately searching for information about her son Andrei. Like hundreds of other Russian families of the crew members, she had not been told whether he had survived the reported Ukrainian missile attack that had sunk the Russian flagship of the Black Sea fleet. Then on Monday morning, she received a call from the Russian defence ministry. Her son was dead. “He was only 19, he was a conscript,” said Tsyvova, who wept as she spoke by telephone. “They didn’t tell me anything else, no information on when the funeral would be. “I am sure he isn’t the only one who died.” Family members of sailors who served on the Moskva are demanding answers as the…

Galina Muzyra moved around her front garden as she cleaned up the mess left by occupying Russian soldiers. “They parked two armoured vehicles on my lawn,” she said, pointing to a flattened blue fence next to her neat vegetable patch. Nearby was a large crater. Her yellow-painted dacha was perforated with holes. Shrapnel had wrecked the wooden summer house, too. It was a birthday gift from her late husband, Nikolai, Muzyra explained. “We don’t understand why the Russians did this. We are a small, quiet country. If it wasn’t for our president, I don’t know what we would do,” she added, throwing splintered branches and other rubbish on to a spring bonfire. Muzyra and her son, Denis, live in Zalissya, a village on the highway between the capital Kyiv and…

Emmanuel Macron is engaged in the battle of his career to persuade leftwing voters – many of whom have taken to the streets to oppose his government over the past five years – to turn out this Sunday and give him a second term in office. Both Macron and Le Pen need to win over a chunk of the 7.7 million people who voted for the radical left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, narrowly knocked out in the first-round ballot on 10 April. In Trappes, south-west of Paris, where almost 61% of voters chose Mélenchon, opinion was divided this week about what to do next. Le Figaro newspaper suggested that “on the presidential motorway, Emmanuel Macron is trying a subtle turn to the left”. But the mayor of Trappes, Ali Rabeh, a…

When government officials in the Nigerian state of Edo set about radically improving poor internet access for its population of 4 million, they didn’t have to look far for help. MainOne, a company responsible for laying a vast network of fibre-optic cables across west Africa, was an obvious partner. Another, perhaps less obvious one, was Facebook. As Facebook has come under rising legislative pressure in the west, it has increased its focus on Africa, particularly in countries where the regulatory and legislative environment tends to be looser. Weak and expensive internet coverage for most of Nigeria’s fast-growing population of more than 200 million has driven companies hoping to tap a potential goldmine of users – and their data – into the business of getting those people online. In places such…

Hit after hit – from Stranger Things to Bridgerton – cemented Netflix’s position as the leading streaming service. Subscriber numbers at the pioneering digital disrupter rocketed during lockdowns. And then, in January, the boom appeared to be over. Netflix announced it expect ed to add only 2.5 million new subscribers globally in the first three months of the year, well down on the 4 million in the first quarter of 2021. The news has helped wipe almost $45bn from its value as investors worried that the glory days were over. This week Netflix was due to release its latest quarterly results. And some analysts were predicting beforehand that competition from Apple, Amazon, Disney and traditional media players may have put a stop to its stellar growth. The narrative was further…

They read like messages from one of the creepier dating apps, or else the sort of unwanted lechery with which many young women on social media are grimly familiar. One man suggests sharing “a large bed, we could sleep together” and then letting “what we both want happen”. Another is keen to let the recipient know she is “so beautiful”, while a third immediately asks, “Are you single?” But these aren’t just any old clumsy sexual overtures. These are messages left for women fleeing war-torn Ukraine, on a Facebook group seeking to match refugees with Britons offering sanctuary. The grotesque parody of shelter that some men see fit to offer is a chance to flee the threat of rape by Russian soldiers, but to somewhere you might want to barricade…

Edward Burtynsky has been organising a print sale for Ukraine: editions of two large-format photographs, which raise nearly $600,000 in a matter of hours. This is personal. Burtynsky grew up on the shoreline of Lake Ontario but his parents emigrated from Ukraine in the late 1940s. His mother fled starvation under the Soviets, before being forced into a labour camp by the Nazis. Now 97, she has been watching the news obsessively. Burtynsky’s sister has been fielding texts from relatives in and around Kyiv, with an eye to getting them to Canada if necessary. “It’s kind of surreal,” says the artist, his voice flat. “They’re frightened, they’re hearing bombs all the time. It feels very real, you know?” They’re OK? “Currently.” He should have been making photographs in Ukraine last…

The odd thing about “strongman” leaders is that they are often quite weak in terms of their personal attributes and political ideas. Vladimir Putin comes across as an insecure, embittered little man, marooned in a cultural time warp, whose vision of Russia’s future is propelled by a backward-looking, sentimental nostalgia for the Soviet era. Donald Trump, by instinct a fellow authoritarian and avid Putin admirer, is thin-skinned, seemingly incapable of tolerating the slightest criticism and vindictive towards those who challenge him. Xi Jinping, China’s president, exhibits similar chronic fear of dissent. Gideon Rachman’s accessible new book, The Age of the Strongman, examines these and other formidable, deeply flawed figures in a series of fluent, well-informed essays about the global rise of authoritarian, nationalist-populist leaders and its corrosive impact on the…

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