Innehållsförteckning för 10 June 2022 från Guardian Weekly

UK students obtaining their first degree 1952 17,337 2021 659,000 Number of patients waiting for NHS treatment 1952 504,000 2021 5.4m Popular baby names in 1952 James & Linda Popular baby names in 2021 Oliver & Olivia Unemployment 1952 2.1% 2022 3.7% People living in poverty THOUGH THE DEFINITION OF POVERTY MAY HAVE CHANGED 1952 13% 2022 22% Car ownership UK PER HOUSEHOLD 1952 12.5% 2022 77% Dog ownership 1952 2.7m 2021 12.5m…

‘We have doubled our sales’ When it rains in Uganda, plastic waste clogs street drains. For Faith Aweko, who grew up in a slum in Kampala, heavy downpours meant flooding in the family home. “During rainy seasons most of the roads are full of plastic bottles and bags because people dispose of plastic in trenches and gutters,” says Aweko. Along with Shamim Naluyima and Rachel Mema, two women she met on a course on social innovation, Aweko launched Reform Africa in 2018, turning plastic waste into waterproof bags. A team of women collect plastic bags and bottles from streets and dumps. It is washed, dried and processed into a leather-like material to be made into backpacks, shopping bags and toiletry bags. On average, they make about 20 bags a day,…

A small house on a street in central Khartoum, lost among the dusty blocks of offices and cheap hotels but not difficult to find. On the wall outside, a slightly faded portrait of the smiling young man who once lived here: Abdulsalam Kisha. Inside, half a dozen men and a woman are meeting, planning, eating, joking. These self-styled “revolutionaries” do not belong to a political party, or even a defined organisation. Instead, they are part of a coalition of hundreds of grass roots associations across Sudan coordinated by activists who hope to bring down a powerful military regime with little more than placards, smartphones and motorbikes. The efforts of these “resistance committees” are being watched – with hope by many, with anxiety by autocratic leaders – across a swathe of…

The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has opened the first of eight hearings, marking the turning point when “one of the single most important congressional investigations in history”, as the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney billed it, will finally go public. It is the culmination of almost a year of intensive activity that, aside from a succession of leaks, has largely been conducted in private. More than 1,000 people have given depositions and interviews to cast light on the events of 6 January 2021, when hundreds of people stormed the Capitol in answer to Donald Trump’s call to “fight like hell” to prevent Congress certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory. The committee has collected 125,000 documents, pursued almost 500 leads through its confidential tip line and…

Oleksii Novikov doesn’t walk into the room. He turns sideways, and shuffles through the doorway like someone navigating a particularly busy bar. At 185cm and 136kg of solid muscle, Novikov has shoulders that are more than a metre wide. His hands, permanently curled from years of lifting really heavy stuff, are like bear paws, his wrists as thick as some people’s biceps. He’s wearing an XXXXL T-shirt. “My problem, it’s just my size. I am so small for a strongman,” Novikov says. We meet in Sacramento, California, before the 2022 World’s Strongest Man competition. Novikov took the title in 2020 but this time he is competing after an unimaginably hard few months. Novikov is Ukrainian and was in his home town of Kyiv as Russia launched its invasion on 24…

If you are reading this, odds are that you are one of the 2.87 billion daily users of the products offered by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. If you are not using any of these products, you are connected to people who do use them. And this connects you to Sheryl Sandberg, who resigned last week as Meta’s chief operating officer. Even if you have never met her, interacted directly with her or read her books on corporate feminism or bereavement, Sandberg has had an impact on your life. She’s not the only reason that our data is tracked online, whether we use Meta’s products or not. Many others have helped to create and exploit an entire industry that profits from our data. What’s…

What’s a good, summer party cake? Jess, London A good party hinges on good cake, and who better to advise than the king of desserts, Jeremy Lee? “My absolute go-to is hazelnut meringue with a heap of raspberries and cream,” says the chef-proprietor of Quo Vadis in London. “For fun, pour on raspberry puree and load it with ice-cream.” To achieve meringue greatness, Lee beats egg whites in a clean bowl and ensures the first addition of sugar is beaten in well. Summer is a time for bountiful fruit, eating outdoors and, says Helen Goh, co-author (with Yotam Ottolenghi) of Sweet, “when traybakes come into their own ”. While a slab of sponge perhaps doesn’t sound much to write home about, dressed for the occasion, it brings ultimate party vibes.…

Northumberland, England I had no idea that she was so close to me. Absorbed by the sweep of arctic terns overhead, I crouch to get a closer look at flowering plants and start back when I realise a female eider duck has been inches from my feet all along. Her plumage is mottled, camouflaging brown – a contrast to the male’s black, white and green – and she seems unfazed by me. During the breeding season, the density of oceangoing animal and bird life packed into the Farne Islands – a small cluster of volcanic outcrops barely rising above the crashing North Sea – is overwhelming. Tens of thousands of cacophonous guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and shags crowd on to dark, guano-streaked cliffs, nesting on minuscule ledges. Puffins scurry in and…

The jubilee long weekend was heralded with images of the Queen’s 70 years projected on to the sarsens of Stonehenge, the only other tourist attraction of comparable steadfastness. It ended last Sunday with the 260-year-old gilded royal state coach parading down the Mall without its most familiar occupant, but with scenes from her unprecedented reign projected on to the carriage windows. The Queen travelled in this coach to her wedding and her coronation, and waved from it at her silver and golden jubilee processions; there was poignant symbolism in it advancing without her. It is quite a while since she was a dancing queen, but her presence at the jubilee celebration has been a little reminiscent of the “Abbatars” currently entertaining audiences at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. She has…

After five grimy days on the frontline, Slava Volody-myrovich stripped to his underpants and plunged into the gleaming Torets River. A seagull flapped over the water and willow trees. “Life goes on, even in wartime,” he said. Wringing out his khaki T-shirt, he added: “In battle, there is nowhere to wash.” Volodymyrovich ran up the muddy embankment and showed off his armoured transporter. On the roof was a joystick-controlled machine gun. Shrapnel had dented the vehicle’s right side. There was a crack in a porthole-like window. “A Russian rocket landed 20 metres from us. We were OK but two civilians got killed,” he said. A member of Ukraine’s Donbas battalion, Volodymyrovich had been evacuating people from Lysychansk. A couple of kilometres north, Ukrainian soldiers were clinging to the last territory…

Al-Qaida has a haven in Afghanistan under the Taliban and “increased freedom of action” with the potential of launching new long-distance attacks in coming years, a UN report based on intelligence supplied by member states says. The assessment, by the UN committee charged with enforcing sanctions on the Taliban and others that may threaten the security of Afghanistan, will raise concerns that the country could once again become a base for international terrorist attacks after the withdrawal of US and Nato troops last year. Critics of the US president, Joe Biden, will point to the report’s description of a “close relationship” between al-Qaida and the Taliban as evidence that his decision to pull out all US forces was an error. However, a feared influx of foreign extremists to Afghanistan has…

Weeks after he became prime minister last year, Fumio Kishida pulled on a dark green bomber jacket, the hinomaru flag emblazoned on his sleeve, and climbed into a tank. Official photos show him displaying an awkward smile for his audience at Camp Asaka – the men and women of the country’s Self-Defence Forces – an indication, perhaps, that postwar Japanese leaders and military hardware have not always been easy bedfellows. The image belied Kishida’s political grounding in a dovish wing of his Liberal Democratic party (LDP) and his background as an MP representing a constituency in Hiroshima who eschewed the more aggressive language on security of others in his party. Yet it is under Kishida, and not his hawkish predecessor, Shinzo Abe, that Japan is undergoing a dramatic shift in…

In the living room of the Regina Mundi care home in Lagos, Baba Raphael hauls himself up from his chair and puts on a virtual reality headset. For nine minutes, Raphael dances to the folksy tones of his favourite singer, the late Ayinla Omowura, while watching a music video. “Are you enjoying it?” one of the staff asks. Raphael,70, doesn’t answer, oblivious as he sings along. Kunle Adewale, an art teacher, has been visiting four care homes in Nigeria’s largest city for more than a year, taking in VR sets and tablets to often-isolated residents, delivering doses of therapeutic entertainment. With the headsets on, people can immerse themselves in songs, dance, exercise sessions and even nature reserves. Some make digital art on the tablets, creating illustrations or editing photographs. “It’s…

As the Republican party primaries play out across the US, the most sought after endorsement is still that of former president Donald Trump. But when it comes to the most vital part of any American campaign – money – another figure on the right of US politics is becoming equally significant. Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder and former CEO referred to as the “don” of the original PayPal mafia, a group that included Elon Musk, is establishing himself as a serious power player in American right wing politics by wielding the power of his vast fortune. Thiel plo ughed more than $10m into a Super Pac backing Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance, winner of the Republican primary for an open US Senate seat in Ohio. In August, Thiel’s backing will…

We Ukrainians want peace more than anyone in the world. For more than 100 days, we have been fighting Russian forces on the ground, in the sky, on the sea, and in cyber and information spaces. Defence experts originally gave us little hope of success. They changed their position when we showed our ability to resist. Now we need to demonstrate the strength to hold our course and resist the temptations of a false resolution. In this existential battle for our future, ostensibly friendly or consoling pundits and politicians persistently suggest we should surrender to achieve peace more quickly. Of course, we do not want a war to take longer than necessary, but we will not get trapped into a bogus deal that will eventually only make things worse. Among…

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, the director of the Museum of Local History in Melitopol in the southeast of the country, Leila Ibrahimova, arranged for a hoard of gold artefacts from ancient Scythia to be hidden. A few weeks later, when she was kidnapped and interrogated by Russian troops demand ing to know where it was; she refused to cooperate. The museum’s curator Galina Andriivna Kucher was taken at gunpoint to the museum and asked where the gold was. She also refused and was later abducted from her home. Her whereabouts remain unknown. When Russian troops found the hoard, which dates back to the fourth century BC, it was taken to Donetsk, in Russian-controlled Donbas, with the museum’s new puppet director, Evgeny Gorlachev, stating the artefacts were “of great…

Geoff Dyer has always been an essentially youthful literary presence. Across a career that has blended novels, biography, essays, criticism, memoir and journalism, there has been a consistently wideeyed curiosity about the disparate things that catch his attention: DH Lawrence; jazz; Burning Man; Russian cinema; drugs; the Somme … Of course, one of the main things that has always caught Dyer’s attention is Geoff Dyer, and he now attempts to bring his trademark freshness, bounce and humour to an examination of the decidedly unyouthful spheres of “things coming to an end, artists’ last works, time running out”. This is his moment. While Dyer may still be young at heart, he is also in his mid-60s, had a ministroke in his mid-50s and his tennis habit has left him with “multiple…

1 UNITED STATES More pressure for gun laws as deaths mount Gunfire killed three people and wounded at least 11 people in one of downtown Philadelphia’s most popular entertainment districts late last Saturday night, hours before separate shootings in Tennessee and Michigan left six dead and at least 16 wounded. The violence erupted as many, including President Joe Biden, called on Congress to enact meaningful gun control measures, especially in the wake of deadly mass shootings last month in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas. In an address last week, Biden called for a federal ban on semiautomatic weapons, and raising the age requirement if that could not be enacted. As politicians in Washington negotiate for gun reform, a new poll revealed nearly half of Republican voters think the US…

POLITICS Johnson wounded despite winning confidence vote Boris Johnson was clinging to his premiership on Monday night after 148 of his MPs voted to oust him from Downing Street in a ballot that exposed potentially fatal rifts within his party. The prime minister won the support of 211 MPs but 41% of his party voted to get rid of him, with many citing his lack of repentance over the Partygate scandal and the public’s loss of trust in his leadership. It was the worst verdict on a sitting prime minister by their own party in recent times. Johnson and his allies claimed victory, but many Conservative MPs including some of his supporters believe the attempted coup is the beginning of the end for his three-year premiership. With so many of…

Tory rebels have vowed to keep trying to force Boris Johnson from office, as the prime minister’s allies admitted he was reaching “the beginning of the end” after a devastating result in Monday night’s confidence vote. Johnson’s struggle to hold his divided party together will become more intense, with some of the 148 MPs, or 40%, who voted against him said to be “implacably opposed” to his premiership. They will hold his feet to the fire as the next Partygate inquiry – into whether the prime minister misled parliament by denying any Covid rules were broken in Downing Street – gets under way in the coming weeks. Several rebel MPs boasted the government whipping operation had been “appalling” and appeared to collapse under the weight of Monday night’s rebellion, meaning…

The US decision to supply Ukraine with high-precision multiple launch rocket systems was marked with some fanfare in Washington including a rare newspaper commentary by Joe Biden himself. The Himars (high mobility artillery rocket system) and the ammunition, will allow Ukrainian forces to hit targets nearly 80km away with accuracy. That’s twice the range of the US howitzers they have and about the same as the most powerful Russian rocket systems. US officials suggested they would help turn the withering duel under way in the Donbas into a fairer fight. However, the deal’s small print was underwhelming. This first Himars delivery comprises just four systems. They have been pre-positioned for fast delivery but it will take three weeks to train gunners to use them, and another two to train maintenance…

On a steamy summer’s night several hundred people gathered at the foot of Taipei’s grand Chiang Kai-shek memorial for one of dozens of vigils being held around the world to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. A man walked on to the stage and, with the eyes of the crowd upon him, voiced a timid welcome: “Hello everyone.” Then he began to yell. Roaring at the top of his voice in Mandarin, he spoke about how prodemocracy demonstrators were beaten and killed in Beijing as if it were happening in front of his eyes. His words echoed around Liberty Square. Later, the crowd would sing and light candles of remembrance of the victims of the massacre, and wave flags for Hong Kong independence. On 4 June 1989,…

Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer sit down laughing. He holds a glass with a thick finger of whisky, she a handful of cheese sticks. Asked if they’re celebrating, Waititi chuckles: no. If anything, they say, it’s the small victory of getting through a Wednesday in parliament. Their office is hung with a striking red and black painting. “We will not be silenced,” it reads. “We will not be assimilated.” The pair seem in good spirits, and with reason. The party has undergone a fairly radical change in fortunes. In 2017, after three terms as part of a confidence and supply coalition with the National party, it failed to win a seat – a result most commentators read as punishment from voters for years spent compromising with a centreright government. It’s…

ESCAPE WAS LUNACY, ESCAPE WAS DEATH. To attempt it was suicide. That much had been taught to Walter Rosenberg early, within a week of his arrival in Auschwitz, aged just 17, at the start of July 1942. One afternoon, he and thousands of others had been forced to stand in silence and watch a public hanging, performed with full ceremony. The SS men had lined up with guns over their shoulders and marching drums strapped around their necks, while out in front stood two mobile gallows, wheeled into position, one for each condemned man. Walter and the others had to watch as the men were brought out; a Kapo, one of the prisoners deployed by the SS to do the brute work of enforcement, tied their ankles and thighs with…

Tried getting through to a GP’s surgery lately? Or a bank? Catching a flight? Good luck. Waiting for a train? Stay calm. Patience is a virtue – and, right now, an absolute necessity. The government is passing through a vale of tears, and for once it is not entirely the fault of the prime minister. The jubilee holiday period saw Britain’s airports collapse into chaos. Thousands of flights cancelled and tens of thousands of holidays wrecked, with the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, at a loss as to what to do. We hear daily that the NHS is in distress. It has “lost” 25,000 beds, and a staggering 14 million patients face delayed surgery. A third of GPs say they plan to quit the NHS in the next four years, citing…

For a generation of girls who spent years exclusive ly wearing butterfly clips, bright blue eyeshadow and pale pink everything, the release of the “poppunk princess” Avril Lavigne’s debut album, Let Go, on 4 June 2002 was not merely a new sound, it was enlightenment. In an era of bubblegum pop, 17-year-old Lavigne emerged as its antithesis. Rarely seen without baggy jeans, heavy eyeliner and a loose tie round her neck, she co-wrote her songs, with lyrics about skateboarding and getting fired from a chicken shop. Her first two singles, Complicated and Sk8er Boi, spent half of the year on the Billboard Hot 100 and Let Go remains one of the 21st century’s 20 bestselling albums. Lavigne’s snarky attitude, grungy look and alternative-inspired sound was a potent combination that elevated…

For over 15 years I have been polite but distant with my brother-in-law. I have experienced a lot of inner turmoil about his unsustainable farming practices and treatment of animals, including hunting and shooting for sport and pleasure. As the only vegan/vegetarian in the family, I have kept this disapproval to myself, though everyone knows I am an active environmentalist and supporter of animal rights. I recently learned he is teaching his young son these traditions, apparently against the boy’s will. Knowing how sweet and compassionate the boy is, this is even more difficult for me. Soon we will have what will be our last big family holiday together with my aged parents, which everyone is looking forward to. But I’m afraid I can no longer remain passive and silent.…