Innehållsförteckning för 5 August 2022 från Guardian Weekly

A ship carrying Ukrainian grain left the port of Odesa for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion, according to Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry. The Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni, carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn, set sail for Lebanon on Monday morning after weeks of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, led by Turkey and the United Nations. Russia has been blockading Ukraine’s ports since the start of the war, stoking a worldwide grain shortage that has caused the UN to warn of a looming hunger catastrophe. Oleksandr Kubrakov, infrastructure minister for Ukraine, said: “Ukraine, together with our partners, has taken another step today in preventing world hunger.” Kubrakov stressed that Ukraine had done “everything” to restore the ports and said the lifting of the blockade would give Ukraine’s economy $1bn…

Evangelical Christianity is quietly flourishing among migrant groups in the Gulf as churches provide low-paid workers facing horrific abuse with aid in times of crisis, according to pastors and parishioners across the region. About 30 million migrant workers live in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – the muscle transforming oil-based economies into glittering 21st-century metropolises. In some Gulf states, migrants make up most of the population, and about 80% are employed in construction, hospitality and domestic jobs. The Guardian has interviewed pastors and parishioners of churches in all six Gulf countries and found that migrants, including those from Hindu and Catholic communities, are converting to Pentecostalism, one of the fastest-growing religions in the world with more than…

The smell seemed unmistakable, the dried buds looked familiar and the Taliban checkpoint guards, who had never heard of CBD, a non-psychoactive cannabis compound, were disgusted by Amin Karim’s cargo. “They said to me: ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Haji?’” using an honorific for an older man, as they poked through the piles of hemp headed for Kabul last October. He tried explaining that the plants would not make anyone high. They were part of a new project to tackle Afghanistan’s opium industry, which supplies most of the world’s heroin and has spawned terrible addiction problems at home. But the CBD revolution hasn’t reached Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and its new rulers have promised a crackdown on drug production. Karim’s standing as a veteran of the resistance against Soviet invaders, former peace…

Members of the US House of Representatives will get up to $10,000 to upgrade their home security in the face of rising threats, the House sergeant at arms announced last week, in yet another sign US politics has entered a dangerous new phase. As support for political violence appears to be on the rise in the US, experts warn such threats endanger democracy. But they say the country still has time to tamp down violent rhetoric if political leaders condemn this alarming behaviour. The announcement over increasing security for people in Congress came days after a man attacked Lee Zeldin, a New York congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate, with a sharp object during a campaign event. Earlier last month, a man was arrested outside the home of Pramila Jayapal, the…

Twenty-two years in and it’s obvious this century is demanding challenges and responses for which the British Tory mindset, with one or two exceptions, is wholly unprepared. This century does not require a small state – it requires an agile state. More years of denial and the UK will be in very serious economic and social trouble. Last week came a vignette of small-state stupidity, ceding a major area of 21st-century economic activity to France and undermining the UK’s national security – with close observers believing that no minister even knew the magnitude of their crassness. I speak of the merger, on French terms, of the formerly British-controlled space company OneWeb with France’s Eutelsat, turbo-boosting the EU space effort. OneWeb was Britain’s way of recovering the ground lost in space…

What’s a special but inexpensive summer meal for eight friends and family? Andy, London E9, England When it comes to feeding the masses (or eight friends and family), Meliz Berg, the author of Meliz’s Kitchen, is all about traybakes, or “anything you can slow cook in the oven but still has summery Mediterranean vibes”. It takes the pressure off, too. “I want to be enjoying time with my guests, not standing over the cooker,” she says. While lamb and potatoes roasted with garlic, onions and bay is always a winner round at Berg’s (especially with salsa verde), chicken thighs are the more economical choice. She adds aleppo chilli flakes, paprika, dried oregano, tomatoes, stock and that all-important bay leaf (“it reminds me of being on holiday”), then serves it in…

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Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine began at the tail end of winter with the Kremlin expecting a quick victory. But with summer at its height and the war dragging on, our Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth took the temperature on the streets of the Russian capital. The majority of Muscovites he talked to were enjoying the good weather and doing their best to turn a blind eye to the mounting casualties, dodge intergenerational arguments over the invasion and focus on having fun in the new normal of life without western products. The big story Page 10 → Women’s football has firmly staked its place as an equal on the pitch in the UK, with the England team doing what their male counterparts have dreamed of for 56 long years and triumphing in a…

As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds into its fifth month, Moscow is a city doing everything it can to turn a blind eye to the conflict. It is a champagne-soaked summer like any other in the Russian capital, despite the thousands of dead and many more wounded in a war increasingly marked by acts of savage brutality. In Gorky Park, outdoor festivals, cinemas and bars were all jammed on a recent evening, with young couples twirling to ballroom dance music as others stopped for selfies along the Moscow river nearby. “Yes, we are having a party,” said Anna Mitrokhina, one of the dancers at an outdoor dance platform on the Moscow river, wearing a blue-sequin dress and heavy eye-makeup. “We are outside of politics, we want to dance, to feel…

England won. In the end, perhaps that was the only thing that mattered. This is the brutal bargain of high-end sport: it offers one pedestal and one precipice. And in front of 87,192 delirious fans at Wembley stadium, they beat Germany 2-1 to become champions of Europe for the first time. But, of course, it had to mean more than this. And as captain Leah Williamson hoisted the trophy aloft in her rainbow armband, in front of a record crowd and a peak TV audience of more than 17 million – the most-watched TV event of the year – it felt like the end of one journey and the beginning of another. The first, an undying struggle for resources and respect, for parity and a platform, is finally complete. The…

On an April day in 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was enjoying the afternoon with his family in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles. As he strolled through a car park, a woman sidled up and shoved a brown envelope into his hands. “You’ve been served,” said the private investigator before rushing away. The charges inside that brown envelope, a civil suit alleging complicity in torture and killings, would not make it far in the courts. Seven months later Rajapaksa, a member of Sri Lanka’s most powerful political dynasty, would be elected president, and be granted immunity from prosecution. But since Rajapaksa’s presidency came to an abrupt end last month as he fled abroad and resigned in disgrace, accused of bankrupting Sri Lanka, lawyers, activists and victims around the world have swung…

A parliament besieged by protesters, a country adrift nine months after an election, a feud between domestic blocs and Iranian proxies: for many Iraqis, the latest political crisis is nothing new. But to many observers this standoff appears more complex and protracted than most over more than two decades of efforts to root a democratic state in Iraq. From the Kurdish region in the north to Anbar province in the west and the Shia communities in the south, there appears to be little hope that a government pursuing a collective national interest can emerge. There are instead many indicators to suggest that Iran will eventually get its way. In Erbil, where rockets fired by Iranian proxies have caused disruption and uncertainty, leaders are slowly shifting their positions. The semi-autonomous Kurdistan…

As the arguments rage about how best to recognise and treat brain injuries in rugby, clouds are gathering in the distance. There was fury during the recent international tours when Johnny Sexton was picked for Ireland’s second Test against the All Blacks, a week after he had been withdrawn with such an injury in the first match. Meanwhile, England adopted a more conservative approach, withdrawing Tom Curry, Sam Underhill and Maro Itoje from their tour of Australia. Still those clouds gather. The appropriate treatment in the here and now of players with manifest brain injuries is non-negotiable, but it does not begin to address the wider crisis. Last month, Ryan Jones became the latest former rugby player to reveal his diagnosis of dementia with probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). In…

Yosemite national park’s dramatic vistas were shrouded by a thick grey haze last week, as smoke from the fiercely burning Oak fire hung over its granite peaks. Along the road winding toward the valley, skeletal trees told the story of the Washburn fire that tore through just weeks earlier. The blazes – the two largest to ignite in California so far this year – have besieged Yosemite during one of its busiest months, causing entrance closures and cancellations, cloaking the landmark in hazardous air. But many visitors, some of whom have travelled from across the US and around the world, were determined not to let the conditions slow them down. Early last week, as the air quality index (AQI) pushed past 250, a level categorised as very unhealthy, cars zigzagged…

‘Every constitution,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1789 letter to James Madison, “naturally expires at the end of 19 years.” Two centuries after its expiration date, citizens of the United States are suffering the consequences of a constitution drafted by 55 men who owned hundreds of enslaved people, thousands of hectares in landed estates and millions of dollars in inherited wealth. Fundamental rights denied, foundational institutions paralysed and existential crises ignored: these are side-effects of a legal framework that has not been meaningfully amended in over a half-century. Scores of constitutions around the world were written by dictators, colonisers and military occupiers to enshrine institutions that are undemocratic and unfit to cope with crises like a rapidly heating planet. In some cases, like the UK, the constitution was never actually…

Under the threat of imprisonment, interrogation and the constant pressure of searches by Russian soldiers, six artists secretly met in a basement studio in the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson. In the months after their homes were taken over by Putin’s forces, the artists created dozens of works, including drawings, paintings, video, photography, diary entries and stage plays. The results, which they have named Residency in Occupation, offer a harrowing insight into the horrors endured by millions of Ukrainians living under the Russian invasion. Images show agonising embraces at train stations, families sheltering in basements – death looming behind them – houses on fire and figures dancing, human skeletons underfoot. When it became too dangerous to meet in person, the artists continued to work individually. Some have since escaped the…

In 2020, 34.8% of children born in England and Wales had at least one parent born outside the UK, and this figure is rising. A mixed heritage brings riches but also a sense of dislocation that complicates the notion of home. Amaryllis Gacioppo’s remarkable debut, Motherlands, follows this yearning to its source. A writer and translator born in Australia to Italian parents, Gacioppo traces her ancestral footsteps through four cities: Turin, Benghazi, Rome and Palermo. Using boxes of sepia-tinted photographs, archival documents and the oral history she has gathered all her life, Gacioppo pieces together her family history from her great-grandparents’ generation to the present. Part memoir, part travelogue, Motherlands is ultimately an investigation of how we come to understand the past. It is also a love letter to her…

1 US/AFGHANISTAN Al-Qaida leader killed in US drone attack on Kabul Joe Biden described the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was Osama bin Laden’s deputy and successor, as a major blow to the terrorist network behind the September 11 2001 attacks. Announcing on Monday that a US drone strike in Afghanistan had killed the al-Qaida leader, the US president said in a live televised address: “Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more. People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.” The CIA strike will be seen as proof of the US’s ability to conduct “over-the-horizon” operations despite last year’s military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. But it also raised questions over al-Qaida’s presence in the country since the Taliban regained power. One of…

CONSERVATIVES Sunak promises tax cuts in last-gasp pitch to members Rishi Sunak pledged to slash taxes by 20% by the end of the decade in a last-gasp pitch to Conservative members with the first ballots arriving in the leadership race. In one of his strongest attacks yet on the frontrunner, Liz Truss, Sunak warned party members against an “act of self-sabotage” that could cost the party the election and to be wary of major spending pledges and tax cuts which he has previously dismissed as fantasy economics. “I would urge them to treat with caution any vision that doesn’t involve any difficult trade-offs and remember that if something sounds too good to be true – then it probably is,” he said. The former chancellor made the pledge having faced internal…

The scientist at the end of the world In science and life, the reward for a curious mind is to look for one thing and find another that is more interesting. That was how James Lovelock – conceiver of the Gaia theory – explained the outlook that made him one of the most influential thinkers of the past century, and he encouraged me to apply the same approach in interviewing him over the past two years for a biography. What it revealed was that, even beyond the laudatory obituaries and tributes that followed his death at 103, there was far more to Jim – and his influence on the modern world – than almost anyone realises. Lovelock is rightly celebrated first and foremost for the Gaia theory, that most holistic…

The train departs Dublin punctually and glides west through sunlit, verdant countryside, like a glossy advertisement for Irish Rail. Some passengers snooze, others read or chat or simply gaze at the meadows flashing past. Daisy Arrey, a 19-year-old student heading to Longford, finds the journey relaxing and cheap. Karen Mulligan, 38, returning home to Mullingar, is glad to have avoided motorway tolls and parking hassles. Tom and Marita, a couple in their 60s on their way to Edgeworthstown, appreciate not having to navigate twisting rural roads. This train, which terminates in Sligo on the Atlantic coast, seems a showcase for public transport and progress in Ireland’s effort to wean people off cars to reduce carbon emissions. Fares were cut by 20% in April until the end of this year and…

EVERY DECADE OR SO, THE CITY of Paris drains the Canal Saint-Martin. The waterway, which runs south for almost 5km on the Right Bank, was originally constructed to keep Paris clean, supplying fresh water to a city plagued by cholera and dysentery. But for the two centuries of the canal’s existence, it has often served a different function. It is a dumping ground, a big liquid trash can. The periodic draining is therefore also an unveiling. The water recedes, and the stuff kicked or heaved or furtively dropped into the canal over the preceding few thousand nights is revealed. When the canal was emptied in 2016, crowds gathered on footbridges and along the quais to watch cleaning crews trudge through the mud and clear out the junk. There was lots…

When the French president, Emmanuel Macron, landed in Yaoundé, Cameroon, last week for a two-day visit, France’s puppet leaders across Africa were assured of one thing: Françafrique is back. The question is what this means for the future of millions. The answer – and Macron’s legacy – is more repression, more coups, more corruption, more violence, more suffering and, ultimately, more refugees and migrants making dangerous journeys to Europe in search of safety. It will also mean the further incursion of Russia and China, which highlight European colonial crimes even as they ramp up their own influence. Born after the independence of France’s former colonies in Africa, Macron presents himself as the antithesis to Françafrique – the doctrine that dictates the terms of governance in former French colonies, by military…

How is reality funded?” asks the wealthy tycoon at the centre of Hernan Diaz’s second novel. His answer is “fiction” – specifically, the “fiction of money”. The value of any commodity comes from us buying into its wider narrative. Unless we trust that a banknote “represents concrete goods”, it is just a piece of printed paper, as open to distortion as a novel, or a memoir, or a diary. Trust incorporates all three of these literary forms. As with David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas or Richard Powers’ The Overstory, its structure relies on interconnected narratives which deepen and destabilise one another. Diaz’s first novel, the Pulitzer prize finalist In the Distance, was about a penniless young Swedish immigrant meeting swindlers and fanatics in California. In Trust, he has built a postmodern…

On the hottest day England has known, I try to follow one of the springs to its source in the woods, thinking the shade and cool water will be soothing. I’m wrong. The humidity under the canopy is almost unbearable, the saturated ground sucky, the vegetation impenetrable. We spend so much of our lives in spaces designed for humans, it’s instructive to be reminded how easily nature can keep us out, turn us back. Despite our felling and fences, concrete and cultivation, we’re not really in charge. I scramble and sweat, am scratched, stung, mired. I lose my sunglasses, lucky to find them again. The wood swallows me effortlessly. My feet find trails made by non-human strides. Along a deer passage, I reach for a handful of raspberries, but hesitate…