Innehållsförteckning för 19 August 2022 från Guardian Weekly

Raymond Briggs British writer and illustrator best known for The Snowman and Fungus the Bogeyman. He died on 9 August, aged 88. Biyi Bandele Nigerian novelist, playwright and film director. He died on 7 August, aged 54. Jean-Jacques Sempé Celebrated French cartoonist who illustrated the Little Nicolas children’s books. He died on 11 August, aged 89. Anne Heche US star of films including Donnie Brasco, Catfight and the remake of Psycho. She died on 12 August, following a car crash, aged 53. Nicholas Evans Bestselling UK author of The Horse Whisperer. He died on 9 August, aged 72. Svika Pick Prolific songwriter and musician who was known as Israel’s ‘king of pop’. He died on 14 August, aged 72.…

Sail of the centuries Fishers look on as the vessel Shabab Oman II, a full-yrigged training ship of the Royal Navy of Oman, arrives into Portsmouth harbour. The ship is a blend of the traditional and modern with state-of-the-art computerised communication systems and navigation equipment, but from the wooden decking upwards, the 87-metre long ship is traditional in terms of her sails and rigging. POLICE CPS will not pursue charges linked to Everard vigil Prosecutors dramatically halted attempts by the Metropolitan police to criminalise people for attending the vigil for Sarah Everard in another humiliating blow for Britain’s biggest force. The Crown Prosecution Service notified lawyers that it had “discontinued” attempts by the police to criminalise six protesters as it was not in the public interest. The result is a…

Ben Green doesn’t have to worry that Vladimir Putin might cut off Europe’s gas this winter, fret about a seasonal revival of Covid-19, or panic about a looming global food crisis. Green weaned himself off gas when he purchased the five-hectare grounds of a derelict East German army barracks three years ago: the previous owner had gutted the building of water and gas pipes. Green patched up the roof of the refectory and insulated the windows so temperatures inside don’t drop below 5C at night. He bathes by pouring a bucket of cold water over his head and cooks on a wood-burning stove. Green, a 49-year-old Englishman, is unaffected by fraying supply chains because he lives almost entirely off the vegetables and fruit he grows on his land. If, as…

Just like double denim, it seems some trends never really die. After flaming out in spectacular fashion last year, the meme stock frenzy of 2021 has made a return. The share price of troubled US retailers Bed Bath & Beyond, GameStop and the cinema chain AMC Entertainment have once again soared. This may sound familiar. All three companies were at the cent re of a meme-fuelled “revolution” in investing last year as small investors piled into the stocks having apparently spotted something Wall Street had missed. GameStop shares rose from $3.25 in April 2020 to $347.50 in late January 2021 – a rise of 10,692%. The frenzy came close to bankrupting a number of hedge funds. It didn’t last. By February, the meme stock craze was unravelling but the tide…

There was a time when the performance artist and musician Cosey Fanni Tutti was persona non grata. In her late teens, when she was still Christine Newby, her father threw her out of the family home and cut off all contact. Later, as leading lights of the art collective COUM Transmissions and experimental noise-makers Throbbing Gristle, Tutti and her then partner, Genesis P-Orridge, were driven out of their home town of Hull by police who were scandalised by their live “enactments”, which involved buckets of offal and P-Orridge dressing up as a baby. Relocating to London, they mounted an exhibition of COUM work at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in 1976. It featured magazine spreads from Tutti’s two-year foray into the porn industry as part of her art practice,…

Extinction By Bradley Somer Ben is a ranger who watches over the last surviving grizzly bear, in a climate-ravaged future in which most of humanity has departed the Earth. When a trio of trophy hunters turns up, Ben must protect his charge, and soon himself. What unfolds is a familiar tale of wilderness survival and pursuit, told in lean, propulsive prose, but with a twist. The wilderness Ben moves through is already despoiled. The bear itself is an endling, not equipped to survive in this ruined world. What is the use of risking lives to save it? In the growing field of climate fiction, Somer raises disquieting questions about our relationship with nature, and the debt we owe to the beings with whom we share our planet. The Book Eaters…

Joe Biden’s political capital is riding high after a key plank of his legislative programme came to fruition. But the US president has greeted this “hot streak” in his usual quiet fashion. For his predecessor, it was a decidedly rough week after his home was raided by the FBI, looking for official documents that Donald Trump had held on to after his presidential term had ended. The reaction was a typical explosion of rage and accusation. David Smith, our Washington bureau chief, follows this compare-and - contrast theme to see which of the two men, who at this juncture still look likely to face each other again in the 2024 presidential election, came out on top. The big story Page 10 → We report on two anniversaries in one region this week…

ANIMAL SPECIES Ant that carries caterpillars is among new species identified A blind, cave-dwelling weevil, an ant that protects the caterpillars of one of Australia’s rarest butterflies, and the first millipede to have more than 1,000 legs were among 139 new species described by scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in the past year. Other discoveries formally named and described in scientific journals include 131 insects and other invertebrates, four fish, three plants and a frog. About 100 of the new species the CSIRO scientists helped to describe are Australian. Most of the scientific papers involved collaborations between CSIRO and other organisations and institutions. MEDICAL RESEARCH Decoding babies’ cries is down to parental experience Deciphering a baby’s cries is all down to experience, new research suggests.…

Departing his small, unshowy home state of Delaware, Joe Biden roared into the sky aboard Air Force One, borne aloft by jet fuel and a dramatic uplift in his political fortunes. More than 1,500km away, some unexpected guests arrived at the opulent Florida estate of the US president’s predecessor, Donald Trump At about 9am on Monday 8 August, FBI agents – said to number between 30 and 40, some wearing suits, most in T-shirts, casual trousers, masks and gloves – began a search of Mar-a-Lago for government secrets that should not have left the White House. It was a tale of two presidents: Biden at his zenith, gaining praise for a “hot streak”; Trump at his nadir, under criminal investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act. And yet, such…

SALMAN RUSHDIE Shock and anger after attack on novelist Last Friday’s attack on Salman Rushdie shone a light on where Pakistan and India, both now 75 years old, share common ground. Amid worldwide outrage, both governments were conspicuous by their silence. The silence came from different roots. Some of the first riots after the publication of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses were in Pakistan, and violent extremism is still very much part of the country’s political life. In India’s case, it was because Rushdie has been a critic of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and annoyed his supporters, who the author himself had dubbed the “Modi toadies”. Intolerance of free speech is an area in which India is coming to be more like Pakistan as both countries celebrate their 75th birthdays.…

When Salman Rushdie wrote his novel The Satanic Verses in September 1988, he thought its many references to Islam might cause some ripples. “I expected a few mullahs would be off ended, call me names, and then I could defend myself in public,” Rushdie would tell an interviewer much later. The Indian-born author had come from a career as an advertising copywriter, confecting slogans such as “naughty but nice” for cream cakes. He had no idea of the tsunami of outrage that was to overshadow the rest of his life, or that he was about to become a geopolitical booby trap. By October 1988, he already needed a bodyguard in the face of a deluge of death threats, cancelling trips and hunkering down. One Muslim majority country after another banned…

Having presided over a grand celebration of the party’s centenary and suppressed mass Covid outbreaks last year, President Xi Jinping told his countrymen and women in his 2022 New Year address that Chin a was “making confident strides on the path toward the great rejuvenation”. But so far, the Year of the Tiger has been full of stumbling blocks. First, the draconian Covid lockdowns in Xi’an and Shanghai, the commercial capital, sparked outcry and disrupted global supply chains. Then the economy showed signs of a serious slowdown, leading to growing unemployment among the young. Xi’s “no limit” partnership with Vladimir Putin also made China a target of western criticism. A whirlwind trip by the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, this month caused real fear of a miscalculation over Taiwan, which…

Monday marked a year since the Taliban seized Kabul, marking “not the collapse of a regime, but the collapse of the dreams of a nation”, in the words of one Afghan interviewed by the BBC. Some welcomed the departure of foreign troops and the prospect of peace after two decades of civilian casualties and corruption. For many others these years were shaped by increases in life expectancy and literacy, and new opportunities and aspirations: women wanted education and freedom of movement. Afghans are now living with both Taliban repression and mass hunger. The claim was that, 20 years after their overthrow by the US-led coalition, the world was likely to see a more moderate “Taliban 2.0” when they took power. It is true that the mass executions many feared did…

Flowing rivers, gorgeous trees, bountiful crops, birds and animals to spare: Jim Crace’s latest novel is set in a lowercase, scrupulously mapped version of the Garden of Eden. There, some time after the expulsion of Adam and Eve, peace of a stilted kind reigns: the few dozen human inhabitants know they can “breathe forever without cares”, but there’s a catch – they must obey the angels. These angels have been created in the form of birds, not so much because of their beauty as for their surveillance skills. “A creature that can penetrate the sky can serve his lord and his masters anywhere.” From an aerial perspective, the garden is a perfect circle, intricately manicured, a praise song to a higher power. On the ground, things look rather different. “Order…

I’m a woman in my 20s struggling to know how to respond to my younger sister’s violent outbursts. She is also in her 20s. They happen quite frequently, and seemingly come out of nowhere. For example, once I was chatting with my mum while my sister was watching TV. She asked us to shut up. We continued talking and so she came over and slapped me across the face. I didn’t retaliate – but I don’t know how to respond now. She has slapped me before: on the evening of my graduation, and after a fallout between the three of us. Afterwards I didn’t speak to her for a few months. She has been known to have fights with her friends, and was also violent towards her ex-boyfriend. My mum…

Prep 15 min Cook 1 hr Serves 6 Ingredients 3 tbsp olive oil2 garlic bulbs100g fresh white breadcrumbs1 tsp pimentónSalt and black pepper1 litre vegetablestock200ml whole milk For the green olive toast 200g pitted green olives, roughly chopped2 tbsp capers 1 garlic clove, peeled Finely grated zest of ½ lemon, plus a good squeeze of juice4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil6 slices crusty bread Olive oil, for drizzling75g manchego, grated Summer in Spain is lovely, but it can get extremely hot. Life’s rhythm slows down, and lunches and dinners tend to be long and relaxed, starring cold, light dishes. Garlic is very important in our cooking, so this recipe is all about the garlic. It is one of my family’s favourites: cooling and utterly delicious. Method Heat the oven to 180C…

Like Puzzles? Try the new Guardian Puzzles app. Download from the App Store or Google Play Read more: theguardian.com/puzzles-app QUIZ Thomas Eaton 1 Which Italian competition inspired Eurovision? 2 Who borrowed her book titles from Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard? 3 Q1 is the tallest building on what continent? 4 Whose GOM nickname was reversed to MOG? 5 What distinguishes a halophyte plant? 6 Aristarchus of Samos was the first to propose which theory? 7 In which river was a 300kg stingray found in June? 8 Which two Michael Caine films are named after African peoples? What links: 9 Drill; mumble; road; snap; trap? 10 Smith; Norman (2); Baker-Finch; Nagle; Thomson (5)? 11 Sports bras; pet collars; meat-free sausages; antibacterial wipes? 12 Had; inland; man; pain; ran? 13 Sleeping Beauty; signalled October…

1947 Born in Mumb ai, India, into a Kashmiri Muslim family, Rushdie attended school in India and England, before studying history at Cambridge. 1981 His second work, Midnight’s Children – a faux autobiography that follows a child born as India gained independence – won the Booker prize. 1988 His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, was partly inspired by the life of the prophet Muhammad. It was described as blasphemous by many Muslims. February 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini, then supreme leader of Iran, issued an edict calling for Rushdie’s assassination. The author was placed under police protection for nine years. August 1989 A bomb was planted in a London hotel by Mustafa Mazeh. However, Mazeh was killed when the bomb went off when he was priming it. 1991 Hitoshi Igarashi, who translated The…

There is an elaborate bird rescue mission under way in the town of Walldorf. As one of the last homes of the ground-nesting crested lark in Germany, the local district is eager to protect the three remaining breeding pairs. Consequently, residents have been ordered to lock their cats indoors over the summer for the next three years, or face hefty fines: €500 ($515) if a cat is caught outside; €50,000 if it takes an endangered lark. “I’m really glad that’s happening,” said Peter P Marra, an ecologist at Georgetown University in the US and one of the authors of the 2016 book Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer. This kind of policy is the right approach, he said, “but we shouldn’t wait until it’s down to a…

Moritz Hochschild was constantly on the move. In the early 1930s, he could be found in the grand hotels of London, New York or Paris, or on the back of a mule, following rough mountain trails in search of mineral seams in the Bolivian Andes. It was on one of those trips to a remote mountain village, according to family legend, that the mining magnate came across a local man sketching. The artist was afraid to show Hochschild his drawing, which was an unflattering caricature of him. But the magnate found the parody so amusing that he decided to fund a scholarship for the artist to study draughtsmanship in Paris. Hochschild could afford to laugh at his own expense. His shrewd risk-taking had made him one of the richest men…

Setting an example on tackling climate chaos I agree with the general thrust of the Guardian View (Science shows policy lags behind the reality of climate chaos, but hope still lingers, 12 August). However, most, if not all, countries will be faced with a mighty battle to overcome years of inaction on reducing greenhouse gas emissions – a situation worsened by the war in Ukraine. In Australia, for example, climate change sceptics and deniers protest “our share of global emissions is only about 1.2 %, so whatever we do will have no effect”. These people cannot or will not understand that about 180 other countries have a similar or lesser share of global emissions and many countries in the Indo-Pacific region look to Australia to set an example. If all…

TELEVISION I Just Killed My Dad Netflix With I Just Killed My Dad, director Skye Borgman completes something of an unholy trinity of works for Netflix. The first, Abducted in Plain Sight, told the almost-incredible story of the kidnappings of Idaho teenager Jan Broberg who was abducted by her parents’ close friend – twice. The second was Girl in the Picture, about Suzanne Sevakis who was abducted by Franklin Floyd and raised as his daughter until, after years of sexual abuse, he made her his wife. I Just Killed My Dad opens with a description and reenactment of how the then 17-year-old Anthony Templet shot his father, Burt. He then called 911 to report what he had done and waited for the police. Interviewed by Borgman now, Anthony explains expressionlessly…

It is no longer possible to understand politics without understanding polling. It doesn’t just drive the media narrative around politicians and candidates but, often, the policy agendas they adopt and the way they talk about issues. Yet it remains poorly understood, by analysts and office-holders as well as the wider public. In this valuable guide, G Elliott Morris gives us a brief history of how polls came to play such an important role in politics, and how they work. The most useful part of the book focuses on the methodological challenges that make polling difficult, and increasingly so. The biggest problem is that people don’t answer phones any more. In the 1970s or 80s, pollsters could achieve a representative sample of the population by calling random numbers. But now that’s…