Innehållsförteckning för 9 September 2022 från Guardian Weekly

Liz Truss became Britain’s new prime minister on Tuesday and was expected to immediately appoint a cabinet of loyalist MPs as her government began a race against time to set out plans to deal with the cost of living crisis. She became Britain’s fourth Tory prime minister in six years after beating Rishi Sunak in the bitterly fought Conservative leadership contest launched after Tory MPs ousted Boris Johnson. Truss was expected to announce plans for an energy price freeze this week as she battles to navigate an overwhelming in-tray. She also faces an uphill struggle to win over Tory MPs as she inherits a deeply divided party lagging behind in the polls – some backbenchers are already said to be plotting her demise. Truss won 81,326 votes (57.4%) of Tory…

Russia will not resume in full its gas supplies to Europe until the west lifts its sanctions against Moscow, the Kremlin said, as concerns over Russian gas supplies continued to drive up energy prices. On Monday, Dmitry Peskov, above, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, blamed sanctions “introduced against our country by western countries including Germany and the UK” for Russia’s failure to deliver gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Peskov was cited by the Interfax news agency as saying that Russia’s full resumption of gas supplies via Nord Stream 1 was “undoubtedly” dependent on whether the west would lift its sanctions on Moscow. The major Russian energy supplier Gazprom announced last Friday evening that a suspension of gas supplies heading westwards through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would be extended indefinitely,…

An aerial view shows makeshift tents for people displaced due to the floods after heavy monsoon rains at Sohbatpur, in Jaffarabad district of Balochistan province. Around 1,300 people are dead and a third of Pakistan is under floodwater after weeks of unprecedented monsoon rains battered the country – which only weeks earlier had suffered serious drought. The country’s climate change minister said rich polluting countries that are predominantly to blame for the “dystopian” climate breakdown have broken promises to reduce emissions and help developing countries adapt to global heating, adding that reparations were overdue. Global emission targets and reparations must be reconsidered, said the climate minister, Sherry Rehman, given the accelerated nature of climate catastrophes hitting countries such as Pakistan. “Global warming is the existential crisis facing the world and…

The announcement of a Chinese Communist party meeting that is expected to cement Xi Jinping’s agenda for the coming years shows the strength of his “ultimate authority”, analysts have said. The CCP’s twice-a-decade meeting will begin on 16 October and is likely to run for several days. Xi, considered the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, is expected to further consolidate his political power, which he has wielded with increasing authoritarianism since taking charge of the party in late 2012. He abolished the two-term presidential limit in 2018. The meeting will bring together more than 2,000 party members in a process of selecting new officials for the elite 200-member central committee. Some will be promoted to the 25-member politburo, and some to the powerful seven-member standing committee. The event…

Ambitious schemes by farmers and landowners to restore nature and reduce flooding while still producing food will be supported by the government in 22 locations across England. The Landscape Recovery Scheme is being hailed by land managers and conservationists as the most “exciting and important” step in a generation to restore lost biodiversity. Projects include recreating water meadows in the Cotswolds, reviving eel-rich waterways in the Severn Valley and restoring Enfield Chase on the edge of London. Jake Fiennes, conservation director of the Holkham estate, one of the landowners behind a plan to create 2,000 hectares of new wildlife-rich habitat along the north Norfolk coast, said: “We’re excited … this could be the start of 30-year conservation covenants. This is a long-term commitment to biodiversity and all the public goods…

Clemente Rodríguez’s only son, Christian, was last seen alive in September 2014, when he and other student teachers from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college in southern Mexico commandeered a fleet of buses to take them to a demonstration in the capital. Hours later, the 43 students were ambushed and abducted by local police working alongside a local cartel called Guerreros Unidos. Most of them vanished entirely, in one of the most notorious and baffling atrocities in Mexico’s blood-soaked recent history. Scores of suspects, including local politicians, government officials and cartel thugs have been detained. Arrest warrants have been issued for dozens more, but there have been no convictions, and the fate of the students remains unknown. The case – and the authorities’ muddled response – became a millstone for the…

The Duchess of Sussex launched a US media blitz last month with a podcast and a lengthy magazine profile, but the somewhat cool reception she and her husband, Prince Harry, are receiving in America suggests there are bumps ahead as they seek to establish themselves as bona fide celebrities. The push came with an interview in New York magazine’s the Cut, titled “Meghan of Montecito”, and it touted the launch of Markle’s Spotify podcast Archetypes. Meghan has had no trouble attracting A-list names to be interviewed. First up was the retiring tennis legend Serena Williams. Second, the singer Mariah Carey. The women discussed living in the public eye, their racial identities and more. But for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the US media response, which has been relatively neutral…

DOCUMENTARY It was in the late 1990s that Adrian Sibley first conceived of making a Richard Harris documentary. Back then, the brilliant Irish actor was in his early 70s, and best known for his defiant, broad-shouldered roles in such films as the 1963 kitchen-sink drama This Sporting Life and the violent 1970 western A Man Called Horse. But he later found himself beloved by a new generation of fans, thanks to his gentle, timeworn performance as Professor Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Harris agreed to do Sibley’s film under one condition. “He said, ‘I’ll do it but only if I can lie half the time,’” explains Sibley. “ He was a storyteller and he controlled how he was perceived. I think he felt the documentary might…

1 UNITED STATES Biden warns of the threat of ‘Maga extremism’ Joe Biden warned that American democracy was threatened by Republican forces loyal to Donald Trump who “fan the flames” of political violence in pursuit of power at any cost. In an unsparing primetime address from Philadelphia last Thursday, the US president said the country was in a continued battle for the “soul of the nation”. He framed the stakes of November’s midterm elections as a choice between his party’s agenda and “extreme Maga ideology”. “Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden said. Maga is shorthand for “Make America Great Again” – Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan. Biden emphasised that most Republicans are not “Maga extremists” but that the party…

INTERNET On 1 February last year, the reporter Ko Zin Lin Htet received a panicked phone call from a source in Yangon, Myanmar’s most populous city. The caller said the military had seized power and was arresting opposition politicians, then hung up. Ko Zin Lin Htet then checked his phone and internet connection: “There was nothing.” For months the military had questioned the results of the 2020 election, won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. The coup took place the day the new parliament was to be sworn in. That morning the junta sent soldiers to the country’s internet providers to force engineers to block connections to the outside world. It was the first stage of a digital coup; the whole country was plunged into an information…

Pete Peeti flicks off the headlights, cuts the ignition and lets his truck roll quietly down a bush track, deep in the heart of New Zealand’s North Island. Twilight is slipping into night and rain is falling in thick drapes. He slings his gun over his shoulder and scans the track with thermal vision goggles. “The hardier ones will brave the rain,” he says quietly. The goggles render the landscape ghostly – skeletal trees and blotted shadows. Barely a minute passes before a splash of bright light moves into frame 30 metres away. It grazes for a moment, then with the unmistakable bounce of a wallaby, hops toward a new patch of grass. Peeti drops flat against the wet earth and readies his shot. His gun cracks. “Got it,” he…

Travellers flying into the Bolivian city of La Paz land in El Alto: a working-class, Indigenous city of countless terracotta houses. Most visitors pay it little attention as the taxi whisks them down to La Paz. But this one-time satellite city has outgrown the political capital – and many see it as a symbol of the country’s future. One version of that future has taken shape in Altopía, a graphic novel that depicts El Alto in 2053, with today’s Indigenous traditions and cutthroat commerce combined with robotics and close ties to China. Alejandro Barrientos and Joaquín Cuevas, the two artists behind the comic, first had the idea back in 2003, shortly after the “gas war”, when Alteños blockaded La Paz to protest against the government’s plan to export natural gas…

Canada was this week reeling from one of the deadliest attacks in its history as the police forces from multiple provinces ramped up their investigation into the deadly stabbing of ten people in Saskatchewan. At least 18 people were also injured in the attack in an Indigenous community and a neighbouring village last Sunday morning before two suspects fled in a stolen vehicle. One of the suspects was found dead the following day, police said, but earlier this week his accomplice remained at large. The body of Damien Sanderson was found on Monday with visible wounds in a grassy area near a house being examined by police. His injuries were not believed to be self-inflicted. Police said his brother Myles remained at large and was believed to be seeking shelter…

At the start of last summer, my 13-year-old daughter Martha was busy with life. She’d meet her friends in the park, make silly videos on her phone and play “kiss, marry, kill”. Her days were filled with books and memorising song lyrics. She’d wonder aloud if she might become an author, an engineer or a film director. Her future was brimming with promise, crowded with plans. By the end of the summer she was dead, after shocking mistakes were made at one of the UK’s leading hospitals. WHAT FOLLOWS IS AN ACCOUNT of how Martha was allowed to die, but also what happens when you have blind faith in doctors – and learn too late what you should have known to save your child’s life. What I learned, I now…

Ihave huge admiration for George Monbiot, a Guardian columnist. His work has highlighted the urgent need to reduce our CO2 emissions and switch to greener energy. He has also shown intensive farming’s role in the dramatic levels of species decline and biodiversity loss. Much of what he writes I wholeheartedly agree with – but when it comes to the solutions we need to change our farming and food systems, we have radically different takes. It is indisputable that the farming “revolution” of the 1950s, with its widespread use of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, has waged war on nature. These intensive, monocultural ways of producing food are not only contaminating our land and waterways, but are heating up our planet and contributing to a crisis in human health. The animals in…

What makes a good lunchbox? Emily, Croydon, England, UK In short: leftovers. We all want to avoid turning on the oven too often so make dinner with one eye on tomorrow’s lunch. “Keep your lunchbox in mind at all times,” advises Georgia Levy, author of the recently published Let’s Do Lunch. “What can you do to your dinner to make it lunchbox-friendly?” Roast veg, for example, could reappear between two slices of bread with cheese, herbs and “something crunchy” – anything from shredded carrots or cabbage to crisps. You’ll also want to gravitate towards things that can sit around for a bit. “Pasta salads are great,” Levy says, “because they improve over time at room temperature.” For children, Ed Smith, author of Crave, suggests starting with a tomato sauce. Chopped…

When it all began, more than seven weeks ago, with Liz Truss declaring at her campaign launch that she would “be ready to be prime minister from day one”, it didn’t look remotely likely that such an arrival in No 10 would ever come to pass. The “Liz for leader” launch was amateurish and chaotic. The foreign secretary stumbled over her words, at one point mentioning “Putin’s appalling war in Ru … Ukraine”. Afterwards, she couldn’t find her way out of the room, and headed for a window. While the contest was focused in Westminster it all seemed an unequal struggle. Rishi Sunak topped the ballot of Tory MPs at every stage. Truss was criticised for lacking polish and appeal, and for sounding wooden. Backing Remain in 2016 and being…

The Pillar Hall in the House of the Unions is a grand old ballroom where Soviet leaders are put on display when they die. Nearly a century ago, the body of Vladimir Lenin lay in state for three days before his funeral. Stalin and Brezhnev followed. Now Mikhail Gorbachev is here, pale in a spotlit coffin: the last Soviet leader finally being laid to rest. Vladimir Putin has not been here, a snub that the Kremlin has said was a result of his busy work schedule. Yet thousands of Russians have come to pay their respects, each person a reminder that Mikhail Gorbachev still remains a hero to some. “He did a lot, but people now in our country hate him,” said Vladimir Gubarev, a retired journalist who lined up…

The Hammer The nuclear option of entirely shutting off internet, mobile and telephone connections. Used across many countries every year on a short-term basis for reasons as trivial as trying to stop cheating in examinations, or as serious as staging a coup. Screwdriver approaches Speed throttling slows down the internet so that 4G suddenly becomes a glacial 2G, thus stopping or delaying news of atrocities or human rights violations from emerging. Blacklisting or blocklisting – blocking access to a particular platform – is a common tactic to stem the flow of information. Seen in Myanmar after the 2021 coup when the military blocked Facebook, effectively shutting most citizens off from their primary gateway to the internet. Whitelisting or allowlisting transforms the internet into an intranet, effectively creating a walled garden…

How happy do you feel right now? The question is asked by an app on my phone, and I drag the slider to the space between “not much” and “somewhat”. I’m about to start a walk in the woods that is part of a nationwide research project to investigate how better to design the forests of the future. Volunteers are being sought to record their feelings before and after eight walks on a free app, Go Jauntly, which could reveal what kind of treescapes most benefit our wellbeing and mental health. I’m feeling frazzled after a week of delayed trains that led me to drive three-and-a-half hours to the Staffordshire village of Barton-under-Needwood, where the walk begins. Surely my mood will be lifted by a leafy walk through the National…

As the first wave of Covid infections ravaged Manaus in Brazil, Vanda Ortega Witoto toiled away in minimal protective equipment in the Amazon city’s long-neglected Indigenous neighbourhood. When the ambulance service refused to send out a vehicle to the area the nurse technician, who goes simply by Vanda, drove the Covid patient to hospital herself. “Our people received no assistance, especially in the Amazon,” said Vanda, who tirelessly provided help, hope and reassurance to her community throughout a pandemic that twice brought the riverside city to its knees. “This neglect of our peoples doesn’t date from the pandemic. The pandemic just intensified the state’s absence and negligence,” she added. It was the criminally negligent official response to Covid that persuaded Vanda, 35, to run for federal deputy in congressional elections…

AS A HUMANIST WHO WRITES about the impact of digital technology on our lives, I am often mistaken for a futurist. The people most interested in hiring me for my opinions about technology are usually less concerned with building tools that help people live better lives in the present than they are in identifying the Next Big Thing through which to dominate them in the future. I don’t usually respond to their inquiries. Why help these guys ruin what’s left of the internet, much less civilisation? Still, sometimes a combination of morbid curiosity and cold hard cash is enough to get me on a stage in front of the tech elite, where I try to talk some sense into them about how their businesses are affecting our lives in the…

Mikhail Gorbachev was the most significant political leader of the second half of the 20th century and one of the greatest reformers in Russian history. By the time he resigned as president during the final throes of the USSR, he had played the decisive role in making Russia a freer country. New liberties at home, together with the transformation of foreign policy, emboldened the people of eastern and central Europe to send their communist rulers packing and reject Moscow’s overlordship. As Gorbachev was also the most pacific of all Soviet leaders, not a shot was fired by a Soviet soldier while the Warsaw Pact countries achieved independence from 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell in November that year, or when Germany was reunited in 1990. There is a popular fallacy…

HISTORY Anyone who has wandered through Russia’s national museums, leafed through books of Russian art or watched some of Eisenstein’s cinematic masterpieces will know how prominent portraits of its princes and tsars are among the country’s iconography. There is the imagined baptism of Grand Prince Vladimir, whose conversion to Christianity in the 10th century was – in Russian eyes – the foundation stone of Russian Orthodoxy and the birth of the Russian state. There is warrior prince Alexander Nevsky, who fought off the Swedes and the Teutonic knights. There are contrasting portraits of Ivan the Terrible. And there are Peter the Great and Empress Catherine. Whether intended to elevate the subjects to hero status or castigate them as cruel tyrants, they form part of Russia’s collective memory, etched into the…

No 16,322 Across 1 Hale and hearty? (4-6) 7 Scram! (7) 8 Curved sword (5) 10 Batons (4) 11 Hertfordshire cathedral city (2,6) 13 Cover on a car wheel (6) 15 Spread all over the place (6) 17 End of the line (8) 18 ___ Laine, jazzandpopsinger (4) 21 (Originally RAF slang for a) crash (5) 22 Grouse (7) 23 Lying (10) Down 1 Provided with weapons (5) 2 Landlocked Asian socialist country (4) 3 Air intake (that one may want to save?) (6) 4 Forlorn (8) 5 Hug (7) 6 Excessive (4,3,3) 9 US president, 1953-61 (10) 12 Pretend to be ill (8) 14 Good buy (7) 16 Financial plan (6) 19 Defamation (5) Solution No 16,316…