Innehållsförteckning för 31 March 2023 från Guardian Weekly

The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol 208 | Issue№ 13 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 account in the name of the public interest, to uphold liberal and progressive values, to fight for the common good, and to build hope. Our values, as laid out by editor CP Scott in 1921, are honesty, integrity, courage, fairness, and a sense of duty to the reader and the…

Since Emmanuel Macron forced through his plans to raise the pension age in France this month, public dismay over the change to a fiercely protected feature of French social policy has been bubbling. Last week that anger reached boiling point. The most visible symbol of the tensions came in Bordeaux, where the doors of the city hall were set alight after a day of intensifying action on the streets. The blaze was quickly put out by firefighters. But all across the country, the unpopularity of Macron’s plans was plainly visible. The authorities put the number of people on the streets at 1.1 million, while unions said it was about 3.5 million. In a major embarrassment to the French president, a planned state visit by Britain’s King Charles was postponed as…

One word is heard more often than any other on the streets of Jerusalem these days: democratia, or democracy. About 100,000 people sang, shouted and banged pots and pans outside the Knesset building on Monday afternoon, many carrying Israel’s blue and white flag. The demonstrators were tired; some had been up all night. But after three months of unrelenting public pressure, the biggest protest movement in Israeli history achieved its goal: the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, finally announced a halt to his far-right government’s judicial overhaul weakening the supreme court in a televised address on Monday. “I am here today because I am worried about the future, what the future will be like for my six-year-old,” said Sharon Pelin, 45, a teacher from Jerusalem at the afternoon’s protest. “I am…

The fast-moving Vjosa River in Albania curves and braids, sweeping our raft away from the floodplain towards the opposite bank, and back again. The islands that split the waterway in two are temporary, forming, growing, then dissipating so this truly wild river, one of Europe’s last, never looks the same. “There’s a saying, ‘you can’t step in the same river twice’,” said Ulrich Eichelmann, the head of Riverwatch, a Vienna-based NGO for river protection, paraphrasing the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. “A river is a living, dynamic thing, an architect of its surroundings. It changes all the time. That’s its beauty.” We are heading down a stretch of the Vjosa, a biodiversity hotspot, near Queserat, southern Albania, against the snow-capped Maja e Këndrevicës mountain, to get a sense of the magnitude of…

Six minutes into referee Darren England’s fourth Premier League match of the season, he found himself with a decision to make. A Fulham midfielder, Nathaniel Chalobah, had made a late challenge and caught a Newcastle player, who fell to the ground with a yelp so loud it cut through the noise of the Geordie away fans. “That’s fucking red,” someone in front of me yelled. It was a moment that could determine the match, and Darren England’s season. Competition among referees is fierce. Their performances are meticulously dissected, reviewed and ranked by Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL), the body that runs officiating in English professional football. Among the 19 referees who work predominantly in the Premier League, the best performers are appointed most often, and get the most sought-after…

As of now, government officials in 11 countries are forbidden to run TikTok on their government-issued phones. The countries include the US, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, the UK, New Zealand, Norway, France, the Netherlands and Poland. In addition, European Commission and European parliament staff were required to delete the app. This raises two questions. First, why were politicians and senior officials in democracies scrolling like zombies through dance crazes, daft pet videos, feeling “bonita” and things you can do with smudged lipstick? And second, what took these governments so long? After all, it’s never been a secret that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech giant based in Beijing. Nor is it a secret that in the People’s Republic of China, all corporations bend to Xi Jinping’s will. So anything…

Forget TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, Philip Larkin’s High Windows and Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus. While those works may have more cultural heft, for sheer popularity no 20th-century British poem can touch John Cooper Clarke’s I Wanna Be Yours. In this love poem, to prove his devotion, an abject Clarke offers to metamorphose into everyday items: “I wanna be your vacuum cleaner, breathing in your dust/I wanna be your Ford Cortina, I will never rust.” The work became an irreverent favourite at weddings soon after being written in 1982, and its addition to the GCSE English syllabus in the 1990s brought it to a younger generation. One of those studying it was Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, who later said: “It made my ears prick up in the classroom, because…

‘I recall “I believe I am. I think I know that I am that I am extremely forgetful,” announces the narrator of Percival Everett’s Dr No in the novel’s opening lines. forgetful. Though I remember having forgotten, I cannot recall what it was that I forgot or what forgetting feels like.” No sooner has the reader crossed the threshold of the narrative than it begins to reveal itself as a labyrinth of mirrors, an elaborate and joyously rickety construction of philosophical gags and structural paradoxes. The novel, Everett’s 23rd, follows last year’s Booker shortlisting of 2021’s The Trees and is a kind of metaphysical caper. The narrator, Wala Kitu, is a professor of mathematics at Brown University, whose area of expertise is nothing. Which is to say that his entire academic…

The strengthening sun casts tree shadows across swathes of snowdrops in this former market garden. A succession of old types of narcissi emerge each year in their original rows and plots but, 45 years ago, there were no snowdrops here apart from a few dainty, late flowerers. Since then, my favourite gardening job in early spring has been to split the snowdrops and spread them about, “in the green” (before the leaves die back). Friends have donated surplus plants, so there are early tall and shorter singles, and several double varieties. On this south-facing, undisturbed land, the blooms are well protected – by the ground cover of ivy, ferns and mossy fallen branches; from the regenerating hazel, now hung with faded catkins; the tall ash suffering from die-back; stunted hollies…

I remember the moment. We were meeting the historians who had been commissioned by the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian, to look into our past. The Black Lives Matter movement had put unprecedented focus on racism in our societies, and it had inspired the Guardian to look at itself. Dr Cassandra Gooptar, an irrepressible expert on the history of enslaved peoples, had done some early work, and the evidence was inescapable: there was no doubt that the Guardian was founded with money partly derived from slavery, and the links were extensive. David Olusoga, one of Britain’s top historians, who happens to sit on the Scott Trust, was not surprised; this history had, in many ways, been hiding in plain sight. As editor-in-chief of the Guardian, I felt sick to…

In late December, as Muscovites looked forward to end-of-year celebrations, a group of old friends gathered for dinner at the flat of a senior state official. Some of the guests present, which included members of Russia’s cultural and political elite, toasted a new year in which they expressed hope for peace and a return to normality. As the night went on, a man who needed little introduction stood up for a toast. “I am guessing you are expecting me to say something,” said Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s longtime spokesperson, according to one of the two people who separately recounted the evening to the Guardian under conditions of anonymity. “Things will get much harder. This will take a very, very long time,” Peskov continued. His toast darkened the mood among the…

The azure waters are inviting and its long stretches of clear white sand are spotless. But Fuga Island is not a holiday destination. The residents of the remote community of just over 2,000 on the northern tip of the Philippines are farmers and fishers. However, things are changing on Fuga Island. These days a detachment of marines watches its coastline closely. The coastguard also regularly patrols the area, and may soon build a station there. They could be joined by US troops, too. To understand why requires a look at the map. Fuga lies less than 400km from Taiwan and is situated in waters connecting the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean, an area critical to the defence of the Philippines itself. As tensions rise in the region, Fuga…

When Muriel Akouewanou finished her studies in natural sciences in Benin, she struggled to find work and was unemployed for two years. Then, she saw an advert on TV. Textile factories were being built in a new industrial zone, 45km from Cotonou, the city where Akouewanou, 24, lived, and they needed workers. “To be honest, it didn’t appeal to me,” she said. “It was something I’d never done, I’d never worked with machines.” Nevertheless, she applied, and was accepted on to the six-month training scheme. To her surprise she enjoyed the work. Now, her salary covers all her expenses and allows her to give some money to her parents. Her dream is to become a textile engineer in Benin’s emergent industry. In the past few years, Benin has become Africa’s…

When Donald Trump took his final walk from the White House, boarded a helicopter and vanished into a cold sky, millions of Americans breathed a sigh of relief. With the former president retired to his Mara-Lago estate, they reasoned, they would no longer live in constant dread of new scandals or impulsive tweets. Two years and two months later, his legal perils dominate headlines, Republicans define themselves in relation to him and he remains the favourite for the party’s nomination for next year’s presidential election. Trump is impossible to ignore. His conduct before and during the January 6 insurrection was the subject of congressional hearings. He inserted himself into the midterm elections and declared his own presidential run. He is also on the brink of becoming the first US president…

The Moscow summit between the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was described by many international media as a visit that may change the world order. Xi’s visit came at a time of great need to isolate Putin, but the rest of the world remains puzzled about precisely how far China will go in supporting Russia in its horrific war in Ukraine. While China demonstrates a willingness to maintain the status quo in its relationship with its biggest nuclear neighbour, Xi has still not provided a straightforward answer on exactly what kind of support is on offer, beyond deepening bilateral trade ties and elusively worded further coordination in international affairs. Nor is there a clear next step for Beijing’s “peace plan” until a call between Xi…

A few weeks ago, I finally plucked up the courage and went in … to the shadowy place at the back of the fridge where no hand ever goes. To be clear, our fridge is quite clean, relatively speaking: nothing oozes in its salad crisper; no cheese rind awaits death in the place where the butter lives. But the top shelf, where I keep jars, open but not yet empty, was becoming overcrowded. Two hours later, the dishwasher was full of jars, and the bin full of their (mostly unrecognisable) contents – a satisfying morning’s work, and one that got me thinking about what else in the kitchen I might profitably clean. What I absolutely did not consider, however, was joining the crowd by boiling my wooden spoons. I’m the…

Across 1 Slanted (4-5) 8 Soothsayer (4) 9 In confidence (9) 10 Make up a (political?) story (4) 13 Intense (5) 15 Derivation (6) 16 Coup d’état (6) 17 Severe reprimand (6) 19 City on Lac Léman, headquarters of the Red Cross (6) 20 Weapon with a blade (5) 21 Walk out (4) 24 Post receptacle (9) 25 Leave the stage (4) 26 Bootlicker (9) Down 2 Stone between pavement and road (4) 3 Hand signal (4) 4 It secures a woman’s headgear (6) 5 Shot in the arm (6) 6 One dealing with boring paperwork (3-6) 7 Affecting the windpipe (9) 11 Familiar moniker – quiet orbs (anag) (9) 12 Mark over, under or through a letter (9) 13 Emotional feelings experienced instinctively (5) 14 Fooled (5) 18 Like…

1 CANADA/US Ottawa and Washington agree new border regime Justin Trudeau’s government announced a major shift in how Canada and the US handle asylum claims, a move that effectively closes a controversial border crossing, after meetings in Ottawa with Joe Biden. Under the deal, which Canadian officials hope will temper the increase in irregular border crossings in recent months, Canada will bring in 15,000 more South and Central American migrants to Canada. The prime minister’s office said in a statement the agreement would ensure more “fairness” in migration between the two countries. The breakthrough on irregular migration was one of a handful of new policies and funding efforts announced by the two countries last Friday. In recent years, tens of thousands of migrants have circumvented an agreement that covered land-based…

SCOTLAND Continuity candidate Yousaf elected SNP leader Humza Yousaf was elected the first minority ethnic leader of the Scottish National party after a tumultuous campaign that exposed deep divisions in the party that dominated Scottish politics under his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon. Turnout in the leadership election was 70%. For first preferences in the single transferable vote system, Yousaf took 24,336 (48%), Kate Forbes took 20,559 (40%) and Ash Regan 5,599 (11%) of the vote. When second preferences were distributed, Yousaf took 52% and Forbes took 48%. Yousaf, the health secretary and most experienced candidate after previously overseeing justice and transport portfolios, beat his centre-right rival, Kate Forbes, after a leadership contest prompted by Sturgeon’s shock resignation last month that was framed as an existential battle over the future direction of…

RUSSIA Putin prepares his people for a ‘forever war’ Page 20 → As the march against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms made its way along the Grands Boulevards north of Paris, a group of women began singing and dancing in the dense crowd. Above the sound of police sirens, protester chants and the clatter of teargas grenades, the music was familiar; the words were not. A female activist group calling itself Les Rosies – after Rosie the Riveter, a feminist symbol of working women – had rewritten the 1990s hit Freed from Desire by the Italian singer Gala with French lyrics. “Women on Fire! The government is failing Women on Fire! We’re in the fight. NaNaNa NaNa Na Na … stop your blah blah,” they sang. A law progressively raising the…

Like a lot of what Vladimir Putin says about nuclear weapons, his suggestion that Russia was to store its bombs in Belarus may add up to less than it appears. In February last year, Putin said he was putting Russia’s nuclear arsenal on high alert, but there was no perceptible change in the country’s nuclear posture, or any unusual movements of its weapons. Putin and the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, have been hinting at some kind of nuclear basing arrangement for some time. Over a year ago, Lukashenko staged a referendum to change the constitution to allow for that. Putin is threatening to take a couple more steps on that road, starting the training of Belarus aircrews in April to pilot aircraft carrying nuclear bombs, and to finish storage…

‘I ration has type 1 diabetes and relies my insulin every month,” said Khushi Ahuja, a law student from Delhi who on human insulin manufactured by the US company Eli Lilly. While insulin is available at no cost in some public hospitals in India, it is mostly up to individuals to buy the drug. “Every month I hear about insulin prices rising and I feel guilty about burdening my parents,” Ahuja said. “I skip meals to make my insulin last longer.” Eli Lilly and two European companies, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, control 99% of the market by value and 96% of the market by volume. The three manufacturers produce 8 3% of the insulin sold in low and middle-income countries, where it is now estimated that one in two people who…

The abrupt resignation of a Canadian lawmaker over allegations he secretly met with a Chinese diplomat has escalated a row over allegations that Beijing meddled in Canadian elections – and highlighted the complex and often fraught relationship between the two countries. Han Dong, a member of the governing Liberal party, was reported to have met with Han Tao, China’s consul general, in February 2021 to suggest that Chinese authorities delay freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two Canadians who were detained in China at the time. Dong confirmed the meeting but strongly denied the allegations about the conversation. Last Wednesday evening, he resigned from the governing caucus to sit as an independent. The resignation came after leaks from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service about alleged interference by the Chinese Communist…

YU JIE Is Xi adroit enough to broker peace? Page 48 → How do you kill off a strongman? How do you drain the political life from the brand of nationalist-populist leader that’s dominated politics across the democratic world in recent times? Last week, we may just have got an answer. Never say never and all that, but we watched the air go out of the Boris Johnson balloon, the UK’s former prime minister deflating before our eyes. While his fellow rightwing populists, the likes of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, continue to wreak or threaten havoc, it’s instructive to work out what did for Johnson. It could even be a formula to follow. You might think the magic bullet would be hard evidence of appalling behaviour. Johnson’s appearance before…

The remarkable life of Billy Waters – the first African American musician to be celebrated in Britain – came to a sad end. He died a one-legged pauper in a workhouse. Billy, as he was widely known, hadn’t performed on any stage. He fiddled, sang and danced as a busker on the streets of London’s West End. It was his sole means of supporting his beloved “Poll” and their two young children. But busking was deemed begging – and illegal. Billy constantly risked arrest and, not long before he died, he was taken to court and threatened with prison if caught again. Before entering the workhouse, he pawned his fiddle. Billy Waters died on 21 March 1823. He had become a legendary figure, hailed as a genius by writer and…

It’s no wonder Americans have failed to eliminate poverty, sociologist Matthew Desmond maintains in his new book. He believes the better-off are fighting a class war, keeping the poor down by design. Even if he shies away from some of the consequences of his claim, his arguments have the potential to push debate about wealth in America to a new level. Having won a coveted MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 201 5, Desmond is known for his book on eviction practices in housing, which netted him a Pulitzer prize in 2017. He starts his new study by demonstrating how enduring American poverty is. The poverty line is represented by an income of $13, 590 a year for an individual and $27,750 for a family of four. The number of Americans…

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