Innehållsförteckning för 4 August 2023 från Guardian Weekly

The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol 209 | Issue№ 5 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…

Over his years of service, Zur Allon, a reservist lieutenant colonel in Israel’s artillery special forces, never imagined a day when he would refuse to report for duty. “Half of my company was blown up in Lebanon. I have given many years of my life defending this country,” said the 46-year-old, a leader of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a pressure group of more than 60,000 Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reservists established this year in protest against the government’s proposed overhaul of the judiciary. “That’s why we are so angry,” Allon said. “The government is breaking a very simple contract we have – to protect a Jewish and democratic Israel.” The IDF was envisioned by the state’s founder, David Ben-Gurion, as “the people’s army”: an apolitical melting pot that would…

SCIENCE Is new drug a schizophrenia breakthrough? Page 30 → In the courtyard of Odesa’s Fine Arts museum, a police officer unlocked a large, grey container and pulled back the doors to reveal Catherine the Great. She was laid out flat on a wooden tray, one arm outstretched and the other at her side, holding a scroll ordering the construction of Odesa. The Russian empress, or rather her bronze likeness, used to stand proudly on a pedestal in the heart of the city that she founded in the late 18th century. Now she is here, locked in a box away from public view. The removal of Catherine, able before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, is a reflection of the mood in a city that is rapidly…

Rishi Sunak has been accused of showing disregard for the climate crisis after Whitehall officials warned that some of his key green pledges were already unachievable. With the prime minister facing a backlash within his own party after appearing to row back from his commitment to green policies, an internal government audit found that a series of measures designed to help meet Britain’s net zero goals had been allowed to run off course. A scheme to reduce packaging, a deposit return plan for plastic bottles, a boost for recycling and a tree planting and woodland creation programme have all been given a “red” rating by Whitehall’s major projects body. It concluded that their successful delivery “appears unachievable”. The revelation backed up claims that the government is in “full retreat” on…

During the world’s hottest month in more than 100,000 years, Indigenous men, women and children from all over Brazil made their way into one of the last great holdouts of the Amazon rainforest to pay their respects to the most effective Amazon protector of them all, Raoni Metuktire, who has indicated that he may be coming towards the end of his activist days. The ostensible reason for the gathering at Piaraçu, a village in Mato Grosso state, was Raoni’s nominal 91st birthday, though, in truth, like the mightiest trees of the Amazon, nobody is sure exactly how old he is. There was joy and celebration, but the overriding emotion was anxiety. Brazil’s Indigenous people find themselves at an extraordinary juncture of national political opportunity and global climate concern that has…

Fourteenyearsago, theIcelandic neuroscientist Kári Stefánsson led a landmark investigation into the genetic risk factors for developing schizophrenia, a debilitating mental health condition in which people may lose touch with reality. Stefánsson is the chief executive of deCode genetics, based in Reykjavík, which has studied genetic information from more than two-thirds of the Icelandic population. Since 2009, its work has helped to draw an association between people with schizophrenia and those in creative professions. Icelandic writers, painters and musicians were all found to have an inherently higher risk of the condition, which typically develops in adolescence or early adulthood. Stefánsson argues that this association is an inevitable consequence of evolution. Every child is born with about 60-70 random new mutations in their DNA, a biological quirk that provides the basis for…

In 1966, AN MIT PROFESSOR NAMED JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM created the first chatbot. He cast it in the role of a psychotherapist. A user would type a message on an electric typewriter connected to a mainframe. After a moment, the “psychotherapist” would reply. User: Men are all alike. Chatbot: IN WHAT WAY User: They’re always bugging us about something or other. Chatbot: CAN YOU THINK OF A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE User: Well, my boyfriend made me come here. Chatbot: YOUR BOYFRIEND MADE YOU COME HERE User: He says I’m depressed much of the time. Chatbot: I AM SORRY TO HEAR YOU ARE DEPRESSED Weizenbaum published this sample exchange in a journal article that explained how the chatbot worked. The software was relatively simple. It looked at the user input and applied a…

ANDREW ANTHONY Farage’s knack for grabbing headlines Page 48 → Like many other politicians, Joe Biden talks a good game about the need to tackle global heating. Climate change is an “existential threat”, the US president said last week, as the country sizzled amid record-breaking temperatures. Biden had to do something in response to what António Guterres, the UN secretary general, described as the boiling of the planet. The White House announced a series of measures – such as improved access to drinking water and planting more trees – in response to what has been the hottest month on record. To Biden’s critics, this is fiddling while Rome burns. They say he should be declaring a climate emergency, which would allow him to block new fossil fuel projects without congressional…

The suburban country diarist, away from suburbia, must seize every opportunity. Here on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight, the birds are different (skylarks, lapwings, black-tailed godwit); the butterflies are different (marbled white, wall, white admiral). But the night sky is, frankly, unrecognisable. London’s dirty orange glow is replaced by a clarity of light and a depth of dark that is unimaginable for a city dweller. There are fewer and fewer places free of the creeping spectre of light pollution – and we are staying in one of them. We find a place. We sit. We wait. The rookery over the road settles down for the night, caw of rook and chack of jackdaw fading into silence. Light wind, few clouds, no moon. Good stargazing conditions for us.…

Israel’s far-right and ultrareligious government has finally succeeded in passing an element of its wide-ranging changes to the judiciary. Legal action, a general strike and possible refusal from upwards of 10,000 military reservists to report for duty are on the cards as the country’s largest ever domestic crisis enters a new chapter. What happened? After seven months of debate, the government on 23 July managed to scrap the “reasonableness” clause that allows Israel’s unelected supreme court to overrule government decisions, after a final vote of 64-0. Every member of the coalition voted in favour, while opposition lawmakers abandoned the Knesset plenum in protest. Earlier in the year, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared more willing to cut a deal with the opposition and temper the judicial proposals, but he was…

Egypt’s leader, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, urged Vladimir Putin to return to the Black Sea grain deal during a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg marked by concerns about the global economic fallout from the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. In a speech during a plenary session of African delegations attended by the Russian president, Sisi said it was “essential to reach agreement” on reviving the deal, which had allowed 33m tonnes of Ukrainian grain to reach markets, many in developing countries in Africa. Moscow said that it had quit the grain deal because its own agricultural exports were still being blocked. But a number of African countries, including Kenya and Egypt, a key importer of Russian grain enduring an acute food crisis, have struck out angrily at Russia as the Kremlin seeks…

A year ago, Shani Dana’s mudbrick house was swept away in the worst floods on record to hit Pakistan. More than 1,700 people were killed and 900,000 homes damaged or destroyed. Sindh province, where Dana lives, was the most badly affected. While waiting for government money to rebuild her home in Wasram village, in the Tando Allahyar district, word reached Dana that the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan (HFP), founded by a renowned architect, Yasmeen Lari, was building one-room homes in neighbouring Pono village. The buildings “looked like rounded chauhras [traditional huts], but were octagonal in shape and the walls were much sturdier,” said Dana. The foundation agreed to help Wasram rebuild and in March the HFP team joined villagers to construct 50 homes. Prefabricated bamboo frames were built on metre-high…

A tunnel lit by torchlight. An attempt to delete incriminating camera footage. A “boss” who must be obeyed. And all to no avail. The latest criminal charges against Donald Trump, the former US president, conjure images of the hapless Watergate burglars or a mob movie with elements of farce. But while they deepen Trump’s legal perils, analysts say, they will only harden his determination to regain the White House as his best chance of staying out of jail. Opinion polls show he remains the runaway frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024. Trump, who left office in January 2021, pleaded not guilty in Miami in June to federal charges of unlawfully retaining classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and obstructing justice. Prosecutors allege that he put some…

As a marine conservationist, if I see another headline along the lines of “Menacing man-eating shark lurking off the coast of Britain” accompanied by a photo of a basking shark – a species that exclusively consumes plankton – I think I might scream. It seems all a shark needs to do these days is push its dorsal fin above the ocean waves and panic immediately ensues. Just last week, that’s exactly what happened off the French coast. A blue shark – a species typically found in the open ocean with an extremely low record of unprovoked attacks on humans – was spotted close to the shoreline. Instant drama ensued, with lifeguards closing the beach and swimmers watching from the water’s edge. There are more than 500 species, yet you’ve probably…

‘But she is mad!” said General de Gaulle. It was the autumn of 1942 and the leader of the Free French movement in London had just received a proposal from a fearfully weak and emaciated woman, practically blind without her glasses, to head a special mission of French nurses to provide first aid at the front. Simone Weil hoped to become, as Wolfram Eilenberger puts it, “a kind of female anti-SS in the spirit of the Maid of Orléans”. The 33-year-old Jewish philosopher wrote: “The challenge would be all the more conspicuous because the services would be performed by women and with a maternal solicitude … It would illustrate with supreme clarity the two roads between which humanity is faced today.” She was prepared to die for her ideals, but…

Across 9 This lot managed 18 around Hoylake on vacation (5) 10 Management of Real Betis is most unfocused (9) 11 A peripheral role in return game (5,4) 12 Scrap pile somewhere in London (5) 13 Topless experience in bar is heavily criticised (7) 15 Setter’s construction is most succinct (7) 17 Nerve of pilot changing direction (5) 18 Teachers’ paperback collection (3) 20 Bet24 sponsors (5) 22 Dozens of mischievous creatures chasing short couple (7) 25 Restless Cooler King escapes totally exhausted (7) 26 Game of skill caught old Nazi (5) 27 Having no issue with Kid Rock initially in charge (5-4) 30 Expenditure of friendly society (9) 31 Threads to stitch contrary wrapping paper (5) Down 1 New York squad turning up to make arrest (4) 2 Scoffed…

Across 1 Green-and-white herby cheese (4,5) 8 Molten rock flowing from a volcano (4) 9 Kind of edible pea (5,4) 10 Duo (4) 13 Scale (5) 15 Trivial (6) 16 Horse of a colour between light brown and brownish orange (6) 17 Electric generator (6) 19 Devoted (6) 20 My word! (2,3) 21 Desire (4) 24 Julius Caesar’s last words when being stabbed to death, according to Shakespeare (2,2,5) 25 Deprive of by deceit (4) 26 Derogatory term for someone pretentiously interested in culture (informal) (4-5) Down 2 Tuba (anag) (4) 3 Flair (4) 4 Without breaking sweat (6) 5 German romantic composer, d. 1897 (6) 6 Clumsy (9) 7 Blasphemous behaviour (9) 11 Preliminary preparation (9) 12 Primitive weapon – thin gloss (anag) (9) 13 Little piece (5) 14…

1 UKRAINE/RUSSIA Drones brought down over Moscow and outskirts Russian air defences shot down “several” drones targeting the Moscow region, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Tuesday, with one hitting a tower that had been struck last Sunday. The Russian defence ministry said two drones had been destroyed by air defence systems in the Odintsovo and Naro-Fominsk districts near Moscow, while a third was jammed and crashed in the capital, according to the state news agency Tass. The ministry blamed the attacks on Kyiv. The strikes come two days after Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelenskiy said that the war was coming to Russia, although Ukraine has not acknowledged responsibility for the attacks. Zelenskiy said on Monday that more than 350 people were working on a rescue mission in Kryvyi Rih after what…

FOSSIL FUELS Sunak to ‘max out’ North Sea oil and gas reserves Rishi Sunak has pledged to “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves as he revealed a new round of intensive North Sea drilling, which experts said could be catastrophic for the climate. Unveiling a plan to authorise more than 100 new North Sea licences on a visit to Scotland, the prime minister also indicated he would approve drilling at the UK’s largest untapped reserves in the Rosebank field, which hold 500m barrels of oil. Speaking to reporters on a visit to a Shell gas terminal north of Aberdeen, Sunak insisted the plan was compatible with net zero commitments. He said: “My view is we should max out the opportunities that we have here in the North Sea,…

Beware the strongman leader who fears prison. Donald Trump is running for president in part because he sees a return to the White House as a literal get-out-of-jail-free card: reinstalled in the Oval Office, he would be able to pardon himself for the mounting pile of serious federal crimes for which he is indicted. His legal strategy is his political strategy. But the exemplar of the phenomenon is the man who was Trumpian before Trump: the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. It is Netanyahu – and the war he is waging against his own country – whom all those who care about the wider future of democracy should be watching. For Israel has become the test case in the global fight against ultranationalist populism. Netanyahu’s coalition passed a law…

Wanted: recent graduates keen to gain experience in a teaching environment and an adventure far from home. Perks of the role include hands-on experience, CV fodder and, most importantly, job security. Cons include long hours, low pay, limited social life and poor infrastructure in remote locations (running water cannot be guaranteed). This is the offer facing China’s graduating class of 2023: decamp to work in impoverished rural areas. But many young people are not convinced. More than 11.5 million students will graduate this summer looking to move into a jobs market where youth unemployment is at a record high. In June, 21.3% of 16-to 24-year-olds in urban areas were out of work, according to official statistics. Some economists reckon that figure is understating the reality. A slow economic rebound after…

Spain’s socialist party has suffered a setback in its efforts to form a new leftwing coalition government after last month’s inconclusive election as a count of overseas votes handed a crucial seat across to the opposition conservatives. The result means the left and right blocs are now neck and neck as MPs prepare for a vote in congress that will determine who gets to govern. The left’s hopes of remaining in power now rest even more firmly on Junts, the centre-right Catalan pro-independence party led by Carles Puigdemont, the former regional president who fled Spain to avoid arrest over his role in the failed unilateral bid for independence almost six years ago. Although the rightwing People’s party (PP) won the snap election, it fell well short of expectations and only…

When Daniyal Ahmed set off on a road trip from Karachi into the neighbouring province of Balochistan in early 2022, his only contacts were a few distant connections he hoped would lead him to a legendary musician. After circling villages near Pasni, a fishing port on the Arabian sea about a six-hour drive from Karachi, Ahmed by chance spotted Ustad Noor Bakhsh on the side of a lonely road sitting next to his broken motorbike, waiting for help. Ahmed, an anthropologist who teaches at Habib University, had been chasing down masters like Bakhsh in remote regions across Pakistan. Bakhsh was already well known within Balochistan as a solo benju (a type of zither) player and as Balochi vocalist Sabzal Sami’s accompanist for three decades. Ahmed was alerted to Bakhsh’s talents…

As the world heard tales of recovered alien bodies, crashed extraterrestrial spaceships, and an apparently violent plot to conceal both, not everyone was willing to believe. The Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, swept up in last week’s remarkable UFO congressional hearing in Washington through her role on the House of Representatives oversight committee, seemed determined to not get carried away by a surge of interest in UFOs. Speaking afterwards, the leftwing congresswoman sought to characterise her colleagues’ quest to uncover the government’s alleged alien coverup as an investigation into national security and military furtiveness. “This committee has encountered instances before where either defence activity has not been forthright,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Guardian. “I do believe that there is a very large question about what is being disclosed and we have a…

Whatever one thinks of Nigel Farage, back in the news for bringing about the resignation of NatWest’s chief executive Alison Rose and Coutts boss Peter Flavel, he has been instrumental in changing Britain. Few observers would argue that his campaign to remove the UK from the European Union has led to a beneficial change, but almost everyone would agree that it’s been a profound one. In Britain, where the first-past-the-post voting system neuters small parties, single-issue politics tends to be the preserve of eccentrics and obsessives, carrying about the same parliamentary influence as the Monster Raving Loony party. The glaring exceptions are Farage’s Ukip and the Brexit party, which between them helped deliver the harshest of Brexits. An almost anachronistically English figure with his beer and blazers, Farage is an…

Ann Patchett’s fourth novel, the hostage drama Bel Canto, propelled her to literary fame in 2001, winning the Women’s prize for fiction. Two solid novels followed, Run and State of Wonder, but Patchett has produced the best fiction of her career in recent years, with the magnificent family dramas Commonwealth (2016) and The Dutch House (2019), a finalist for the Pulitzer prize. There has been nonfiction, too, with two essay collections, including These Precious Days (2021), the centrepiece of which is a Harper’s magazine article that went viral about Patchett’s lockdown friendship with Tom Hanks’s assistant, Sooki Raphael. Raphael moved into Patchett’s Nashville home to start a clinical trial for the recurrent pancreatic cancer that would ultimately end her life, and Patchett turned this into a deep exploration of kindness,…

What summer desserts can I make that don’t require turning on the oven? Beth, London, England, UK There are a few ways to approach this, Beth. First, says Nicola Lamb, the pastry chef behind the Kitchen Projects newsletter, you’ve got “the lazy assembly job”. That might involve “getting ice-cream and cookies from the local shop to make ice-cream sandwiches”. Other shop-bought items that are crying out to be spruced up are a chilled bowl of custard (“swirl in some macerated fruit, then crunch over amaretti,” Verena Lochmuller, the Ottolenghi development chef, says), or a good-quality pound or lemon drizzle cake: “Fancy that up with a dollop of yoghurt or creme fraiche, some berries or ripe figs and maybe some toasted almonds.” There is also good stuff to be had if…

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