Innehållsförteckning för 22 September 2023 från Guardian Weekly

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1 UNITED NATIONS Leaders defend record in tackling global inequality Western leaders went on a charm offensive on the opening day of the UN general assembly as they were forced to defend their record in meeting the organisation’s sustainable development goals and insist that the war in Ukraine had not distracted them from this commitment to end global inequality. At a special summit in New York to check on progress towards meeting the goals by 2030, all sides acknowledged there was little chance that the commitments set in 2015, including ending extreme poverty and safeguarding the environment, would be met on schedule. The agenda was shaped to meet the concerns of the global south, and it was evident that western powers – in an effort to counter Russian and Chinese influence…

UK NEWS YouTube stops Russell Brand monetising content YouTube suspended Russell Brand’s ability to earn money on the platform following allegations of rape and sexual assault in a massive hit to his finances. The video-sharing and social media site said it had suspended Brand’s channel from the YouTube partner programme after serious allegations against him, meaning his videos are no longer able to monetise on the platform. The 48-year-old comedian and actor has been accused of rape, assault and emotional abuse between 2006 and 2013, when he was at the height of his fame working for the BBC, Channel 4 and starring in films. He denies the allegations, saying all his relationships were consensual. London’s Metropolitan police force said on Monday it had received an allegation of sexual assault in…

Keir Starmer was due to meet Emmanuel Macron this week as he begins to prepare the ground for a potential renegotiation of the UK-EU trading agreement in 2025. The Labour leader met the French president in Paris on an international tour that also took in the Hague and Montreal. Labour hoped the trip would position Starmer as a leader on the international stage, as well as to test the appetite for a broader trading arrangement should the party win the election next year. Many in UK and EU foreign policy circles warn, however, that if Labour does win the next election, the party is unlikely to find a receptive audience in European capitals for such a renegotiation, unless it is willing to offer significant concessions in return. Joël Reland, research…

A sweet, butter-filled bread roll, neatly wrapped in plastic, has become the snack that rickshaw driver Jewel Ahmed reaches for when he needs to eat while stuck in traffic in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. Bun roti are sold for 10 Bangladesh taka ($0.09) at the same stalls where rickshaw riders buy heavily sweetened tea to ward off hunger and fatigue. “I often eat two or three of these a day with some tea. I still feel hungry sometimes but these usually keep me going for a few hours,” said Ahmed, 27, before he took a large bite. Bangladesh is not the only developing country where snacks are popular, sometimes even replacing meals. For experts, the rise of unhealthy snack foods is concerning because of the implications for long-term health, especially non-communicable diseases…

For years, Tucker Carlson seemed untouchable at Fox News. His position as the channel’s most popular host allowed him to wield power over viewers and the Republican party alike, his political influence reinforcing his position as the king of rightwing cable TV. That changed in April when Fox News, after settling a defamation suit for $787.5m, gave Carlson the boot. The move left viewers and pundits wondering what Carlson, who had used his position to push far-right conspiracy theories and elevate rightwing figures, would do next. Courting trouble In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and his supporters made a number of false claims of election fraud. One of those was that voting machines, many of which were made by Dominion Voting Systems, transferred votes from Trump…

Girl Who Boys Can’t Hear was a recurring character who featured on the 90s British TV comedy The Fast Show. She is a woman in the company of men who raises an intelligent solution to a problem, or makes an insightful observation, only to be ignored entirely. A few seconds after she has spoken, a man says something to the effect of “ Oh I’ve got it!”, and repeats what she has said verbatim. The group of men immediately spring to agreement and admiration of his input. The woman then says: “Sorry, can any of you actually hear me?” The sketch always raised a laugh even though you knew what was coming. What elevated it wasn’t the punchline, but the elaborate performance of the men – earnestly scratching their heads…

The opening chapter of Benjamín Labatut’s second novel is such a perfect distillation of his technique that it could serve as a manifesto. One morning in 1933, Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest pays a visit to his disabled child, Vassily. Ehrenfest has enjoyed a dazzling career, but recently has been seized by despair. Nazism is the most urgent threat, but Ehrenfest is troubled too by a less tangible development: the quantum revolution, most notably the work of Hungarian wunderkind John von Neumann. Ehrenfest experiences this new theoretical direction as a kind of unravelling, a fog of “logical contradictions, uncertainties, and indeterminacies” he feels entirely unable to penetrate. Having moved his son to Amsterdam, Ehrenfest has shielded him from the horrors of the Nazi regime. But he cannot protect him from the…

Across 1 Salvage extremely rare celestial object (7) 5 Look after the issue for others (4,3) 9 Diving attacker received trivial sum, initially for throwing game (5) 10 Endeavour to capture contact linked to English betrayal (9) 11 Pee twice, say, when going off – it’s that simple (4,5) 12 Plan to gather information for show trial (5) 13 Lure agency worker to join top table (5) 15 Investigator locates married American friends in Arab country (9) 18 Spread discharge – it’s all over now (4,5) 19 Key type added on to register (5) 21 Piece in cited literature about accent (5) 23 Plenty in favour of merger (9) 25 Air sounds freaked out such old fogeys (9) 26 Current source of master’s trendy interior (5) 27 Artificial servant picked…

Thailand The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol209 | Issue№ 12 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 community.…

PLUS Casualties of war The country has been neglected Page 14 → Different outcomes What did Morocco do right? Page 16 → Early last week, Mohamed Eljabo travelled to the eastern provinces of Libya, passing through Derna, Al Bayda and Sousa. The journalist, who lives in Tripoli, described his reaction to what he saw as “shock beyond comprehension”. “I have visited these cities before and I know them well,” he said. “I expected to find these cities. I expected to see the neighbourhoods and towns. But they were gone. Erased. It was horrifying.” A UN report last weekend said the number of people who had died in Derna had passed 11,000, with many thousands more missing or displaced. Few international aid agencies or news reporters have been able to reach…

UNITED KINGDOM The lasting influence of Tony Blair Page 20 → The shape of three European governments could be decided by the performances of populist, anti-establishment or far-right parties in elections in the coming weeks, as the continent’s fractured political landscape continues to splinter. A parliamentary poll in Slovakia, a country of five million people, on 30 September, could return to power a proto-populist, Robert Fico, who is stridently pro-Moscow. In Poland, which votes in October, surveys suggest that hopes of forming a majority in the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) – self-proclaimed champions of the conservative, Catholic working class – may rest on the even further right Confederation. When Dutch voters go to the polls in November, their fragmented politics will be further disrupted by a wildly popular…

As prime minister, Tony Blair oversaw a few hundred Downing Street staff and one country. Sixteen years later, he is responsible for more than 800 staff who help advance his policies in nearly 40 countries. Since leaving No 10, the former prime minister has arguably become more powerful thanks to the work of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), which has exploded in size and revenue during the last few years. Its accounts show it made over $81m in revenue in 2021, a 78% increase on the previous year. With the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, turning to Blair as an unofficial source of advice, the influence of both the former prime minister and his institute could soon grow further. Blair told the Financial Times: “I want [the institute]…

There’s a painful scene in the new Netflix drama Can You See Us? when the protagonist, Joseph, is attacked by men who pin him down and hack at his leg with a knife. John Chiti, the man who inspired the character of Joseph, remembers this incident well. He was 15 and walking home with a friend after playing football in the Copperbelt province in Zambia. His attackers had been tracking his movements for some time. Chiti screamed and his friend shouted. “I was saved by passersby,” Chiti said. Can You See Us? tells the story of a boy with albinism who becomes a famous singer. It is based on Chiti’s remarkable life. Chiti has overcome rejection and discrimination to find success. He is one of about 25,000 people in Zambia…

Noralba Galvis usually returns home to her village in the Colombian jungle with fresh supplies of rice, meat, salt and other foods stuffed into bags. But today, as the 40-year-old steps onboard a boat for the two-hour journey home along the Putumayo River, she carries just a single cardboard box. “My mother gave me these chicks,” she said. “Chickens are great in times of emergency like these, when there is nothing else left to eat.” Like most farmers in Putumayo, a southern department where the Andes meets the Amazon and Colombia borders Ecuador and Peru, Galvis depends on selling coca to make a living. Despite years of efforts from successive Colombian governments to stamp out the green shrub used to make cocaine, it has thrived across the country’s most remote…

NESRINE MALIK Finally, the right admits Britain is broken Page 48 → Joe Biden has many reasons to be grateful he is not a member of Britain’s ruling Conservatives, but one in particular stands out. When a Tory prime minister is polling badly, looking jaded and in danger of becoming a liability or a joke, they don’t mess about. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or even Margaret Thatcher of sainted memory. Party chiefs put their heads together, have a quiet word. And the erstwhile leader, once lauded by all, is out. Done. Dumped. Deposed. Deposited on Downing Street’s rubbish heap of history. American presidential politics doesn’t work that way. It is more respectful, less ruthless. A White House incumbent is hard to shift. Three failed impeachments…

Across 1 Something that’s partly good and partly bad (7,3) 7 Herb (7) 8 Stony substance that forms reefs in warm seas (5) 10 Stupefied (informal) (4) 11 Pre-prandial drink (8) 13 Portable computer (6) 15 Project for viewing – conceal from harm (6) 17 Balderdash (8) 18 Wind instrument (4) 21 Military blockade (5) 22 Fine porcelain with delicate colourings made in Saxony (7) 23 Pirates’ ensign (5,5) Down 1 Of poor quality (5) 2 Thoroughfare (4) 3 Group of touring performers (6) 4 Novelty sporting competition – arc cakes (anag) (4,4) 5 Instrument for execution by strangulation once used in Spain (7) 6 Blonde fairy tale protagonist (10) 9 French fabulist, d. 1695 (2,8) 12 Canada’s second largest city (8) 14 Medicine which has no physiological effect (7)…

When the climate crisis meets a failed state, the outcome is the kind of disaster that has unfolded in Derna. Any city would have struggled with the extraordinary level of precipitation that Storm Daniel visited upon Libya’s northern coast. In its earlier, milder form, the storm caused severe damage in Greece before it crossed the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, the extent of the devastation – a quarter of a city was swept into the sea in what is being described as Libya’s 9/11 – is also a function of failed politics. Since the bloody western-backed ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the country has mainly been governed by two rival administrations, one in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk, each supported by rival external actors including Turkey, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt and…

Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Kim Jong-un last week was dismissed by the US as an act of desperation by the Russian president. Although few details have emerged about the leaders’ discussions, the summit in the Russian Far East could preface worrying developments in the war in Ukraine and for Kim’s military ambitions. Now the North Korean leader has returned home, here are five takeaways from the summit. North Korea has designs on the final frontier Kim reportedly travelled to Russia hoping to sell artillery shells and anti-tank missiles to the Kremlin, but his role was more than that of arms salesman. His meeting with Putin sent unmistakable signals that the regime in Pyongyang is still interested in establishing a presence in space, despite – or perhaps because of – its…

The UN’s high seas treaty is open for states to sign up to. It is an important development: signing the treaty starts the process for countries to ratify it, signalling their intention to comply with its provisions and to make it part of national legislation. At least 60 countries need to sign up for the treaty to come into force. The high seas are areas of the ocean beyond national jurisdictions and, as such, have no legal protection. They cover nearly half the planet and house many unique ecosystems. Conservationists are urging governments to act quickly. Fishing hours in the high seas rose about 8.5% between 2018 and 2022, according to estimates by Greenpeace using data from Global Fishing Watch. This figure was even higher in areas that Greenpeace had…

As Vladimir Nabokov revised his autobiography, Speak, Memory, he found himself in a strange psychological state. He had first written the book in English, and it was published in 1951. A few years later, a New York publisher asked him to translate it into Russian for the émigré community. The use of his mother tongue brought back a flood of details from his childhood, which he converted into his adopted language for a final edition, published in 1966. “This re-Englishing of a Russian reversion of what had been an English re-telling of Russian memories in the first place, proved to be a diabolical task,” he wrote. “But some consolation was given me by the thought that such multiple metamorphosis, familiar to butterflies, had not been tried by any human before.”…

When I got a job as a supermarket worker five years ago, I did not believe that shoplifting would be a problem. I am from west Africa, and I just couldn’t see how it would happen in Britain, where there is a benefits system, many opportunities and security guards in shops. But now, having witnessed and intervened in many shoplifting incidents, I understand the true scale of the problem. Dame Sharon White, the chair of John Lewis Partnership, last week called for a royal commission to look at the future of the British high street including the challenges of shoplifting, which she says is an “epidemic”. She is not wrong. My experience tells me the same, and so do the statistics: according to the British Retail Consortium, retail thefts across…

WRITE TO US Letters for publication weekly.letters@theguardian.com Please include a full postal address and a reference to the article. We may edit letters. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions, see: THEGUARDIAN.COM/LETTERS-TERMS Editorial Editor: Graham Snowdon Guardian Weekly, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK To contact the editor directly: editorial.feedback@theguardian.com Corrections Our policy is to correct significant errors as soon as possible. Please write to guardian.readers@theguardian.com or the readers’ editor, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK American democracy is caught in a time warp Time will tell for Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell (How old is too old for power?, The big story, 8 September). Both their departures surely can’t be a long time coming. Whether Biden in…

According to a recent survey, the British can cook. But the same survey found a quarter of them have only three “recipes” in their repertoire. Of these, the most popular is sausage and mash, followed by beans on toast and spaghetti bolognese; shepherd’s pie is way down the list at No 12. The main problem seems to be an absence of basic skills. Of the 2,000 people surveyed, 73% have perfect faith in their ability to chop an onion, but only half feel they could competently cook a steak, and fewer know how to butterfly a chicken. All this sounds a bit depressing, a conveyor belt of boringness. But I wouldn’t want to be too judgmental. It’s easy to get in a rut in the kitchen. Sometimes, preparing to do…

AUGHRIS HEAD County Sligo, Ireland It’s an hour’s walk around Aughris Head, but we took longer, the distractions being great. Across Sligo Bay was the steepening rise and summit plateau of stately Benbulbin, to the east the isolated bulk of Copes Mountain, its green skirts richly washed in sunlight that broke through dark clouds. To the north was Donegal, the cliffs of Malin Beg and the sharp profile of Slieve League. I lay in deep grass on the edge of banded limestone cliffs, scanning tiers of guano-splattered ledges for any signs of life. Aughris is well known for its breeding colonies of razorbills, guillemots and kittiwakes, but they were already gone. I felt I’d arrived the morning after a wild party. The venue was empty but still exhaled a weary,…

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