Innehållsförteckning för 10 November 2023 från Guardian Weekly

Saleemul Huq British-Bangladeshi director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development. He died on 28 October, aged 71. Henri Lopes Congolese writer and prime minister of Congo-Brazzaville in 1973–75. He died on 2 November, aged 86. Yuri Temirkanov Russian conductor who rebuilt the St Petersburg Philharmonic after the collapse of communism. He died on 2 November, aged 84. Betsy Rawls US women’s golf pioneer who won eight majors. She died on 21 October, aged 95. Ken Mattingly US Apollo 16 astronaut. He died on 31 October, aged 87. David Berglas One of the most influential magicians and mentalists of the 20th century and the first magician to have his own show on British TV. He died on 3 November, aged 97.…

The “day after” the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza may still be weeks or months away. But it will come. “When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next,” said US president Joe Biden recently. “And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution.” Against a backdrop of repeated cycles of violence and a military occupation lasting more than half a century, diplomats and analysts agree that lasting peace must follow the bloodiest fighting between Israelis and Palestinians for decades. The two-state solution to the bitter conflict that has beset the region for almost a century – dividing the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean to carve out two independent, sovereign Israeli and Palestinian states existing side by…

Beneath the surface of the war between Israel and Hamas, another conflict rages. In this clash, the battle lines are drawn in a very different place, and the alliances and enmities take unexpected shapes. When the current violence subsides, we shall see it even more starkly. Right now, that moment seems a long way off, though the visit to Israel last Friday of the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, suggests that Washington is already looking at its watch. Blinken is urging Israel to do more to protect civilians; others demand a ceasefire, or at least a pause. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is under pressure. But last week he received help from an unexpected quarter. Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told Lebanese TV that his organisation was determined to…

For more than two decades, a second world war-era ship, BRP Sierra Madre, has stood deliberately grounded in the remote, shallow waters of the fiercely contested South China Sea, carrying the Philippine flag and guarding against Chinese expansion. But its future is increasingly precarious, and the ship has become a growing flashpoint in some of the world’s most disputed waters. The Sierra Madre, marooned on Second Thomas Shoal, in the Spratly Islands, since 1999, is effectively a shipwreck. Defence experts question how much longer it can last – and the Philippines faces a difficult decision about what to do next. So too might the US, which has a mutual defence treaty with Manila, and considers the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, strategically important. Attempts by…

DEVI SRIDHAR Covid science was misused as political cover Page 48 → With Gaza bombarded, with thousands dead and its infrastructure largely in ruins, is it ever acceptable for a German to criticise Israel? Almost the entire German political establishment and most of those in public life apparently think not. Since 7 October, the day Hamas fighters inflicted carnage on a music festival and on kibbutzim inside Israel, all the main parties – the three making up the government, plus the Conservative CDU opposition and even the far-right AfD – have spoken with one voice, in solidarity with Israel. It is not lost on Germans that more Jews were killed on that one day than on any single day since the defeat of the Third Reich. “I thought that after…

Recent events in the Middle East have drawn international political and media attention away from the war in Ukraine at what looks like a critical juncture. This is understandable but nonetheless alarming. The principal beneficiary of this loss of focus is Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who ordered an illegal, unprovoked full-scale invasion in February last year that has caused more than 27,000 civilian casualties and appalling destruction. The UN believes the true casualty figure is “considerably higher”. Putin has been accused of war crimes by the international criminal court. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his western backers were optimistic earlier this year that Russian ground forces, badly led and often poorly equipped, could be ejected from occupied territory in eastern and southern Ukraine. But a much anticipated counteroffensive was delayed.…

School of Instructions By Ishion Hutchinson This visionary work of memory, elegy and loss captures the experiences of West Indian soldiers who fought for the British in the first world war. The collection weaves together the terrors of war with the terrors of imperialism, using dizzyingly original language and brutally impactful rhythms to create a tapestry of suffering, courage and struggle: “Frostbitten mud. Shellshock mud. Dungheap mud. Imperial mud … Caliban mud. Cannibal mud.” These experiences filter into the book’s second narrative, the life of Godspeed, a schoolboy living in Jamaica in the 1990s. Hutchinson subtly outlines the ways in which colonial force is perpetuated by language; English culture thrust into young minds with its own kind of violence. The collection sings of those who “have no memorial who are…

Even as Israeli troops prepared to enter Gaza City and Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would retain “security control” after the fighting ends, the war has brought focus back to the two-state solution – seen by the majority of diplomats and Middle East as experts as the only possible way to bring a stable peace to the region. Former Jerusalem correspondent Harriet Sherwood examines how two states would look, whether the will to achieve such a solution exists and who could broker a deal to turn the hope into fruition in the midst of the bloodiest conflict between Hamas and the Israeli state in decades. The big story Page 12 → Engineering may not be a subject to make everyone’s heart sing, but one of our long-read features this week is a beautiful…

HEALTH Air pollution raises risk of type 2 diabetes, study finds Inhaling polluted air increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, a study has found. Research conducted in Delhi and the southern city of Chennai found that inhaling air with high amounts of PM2.5 particles led to high blood sugar levels and increased type 2 diabetes incidence. When inhaled, PM2.5 particles can enter the bloodstream and cause several respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. The study, published in the BMJ, is the first to focus on the link between exposure to ambient PM2.5 and type 2 diabetes in India, one of the worst countries for air pollution. There is also a high burden of non-communicable diseases, including diabetes, in India; 11.4% of the population – 101 million people – are living with…

1947-48 UN partition plan divides Palestine, giving 56% to new Jewish state. Arabs reject the plan and war breaks out. In 1948, the state of Israel is declared on 78% of the land. 1967 In the six-day war, Israeli forces seize the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. 1987 The first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, begins. 1991 The Madrid peace conference opens, attended by Israeli, Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese delegations, and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. 1993 PLO’s Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands on Oslo accords – allowing limited Palestinian self-rule in West Bank and Gaza Strip. 1995 Rabin is assassinated in Tel Aviv by an extremist Jew at a peace rally in support…

People on the tiny Colombian island of Santa Cruz del Islote are used to having their sleep disrupted by the gentle lap of waves. But what might sound relaxing and blissful can actually be unnatural and menacing. Rising from bed, islanders feel a splash as their feet touch the floor, and know that their homes have once again been flooded. Santa Cruz del Islote, part of the San Bernardo archipelago, a few kilo-metres off Colombia’s Caribbean coast, is typical of many of the world’s low-lying coastal regions now at the forefront of the escalating battle against the climate crisis. “It’s very worrying. The tides and sea levels are rising and flooding many homes. We’re worried that our islands are disappearing,” said Adrián Caraballo, a young islander and local climate campaigner.…

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 AI needs a thorough and thoughtful evaluation We have already seen the use of AI in the NHS resulting in older and poorer people finding it harder to access GP services – and citizens taking to the streets in protest (Big story, 3 November). We cannot…

Unusually realistic renderings of motherhood and female friendship have gone on show in Madrid as one of the country’s most famous galleries seeks to spike the patriarchal canon of art history with a new, and avowedly feminist, exhibition. The show at the Thyssen-Bornemisza – called simply Maestras (Women Masters) – uses almost 100 paintings, lithographs and sculptures to show how female artists from the late 16th to the early 20th centuries won recognition in their own lifetimes, only to find their works forgotten, erased or consigned to dusty storerooms. Organised into eight chronological sections that reflect artistic and social changes, Maestras also explores how female artists, gallerists and patrons worked together to create and celebrate art while living and working in the grip and gaze of sexist, and often misogynistic,…

I have a friend who has experienced a truly awful year with her husband. They have been put through it and are now in high levels of medical debt. They have a nice lifestyle, which they finance with credit card debt. My partner and I generally have a much easier life than they do, but money has been a little tight for us too recently. I have had to cancel trips and say no to eating out because my partner lost his job and we simply don’t have the income right now. I always feel very awkward about this as our financial situation is undoubtedly easier than theirs, and I am not at all comfortable with taking on debt. When I recently cancelled a trip we had planned with them,…

QUIZ Thomas Eaton 1 In 1976, Ronald Wayne sold his 10% stake in which company for $800? 2 Rayleigh scattering gives the answer to what childhood question? 3 Who was the last pagan emperor of Rome? 4 What does a Marshall stack consist of? 5 Which two African rivers each give their names to two countries? 6 What legal protection dates to the 1710 Statute of Anne? 7 Which tree’s bark is known as “nature’s aspirin”? 8 With which club did Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu go from non-league to the Premier? What links: 9 Sailfish; peregrine falcon; cheetah? 10 Humayun’s tomb; Qutb Minar; Jama Masjid; Red Fort? 11 O 48%; A 38%; B 10%; AB 3%? 12 Hafnium; holmium; lutetium; moscovium? 13 Janet Leigh; Anthony Perkins; Bernard Herrmann; chocolate syrup? 14…

Relatives of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have called on Benjamin Netanyahu to make significant concessions to secure the freedom of their loved ones. The Israeli prime minister has told families that freeing the hostages is “one of the missions” of the war being waged against Hamas, but has so far not said that he will prioritise obtaining their release above the military objective of destroying the extremist Islamist organisation. The hostages, including infants, children and elderly people, were seized during the terrorist attacks on southern Israel last month in which 1,400 people, mainly civilians, were killed. Military personnel are also among those captured. As initial shock has faded, public anger in Israel has grown, with many families of the hostages critical of the government response. Dozens of…

Louis THEROUX WANTS TO ASK ME SOMETHING: “Are you not curious about my eyebrow?” We are technically in the last minute of our conversation, after which he’ll go to the east London studio next door to be photographed. In fact, we’ll talk for slightly longer, as I have yet to elaborate my theory that everything that went both right and wrong for generation X was, if not caused then certainly represented by him. “I’m not going to tell you now because you didn’t ask,” he continues, but he can’t let it go: “Have you not followed me on Instagram?” (Actually I have, so I know it’s alopecia. He’s had it since January, and worries about it a lot, initially because it made his beard grow into a tiny and slightly…

GAMING Sonic races back to the future Page 54 → TODD ECKERT IS EXPLAINING, in circuitous yet joyous fashion, how he first fell in love with the work of the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. It’s a conversation that meanders through Eckert’s teenage visit to Preston in northern England, his years as a punk rock kid in Houston, Texas, and his time producing the 2007 Joy Division film Control – yet ultimately always returns to Sakamoto’s astonishing songcraft. “Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence was not the first thing of his that I had heard – it may have been Left Handed Dream – but it was the first thing that I totally understood,” he says, sitting outside a Brooklyn cafe in bright yellow trainers. Over the past few years, Eckert has spent…

TELEVISION The Gilded Age Sky Atlantic/Now/Paramount+/HBO Easter morning in Newport, Rhode Island. Playground of the gilded age, where the great and not-remotelygood of New York decamp to their European-inspired estates for another season of more of the same. Which also describes season two of The Gilded Age. More lavish parties. More Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) pushing withering sentences from perennially pursed lips. And more internecine warfare between old and new New York. Season two of Julian Fellowes’s top dollar cosplay is less jejune than season one. It knows where it wants to go: straight to the top strata of society. The many layers below – such as, say, the 12 million immigrants who came to the US between 1870 and 1900 – get less of a look-in. This season…

Those looking for horrors in China’s recent past have no shortage of examples to choose from: the 1967 massacre of more than 9,000 people by Communist party cadres in Dao County; the starvation of thousands of prisoners at Jiabiangou, a labour camp in Gansu, in the late 1950s. For many, however, the struggle is being allowed to remember that such events happened at all. Memory is a compelling and slippery topic for students of China. Books such as Tania Branigan’s Red Memory have shown how even people who lived through the Cultural Revolution struggle to make sense of what their memories are actually telling them. And the government demands total control over the official narrative: China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has warned against “historical nihilism” and believes the collapse of the…

Prep 10 min Chill 6 hr+ Cook 40 min Makes 16 • VEGETARIAN Ingredients 150g pecans 200g unsalted butter, softened 150g dark brown sugar 125g caster sugar 60g white miso 1 tsp vanilla bean paste 1 large egg 160g plain flour 160g wholemeal flour 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda A pinch of salt 150g milk chocolate, roughly chopped My obsession with sneaking miso into baked goods continues apace with these squidgy, nutty cookies. That signature savouriness that miso brings to proceedings works so well against the buttery pecans and sweet milk chocolate. This is definitely a dough that benefits from a long chill, so the flavours get time really to settle into each other, so don’t skip it – it will be worth the wait. Method Heat the oven to 190C (170C fan)/gas 5. Put the…