Innehållsförteckning för 1 December 2023 från Guardian Weekly

The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol209 | Issue№ 22 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. The Guardian…

The police had reclaimed O’Connell Bridge and were preparing a baton charge on the south side of the River Liffey, but the rioters and bystanders on Westmoreland Street did not want to lose their view of the fires. A masked youth had just ignited a bin, which had erupted with a great whoosh. On the far side of the bridge, a doubledecker bus and car blazed at the foot of the statue of Daniel O’Connell. The police hammered their batons on their shields, a prelude to another charge, and still the crowd lingered, almost hypnotised by the spectacle of flames in the heart of Ireland’s capital. “It’s sad it’s come to this,” said one spectator in his 20s, not a rioter. “But the situation has got out of control.” He…

King Charles’s estate has announced it is transferring more than £100m ($126m), including funds collected from dead people under the archaic system of bona vacantia, into ethical investment funds after an investigation by the Guardian. The surprise announcement came amid growing pressure on the king over the Duchy of Lancaster’s use of funds collected from people who die in the north-west of England with no will or next of kin. Last week, the Guardian revealed some of the funds were secretly being used to renovate properties that are owned by the king and rented out for profit by his estate. The duchy conceded that some bona vacantia revenues are financing the restoration of what it calls “public and historic properties”. However, the king’s estate has also been battling separate questions…

You might think that 1,500 years after the first bottle was drunk there wasn’t much more innovation left to be had in the rarefied world of champagne. You would be wrong. The next big thing in the $7.5bn-a-year industry is: undersea ageing. Like so many of the best innovations, it began by accident. In 2010, a group of divers in Finland’s Åland archipelago came across the wreck of a ship that sank in 1852 and were surprised to find 145 bottles of champagne 50 metres below the surface. Even more surprisingly, the bottles were still full and tasted – in the words of a professor of food biochemistry – “incredible – I have never tasted such a wine in my life”. The labels had washed off but wine detectives found…

On New York’s Staten Island the US army corps of engineers began last month to remove the radioactive remnants of Robert Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bombs that ended the second world war. Meanwhile, 3,200km away, at the Los Alamos national laboratory north of Santa Fe in New Mexico, on the same site that developed and assembled the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, work is being ramped up to produce plutonium “pits” – spherical shells about the size of bowling balls that are a vital component of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal. Both in their own way tell the story of the nuclear age, but one is historic housekeeping – in 1939, 1,200 tons of high-grade uranium ore was purchased and transferred from the Belgian Congo…

‘Brainwashed by a homicidal policy” is how the man just elected president of Argentina described supporters of women’s abortion rights. The far-right libertarian Javier Milei has pledged to hold a referendum to ban abortion, just three years after Argentina became the largest Latin American country to legalise it, and the country’s feminists are gearing up for a big fight to protect their reproductive rights. This development is part of a depressing global picture. The UN has said the world is failing women and girls, and is “way off track” to meet targets to improve women’s lives. One in five girls is married before she turns 18, it is lawful to discriminate against women in more than half the countries in the world, and almost 250 million women experience physical or…

ACROSS THE HIDDEN HALLWAYS, humming workshops and bustling backstage spaces at London’s National Theatre, preparation is well under way for a musical version of Roald Dahl’s The Witches. Everyone is busy. Very busy. The wham (wigs, hair and makeup) team are working at full capacity on more than 50 wigs, including a fair few that emit smoke on cue. The armoury department has been tackling robotic mice and runaway chefs’ hats for nine long months, the costume department is handling its largest workload in 10 years (300 costumes and counting) and, over in scenic design, the painters have been sampling colours – including 20 different shades of pink – since early summer. The production team is one of the biggest to work at the National in some time, with each…

Thingvellir national park, Iceland Silfra, a rift in the mid-Atlantic Range, is the only place on Earth where it’s possible to snorkel between two tectonic plates. Glacial meltwater flows continuously through the fissure, which is situated on the rim of Thingvellir Lake. Having percolated through volcanic rock, this water is exceptionally pure and gin-clear, with visibility of up to 100 metres. But as I waded in, the underwater landscape appeared barren, a labyrinth of rock and boulder piles. I was clad in thermals, a drysuit and a neoprene hood, but within seconds my exposed lips and cheeks began to sear with cold. Silfra does contain life, most notably Crymostygius thingvallensis, an endemic species of groundwater amphipod crustacean. Many of the fissure’s other inhabitants are microinvertebrates, invisible to the human eye.…

1 UNITED STATES Oil production set to break record s despite climate aim The United States is poised to extract more oil and gas than ever before in 2023, a year that is certain to be the hottest ever recorded, providing a daunting backdrop to the Cop28 climate summit that started this week. The US’s status as the world’s leading oil and gas behemoth has strengthened this year, even amid warnings from Joe Biden over the unfolding climate crisis, with the latest federal government forecast showing a record 12.9m barrels of crude oil, more than double what was produced a decade ago, will be extracted in 2023. Records will also be broken this year for gas production, with a glut of new export terminals on the Gulf of Mexico coast facilitating…

Why does Qatar mediate in so many conflicts? Many countries in the Middle East aspire to the role of mediators – Egypt, Oman and Kuwait among them – but Qatar presents itself as the region’s primary problem solver and advocate of dialogue. It has been active in Ukraine, Lebanon, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan and Gaza, in the process hosting the leadership of the Taliban and the political wing of Hamas among others. Observers say Qatar takes on this role because, as a small but fabulously wealthy country built on vast supplies of liquid gas, it needs to make itself indispensable to the international community and protected from unwelcome interventions by its larger neighbours, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The 2017-21 boycott of Qatar led by Saudi Arabia showed it…

Geert Wilders’ shock victory in the Dutch general election confirms the upward trajectory of Europe’s populist and far-right parties, which – with the occasional setback – are continuing their steady march into the mainstream. There is no guarantee that Wilders, whose anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) won 37 seats in last Wednesday’s ballot – more than twice its 2021 total – will be able to form a government with a majority in the 150-seat parliament. Even if he can, the coalition process of endless compromise and concession by three, four or more parties means the most extreme parts of his manifesto, from banning the Qur’an to holding a Nexit referendum, are not about to become government policy. From Helsinki to Rome and Berlin to Brussels, far-right parties are climbing up…

Sea survivors A Rohingya Muslim woman rests after landing on a beach in Sabang, Aceh province, Indonesia. Reuters reported that an increasing number of Rohingya people are leaving refugee camps in Bangladesh, taking to boats as hopes fade of returning to Myanmar or being resettled, and camp life gets tougher. Nearly one million members of the Muslim minority from Myanmar live in camps in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox’s Bazar, most after fleeing a military crackdown in their home country in 2017. “A few years ago, these boats mostly carried young males,” said Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project that helps refugees, referring to small boats that set off from Bangladesh and Myanmar Out of an estimated 1,084 Rohingya who came ashore in Aceh province last month, 360…

It has been more than two months since Storm Daniel unleashed devastating floods in eastern Libya, wiping out swathes of the coastal city of Derna, where Palestinian Lu’ay Afifi, his wife and two daughters lived. In Benghazi, 300km to the west, his 60-year-old sister, Sana’a, has no clue what happened to them. “I have faith that my brother and his family survived this catastrophe,” said Sana’a, but her voice lacks conviction. She has nothing to back her gut feeling. As the days go by with no word from them, Sana’a is consumed by fear that they were among the thousands killed by the storm, when the collapse of two ageing dams caused devastating floods in Derna. “My husband and son went to Lu’ay’s home and there was nothing left of…

‘Batdambng mean avei chhnganh? Anything delicious in Battambang?” crooned popular Cambodian singer Sinn Sisamouth in his song of the same name. For Cambodians, everything is delicious in Battambang and now, much to their delight, Unesco agrees. A quiet provincial capital in the north-west of the country, Battambang has been named a city of gastronomy and is one of 55 places added to the UN agency’s Creative Cities Network of destinations known for crafts and folk art, design, film literature, media arts and music, as well as cuisine. Yet no Battambang restaurant has ever appeared on a global where to eat list and the city doesn’t have a single fine-dining space presided over by a hot young, creative chef. What Battambang does have is culinary traditions and a reputation for producing…

Lachlan Murdoch has been chairman of News Corporation and Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, for more than two weeks now after his father Rupert finally officially handed the reins to him. Beyond the titular changes, how much of a transition is in fact being made is open to question. “I hope to continue an active role in the company,” the elder Murdoch, 92, remarked during the company’s most recent annual shareholders meeting. Lachlan Murdoch told investors that there will be “no change” in strategy at Fox News, but last week told a dinner in Australia that this was an era of “generational realignment” that would require “clear vision, great courage and political will” to navigate. But what Lachlan will inherit in full is a suite of legal…

Stare at a climate map of the world that we expect to inhabit 50 years from now and you see a band of extreme heat encircling the planet’s midriff. Climate modelling from 2020 suggests that within half a century about 30% of the world’s projected population – unless they are forced to move – will live in places with an average temperature above 29C. This is unbearably hot. Currently, no more than 1% of Earth’s land surface is this hot, mainly uninhabited parts of the Sahara. The scenario is this dramatic because the regions affected most severely by global heating – above all, sub-Saharan Africa – are those expected to experience the most rapid population growth in coming decades. But despite this population growth, they are also the regions that,…

I never know which potatoes to use for what dishes (roast, boiled, mashed), and please include North American varieties such as russets and yukon gold. Catherine, Portland, Oregon, US Reigning supreme as the UK’s No 1 vegetable, potatoes can do no wrong – so long as you choose the right one for the job. “It is really important,” says David Taylor, chef director of Grace & Savour in Solihull. “If you’re doing a lamb hotpot, for example, the [wrong] potato could absorb all the liquid and collapse.” Recipes often stipulate “waxy” or “floury” potatoes, so it’s really worth clocking a few names. To avoid calamity, Gelf Alderson, executive chef at River Cottage and author of Great Roasts, would “never use any [recipe] that doesn’t name the [type of] potato, because…

THE FOOTAGE OF HOSTAGES, many of them teenagers and younger, being seized and driven away crying and pleading with their captors, was as harrowing as the sight of the corpses Hamas left behind. The slaughter of Israeli civilians on 7 October was intended to strike terror into the Israeli psyche and inflict a lasting wound. The hostage-taking was done for other reasons: as a brake on Israeli retaliation and to trade for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Seven weeks later, it has worked better as a bargaining chip than as a deterrent. The estimated 240 hostages in Gaza did not stop the relentless bombing of Gaza or the ground offensive. Only last week, almost a month on, was a four-day lull agreed, arguably when it suited the Israel Defence Forces…

World leaders must “stop dawdling and start doing” on carbon emission cuts, as rapidly rising temperatures have put everyone on the frontline of disaster, the UN’s top climate official has warned. No country could think itself immune from catastrophe, said Simon Stiell, who is overseeing the Cop28 climate summit that began this week. Scores of world leaders arrived in Dubai for tense talks on how to tackle the crisis. “We’re used to talking about protecting people on the far-flung frontlines. We’re now at the point where we’re all on the frontline,” said Stiell before the summit. “Yet most governments are still strolling when they need to be sprinting.” Global temperatures have set new records in recent months, making this year the hottest on record, and perilously close to the threshold…

Riding horses, camels and motorbikes, the paramilitaries arrived outside of Ardamata in early November. Fighters from Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took men from homes that they then burned down. At least 800 people were killed and survivors were ordered to bury the dead. The RSF went door-to-door in Ardamata, in west Darfur, according to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, rounding up and killing people from the Masalit ethnic group. Investigators at the non-profit Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) have collated images from Ardamata that appear to confirm attacks on civilians. CIR’s Sudan Witness project has been monitoring human rights violations in the region, which is closed to foreigners and journalists, using open-source information, satellite imagery and Nasa-provided data, as well as gathering geolocated images from social…

‘Every time I talk to you, I feel more distressed.” Tears stream down my patient’s face as she claps her palms over her ears to shut me out. I am stunned to my core by this completely unexpected office version of a devastating domestic diatribe from which you wonder how you will recover. In my small office, the distance between us feels suddenly uncrossable. This is our umpteenth meeting. When she was first diagnosed with cancer, she faced a brutal series of treatments. Chemotherapy felled her. Radiation burned her. The constant needle pricks coloured her skin black and blue. She hated the rumbling noise of the scanner. Yet she persevered because a cure was within reach. The unfortunate problem with many cancers, of course, is that when “everything is over”…

‘The ancien régime”, as applied to 18th-century France, always sounds like such a solid proposition. It speaks of arbitrary power, stiffened with protocol, girded by gold, topped by a dusting of icing sugar (you could always spot a noble by their terrible teeth) and utterly stuck in its ways. Until, that is, revolution arrived in 1789 with a clap of thunder to reset the clock so that everything could start over. Yet, as Robert Darnton shows in this enthralling book, the last 50 years of old France were in fact febrile and shifting, rocked by a series of social and political affaires that reached far beyond elite circles, engaging men and women who were more used to worrying whether the cost of bread would rise by another two sous. Darnton…

Last month’s European team championships at Budva, Montenegro, saw the England open squad narrowly miss out on medals, but there was a fresh success for Lan Yao, 22, a rising star of the women’s game. Lan Yao’s unbeaten 5.5/8 on second board for England women earned her the bronze medal as well as her first international master norm at men’s/open level, and was achieved against a high class field. In the final two rounds Lan Yao drew with the former world champion Anna Ushenina, of Ukraine, then defeated Sweden’s Pia Cramling, for decades the No 1 woman in western Europe. She is now ranked England’s No 1 woman ahead of Jovanka Houska. 3895 Karl Murazia v Michael Feygin, Viernheim, Germany, 2014. White to move and win. White is a rook…

Across 1 Witticism (4) 3 Marshy area – predicament (8) 8 In the same place (in footnotes) (4) 9 Preserved like a mummy (8) 11 Being in charge – he lip-reads (anag.) (10) 14 Pasta strip – improvise music (6) 15 Puppet exploited by someone else (6) 17 Indecent (10) 20 Strutting dance – picnic (8) 21 Hawaiian dance (4) 22 Carbon ____ (8) 23 Amend (4) Down 1 Collaborator with an occupying enemy (8) 2 Emulator (8) 4 Maximum (6) 5 Formation of ice masses (10) 6 Poet’s foot (4) 7 Stops (4) 10 Substance melted and stamped on official documents (7,3) 12 Stagnant (8) 13 Police or army rank (8) 16 Concealed, as a bride may be (6) 18 Con (4) 19 Flay – fruit peel (4) Solution…