Innehållsförteckning för 15 March 2024 från Guardian Weekly

Early voting in Russia’s presidential election had already begun last week in occupied areas of Ukraine, with officials carrying ballot boxes going house to house in some areas, accompanied by soldiers. With critics and opponents silenced, exiled or murdered, Vladimir Putin is expected to be anointed for another six years when the polls close on 17 March. The four partially– occupied Ukrainian regions, claimed by Putin as Russian territory in 2022, will have a special part to play. The picture that Russian television will paint is almost as predictable as the final result: carefully curated images of grateful Ukrainians, delighted to be brought under Russian rule. The narrative will also be specially curated for an audience of one – Putin – said a senior Ukrainian security official: “Most of all,…

Seventy days after they were forced to leave their house in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Hanaa al-Masry, her husband and their six children were last weekend preparing for Ramadan in their new home: a dilapidated tent. Here, there will be no decorations, no joyous family meals and no reading of the Qur’an in the garden. The Muslim holy month – a time for friends and family as well as religious contemplation, prayer and fasting – started on Monday and will be like none that anyone in Gaza can remember. The Masry family fled Khan Younis after receiving leaflets from the Israeli military telling them to relocate for their own safety. They made their way to the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt and now live…

Hours after last Wednesday’s budget, the Conservative party’s great and good assembled at the medieval Guildhall in London to hear Rishi Sunak address the 50th anniversary dinner for the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank. His party had a clear plan, the prime minister told hundreds of Tory MPs, peers, donors and other assorted luminaries: one centred on higher growth and lower taxes. Many of those gathered had listened in person as Jeremy Hunt unveiled another 2p (2.5 cents) cut in national insurance but failed to produce anything approximating the rabbit-from-a-hat announcement that Tory MPs hoped might start shifting the polls. Sunak’s remarks were therefore greeted with scepticism, and some even raised eyebrows and politely shook heads. One attender called the event the “most opulent funeral I’ve ever been to”. It…

National stereotypes are unfair, insulting – and strangely reassuring. It’s somehow good to know in an unpredictable, fast-changing world that Italians may be relied upon to be melodramatic, the Americans loud and the English drunk. When nations act out of character, and refuse to conform to type, it feels a little disconcerting. This seems to be what’s happening in Germany today as Europe looks on, perplexed. What has become of that hackneyed Teutonic efficiency, decisiveness, reliability and steely-eyed determination? The past victors of countless poolside deckchair skirmishes now flirt with chaos in ways that make Westeros look well ordered. That’s an exaggeration, obviously. Yet there are many reasons to wonder about the present state of Germany. Its powerful economy, product of the postwar “miracle”, is in or nearing recession. Higher…

This was an Oscars night with a British accent: so many Brits (and a supremely talented Irishman) strode up to the mic with their statuette. So it was fitting that the best picture was created by an Englishman, director Christopher Nolan. Oppenheimer is the film whose awards-journey crescendo has coincided with Vladimir Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons if Nato personnel are deployed in Ukraine – while releasing evidence that British intelligence officers were deployed in Ukraine. Its relevance can hardly be doubted. Nolan’s monumental story of the A-bomb’s inventor, J Robert Oppenheimer, and his anguish in giving humanity the means of its own destruction, got its predicted landslide with seven Oscars, including best film, best director and best actor for Cillian Murphy, whose fierce visionary stare and clenched intensity…

Nine kilometres beneath the sea off the coast of Japan, there are fields of yellow flowers that stretch for hundreds of kilometres. They are not plants at all but animals called crinoids, related to sea urchins and starfish, which anchor themselves to the deep seabed and feed off plankton. The cliche that we know more about the surface of the moon than about the oceans is given vivid new currency in this blend of natural history, popular science, travelogue and ecocriticism by the Australian novelist and poet James Bradley. The book takes us from pole to pole and surface to bottom of the blue realm that covers most of Earth. For the majority of the planet’s biosphere, including some of its most sophisticated minds (whales, dolphins, octopuses), all our land…

It wasn’t a great day for a farm visit. As the rain drove relentlessly across the valley, we had to wait to get up the lane to Ashness Farm due to a blocked drain and flooding. Situated between Derwentwater and the hanging valley of Watendlath, Ashness Farm commands one of the best views in the Lake District on an old packhorse route. As part of my work for National Trust, I and other staff were visiting farms with the director general, Hilary McGrady. Hilary had met the farmer at Ashness, Anne Cornthwaite, at an event, and was interested to hear how Anne was farming with nature with a hefted flock of Herdwick sheep and her herd of belted Galloway cattle. Having coffee in the farmhouse, Anne explained how she had…

Across 1 Relaxing location to sit (7,5) 9 Posh people, in UK slang (5) 10 Deliberate (7) 11 Viable project (4) 12 Fiery curry (8) 14 Irrigates (6) 15 Disintegrate (6) 18 Festering (8) 20 Mendacious individual (4) 22 Space indicated with a ‘P’ (7) 23 Pause (3-2) 24 Arrest conmen (anag) – protest (12) Down 2 Unconventional (7) 3 Judas’s act of betrayal (4) 4 Table cloth? (6) 5 US-born, London-educated crime writer Raymond ___, d. 1959 (8) 6 Declare invalid (5) 7 Treatment using x-rays, gamma rays or subatomic particles (12) 8 It’s meant to be overheard (5,7) 13 Half or third? (8) 16 Brainless (7) 17 Burden (6) 19 Online discussion site (5) 21 Guilty – or not? (4) Solution No 16,789 Guardian Puzzles & Crosswords Access…

1 CULTURE Oppenheimer triumphs with seven Oscars Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic Oppenheimer triumphed at this year’s Oscars, taking home seven awards including best picture, best actor and best director. The drama, telling the story of the “father of the atomic bomb”, lost the box office battle to Barbie during last summer’s Barbenheimer showdown but has now won the awards war with Greta Gerwig’s Mattel comedy winning just one Oscar for best original song. Cillian Murphy was named best actor for his performance, and Robert Downey Jr was named best supporting actor. Nolan picked up his first best director Oscar and Oppenheimer also won for editing, cinematography and score. Emma Stone pulled a surprise to be named best actress for her role in Yorgos Lanthimos’s offbeat period comedy Poor Things. Da’Vine Joy…

When Russia goes to the polls this week, Vladimir Putin will be backed by an operation that will have cost around $1.2bn to shape public opinion and boost turnout as he seeks a public mandate for his war in Ukraine and continued rule as Russia’s potential president-for-life. Internal Kremlin documents leaked to the Estonian outlet Delfi and shared with other media organisations, including the Guardian, detail how the administration has pumped money into a network of NGOs and companies to create media content such as films and Telegram channels, conduct secret polling, organise youth festivals and establish new media in the occupied territories of Ukraine, which are expected to provide hundreds of thousands more votes for Putin. “We will no longer tolerate criticism of our democracy and claims that it…

In past years, the first phase of the general election has involved at least one of the presidential nominees introducing themselves to the public and presenting their case for taking the US in a new direction. But that has been rendered unnecessary this year: former president Donald Trump and president Joe Biden are very familiar to the electorate – and are broadly unpopular. “I think this is the worst election in my lifetime,” said George Argodale, a Nikki Haley supporter from Gainesville, Virginia. “It’s just terrible that we don’t have better candidates.” “That’s a sad state of affairs for our country that those are the two best candidates that we can come up with,” agreed Peggy Hudson, a primary voter in Charleston, South Carolina. Judith Smith, from Moncks Corner, South…

The US plan to build a floating port off the Gaza coast is a bold move, reminiscent of the Mulberry harbours built after D-day in Normandy, but there are serious concerns that what relief it brings will be too little too late for Palestinians facing starvation. “When we talk about the sea route, it’s going to take weeks to set up and we are talking about a population that is starving now,” said Ziad Issa, the head of humanitarian policy at the ActionAid charity. US officials have presented the plan as Washington taking leadership and “not waiting for the Israelis”, but the Israelis will still have a say on how effective it is in delivering aid. “People say this is a complex situation, but it’s very simple,” Issa said. “Israel…

Despite a vast international investigation, relatives of 239 passengers lost on the ill-fated flight are seeking answers Shortly after midnight on 8 March 2014, a Boeing 777 heaved into the air from Kuala Lumpur and climbed to its assigned cruising altitude of 10,700 metres. After being instructed to switch frequencies to Vietnamese air traffic control, the pilot replied in the methodical manner that is common in radio calls: “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero.” It was the last message that would ever be received from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. A decade has passed since the plane veered off course during a flight to Beijing and disappeared but, despite one of the largest and most expensive multinational searches in history, one of aviation’s greatest mysteries remains unsolved: how can a sophisticated…

The Netherlands A plan last March to dissuade partying young British men with “stay away” videos warning of fines, hospital and criminal records made headlines worldwide. It’s unclear what effect it had, though, as Amsterdam’s overnight tourist numbers last year hit almost pre-pandemic levels at 9 million – 21% more than in 2022. A soft-soap Renew your View campaign highlighting positive aspects off the beaten track (rather than sex and drugs) launched in November. Meanwhile, the city is expected to expand its stay-away campaign to dissuade nuisance tourists from Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Since last spring there has been a ban on smoking cannabis in public in the red light district, while bar closures at 2am instead of 4am have reduced street numbers by between 30% and 60%. However,…

Like many people, I have had Covid and I have had long Covid. They are very different experiences. I first caught the disease at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, when its effects were relatively unknown. It was unnerving and highly unpredictable. I did not get particularly sick, but I probably gave the virus to my father, who did. Back then, Covid appeared to be the great divider – the old were far more at risk than the young, and those with pre-existing vulnerabilities most at risk of all – and the great equaliser. Almost everyone experienced the shock and the fear of discovering a novel killer among us. We soon acquired a shared language and a sense of common purpose: to get through this together – whatever…

Episode two of the new season of Drive to Survive begins with a scene of Father Christmas visiting Red Bull team principal Christian Horner’s house. It’s a charming vignette for the show – just Horner, his wife, Geri Halliwell, his two young children and a TV crew. Those childhood opportunities to be part of father’s content farm are so precious, and Santa begins by asking: “Has Dad been good this year?” No, would now seem to be the answer. Not to break out the journalese or anything, but the boss of Formula One’s entirely dominant team is embroiled in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, thanks to a mushrooming scandal that I have very little legal leeway in terms of being able to discuss fully here. It’s all very…

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 The west’s leaders show double standards on Israel Pro-Palestinian protests are not calling for the disestablishment of Israel (Spotlight, 8 March). They are calling for justice and equal treatment for Palestinians – free from occupation, subjugation and harassment. A viable two-state solution must…

In 1994, Gregg Alexander got into his blue Ford Mustang to go out clubbing, but the old car wouldn’t start. “I had a moment of annoyance that I couldn’t go to the house clubs in Detroit,” he remembers. So he reached for the acoustic guitar in the back, channelling his emotion into a song beginning “It’s murder on the dancefloor, but you’d better not kill the groove”. “You know how Paul McCartney originally sang about scrambled eggs in Yesterday?” he chuckles. “‘Murder on the dancefloor’ wasn’t anything deep from my subconscious. It was just a dummy lyric that was kind of sung for fun, but then I couldn’t better it.” In early 2002, Murder on the Dancefloor was a No 2 hit for Sophie Ellis-Bextor and 23 years later it…

Muslims around the world have entered Ramadan this month, fasting from sunrise to sunset every day. Of course, people fast for other reasons, too: intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating have rocketed in popularity in recent years, being normalised by the 5:2 diet recommended by Dr Michael Mosley, social media influencers and, er, Rishi Sunak, who recently admitted he stops eating on Sunday at 5pm for a day and a half. That’s not to say the latter approach is for everyone. “Intermittent fasting can be seen as a fad diet, and I’m not pro fad diets,” dietitian Priya Tew says. “I am pro people finding a long term, sustainable way of eating for their health and their bodies.” It’s all about balance. “Make sure you’ve got protein and carbohydrates, focus on…

SECURITY Experts warn against loose wording of extremism bill Leading counter-terror and extremism experts, including three former Conservative home secretaries, warned senior politicians against using extremism to score political points, as the communities secretary, Michael Gove, prepared to announce his controversial anti-extremism plan. Priti Patel, Sajid Javid and Amber Rudd were among a dozen signatories to a joint statement. Others who signed the statement include Brendan Cox, the widower of the MP Jo Cox and co-founder of Survivors Against Terror, Neil Basu, the former head of counter-terrorism policing, and Richard Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff. The warning came just before Gove was due to publish the government’s official definition of extremism, which critics say will be so broad that it risks exacerbating community tensions and leaves ministers…

Two election cycles ago, in 2012, Sergei Mironov was loudly playing the role of opposition to Russia’s ruling party, wearing the white ribbon of the protest movement in the State Duma and claiming his run against Vladimir Putin was “serious”. If made president, he said, he would even appoint the now deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny as the head of Russia’s accounts chamber as an anticorruption measure. Today, Mironov is a loud booster of the war in Ukraine. Since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion two years ago, he has toured the occupied territories, posed with a sledgehammer from the Wagner paramilitary group and reportedly taken a two-yearold missing child from Ukraine for adoption and changed her name. (He has disputed the report.) Puppet candidates and pocket opposition parties have…

When an opinion poll in the New York Times found that a majority of Joe Biden’s voters believe he is too old to be an effective US president, the call to action was swift. But it was not aimed at Joe Biden. “Amplifying flawed presidential polls, refusing to report on [Donald] Trump’s cognitive issues, the NYT is biased for Trump,” was a sample social media response. “If you have a subscription to NYT, cancel it.” The irate chorus aimed at one of America’s most storied media institutions followed finger-pointing at the legal system for failing to stop Trump in his tracks. Despite much wishful thinking, primary election results last week made clear that the nation is hurtling towards a Biden v Trump rematch in November. That polling and media coverage…

Proposals to reword Ireland’s 1937 constitution to get rid of outdated language about the role of women and the nature of the family have been comprehensively rejected in a double referendum. All the major political parties had supported a “yes, yes” vote, and the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, had warned that any other result would be a setback. But when the results came in last Saturday, they were a resounding “no, no”. So what went wrong, and what happens now? What were the referendums about? There were two simultaneous referendums, each designed to change parts of a constitution that was written in 1937 under Catholic church influence. Article 41 refers to the role of women in the home and defines the family as a unit based on marriage. The government said…

Xi Jinping didn’t speak at China’s Two Sessions meetings this year, but his presence was still felt. His name appeared 16 times in the government work report delivered by the premier, Li Qiang, the number two leader, reportedly more than in any other year since Xi took office over a decade ago. Li was clear that credit for China’s achievements in 2023 was owed to Xi and “the sound guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, Xi’s ideological doctrine. Journalists at this year’s Two Sessions – the first fully open to the media since the pandemic – outnumbered the delegates, but engagement with the press was limited and choreographed. The last day of the National People’s Congress (NPC) is normally a chance for…

Hidden behind a tropical garden in the Auckland suburb of Mount Eden is a subterranean secret – a cave opening from the ground like the yawning mouth of a giant. “People come down here and drop their jaws,” said its owner, Sean Jacob, as he stood in the centre of the rock chamber. The cave is 106 metres long and up to five metres high. Part way in, the tunnel, which was formed when Mount Eden erupted 28,000 years ago, narrows and then opens into what Jacob calls “the ballroom” – a lofty area shimmering with golden minerals. Beyond is a 10-metre crawl space that leads to another chamber. Jacob has attempted to enter it just once. “You draw blood,” he sa id. “It is like going through a cheese-grater.”…

Murals in the pauperised Haitian slums he rules liken him to the Argentinian guerrilla Ernesto “Che” Guevara. In interviews, he poses as a God-fearing Caribbean Robin Hood and celebrates freedom fighters and agitators including Fidel Castro, Thomas Sankara and Malcolm X. “I like Martin Luther King, too,” the Haitian gang boss Jimmy Chérizier told the New Yorker journalist Jon Lee Anderson when they met last year. “But he didn’t like fighting with guns, and I fight with guns.” The stunning gang-led insurrection against Haiti’s government has catapulted Chérizier, a raffish, rifle-wielding 47-year-old mobster, into the international headlines – a place history suggests he enjoys. Over the past five years the Haitian outlaw – who has emerged as the main spokesman for the gang uprising against the prime minister, Ariel Henry…

N 1958, 17-YEAR-OLD ROSE DUGDALE was one of 1,400 young women who curtseyed before Queen Elizabeth II in the most prestigious event of the summer’s debutante season. It was the last time that the well-bred daughters of the most aristocratic and affluent families in the country would be presented to the monarch in a ritual that dated back 200 years. Princess Margaret, with characteristic hauteur, would later say: “We had to put a stop to it. Every tart in London was getting in.” For the fiercely independent Dugdale, being presented to the queen was a means to an end. She had agreed on the condition her parents allowed her to attend the all women St Anne’s College, Oxford, to study philosophy, politics and economics. Sixty years later she recalled the…

Where should politics happen? For most MPs, accustomed to the Palace of Westminster’s inward-looking spaces and rituals, the answer is obvious. In parliament and its associated offices, corridors, committee rooms, bars and tea rooms; in Downing Street and the maze of ministries; and in the parts of the media that mould political opinion. The UK is supposed to be a representative democracy. Except for very occasional referendums, periodic elections, vox pops and opinion polls, or the odd exchange with their MP, voters are not meant to be directly involved. A sign of a healthy political system, we are often told, is one where most people get on with their lives and leave politics to the professionals. But Britain doesn’t feel like that kind of place now. Political professionals – whether…