Innehållsförteckning för 2 August 2024 från Guardian Weekly

The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol211 | 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 community. The Guardian…

“Drill, baby, drill!” Donald Trump’s avowal to pump up the US’s oil and gas production should not be surprising. The US has ramped up fossil fuel production to become the world’s biggest producer: its projected licences for 2024 could lead to 397m tonnes of planet-heating emissions. This comes at a time when the UN secretary general has declared “code red” for humanity, and the International Energy Agency has warned that new oil and gas fields are incompatible with the Paris agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre industrial levels. To deliberately increase emissions in such circumstances is so contrary to the public good that it suggests a capture of politics by a powerful minority that represents fossil-fuel interests – the behaviour expected in a classic petrostate. It does…

Nicolás Maduro has been declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election by the government-controlled electoral authority – a result that appeared to dash opposition hopes of ending his authoritarian, socialist rule. It was immediately challenged by rivals and several governments in the region and beyond. After a six-hour delay in releasing the results of last Sunday’s poll prompted international concern, Venezuela’s electoral council claimed Maduro had won with 51.21% of votes compared with 44.2% for his rival, the former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia. The council said that with about 80% of votes counted, Maduro had secured more than 5m compared with González’s 4.4m. Independent observers had described the election as the most arbitrary in recent years, even by the standards of an authoritarian regime that started with Maduro’s mentor and…

Rachel Reeves has cut winter fuel payments for 10 million wealthier pensioners as she sought to plug a £22bn ($28 bn) black hole in the public finances she said was “covered up” by the Conservatives, while hinting at tax rises in her autumn budget. The chancellor also shelved the long-delayed cap on what people would pay for social care as she ignited a bonfire of Tory policies she said would be needed to deal with the deficit, telling MPs: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.” Yet almost half of the shortfall, £9.4bn, was a result of her decision to fund above-inflation public-sector pay recommendations in full, helping to reverse years of declining wages and see off the threat of industrial action. Her response to a Treasury internal…

A year ago, the Somali journalist Ilyas Ahmad Elmi set out for Europe. He had been repeatedly threat-ened by jihadi extremists at home, and hoped to make it to Germany, where he planned to seek asylum and be with his eight-year-old son. “I left because I wanted to see my son, who I’ve never met … and because I had received threats,” said Elmi. Elmi flew to Russia and then travelled overland to Belarus, from where he aimed to cross into Poland, often considered a safer route to Europe than the Mediterranean. But instead Elmi suffered months of hardship. He recounts being beaten up by border guards, forced to spend weeks living in a forest and watching a young Somali woman in his group die from lack of medical attention.…

A stone’s throw from Portugal’s oldest cathedral and buzzing bakeries serving up pastéis de nata, the complex notes of a sitar fill the ground floor of an unassuming building in the northern city of Braga. The soft strumming belies the radical nature of the mission that has taken root here: to preserve Afghan music and use it as a tool to counter those who want to eradicate it. “The Taliban tried to silence us,” said Ahmad Sarmast, the director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, in his new office in Braga. “But we’re much stronger and much louder than yesterday.” Launched in 2010 under the US-backed government in Kabul, the institute once stood as a powerful sign of the changes sweeping Afghanistan. Young male and female musicians – several…

Hazem Rahma, 39, is a director at Mubarrat Al Rehmat orphanage in Gaza City. What was your life like before 7 October ? I’m from Rimal, in Gaza City. My wife and I have worked at the orphanage since 2010. Before the war, we had 22 children. Most of them have no traceable family and many are disabled. They usually come to us at birth from hospitals because their families can’t afford to take care of them. Five of our wards are girls who are over 18, but since they have no families, they stay with us. How have you been coping since the war started? Only my wife and I were able to stay to look after the children. For a while, we managed; we had solar panels and…

Alexandra Fuller was in a pickup truck in Wyoming with her girlfriend, Till, when her mobile beeped. The relationship was newish and fraught: Till was young, with “skin like alabaster”, but had issues – neediness, drugs, self-harm. Alexandra (“Bobo” as everyone knew her) was recovering from a broken relationship and didn’t feel cut out for intimacy. The dramas between them were intense but paled into insignificance as Fuller turned and saw missed calls from her ex-husband, Charlie. The news was terrible: their son, Fi, 21, had died in his sleep. “Fi died and everything that I’d believed in until then blinked out with him.” Fi had just come back from Argentina, where, stressed by exams and late nights, he’d had an inexplicable seizure. On return to Wyoming, he seemed fine,…

A sun-dappled way leads towards the quiet, airy summit, away from hot asphalt, camera-watched traffic and new housing estates in St Ann’s Chapel. Tumuli (ancient burial mounds) up on the ridge and Roundbarrow farm are reminders of the prehistoric respect for this upland, and in the 19th century a copper mine dominated the skyline. Mined to a depth of 130 fathoms (240 metres), in 1864 it was the work destination for more than 200 men, women and children. Until 1872, and the completion of the mineral railway, ore sent for smelting in south Wales was carted along tracks to the Tamar. On this hot afternoon, the final section of the wide lane towards the now derelict mine engine house is overhung with oaks and ivy-convered thorn trees; polypody ferns colonise…

1 UNITED STATES Harris raised $200m in first week since endorsement Kamala Harris raised $200m in the week since she was endorsed by Joe Biden, her team said, as the vice-president appears to be drawing increased enthusiasm to her campaign. Harris for President said about 66% of the total came from first-time donors, as the campaign said it had seen “unprecedented grassroots support”. Last Sunday Al Gore, the former vice-president and a climate activist, endorsed Harris, while more than 170,000 volunteers have signed up to help her campaign with phone banking, canvassing and other get-out-the-vote efforts, Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director, said. Meanwhile, Biden’s former White House chief of staff said senior Democrats’ successful efforts to push Biden out of the presidential race were “unfortunate, nasty and public”. “I was…

A surge in new oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating emissions, with the world’s wealthiest countries – such as the US and the UK – leading a stampede of fossil fuel expansion in spite of their climate commitments, new data shared exclusively with the Guardian reveals. The new oil- and gas-field licences forecast to be awarded across the world this year are on track to generate the highest level of emissions since those issued in 2018, as heat-waves, wildfires, drought and floods cause death and destruction globally, according to analysis of industry data by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). The 11.9bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions resulting over their life-time from all current and upcoming oil and gas fields forecast…

The funeral lament rang out across Majdal Shams, from the centre of the town, from balconies and from rooftops. Thousands of mourners packed the narrow streets and squares, carrying small coffins covered in white shrouds to their final resting place. Less than a day earlier, the town of squat white-painted houses and fruit trees in the occupied Golan Heights became a flashpoint in an increasingly volatile regional conflict when a rocket killed 12 children playing football. “We heard the siren and the strike was immediate. Our house shook,” said Tawfiq Sayed Ahmed, an insurance agent. Ahmed immediately thought of her three daughters, who loved to play at the football pitch. The children, she said, had split into teams for a match. “I went to the stadium immediately and the scene…

Hasan still has the metal pellets Bangladeshi police fired at him lodged deep in his bones. Fearful that he will join the growing ranks of those thrown behind bars for participating in protests that have swept Bangladesh in the past month, Hasan has been in hiding for a week and described his state as one of “constant panic and trauma”. “Whenever I hear the sound of a car or a motorbike, I think it might be the police coming for me,” the 33-year-old telecommunications graduate said. When Hasan joined the protests in the capital, Dhaka, early last month, they were a peaceful affair. Students across the country had mobilised to oppose the reintroduction of quotas for all government jobs, meaning 30% would go to descendants of those who fought in…

In 1999, a Philippine navy ship made one final, secret voyage, sailing from Manila Bay into the remote waters of the South China Sea. The BRP Sierra Madre then ran aground, and hasn’t moved since. “I did it as quietly as I could,” said Vice Adm Eduardo Santos, who was chief of the navy at the time. His plan had been to run the ship on to a small reef known as Second Thomas Shoal, one of the world’s most fiercely contested maritime sites, without China knowing. The move would help the Philippines defend the area for decades to come. “The first reaction was the Chinese ambassador knocking at my office early in the morning when they heard about it … I said, ‘Well, it was supposed to be on…

When the doctor behind the trial of a new HIV prevention drug heard the results, she could not contain her emotions. “I literally burst into tears,” said Prof Linda-Gail Bekker. “I’m 62, I’ve lived through this epidemic … I had family members who died of HIV, as did many, many Africans – many people around the world.” The problem of how to prevent HIV infection, particularly in teenage girls and young women, had seemed “intractable”, Bekker said. But lenacapavir had offered thousands of women aged 16 to 25 in South Africa and Uganda 100% protection. The results of the Purpose 1 trial prompted a standing ovation for Bekker, chief executive at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, when she presented them at the Aids 2024 conference in Munich last week. “Even…

Kamala Harris pledged to earn young people’s votes, as the vice-president and newly elevated presumptive Democratic nominee rides a gen Z-powered wave of online “Kamalove”. In a virtual address at a two-day summit in Atlanta, hosted by the liberal gen Z-led organisation Voters of Tomorrow, Harris said she had been elected the first female vice-president of the US “because young voters showed up” in 2020. She touted “historic progress” made by the Biden-Harris administration on combating gun violence and climate change, all of which she said was again “at stake this November”. “We know young voters will be key, and we know your vote cannot be taken for granted,” she said in a pretaped video. “It must be earned, and that is exactly what we will do.” In the days…

Natalie Fleet was only 15 when she got pregnant by an older man. At the time, she says she didn’t really know how to describe what was happening; she didn’t see herself as being groomed, or as a child still not legally old enough to consent. If anything, she worried that she might be the one who had done something wrong, given she was the one being called a slag and a slapper. Only now, more than two decades later, does the newly elected Labour MP for Bolsover feel able to say publicly that an experience about which she apparently still has nightmares was statutory rape. Having met the force of nature that is Fleet five years ago, when she first stood unsuccessfully for election, I’m struck but not surprised…

I find making sauces for my vegetarian diet quite challenging. Any advice about how to moisten my meals? Eric, Melbourne, Australia There are so many directions in which you could go, tomato sauce being possibly the most obvious. I batch-cook all my tomato sauce – whether it’s infused with a dried chilli (which is great on butter beans), or a basil sprig (again, for butter beans, or pasta); it’s also lovely over cubed tofu or for braising eggs shakshuka-style. Then there is perhaps my favourite vegan ingredient, tahini, not least because it’s so rich and substantial. Thinned down with lemon juice and water, plus crushed garlic and salt to taste, it’s glorious over roast vegetables, salad leaves, grains and so on – the possibilities are almost endless; if you like,…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 9/10 Lost in London (I am close to King’s Cross eastern boundary) (5-5,4) 11 Skipped school (retired hurt, LOL) (9) 12 Complain win against one side’s overshadowed (5) 13 Dizzy missing end of Grand National (7) 15/26D ‘Won’t ed see daily covers?’ – gnarled old Fleet Street worker (7,4) 17 Half of those on bus superannuated (5) 18 Passover is a festival (3) 20 New farmer’s content to have fifty in field (5) 22 Driving impatiently in South London? It’s commonplace (7) 25 Don’t stop thinking of teacher receiving fine (5,2) 26 Object to government lacking depth (5) 27 Not in reality the best players? (5,4) 30 Upset president involved in underworld contract (9) 31 Scrubs up? (5) Down 1 Sticks up for…

PUBLIC FINANCES Reeves defends public sector worker pay rises The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, defended above-inflation pay increases for public sector workers, saying they were in line with private sector pay deals. Reeves said on Monday she had uncovered a £22bn ($28bn) “black hole” in public finances and accused the previous government of covering up the true picture of the economic situation. She announced a series of spending cuts on infrastructure projects, transport and social care totalling £5.5bn. But part of the overspends identified in this black hole are from pay settlements that Labour is choosing to accept in full, which means millions of public sector workers are expected to receive above-inflation pay rises. The chancellor also confirmed that the government and doctors’ leaders have agreed to a new pay deal…

The average Norwegian is more likely than anyone else to drive to work in an electric car and warm their home with a heat pump. When they turn on the kettle in the morning or charge their phone at night, Norwegians plug into an electricity grid that runs almost entirely on renewables. Their politicians politely pressure other countries to protect the environment, too. But on one metric, Norway’s leafy green image darkens to an oily black. The rich Nordic nation digs up more petroleum per person than Russia, Iran, North America and Saudi Arabia. “Norway claims to be a climate leader, but in reality it is a climate hypocrite,” said Frode Pleym, head of the Norwegian branch of the campaign group Greenpeace. “If Norway were an advertising agency, they would…

The azure sky above Tyre beach looked clear as glass, but it was an illusion. “We were swimming like one hour ago and they shot a missile or something,” said Maha Mrad, pointing down the southern Lebanese coastline, stretching out towards Israel. An Israeli jet, lurking high beyond view, had bombed a Lebanese village about 20km from the beach, the latest in a 10-month campaign of tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that appeared closer than ever on Sunday to full-scale war. “But it felt so – cool,” Mrad said. “Like, oh, there’s a strike. Say hi! We kept swimming.” This is summer 2024 in Lebanon: peak tourism season, peak tensions with Israel, a war-scarred, party-loving country at the peak of its contradictions. Many Lebanese are…

An ecstatic crowd dances at sunset on a stage nestled among trees and illuminated by vibrant art installations. They move to the beats of German, American and French DJs. The scene could be a summer festival in any European capital. Instead, it played out last month about four hours’ drive from the Kremlin, the seat of power that ordered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The event, called Outline and held from 18-24 July, is one of this summer’s leading techno festivals in Russia. It drew thousands of Russian partygoers and featured performances by more than a dozen prominent western DJs. Since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, most western musicians and artists have cancelled their concerts in Russia as a protest against the aggression. Yet, as…

Public allegations of sexual harassment are rare in China. Swift responses to punish the accused are rarer still. So a recent case at one of China’s top universities, in which a student posted a video online accusing her supervisor of sexually harassing her, leading to his sacking, has created shockwaves. On 21 July, a woman who identified herself as Wang Di posted an hour-long video on Weibo, in which she accused her PhD supervisor at Renmin University in Beijing, Wang Guiyuan, of physically and verbally abusing her for more than two years. The professor, a former Chinese Communist party representative at the university, threatened to block her graduation prospects, Wang Di said. Her video included an audio recording of one encounter in which a man is asking to kiss a…

Ask Anca Selariu what it was like living on Mars for a year, and there is no hesitation in her answer: “Absolutely exhilarating.” The US navy microbiologist is one of four Nasa crew members who returned to Earth last month after becoming the first humans to reside on the red planet, or at least the closest thing the US space agency has to it. Selariu and her fellow explorers, all volunteers, spent 378 days isolated from the rest of humanity locked inside Mars Dune Alpha, a 158 sq metre 3D-printed habitat at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. It was built to replicate the living conditions and challenges astronauts will ultimately face when they get to Mars, ambitiously scheduled for the late 2030s. For Selariu, who already possessed what she…

We live in an era of private dynasties. America’s billionaires are worth a cool $5.5tn at the last count. Three – Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – are worth over a staggering $500bn between them. Americans dominate the global billionaire league table: Britain has none in the top hundred. But we still have enough to cause concern. Individuals who have resources on this scale change the dynamics of the societies in which they live, as the US increasingly dramatises. Their spending pulls economies out of kilter so that too much production is directed towards opulent, useless baubles, but, more dangerously, it spills over into buying political influence – directly in the political process and indirectly via media ownership. Unconstrained, the impact can only grow in…

Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture. The Beatles’ Red Album. A flimsy single, Boom! Shake the Room, by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and Now That’s What I Call Music! 24. I thought about these treasured objects – my first CDs, bought or gifted to me in the mid-1990s – when I read the other day that CD sales were now enjoying a bounce. I felt pleased at the news of a resurgence, as you might on hearing something nice about an old friend you long ago lost touch with. It made me think of being 10 years old, newly in possession of a plasticky portable stereo. With a CD player, you could boom and shake your room on infinite repeat. You could digitally programme the…

Donal Ryan made a stir straight out of the gate. His first novel, The Spinning Heart, published a dozen years ago, won the Guardian first book award and was longlisted for the Booker prize. A work of choral elegance, it is told in a sequence of 21 voices, inhabitants of a community in County Tipperary, Ireland – where Ryan himself is from – and unspooled the long and bitter wake of the 2008 financial crash in Ireland. Some compared the book to Edgar Lee Masters’ lyrical Spoon River Anthology; William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying also comes to mind. Since then, Ryan has published five more novels and a book of short stories, firmly establishing himself in a generation of remarkable Irish writers – Claire Kilroy, Claire-Louise Bennett, Kevin Barry,…

Across 1 Worldwide (6) 4 Sanctuary (6) 8 Handle (an awkward question) (5) 9 Chewy (meat) (7) 10 Chewy (pasta) (2,5) 11 Secretly tie the knot (5) 12 Brief ___, 1945 film directed by David Lean (9) 17 Heavenly creature? (5) 19 From the distant past (7) 21 Further (a cause) (7) 22 Live (5) 23 Most bashful (6) 24 Thwart (6) Down 1 Loud laugh (6) 2 Behind (7) 3 Accessory (3-2) 5 An excessive amount (of something) (7) 6 (Slang) unfamiliar vocabulary (5) 7 Chaos (6) 9 Guess or gamble (9) 13 Cold-hearted (7) 14 Rare metal, Re, used in the process for making lead-free petrol (7) 15 University setting (6) 16 Liberty or The Little Mermaid? (6) 18 Comical – Disney character (5) 20 Narrow opening (5)…