Innehållsförteckning för 29 November 2024 från Guardian Weekly

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

In Kyiv, as autumn turns fast to winter, Ukrainians in the government describe a vacuum before the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House on 20 January. “Trump has said he wants to end the war within 24 hours. Nobody is more interested in this topic than Ukraine,” a senior official told the Guardian. “But the problem is, for the moment, everything is just speculation.” Ukraine is in “a difficult but not catastrophic position” and has little choice but to fight on and perhaps show Trump that backing Kyiv is not a losing bet. What helped last week was an 11th-hour change of heart by the current US president, Joe Biden, whose White House briefed that the US would allow its Atacms missiles, with a range of 300km, to…

The international criminal court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza has been welcomed by Palestinians as a landmark moment in their decade-long fight to challenge the Israeli occupation through international institutions. Last week’s announcement from the international criminal court’s (ICC) pretrial chamber of arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, sent shock waves through the legal system. As the first time that officials from a democratic, western-allied state have been charged with war crimes, it is seen as the most significant action taken by the court. “We had no illusions about how tough this road was going to be. Every step leading to this moment was difficult, but Palestine stayed the course,” said Ammar Hijazi,…

An unprecedented year of elections around the world has underscored a sobering trend – in many countries the commitment to act on the climate crisis has either stalled or is eroding, even as disasters and record temperatures continue to mount. So far 2024, called the “biggest election year in human history” by the UN with around half the world’s population heading to the polls, there have been major wins for Donald Trump, who calls the climate crisis “a big hoax”; the climate-sceptic right in European Union elections; and Vladimir Putin, who won another term and has endured sanctions to maintain Russia’s robust oil and gas exports. “It’s quite clear that in most advanced economies the big loser of the elections has been climate,” said Catherine Fieschi, an expert in European…

In the small town of Newtown Mount Kennedy, a holding centre for people who have just arrived in Ireland seeking asylum lies in the wooded grounds of Trudder House, a former convent. The building itself is disused and off-limits. Instead, men arriving from countries such as Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria are housed in 12-16 makeshift tents, separated from the town by a 3-metretall fence daubed with graffiti reading: “Newtown says no.” Craig Bishop, a retired GP who is part of Newtown Together, a group of volunteers trying to support the camp’s residents, said the barricade created an immediate sense of “them and us”. “They come all this way for protection only to be behind a fence to be protected from who? From the locals,” he said. Even before it was…

When the Barbados National Archives, home to one of the world’s most significant collections of documents from the transatlantic slave trade, reported in June that it had been struck by lightning, it received sympathy and offers of support locally and internationally. A section of the 60-year-old building, Block D, located on the grounds of the “Lazaretto” (a former colony for people with leprosy), caught fire, and sustained serious damage. Official documents including hospital and school records were lost. “It was not just paper that was in the building, but documents that have stories about our families and ancestors,” said the chief archivist, Ingrid Thompson. Although the slave trade archives were unharmed, the incident has intensified concerns about rising lightning activity in the region and its impact on infrastructure and cultural…

Forty years ago this month, a group of pop stars gathered at a west London studio to record a single that would raise millions, inspire further starry projects, and ultimately change charity fundraising in the UK. Do They Know It’s Christmas?, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s festive charity behemoth, would go on to raise almost £150m ($190m) for famine relief and development in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa. To mark the anniversary, this week a new version of the single – its fifth – was released under the name Band Aid 40. Four decades on, however, is Band Aid doing harm as well as good? That was the suggestion of a statement made last week by Ed Sheeran, who sang on the version of the single released in 2014 and…

Thanks to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, which once dreamed of being a light unto the nations, has taken a step closer to becoming a leper among the nations. The Israeli prime minister and the defence minister he sacked three weeks ago, Yoav Gallant, are now wanted men, the subject of arrest warrants issued last Thursday by the international criminal court (ICC), accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. From now on, some 124 countries are effectively closed to them: if Netanyahu or Gallant set foot in any member state of the ICC, they face the risk of arrest. The UK government says it will follow the law, which sounds like a commitment to detain the two men if they come to Britain. They are to be shunned,…

In Dan Brown’s thriller Angels and Demons (2000), the protagonist, Robert Langdon, combs the Vatican archives for proof that the astronomer Galileo Galilei was involved with the sinister secret society known as the Illuminati. He is stunned to discover a manuscript containing four cryptic lines of poetry, not in Latin or Italian, but, his companion tells him, “written in English”. “English?” Langdon gasps, disbelievingly (the breathy italics are both Brown’s). Not only are the lines in English, but their author, despite belonging to a clandestine group, has obligingly put his name to them: “The poem is signed John Milton.” As Langdon’s mind boggles, it helpfully spells out the relevant facts: “John Milton? The influential English poet who wrote Paradise Lost?… he was still dazed over the document’s spellbinding implications.” Warning…

It had been a mild start to autumn, with perhaps only one morning with a light frost at the start, and the temperatures had remained above freezing in early November. The year’s moving inexorably on, though, and you can feel it in the pinewoods, where the gloaming starts even earlier than in the open. In among the Scots pines, the golds and yellows of the leaves that still linger on some of the birches and the bright splashes of red rowan berries seem to glow in the low autumn sun. There are still one or two lovely heads of purple devil’s-bit scabious too. A wren trills from somewhere inside an old juniper bush, but for a good 20 minutes the woods are near-silent. I’m distracted by tiny movements to my…

1 UNITED STATES Criminal case against Trump dismissed Special counsel prosecutors dismissed the criminal case against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election as they bowed to the reality that it would not be completed or proceed to trial before Trump returns to the presidency next year. The withdrawal in the case marked the end of the years-long legal battle between Trump and the special counsel, Jack Smith. Trump’s election victory was always going to spell the end of the criminal cases against him due to justice department policy that prohibits prosecutors from taking criminal action against a sitting president. Trump vowed to pursue the prosecutors and federal investigators involved in the cases. In anticipation of an expected legal retribution effort, Smith and his top deputies are expected…

The skies above the White House were cold and grey. Joe Biden greeted the championship-winning Boston Celtics team, quipping about his Irish ancestry and tossing a basketball into the crowd. But the US president could not resist drawing a wider lesson. “When we get knocked down, we get back up,” he said. “As my dad would say: ‘Just get up, Joe. Get up.’ Character to keep going and keep the faith, that’s the Celtic way of life. That’s sports. And that’s America.” Such events continue to be among the ceremonial duties of a lame duck president with waning influence. Biden has cut a diminished figure, first surrendering his chance to seek re-election, then finding himself sidelined by vice-president Kamala Harris’s doomed presidential campaign. But with his legacy imperilled by Donald…

The first time I met John Prescott, we were in a helicopter flying over east London where he and Tony Blair, the then prime minister, also on board, were announcing a multimillion-pound regeneration plan. It was August 2003 and I was a young pool reporter for the Press Association, there to ask the politicians about their plans. The flight was noisy, so conversation was limited. But as we flew over the Millennium Dome site, which lay empty as the government was struggling to sell it, “Prezza” tapped Blair on the arm and pointed out of the window at the huge structure below, a wide grin on his face. Blair, perhaps unsurprisingly given the flak he’d received for the £1m-a-month ($1.25m) cost of maintaining the site, arched an eyebrow and smiled…

It was only on the last scheduled day of two weeks of negotiations at the UN Cop29 climate summit that developed countries put a financial commitment on the table for the first time. In reality, this offer took not just two weeks of talks to prepare, but nine years – since article 9 of the Paris agreement in 2015 made it clear that the rich industrialised world would be obliged to supply cash to developing countries to help them tackle the climate crisis. When it finally arrived last Friday, the initial offer of $250bn a year by 2035 was widely derided as too low. Early the following morning, the countries upped the figure to $300bn, which ended up being accepted, albeit amid acrimony and cries of “betrayal”. Even in signing…

In the autumn of 2018, I moved to Lisbon for a month-long course at the Universidade de Lisboa. I struggled to find any short-term sublets in the city, so the university stepped in to offer me a shared room in an all-male dormitory. I was surrounded by young, highly educated Portuguese students who all agreed upon one thing: after graduating, they would be leaving the country. Now the coalition government, the centre-right Aliança Democrática, is using this year’s budget to try to stem this brain drain and keep young graduates in Portugal. The proposed policy is a progressive, multi-year tax holiday for those aged 18 to 35 on annual salaries of up to €28,000 ($29,200). But is this the right approach? Emigration is a huge issue: 30% of young people…

It looks faintly like one half of a small pair of very fluffy slippers. It squeaks and wriggles and nestles in the palm of my hand, black eyes hidden beneath a mop of silvery-white fur. It doesn’t need to be fed or walked and it doesn’t use a litter tray; it’s guaranteed not to leave “gifts” on my doorstep. Which is just as well, as Moflin is about to become my pet. Before I am entrusted with the welfare of Japan’s latest AI companion robot, I meet its developers at the Tokyo headquarters of Casio, the consumer electronics firm that launched it commercially this month, priced at 59,400 yen ($380). “Moflin’s role is to build relationships with humans,” says Casio’s Erina Ichikawa. I have just a week to establish a…

The Australian government has proposed a ban on social media for all citizens under 16. Citing the success of recently introduced restrictions on mobile phones in Australian schools, the prime minister announced the ban by declaring that it’s “doing harm to our kids and I’m calling time on it”. Yes, the American Psychological Association found teens with the highest social media use rate their overall mental health as poor or very poor. Yes, research from the University of Cambridge shows social media does not mitigate adolescent feelings of loneliness or isolation overall – rather, reports suggest online exposure can increase the prevalence of suicidal thoughts in the young. Cyberbullying, cyberstalking, catfishing, trolling, deepfake porn and doxing exist as concepts because social media culture has spawned them. Even so, there are…

‘People are intimidated by cooking rice, because there are many different ways to do it,” says Will Bowlby, chef and co-founder of Kricket in London. “There are no set rules.” That said, he adds, it’s all about ratios, and about handling the rice correctly. Whether we’re talking basmati or another long-grain rice, it’s crucial to rinse it in cold water first, to get rid of its starchy coating. Once the water is running clear, soak the rice for a while. However, as the Guardian’s Felicity Cloake found on her quest for the perfect basmati rice, there are differing opinions on how long you should do this for. She tried half an hour, an hour and three hours, concluding: “There’s little to choose between the three soaked grains, but it’s more…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 1 First of all the Apple store knows Steve Jobs (5) 4 Non-magical type in school Dumbledore initially ran (8) 8 Wild cat didn’t start to eat mouse oddly (14) 10/11 Eyes plastered with gooey mascara as artist hides nonchalant attitude (4,4,4,2) 12 Cause of confusion in second donkey race (5,4) 15 Occasionally plump for Tango – going back for refill (3,2) 17 Maiden I see after regularly visiting guest house, for example (5) 18 Evan Davis extremely relaxed starting Radio 4 show (5,4) 19/21 Vacuous boy getting into briefs slowly (6,2,6) 24 Witch’s cat maybe understood real meaning (8,6) 25 Sign of distress as Predator’s broadcast (8) 26 Supermarket converting a lake into huge outdoor pools (5) Down 1 General effect of…

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EXTREME WEATHER Forecasters and politicians criticised after flooding Weather forecasters and politicians came in for strong criticism when hundreds of homes and businesses across the UK suffered devastating flooding after Storm Bert hit last weekend, but the Met Office said it issued sufficient warning. There were complaints in south Wales, one of the areas most heavily hit, that the Met Office issued only a yellow warning, rather than an amber or red, and that not enough new defences had been put in place by the Welsh government since storms last wreaked havoc in the area four years ago. A Met Office spokesperson said: “ Storm Bert was well forecast, 48 hours in advance, with a number of warnings in place ahead of the system reaching the UK. ” Hundreds of…

The lead-clad telegraphic cable seemed to weigh tons, according to US navy lieutenant Cameron Winslow, and the weather wasn’t helping their attempts to lift it up from the seabed and sever it. “The rough water knocked the heavy boats together, breaking and almost crushing in their planking.” Eventually, Winslow’s men managed to cut the cable with hacksaws and disrupt the enemy’s communications by slicing off a 45-metre section. This was in 1898 off the cost of Cuba during the Spanish-American war. More than a century later, subsea communications cables remain a target during times of geopolitical tension. On 17 and 18 November, two fibre-optic cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged in an act that the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said was probably sabotage. Swedish police have said a…

Orange crush Lava swallows up a road near Grindavík, in the country’s south-western Reykjanes peninsula, after the Sundhnúkur fissure saw its seventh eruption since December 2023. Iceland’s seismic monitors said the eruption started with little warning last Wednesday and created a long fissure but looked to be smaller than eruptions in August and May. Around 50 houses were evacuated after the civil protection agency issued an alert, along with guests at the famous Blue Lagoon resort, according to the national broadcaster. The repeated eruptions over the past year have caused damage to the town of Grindavík and forced residents to relocate.…

Last summer, the western Arctic was uncomfortably hot. Smoke from Canada’s wildfires hung thick in the air, and swarms of mosquitoes searched for exposed skin. It was a maddening combination that left researchers on Qikiqtaruk, an island off the north coast of the Yukon, desperate for relief. And so on a late July afternoon, a team of Canadian scientists dived into the Beaufort Sea, bobbing and splashing in a sheltered bay for nearly two hours. Later, as they lay sprawled on a beach, huge chunks of the island they were studying slid into the ocean. “The land was giving us hints of what was to come,” said Richard Gordon, a senior ranger. “Days before, we found all these puddles of clear water. But it hadn’t rained at all in days;…

In the Palm Tree pub, east London, barman Alf is taking only cash at the rattling 1960s till. The building, which is Grade II-listed, stands in the middle of Mile End Park, and Alf has worked here since 1976. “It’s a wonderful pub,” he said. It is also ranked fifth in Time Out’s 50 Best Pubs in London list, published this month, and marks a preference that has emerged for traditional boozers. The majority of pubs in the top 50 are old-school, with carpets, karaoke or Irish music nights. Pickled eggs are often the extent of the culinary output. From the outside, the Palm Tree’s windows glow a dark red. “Sometimes it might look closed, but always try that door. There’s always a warm welcome, for everyone,” said Alf. And…

Vang Vieng is an unlikely party hub. Surrounded by striking limestone mountains and caves in central Laos, it morphed from a small farming town to a hedonistic tourist destinationin theearly2000s. Twentysomething backpackers are lured to the town by tubing on the Nam Song River, an activity in which travellers float downstream on inflatables between bars set among spectacular scenery. The experience has cemented Vang Vieng’s spot on south-east Asia’s famed backpacker trail. While a spate of backpacker deaths led to a crackdown on bars and a temporary tubing ban in 2012, the town, a 90-minute drive from the capital, Vientiane, has remained popular with tourists. Last week, a 19-year-old Australian, Holly Bowles, became the sixth person to die in an incident linked to the suspected consumption of drinks laced with…

AFTER CATASTROPHIC FLOODS engulfed Valencia last month, killing more than 200 people, it might seem counterintuitive to think about water shortages. But as the torrents of filthy water swept through towns and villages, people were left without electricity, food supplies – and drinking water. “It was brutal: cars, chunks of machinery, big stones, even dead bodies were swept along in the water. It gushed into the ground floor of buildings, into little shops, bakeries, hairdressers, the English school, bars: all were destroyed. This was climate change for real, climate change in capital letters,” says Josep de la Rubia of Valencia’s Ecologists in Action, describing the scene in towns south of the Valencian capital. In the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of people were reliant on emergency tankers of water or donations…

The resolutions reached at Cop29 on tackling the climate crisis, early last Sunday morning, are gravely disappointing but better than nothing. And “nothing” was almost the result of this climate conference in Baku. This was one of the most difficult of the 29 Cops I have followed. The deal falls a long way short of hopes at the start of the summit, and even further behind what the world urgently needs. But coming after negotiations that frequently teetered on the edge of collapse, the result does keep climate talks alive, and has laid the first ever international foundation, however weak, on which the world could finally construct a system of financing poor countries’ transition away from fossil fuels. The meeting was always going to be difficult, given that it requires…

Andrew Miller is a master of nuance, expert at exploring the various chambers of the human heart. In his Impacwinning debut, 1997’s Ingenious Pain, the protagonist is a doctor incapable of sensation, while in the Booker-shortlisted Oxygen, a Hungarian exile is plagued by a mistake in his past. In The Crossing, scientist and sailor Maud Stamp chooses the loneliness of the ocean over the trappings of convention; while the demands of a vocation take on more visceral form in the Costa-winning Pure, in which engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte is charged with clearing an overfilled Parisian graveyard just before the Revolution. Now, in The Land in Winter, Miller turns to the difficulty of loving in an unlovely world. The book opens with a tragedy: a young man’s suicide at night, in the…

China’s world champion Ding Liren, 32, and his Indian rival Gukesh Dommaraju, at 18 the youngest ever title challenger, met for the opening ceremony of their $2.6m 14-game world title match in Singapore last Saturday, with the first game starting on Monday. This is the 50th contest for the crown since 1886, and the first where both contestants are Asian. The No 1 player of the time was almost always a participant, but not in 2023 or 2024. Currently Gukesh is No 5 in the rankings, while Ding is at No 23. The world champion has not won a single classical game since January. Gukesh is the 1-5 odds-on favourite, while Ding is 10-3 against. Magnus Carlsen, the game’s dominant player, who was champion for a decade until he abdicated…

Across 1 Astaire and Rogers musical (3,3) 4 Guerrilla warfare technique (6) 8 Clerical headdress (5) 9 Sport with masked participants (7) 10 Roar (7) 11 Angler’s basket (5) 12 Aggressive insect (6,3) 17 Patissier’s decoration (5) 19 Workshop where leather is made (7) 21 Hue and cry (7) 22 Grind (5) 23 Surreptitious (6) 24 Purloined (6) Down 1 Fruit you wouldn’t put in a fruit salad (6) 2 A situation dependent on chance (3,4) 3 Up (5) 5 Hired conveyance (7) 6 Band together (5) 7 Partner of mightily? (6) 9 Circus performer (4-5) 13 Written record (7) 14 Stare at (7) 15 Someone born on March 1st, say (6) 16 Programming language (6) 18 Fatuous (5) 20 Time when people retire? (5) Solution No 17,011…