Innehållsförteckning för 15 August 2025 från Guardian Weekly

Eyewitness Colombia Flowers in the rain A farmer carries a floral arrangement known as a silleta on his back during a heavy downpour at the traditional Silleteros parade in Medellín’s Flower Festival last Sunday. The annual festival, which began in 1957, has in recent years become an increasingly popular tourist attraction for the city. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol213 | Issue№ 7 Guardian Weekly is an edited selection of some of the best journalism found in the Guardian’s digital editions in the UK, US and Australia, and the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The weekly magazine has an international focus and four editions: global, Europe, Australia and North America. The Guardian was founded in 1821, and Guardian Weekly in 1919. We exist to hold…

Making tracks ‘Trainspotting in Tokyo at dusk. The rail lines feel like arteries – pumping life through the metropolis, connecting and dividing in equal measure. A lone figure walks the platform while the city’s towers quietly pulse in the background.’ Do you have a recently taken picture you’d like to share with Guardian Weekly? Scan the QR code or visit theguardian.com/pictures-guardian-weekly and we’ll print your best submissions…

At 9.55am every morning since December, a German Intercity Express (ICE) high-speed train has left the Gare de l’Est in Paris headed, via Strasbourg, Karlsruhe and Frankfurt, for Berlin Hauptbahnhof, where – all being well – it pulls in just over eight hours later. Remarkably, the service is the only direct, high-speed, centre-to-centre rail link between the capitals of the EU’s two biggest countries. Run by Deutsche Bahn (DB) and France’s SNCF, it has been hailed as a milestone in European train travel. It’s not the only new service linking Europe’s cities. From next May, the ČD ComfortJet, operated by the Czech, German and Danish railways, will carry you all the way from Prague to Copenhagen, calling at Dresden, Berlin and Hamburg, in just over 11 hours. Major new routes…

It’s summertime in the northern hemisphere and social media is awash with influencers airing concerns about sunscreen. Among them is the UK reality TV star Sam Faiers, who believes sunscreen is “full of toxic ingredients”. None of her family wore sunscreen, she said, adding that her children had built up “a really good tolerance” to the sun. Some of the claims appear to be fuelled by a US doctor who told his followers: “Be careful what you smear on yourself and your children.” Here we look at the science behind sunscreen and sun exposure. How does sunshine damage skin? High energy ultraviolet (UV) rays cause premature skin ageing and wrinkles by degrading collagen and elastin. Collagen gives skin its firmness and structure, while elastin makes it stretchy. UV rays can…

In the wake of a natural disaster, certain metrics are used to categorise the event: the buildings destroyed; the cost of repair to the nearest million; a single number for the loss of human life. Yet these figures obscure the truth of such events. They make the outcome seem fixed, somehow proportionate. But disasters are chaotic. Their extreme violence magnifies the consequences of every decision: to stay or to move; to run or to hide. Things could have turned out another way. And how would we talk about them then? In Locarno, Switzerland, on the northern shore of Lake Maggiore, lies the mouth of the Maggia River. Follow it north-west and it winds past sandy, tree-shaded beaches, through rocky gorges and into a broad, glacial valley where, for much of…

Who doesn’t love an anteater – apart from ants, obviously? With their long snouts and even longer sticky tongues, they trundle around, slurping up insects like milkshakes. They have handsome, bushy tails, which they wrap around themselves at night like a blanket. And they’re excellent parents. Giant anteater mothers allow their young to cling to their backs, rucksack-style, for up to a year. Indeed, the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí was so taken with the giant anteater that he once took one for a walk through the streets of Paris. And before you ask, no, this wasn’t a cheese dream. There is photographic evidence. As if that weren’t enough, a recent study published in the journal Evolution has found that mammals have evolved into anteaters not once, not twice, but 12…

Can you please explain tamarind? Pods, pulp, paste, concentrate … I can’t keep up with them all. David, via email How does Chaya Maya, development chef at Ottolenghi Test Kitchen, love tamarind? Let her count the ways: “It’s delicious, plus you can use it in sweet and savoury dishes, or to make lemonade, which we do in Mauritius; it has that sour sharpness that makes your mouth tingle. Actually, we need a tamarind movement.” Also in favour of the pucker fruit is Melissa Thompson, author of Motherland, namely for its “lovely consistency” and ability to “coat things nicely” while adding “depth”. As David says, tamarind comes in various forms, but let’s start with those peanut-shaped pods, which Thompson likes to snack on – just crack open the shell and eat…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 5 Show advertiser dog (6) 6 More than one dog pants (6) 9 Report of standard weapon (6) 10 Order contains coercive measure (8) 11 Fat dog on lead in fact (4) 12 Cobra peeps out, seeing Rover? (5,5) 13 The cat peers out, studying spaniel? (8,3) 18 Locum excited, so seductive? (10) 21 Dog’s dinner? (4) 22 Banker heading for jail with Sunak once and Johnson (1,1,6) 23 Paul’s holding dog back – temper! (6) 24 Yapper, lurcher’s head bitten by parasite (6) 25 Articulation of feeling for money (6) Down 1 Great sacrifices at imperial French city (8) 2 Crime clear, set up for court action (6) 3 Clues: dogs (8) 4 Dog cluer? (6) 5 Dog solver (6) 7 Clue:…

1 UKRAINE/RUSSIA EU backs Kyiv’s sovereignty ahead of Alaska summit All but one of the European heads of state and government said that Ukrainians must have the freedom to decide their future, ahead of a summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Friday. “Meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities,” the leaders said, adding that “we share the conviction that a diplomatic solution must protect Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests.” The statement, published on Tuesday, was meant to be a demonstration of European unity and was endorsed by all EU leaders except Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who is Putin’s closest ally in Europe. Europeans are attempting to exert some influence over the summit in Alaska that they have been…

A vintage Citroën car burnt by a recent wildfire is seen in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse in the southern Aude region. Massive wildfires raged across more than 17,000 hectares last week, killing one person and injuring several more. By last weekend firefighters had contained the blaze, France’s largest wildfire for 75 years. High temperatures across Europe have alarmed experts as firefighters struggle to contain destructive wildfires. Deadly heat of up to 42C was expected in southern Europe this week, as scientists warned of a “molotov cocktail” of climatic conditions fuelling vast wildfires across the Mediterranean. In Italy, where temperatures of 40C were expected in places this week, tourist trails were closed on Mount Vesuvius last Sunday as firefighters fought a blaze on the slopes of the volcano. In Spain, fires that broke out…

Our connection to nature has declined by more than 60% since 1800, almost exactly mirroring the disappearance of nature words such as river, moss and blossom from books, according to a study. Computer modelling predicts that levels of nature connectedness will continue to decline unless there are far-reaching policy and societal changes – with introducing children to nature at a young age and radically greening urban environments the most effective interventions. The study, by Miles Richardson, professor of nature connectedness at the University of Derby, tracks the loss of nature from people’s lives over 220 years by using data on urbanisation, the loss of wildlife in neighbourhoods, and parents no longer passing on engagement with nature to their children. In the research, published in the journal Earth, Richardson identifies the…

It is known as the “iceberg capital of the world” but Ilulissat in northern Greenland is also a town divided in a dispute over the cruise ships that bring tourists to see its frozen wonders. Its Unesco-listed icefjord draws thousands of visitors in the summer months, each potentially bringing lucrative business to the town. But frustrated local tour operators say they are being shut out by larger companies from elsewhere in Greenland and Denmark, who are undercutting local businesses or excluding them entirely. Ilulissat’s mayor, Lars Erik Gabrielsen, has called on residents to protest against the cruise ship arrivals, drawing the ire of a minister in the territory’s government, who has accused him of scaring off tourists. The community, he said, is divided between those who have chosen to work…

When Melania Trump arrives in Britain for her husband’s second state visit next month, it will not just be the photographic pack straining for clues as to her opaque mood or signs of froideur in their marriage. It will also be British officials. Six months into his second term as US president, a period in which Donald Trump has pirouetted on just about every big international issue, mandarins in Whitehall realise they need to focus less time on trying to tame him, and more on looking at his wife. Trump’s recent golfing visit to the UK underlined the feeling that the first lady is the single biggest influence on her husband. They believe Melania was behind Trump’s volte-face declaring Palestinians in Gaza were starving; and the president acknowledged it was…

If you have a mental image of a Nobel prizewinner, Demis Hassabis probably doesn’t fit it. Relatively young (he’s 49), mixed race (his father is Greek-Cypriot, his mother Chinese-Singaporean), state-educated, he didn’t exactly look out of place receiving his medal from the king of Sweden in December, amid a sea of grey-haired men, but it was “very surreal”, he admits. “I’m really bad at enjoying the moment. I’ve won prizes in the past, and I’m always thinking, ‘What’s the next thing?’ But this one was really special. It’s something you dream about as a kid.” Well, maybe not you, but certainly him. Hassabis was marked out as exceptional from a young age – he was a chess prodigy when he was four. Today, arguably, he’s one of the most important people…

I don’t have access to the employment contract, but find myself increasingly intrigued by a question: how many days annual leave does a vice-president of the United States get? In the past five months alone, JD Vance has been on a skiing holiday, then a family trip to Disneyland, then a kayaking jaunt in Ohio – and last week he pitched up for a stay in the Cotswolds. Let’s face it: if Vance were a politician in this country, he’d have been fitted with an unflattering holiday-related nickname months ago, and no one would take him remotely seriously. Still, time for another well-earned rest for Vacay Vance/the right honourable member for the Sun Lounger. And something of a break in tradition with recent times, in which he has preferred to…

It was as if someone had made a film to scream to me: this is a bad guy! Get away! In the first five minutes of the 2013 comedy drama The Way Way Back, a teenage boy has a conversation with his stepfather in a car bound for Cape Cod. You can only see the stepdad’s eyes in the rearview mirror, but you instantly know it’s Steve Carell. At this point, I loved Carell. He’s the reason that I, then a teenager, watched the film. “Duncan … let me ask you something,” Carell’s character says. “On a scale of one to 10, what do you think you are?” Duncan responds shyly that he thinks he’s a six. Any normal adult would balk and correct him. Tell him he’s nothing less…

Across 1 Out-of-this-world holidays? (5,7) 9 Indian, eg (5) 10 Condemned – belittled (7) 11 Mediterranean selection of dishes (4) 12 Reacting badly (8) 14 Long confection (6) 15 Needle keeping bonnet on head (6) 18 Studhorse (8) 20 Cold-shoulder (4) 22 Forbidden (7) 23 Peer (5) 24 Mazy (12) Down 2 Knotty snack? (7) 3 Subgroup’s jargon – Play School’s Brian (4) 4 Wee – slightly sozzled (6) 5 US (5,3) 6 Cake topper (5) 7 Sphere used for strengthening exercises (8,4) 8 Of a romance (3-5-4) 13 Resident of hamlet (8) 16 Batman’s adversary – biscuit – waddler (7) 17 Ugly little creature (6) 19 Bald I (anag.) (2-3) 21 Net fabric (4) Solution No 17,232…

IMMIGRATION Party leaders urged to end rhetoric fuelling protests More than 200 refugee organisations, charities and trade unions have signed an open letter calling on Britain’s political leaders to end “pernicious and insidious currents” of racism and hatred that underpin a slew of anti-migrant protests. The letter, coordinated by the campaign coalition Together With Refugees, has been signed by organisations including Amnesty International UK, City of Sanctuary UK, Doctors of the World, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Islamic Relief, Oxfam and Refugee Action. It was drafted in response to weeks of protests outside asylum seeker hotels across the country, often countered by anti-racism activists. The protests have come against a backdrop of inflammatory language or misinformation from politicians including the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and the senior Conservative…

Seen from the air, Gaza looks like the ruins of an ancient civilisation, brought to light after centuries of darkness. A patchwork of concrete shapes and shattered walls, neighbourhoods left with craters, rubble and roads that lead nowhere. The remnants of cities wiped out. But here, there has been no natural disaster and no slow passage of time. Gaza was a bustling, living place until less than two years ago, for all the challenges its residents endured even then. Its markets were crowded, its streets full of children. That Gaza is gone – not buried under volcanic ash, not erased by history, but razed by an Israeli military campaign that has left behind a place that looks like the aftermath of an apocalypse. The Guardian was granted permission last Tuesday…

Zamzam Camp, Sudan Friday 11 April 2025 At just 22 years old, nurse Hanadi Dawood was an expert in the myriad ways poverty could kill. She knew straight away if a child would last the day; you learn such skills in a place where an infant dies every two hours. Hanadi ran a small health centre in Zamzam, a sprawling displacement camp in Sudan’s Darfur region, the heart of what the UN and NGOs have said is one of the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophes. Her clinic was already busy before breakfast on 11 April but outside Zamzam, the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group was massing on three sides. Some believed the RSF might hold off. Zamzam’s 500,000 residents, predominantly women and children, were virtually defenceless. They were also starving to…

At 81, Deborah Hinton, a former British magistrate who was honoured by the late Queen Elizabeth II for services to the community, seems an unlikely terrorist suspect. In the quiet town in south-west England where she lives, much of her retirement is spent walking along the cliffs, raising funds for the nearby cathedral choir, and supporting local charities. But last month she was detained in a police cell for seven hours, fingerprinted and had a DNA swab taken from her mouth. It was the first time she had been arrested, and the experience left her “in a state of trauma” and “shaking uncontrollably”. She could face a jail sentence of six months under UK terrorism legislation. Hinton is among several hundred Britons arrested in recent months for peacefully protesting about…

Saengduean Lek Chailert was five years old when she saw an elephant for the first time. It was in chains, lumbering past her home in rural Thailand on its way to help loggers pull trees from the forest. Back then, she saw the giant mammals like everyone else did – as animals that served humans. But that changed when she was 16. The turning point came when Chailert heard a terrible noise from the forest. She scrambled through the trees until she found the source: a bull elephant scrabbling in the mud as it tried and failed to drag a log out of a ditch. Every failed attempt was met with punishment from the loggers and mahout, the elephant keeper. One would fire a sling shot at the animal, another…

Russian words echoed through the corridors of Gonjiam middle school as a woman from Uzbekistan addressed a classroom of teenagers grappling with the Korean language. “How do you speak with Korean friends?” she asked. The responses were halting. Some use translation apps. Others rely on classmates who speak better Korean. They are ethnic Korean children, mainly from former Soviet republics, caught between cultures in a country to which their parents moved for work and stability. Their instructor, Luiza Sakhabutdinova, an assistant professor who came to South Korea 17 years ago, is one of 39 mentors from 21 countries deployed in programmes nationwide to foster social cohesion. The sessions, part of a governmentled programme in the city of Gwangju, in Gyeonggi province, 40km southeast of Seoul, offer a glimpse into the…

If you’ve locked your phone in a drawer, hidden the newspaper down the sofa or unplugged the radio, I wouldn’t blame you. Just glimpsing or half-hearing the headlines can be enough to plunge you into a sinkhole of gloom. If it’s not the Trump administration ending $500m worth of funding for the very vaccine programmes that helped rescue billions from the menace of Covid – as part of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s determined effort to rollback mass immunisation, one of the greatest gifts science has given humankind – it’s the ongoing agony of Gaza, only set to increase after Benjamin Netanyahu responded to a global outcry over his use of starvation as a weapon not by moving to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the strip, as so desperately…

With “Untitled” (America), the Whitney celebrates 10 years in its new space and offers visitors a statement on what the museum is all about. Combing the institution’s archives, it brings together 80 years of American art, from the turn of the century up through the 1980s. When art historian and Whitney chief curator Kim Conaty was curating “Untitled” (America), she envisioned the Whitney as a place of refuge and nourishment for artists who have furnished new ways of seeing and new historical narratives. “When I think of the very brave work of artists over decades,” she said via video interview, “I’m excited by how it’s possible for us now through their work to see the questions they have put forth. We need to give our support to those artists who…

Behind the pannier market in Tavistock, one can take a break from shopping and peer over the riverside wall to view the River Tavy. The rain-fed flow that rises on Dartmoor is as unpredictable as the weather. After heavy downpours the river will race by in a rage. But it is lean and listless today, in little hurry to reach the sea, dawdling through rocky gullies and unwinding in languid glides. Low water and bright sunlight mean that trout are visible. Beneath them I notice what at first resembles a section of discarded cable – until it moves, snaking over the stony riverbed in front of me: an eel. At one time they were so plentiful they were taken for granted. No longer. Overfishing, disease and dams have caused European…