Innehållsförteckning för 3 October 2025 från Guardian Weekly

The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol213 | Issue№ 14 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 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…

Last month, a swarm of Russian drones violated Poland’s borders. Some were shot down. A few days later, another Russian drone overflew Romania en route to Ukraine. The Romanian air defence let it get away. Then, on 19 September, three Russian MiG-31 fighters intruded into Estonia’s airspace. Italian F-35s – in the area on a Nato mission – intercepted the Russians and saw them off. Russia has violated Nato’s airspace before, but the extent and the brazen nature of these latest provocations make them stand out. Incursions will end only when the intruders are shot down. Fortunately, shooting down an occasional Russian fighter jet, never mind drones, is unlikely to lead to a broader escalation. It may even help to cool down tensions by reinforcing the red lines. The cold…

For 17 months, since May 2024, El Fasher, North Darfur’s capital, has been trapped in one of the longest urban sieges of modern warfare. The siege, progressively tightened by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has transformed the city. Trenches cut through neighbourhoods. Civilians move block by block in search of safety, while self-defence groups fight along-side entrenched garrisons. The city has become Sudan’s war in microcosm, where the old tactics of siege and starvation collide with new arsenal: drones and recently introduced weapons turning the city into a testing ground for modern warfare. Since the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) retook Khartoum in April 2025, the RSF has intensified its shelling of El Fasher. “From three or four in the morning, often until late,” one resident said. “We know the schedule.…

Politicians tend to prefer different awkward euphemisms when they talk about the extreme right. “Divisive” has so far been the descriptor of choice for Keir Starmer. But last weekend the prime minister went further. It was racist, he said, unequivocally, for Reform UK to pledge to end indefinite leave to remain, a policy that threatens the lives of people long settled in Britain. “It’s immoral and to be called out for what it is,” he told the BBC. Starmer’s words were the start of a bigger argument that he was expected to make in his speech this week at the Labour party conference in Liverpool. The prime minister and senior strategists think Reform’s policy on indefinite leave to remain has been an overreach. To call out Reform’s policy as racist…

By night, Lamine Hanoun works as a hospital guard in Bir Moghrein, near Mauritania’s border with Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. By day, he twiddles his phone, checking TikTok and Facebook, from where he sells meteorites to international buyers. In this former French colonial garrison town, network signals come and go like the dusty wind. On a recent morning when the connection disappeared again and the Starlink at the local customs office was unavailable, he drove his silver Mitsubishi GLX to the town’s outskirts. “I worked for 10 years in construction in Andalusia, but then my aged mother fell sick,” said Hanoun, who is fluent in Spanish, French and Hassaniya, the Mauritanian dialect of Arabic. “So I came back to be a goat herder, and one day I started looking for the…

Donald Trump’s long public campaign to get someone in his administration to bring criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director he fired in 2017, finally succeeded last Thursday, but the president has been so public about his loathing of the indicted man, and his desire to see him jailed, that it might be hard for prosecutors to convince a jury that the case was not brought for political reasons. Comey was fired by Trump in 2017 after he reportedly refused a request to pledge his loyalty to the newly elected president, and then publicly confirmed to Congress that the FBI was conducting a counterintelligence investigation of Russian efforts to help Trump get elected in 2016. Trump’s firing of Comey backfired, however, because it helped convince then deputy attorney…

‘I’M A PERSON WHO DOESN’T SAY VERY MUCH,” Björn Borg says with a wry smile. Which may be the understatement of the century. Borg, the greatest tennis player of his day, has spent 42 years saying nothing since he announced his retirement at the age of 26. When he broke that news in 1983, it was one of the biggest shocks in the history of sport. Not simply because he was at his peak but also because he was the rock star tennis player – beautiful, mysterious and followed by a flock of teenybopper fans. When Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz triumphed in the US Open earlier this month, aged 22, he became the second youngest player to have won six major tournaments. Borg beat him by four months. Borg was actually…

‘Your countries are going to hell,” Donald Trump tells European members of the UN general assembly, as he rages against what he calls “the failed experiment of open borders”. His disciple Nigel Farage looks ahead to mass deportations, and the end of indefinite leave to remain. Keir Starmer, meanwhile, is identifying Reform UK as his “enemy”, while sometimes getting dangerously close to a polite version of the same language. Recent immigration, he wrote in the Telegraph recently, was caused by “a hyper-liberal free-market viewpoint”. Above all, he and his colleagues must use “every possible measure to deter migrants from entering British waters”. A couple of weeks ago, I was recording an episode of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast in Kent, where I came across the most strange scenes. We were…

How do I prevent the cheese from clumping in my cacio e pepe sauce? Samuel, by email The first thing to note, says Guardian Feast’s Italian correspondent Rachel Roddy, is that it’s “so annoying and so common. In fact, a lot of the responsibility lies with recipe writers, because, traditionally, cacio e pepe wasn’t this creamy, emulsified dish that we all make now. It was just cooked spaghetti with cheese on it.” She continues: “People are so good now at using the pasta cooking water, but that means everything is hotter.” And that, she says, is the cause of Samuel’s cheese-clumping plight: “When cheese gets too hot, the solids lose their fat and liquid, and turn into these horrid little blobs.” The line between melted and coagulated is a fine…

1 UNITED STATES/ISRAEL Accept peace deal or face consequences, Hamas told Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an ultimatum to Hamas, warning the group to accept their 20-point peace plan for Gaza or face the consequences. The two leaders of the US and Israel met at the White House in Washington on Monday then held a joint press briefing in which they hailed their proposal as historic and a new chapter for the Middle East. Both Trump and Netanyahu made clear they were not offering Hamas a choice in the matter. If the group refused, Trump told reporters, “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas.” Later, in a video statement published on his Telegram channel discussing his visit to the US, Netanyahu…

It was perhaps inevitable that a proposal to build a military base on the outskirts of Narva, Estonia’s third largest city, located directly on the country’s border with Russia, featured in last week’s TV debate among the candidates vying to be mayor. Just days earlier, three MiG-31 Russian fighter jets had entered and stayed in Estonia’s airspace above the Gulf of Finland for 12 minutes, prompting the Estonian government to call rare article 4 consultations with Nato allies over a risk to “territorial integrity, political independence or security”. Estonia upped the stakes by bringing the issue to the UN security council in New York where western allies warned of dire consequences of further breaches. Donald Trump signalled his support for shooting down Russian jets. The febrile geopolitical climate was then…

At first glance, the 20-point plan outlined by Donald Trump and agreed by Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Monday appears more likely to end the two-year conflict in Gaza than anything we have seen so far. The two leaders met at the White House in Washington then held a joint press briefing in which they hailed their proposal as a historic breakthrough and new chapter for the Middle East. But it was clear that Hamas had not been consulted and its position on the terms remained uncertain. Mahmoud Mardawi, a Hamas official, said the group had not even received the plan at the time of the announcement, the Reuters news agency reported. It was later briefed that Qatari and Egyptian mediators met with Hamas on Monday evening to provide the…

It is sunrise on mount Muhabura, an inactive volcano on the Ugandan-Rwandan border, and Dr Benard Ssebide is in a rush to find a family of mountain gorillas before the tourists arrive. A mass of ferns, vines and thistles encroaches on the path, and the guides hack through brambles with machetes. Above, the forest whistles in the wind, glowing in the morning light. “The higher you go, the more the mountain pushes back,” Ssebide says, pausing for breath. After nearly 45 minutes, a ranger spots patches of flattened grass and large piles of fresh, dark green dung. We are close. Then the forest suddenly opens up to nine mountain gorillas – the Nyakagezi family – having their breakfast in a clearing. The silverback munches his way through a thistle, throwing…

The night of 29 May was sombre at 15 Mitsaki Street, a women’s shelter in central Athens. Clothes, toiletries and sheets lay strewn around – belongings the 30 refugee women and five children living there had worked hard to acquire, and were now abandoned. The next day, the shelter closed for good. The closure was a shock. “I was so stressed I couldn’t sleep,” said Oksana Kutko, a Ukrainian. “I had nowhere to go.” Kutko, 51, had lived at the shelter, run by the Greek aid organisation METAdrasi since 2020, for three years after fleeing Russian bombs in Kharkiv. She was not the only resident who could not find alternative accommodation. A Congolese woman with a seven-year-old son laid a sheet out on the pavement in front of the refuge.…

For visitors to Burntcoat Head Park in Nova Scotia, a scramble along the russet shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean is a pilgrimage to the site of one of the planet’s great natural wonders. Twice a day, more than 100bn tonnes of sea-water fills and drains the Bay of Fundy – a figure comparable to the flow of all the world’s freshwater rivers combined. For that reason, the community have long and proudly proclaimed their far-reaching tides as the world’s highest – a claim confirmed by Guinness World Records. But a row has broken out over those claims, with a northern Canadian community claiming that new data – and longstanding local knowledge – suggests their tides, in fact, rise higher. “All we hear is about how the Bay of Fundy has…

In his studio, Sam Winston appears less artist, more linguistic alchemist. He is experimenting with manufacturing inks out of tobacco from Marlboro cigarettes, the juice of Belarusian chokeberries imported in a 100g packet small enough to make it past customs and a strange brew of kohl eyeliner from the Middle East and galena – the mineral form of lead sulfide – from Wales. The coloured substances are used to conjure words on to giant canvas flags that hang from the ceiling of London’s Barbican Centre, connecting a group of poets’ native languages with materials from their native landscapes. The quintet speaks marginal or at-risk languages covering five continents, and their newly commissioned poems all speak to their sense of home. The kohl concoction spells out or “How are you?” in…

I was 34 years old when I first had the idea for the world wide web. I took every opportunity to talk about it: pitching it in meetings, sketching it out on a whiteboard for anyone who was interested, even drawing the web in the snow with a ski pole for my friend on a day out. I relentlessly petitioned bosses at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), where I worked at the time, who initially found the idea “a little eccentric” but eventually let me work on it. I was seized by the idea of combining two pre-existing computer technologies: the internet and hypertext, which takes an ordinary document and brings it to life by adding “links”. I believed that giving users such a simple way to navigate the…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 1 Fumble about university, emptying it of camp gear (3,4) 5 A tax U-turn if shoddily managed leads into regression (7) 10 Some of these are electric rockers (4) 11 Healthy food ruined in bloody university (4,3,3) 12 Religious person must embrace a church’s subtlety (6) 13 Go to these text locations to find leaks (8) 14 Smelling loo, in fact revolting (9) 16 It’d be silly to get this plumbing fixture (5) 17 Riverbank robber (5) 19 Certain to return tackling one or other wrong (9)  23 Taking a back seat during war (8) 24 Male host enters perfectly (6) 26 Model husband claimed regularly to make cheese (6,4) 27 Potential riot from this musical composition (4) 28 From policeman, a temporary…

LABOUR Growth can combat the rise of populism, says Starmer Keir Starmer attempted to brush aside critics of his economic strategy by insisting it can be the “antidote to division” being sown by the populist right. The prime minister told the Labour party conference in Liverpool that economic growth “can either build a nation or it can pull it apart” depending on who and which parts of the country might benefit. As the government struggles to strike a hopeful tone on the UK economy, despite a tight fiscal backdrop and difficult choices ahead over tax, Starmer said rising living standards could “face down” the threats of a volatile world. The prime minister has adopted a more combative tone against the right, in part to reassure Labour’s frustrated MPs and members…

In the end, the results were better than Moldova’s western allies had dared hope. In last Sunday’s parliamentary elections, the pro-EU party of president Maia Sandu won a convincing victory, confirming the westward path of this former Soviet republic of 2.4 million people. With nearly all votes counted on Monday, Sandu’s ruling Action and Solidarity party had secured 50.03% of the vote, compared with 24.26% for the pro-Russian Patriotic bloc. The solid win came despite reports of Russian meddling and a series of shocks that could have toppled any incumbent government. Since the last parliamentary elections in 2021, Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine has led to the settling of 135,000 people in Moldova – the highest per capita number of Ukrainian refugees in the world – and an energy…

What’s in the plan? A number of proposals for Gaza’s future have been pushed in recent weeks, from a development plan produced by Tony Blair’s office to proposals brokered by France that include a UN-mandated force to provide security in Gaza, among others. Donald Trump’s plan was presented to influential Arab states last week, with US envoy Steve Witkoff claiming it had broad regional support. Blair would be on a “board of peace” overseeing the implementation of the plan, Trump said on Monday. Key details include: • No role for Hamas in the future and an amnesty for members • Phased withdrawal of Israeli forces • The return of all living and dead hostages • An influx of aid and the reconstruction of infrastructure • A promise of no annexation…

Usually, a Welsh parliament byelection in Caerphilly would not attract huge attention away from its rolling green hills and post-industrial townscapes. But these are not normal times and the result of this month’s ballot in this corner of south Wales may have ramifications across the UK. Apologising for the cliche, Dr Jac Larner, a polling expert at Cardiff University who is from Caerphilly, said the byelection may be the “canary in the coalmine” for a fundamental change in UK politics. Polling has suggested an ailing Labour party could be pushed into third place in one of its traditional heartlands by Reform UK and Plaid Cymru. If this proves to be correct, the shock waves will be felt not only in Cardiff but across the country. “Labour is facing an existential…

In August, Benjamin Netanyahu pitched a calculated deal to the Iranian people. The Israeli prime minister suggested that if Iranians took to the streets and overthrew their government, he would flood the country with Israel’s top water experts, bringing with them technology able to recycle and desalinate Iran’s water. Netanyahu clearly felt he had shaped his appeal to highlight one of the Iranian government’s great vulner-abilities. He was right, even if he was the wrong man to make such a pitch. Iran is facing multiple resource crises brought on by climate change, sanctions, successive mistakes and neglect by government. Blackouts, planned or unexpected, occur most days in dusty Tehran, even, ironically, at the US embassy, once the nerve centre of the defeated imperialists. The president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is disarmingly open…

Donald Trump has urged pregnant women not to take acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol or paracetamol. He claimed it raises the chances of children being autistic. But the US president has been condemned by experts from across the world, who fear he is deliberately fostering a narrative of distrust that could be dangerous for women. So what does the science actually say? Does paracetamol cause autism? The short answer is: no. Genetics plays a major role in autism, but scientists are also investigating the potential role of environmental factors such as parental age, premature birth and prenatal exposure to drugs, environmental chemicals or infections. “The idea that something that occurs during pregnancy may influence neurodevelopment isn’t a particularly new or crazy or outlandish idea,” said Renee Gardner, an associate professor…

IMAGINE YOU’RE THE LEADER of one of the most powerful nations in the world. You have everything you could want at your disposal: power, influence, money. But, the problem is, your time at the top is fleeting. I’m not talking about the prospect of a coup or a revolution, or even a democratic election: I’m talking about the thing even more certain in life than taxes. I’m talking about death. Early last month, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin were caught on mic talking about strategies to stay young. “With the development of bio-technology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,” Putin said via an interpreter to Xi. “There’s a chance,” he continued, “of also living to 150 [years…

I used to think there were two types of people: the ones who only use subtitles when necessary, and the unappreciative philistines who use them for no good reason. I was willing to die on this hill, arguing that they distracted from the purity of the audiovisual experience: the cinematographer’s attention to detail, the glimpse of a tear in an actor’s eye, the punchline of an expertly timed joke, and so on. But I have been forced to recognise how alone I am on this hill. In 2021, a survey found that 80% of 18-25-year-olds used subtitles all or some of the time, while a new survey run by streaming service U found that 87% of young Britons are using subtitles more than they used to. Among my peers, “two…

It’s a mast year on the allotment. Branches heave with apples, plums and pears, while sloes, hips, hazelnuts and haws ripen in the hedge. I greet friends with berries, juice and jam; I’ve taken plums to the pub. The wildlife has feasted too. Eventually, the fruit will be finished by detritivores such as earthworms, who will transform it into nutrients to be reabsorbed by the trees. Mast years – when trees and shrubs produce a bumper crop of fruits, nuts and seeds – are a mystery. Derived from Old English, “mast” is traditionally used to describe the fruit and nuts of forest trees, but today can describe any tree’s fruit or nut. Mast years tend to happen across the country, so can’t solely be attributed to weather, and some scientists…

Across 1 Rich taste of wine (4)  3 Not serious (8)  8 Highly positive review (4) 9 Take stock (of something) (8)  11 Not selfish (10) 14 In an intense way (6) 15 Bread with a filling (informally) (6)  17 Tasteless – do on cruise (anag) (10)  20 Drink before eating (8) 21 Farm building (4)  22 Legislative oversight some exploit (8) 23 Honeyed libation (4) Down 1 Soldiers’ home (8) 2 Fans (8) 4 Extravagant (6) 5 Butterfly or bee, say (10) 6 Go, give or get (4) 7 Us vs. ____ (4)  10 Oddball – haunts lido (anag) (10) 12 Comment on a text (8) 13 Long-serving – added flavour (8) 16 Nailed (anag) – rejection (6)  18 Get out of jail money (4) 19 Block (a proposal)…