Innehållsförteckning för 31 October 2025 från Guardian Weekly

The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol213 | Issue№ 18 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 Guardian is…

Last Wednesday, Donald Trump imposed new sanctions on Russia’s giant oil and gas companies, and lifted restrictions on the use of certain longrange missiles by Ukraine, which will now be able to strike more freely into Russia itself. These moves came on the heels of Trump’s conversations earlier in the month with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after which the US president expressed his frustration at both sides’ intransigence. Trump had hoped to end this war long ago. Will this be enough? When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US and its allies chose a strategy that aimed to use Washington’s awesome political, economic and military power to impose such high costs on Russia that the Kremlin would sue for peace on Ukraine’s terms. This…

Shadi Dabaya’s body bears the scars of the Israeli occupation. The 54-year-old proudly stuck out his jaw to show the chunk of his cheek torn away by Israeli fire and traced the zigzag scar on his arm, the raised flesh marking the bullet’s path. “I got these in the second intifada,” said Dabaya, beaming. He pulled up a video of himself a year earlier confronting an Israeli personnel carrier in the Jenin camp, wielding only a flip-flop. As he spoke, an Israeli military truck rumbled by. This time he only stared, not daring to approach it. Israeli soldiers have occupied the Jenin camp in the West Bank since January, expelling all 14,000 residents from their homes and erecting earth berms, raised barriers, to cut it off from the rest of…

The skies above Caerphilly may have matched the turquoise of Reform UK but it was the green and yellow of Plaid Cymru that dominated the valleys town last Friday morning. The Welsh nationalists trounced their opponents with a hefty 47% of the vote in a Senedd byelection that was framed by many as a potential “canary in the coalmine” moment for Welsh politics. Reform failed to live up to the hype and came second with 36%, and Labour’s vote – in a constituency it has held for decades – collapsed to a paltry 11%. It had been expected to be closer between Plaid and Reform, pegged as a 50/50 two-horse race. Both parties threw their weight behind the contest, with their respective leaders, Rhun ap Iorwerth and Nigel Farage, joining…

My friend’s name is Leif. He describes himself as “small” and “chill”. He thinks historical dramas are “cool” and doesn’t like sweat. Let me ask Leif what he’d like to say to you. “I’d want them to know that friendship can be found in unexpected places, and that everyday moments hold a lot of magic,” he says. Ugh. I can’t stand this guy. Leif is a Friend, a wearable AI chatbot that hangs around your neck. He looks like a small white pebble with an eerie, glowing light in the middle. According to Leif, his purpose is to help me “enjoy life day-to-day, notice patterns, celebrate growth, and make intentional choices”. To do this, he records whatever I say to him. There are a lot of AI wearables on the…

THE SCANDIES ROSE fishing boat set out to sea from Kodiak, Alaska, on 30 December 2019 with a crew of seven, into weather as bad as anything December could throw. “It was enough of a shitty fore-cast,” said one of the crew in later testimony, “I didn’t think we were going to leave that night.” At 8.35pm, fierce, frigid winds were blowing. Some boats stayed in harbour but the Scandies Rose still set out. “We knew the weather was going to be bad,” says deckhand Dean Gribble, “but the boat’s a battleship, we go through the weather.” The boat was carrying 7,000kg of bait and was headed north towards the Bering Sea. “She was trim,” says Gribble, “and a good boat. Gary Cobban was a good captain.” One of the…

Who doesn’t love a good home renovation project? A fresh start. A dream made reality. I recently repainted my French doors. I felt like a new man, albeit one with all the same problems. Just with a new door colour. The average homeowner will always find something to change or tweak – even in the most beautiful property. Don’t like your kitchen sink? Rip it out. Not a fan of subway tiles? Scrap them. Have you ever considered the sublime serenity of a rainfall shower on your body in the morning? All of these amenities can be yours for the price of materials, labour and the psychic distress of a bunch of burly middle-aged men traipsing around your house with large, thick boots. The White House demolition, though, is not…

October, said the poet Dermot Healy, is “when memory / is released”. In bygone days, Ireland’s harvest season spanned between the ancient Celtic festivals of Lúnasa (1 August) and Samhain (1 November). But October was a vital month because this was when the potato crop was lifted out of the ground. But despite its deep association with the country, the potato was only introduced to Ireland during the 16th century. Strokestown House used to be the home of an Anglo-Irish landowner, whose tenant farmers relied on the potato crop. After a tour of the house, while I watch the cattle, a litany of potato varieties – kerr’s pink, golden wonder, maris piper – rises like an old chant in my mind. Yet, I’d never heard of the Irish lumper, the…

Across 1 Yellow-flowered shrub – shirty oaf (anag) (9) 8 River through Lyon (5) 9 Mount, abode of Greek gods (7) 10 Not as remuneration for work done (8) 11 One might be proper (4) 13 Causing wry amusement (6) 14 Change in order to improve (6) 16 ___ bar (4) 17 Instil with awareness of future issues (8) 19 Free time (7)  20 Brownish-grey colour (5) 21 Black grape / red wine (5,4) Down 1 Permission to do as one likes (4,4) 2 Participant in violent unruly crowd (6) 3 It has its ups and downs (2-2) 4 African river horse? (12) 5 Forgetful (6-6) 6 Error purportedly revealing unconscious thought (8,4) 7 Most advantageous start (4,8)  12 Academic half-year term (8) 15 Ravel classic – short waistcoat (6)…

1 UNITED STATES Trump rules out running for VP as means to a third term Donald Trump said on Monday that he would rule out running for the vice-presidency in the 2028 US election, an unorthodox approach that some of his supporters have floated to allow the Republican US president to serve a third term in the White House. “I’d be allowed to do that,” Trump told reporters during his five-day trip to Asia. But he added: “I wouldn’t do that. I think it’s too cute. Yeah, I would rule that out because it’s too cute. I think the people wouldn’t like that … It’s not – it wouldn’t be right.” No one may be elected to the US presidency a third time, according to the 22nd amendment of the US…

Lyubov Lobunets, 77, left her home in the frontline Ukrainian city of Kupiansk in August when it was hit by a Russian explosive. “I was in a five-storey building,” she explained, speaking from a centre for the displaced in nearby Kharkiv. “ I don’t know whether it was a missile or bomb that hit the building but it started a fire, and when the flames reached my floor, I couldn’t escape.” The Ukrainian military, she said, saved her life. But by then much of Kupiansk, which had a prewar population of 27,000, had departed. “In the months before I left there were a few shops open,” she said. “But that last month, almost everything closed. All the social services were evacuated.” Amid the focus on the Donbas region further south…

‘Cambio, cambio”. Dozens of money changers are hawking US dollars along Florida Street, a pedestrian strip in Buenos Aires. Known as arbolitos (“little trees”), they had been thriving in the buildup to last weekend’s midterm elections in a country long used to saving in the greenback. “The best time to buy is now,” said one arbolito, declining to give her name. “[The dollar] went down a little but it is a fake-out – it’ll rise again.” Like her, economists across the spectrum had expected a devaluation of the Argentine peso to come after last weekend’s vote. The unexpected strength of the victory by president Javier Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, makes a devaluation less likely. But economists still say the currency is too strong to allow Argentina’s economy to grow…

The parade of senior US officials travelling to the Middle East in recent weeks is a clear warning from the White House to Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli political factions to not disrupt the recent Gaza ceasefire or they will face a serious rift in relations with the US. As the shaky ceasefire came into effect this month, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner rushed to the region for consultations. They have been followed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the vice-president, JD Vance, as Trump deploys his top allies to tamp down on internal strife within Israel’s fractious Knesset. One of two bills recently advanced by rightwing MPs, despite the objections of Netanyahu and most of his Likud party, would establish Israeli “sovereignty”…

Thailand has set a regional precedent this month by giving refugees permission to work in the country in an effort to tackle aid cuts and labour shortages. More than 87,000 refugees living in nine refugee camps along the border with Myanmar have been totally reliant on handouts of food and foreign aid. Many have not left the camps of makeshift shelters in the four decades since, as ethnic minorities in Myanmar, they were driven out by a violent military regime. Now, shrinking foreign aid budgets, especially from the US, and a border dispute with Cambodia have pushed Thailand to reconsider its approach. Tammi Sharpe, representative in Thailand of the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, called the decision “a turning point”. “I can’t underscore enough how excited we are about this,”…

They marched in their millions. Some waved the Stars and Stripes. Some clutched signs with slogans such as: “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting.” And some donned inflatable costumes that included aliens, chickens, clowns, frogs, lobsters, mushrooms, penguins, seahorses, sharks, squirrels, starfish and unicorns. The energy of the No Kings protests on 18 October against Donald Trump’s authoritarianism was palpable and peaceful, drawing an estimated 7 million people to 2,700 rallies across the country. Among them were the Democratic senators Cory Booker, Ed Markey, Chris Murphy, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Raphael Warnock and Elizabeth Warren as well as the independent Bernie Sanders. But many Democratic lawmakers did not attend. Their absence was conspicuous at a time when the party stands accused of lacking fight and failing to meet the moment.…

WIKIPEDIA will be 25 years old in January. Jimmy Wales’s daughter will be 25 and three weeks. It’s not a coincidence: on Boxing Day 2000, Wales’s then wife, Christine, gave birth to a baby girl, but it quickly became clear that something wasn’t right. She had breathed in contaminated amniotic fluid, resulting in a life-threatening condition called meconium aspiration syndrome. An experimental treatment was available at the hospital near where they lived in San Diego. Did they want to try it? At the time, Wales was a former trader and internet entrepreneur in his mid-30s. He had co-founded a “guy-oriented search engine” called Bomis, but his real passion was encyclopedias. The money from Bomis had allowed him to found Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia written by experts – but it…

In the early hours of the morning, cars would pull up outside the Bradford children’s home where Fiona Goddard lived as a teenager. Staff were worried about the men coming to collect her – records show she was felt to be “at a high level of risk from unknown males” – but the policy was not to go to the police unless a child’s behaviour became concerning or she was seen being “dragged into a car”. And that’s how a 14-year-old ends up being groomed and repeatedly raped, under the noses of the adults charged with protecting her, by a gang who were finally convicted only when she was in her mid-20s. It took another two years for Bradford council to publish a review showing just how badly the victims…

Gerhard Richter recalls, as a child, drawing with his finger on his empty, slightly greasy dinner plate, tracing and retracing fanciful curves and spatial structures in endless alterations on the china. Decades later, he would place blobs of different colours on a canvas then intermingle them using slithery curving brushstrokes, lubricated by the oil and paint, until the entire surface was covered. More or less pure colour slid among the passages of impure, much-mixed pigment. Other paintings were made using large squeegees and spatulas, pushing and dragging paint over the surface, and just as often scraping it off again. The squeegee would often pick up previously applied, sometimes half-dried paint, excavating previous layers even as it applied new ones. Smearing paint on, dragging it off again, Richter would keep working…

I eat healthily, but my meals are never really complete without pudding. Yoghurt and stewed fruit aside, what will hit the spot without verging too far into the unhealthy? Wendy, by email You can’t often have your cake and eat it – or not a big piece, anyway. “My advice, which maybe isn’t all that welcome, is to keep to small portions,” says Brian Levy, author of Good & Sweet, in which his recipes contain no added sugar. ’Tis the season for stewed fruit, but have you tried Melissa Hemsley’s banana slices sandwiched together with peanut butter, dipped in melted chocolate and put in the freezer? (The same tactic also works like a dream with dates.) “You can’t beat frozen grapes, either,” says baker Lily Jones, who’s behind the London by…

LABOUR New deputy leader says party must heed members Labour’s new deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has said the government must listen to its members instead of being guided by a “narrow group of voices” as it battles to stave off electoral disaster in next May’s local elections. Powell defeated the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, in the deputy leadership contest, which concluded last Saturday. She said she had been given “a clear mandate that members want their voice to be heard at the top of the party”. The Manchester Central MP won 54% of the vote, polling 87,407 votes, while Phillipson received 73,536. Turnout was just 16.6%, which some Labour insiders say points to widespread disillusionment within the party. The result was announced last Saturday against the backdrop of Labour’s catastrophic…

“The dollar always talks in the end,” Donald Trump wrote in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal. Javier Milei’s surprise triumph in Argentina’s midterm elections – after Trump bailed him out with 40bn of them – suggests there may be some truth to that assertion. The US president had vowed to jettison his South American ally if, as widely predicted, the radical libertarian fared badly in last Sunday’s make-or-break legislative vote. “If he doesn’t win, we’re gone,” Trump declared when Argentina’s shaggy-haired president visited him in Washington earlier in October to plead for economic help. Milei’s political woes have been building in recent months, with growing public frustration over Argentina’s sluggish economy translating into market jitters and a pasting in Buenos Aires’ provincial election in September. Trump stepped…

The endless, sticky mud that coated the streets of Valencia, sucking at the boots of survivors and residents, is gone now. As are the jumbles of wrecked cars and the mountains of sodden, ruined belongings that had begun to stink in the humid coastal air. But one year on, lingering evidence of the worst natural disaster to befall Spain this century is everywhere. Walk through the doorless entrance to a block of flats in the Benetússer neighbourhood, on the southern outskirts of the city, and there is a small sign on the wall, positioned 2.5 metres above the floor. It reads: “The flood waters rose this high on 29 October 2024.” A sticker on the building, one of many around here, shows the regional president, Carlos Mazón, smiling and holding…

Africa is a rapidly urbanising continent. Since 1990, the proportion of people who live in towns and cities has risen from 28% to 44%, according to the World Bank. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts the urban population will double to 1.4 billion by 2050. In many cases, public transport has failed to keep up with this growth. Guardian correspondents spoke to residents about the challenges they face on their commutes. Nairobi It is 6am on a Wednesday in the neighbourhood of Kibera, where colourful, art-covered buses are lined up outside shops. “Hamsini hamsini Ambassadeur,” a conductor shouts for a ride to a landmark hotel in central Nairobi. These privately owned matatus are the most popular form of transport in the Kenyan capital, a city of almost…

It was a solemn pledge at the heart of Donald Trump’s “America first” appeal. A Make America Great Again (Maga) foreign policy would mean the end of military commitments that had in the past sucked the US into draining, drawn-out wars far from its own shores. Now an intense military buildup targeting the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela is stretching that commitment to breaking point as the White House strikes a bellicose posture that seems to mock Trump’s self-proclaimed “president of peace” image. In recent weeks, US forces have carried out at least eight strikes, killing at least 38 people, against boats in the Caribbean off Venezuela’s coast that Washington said were being used for drug trafficking. One strike, announced last Friday by Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary,…

Donald Trump insists the war in Gaza is over. No, it isn’t. The violence is much reduced. Yet Israeli forces have reportedly killed about 100 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more since the 10 October ceasefire began. Food aid supplies are still restricted. The occupation continues, in Gaza and the West Bank. US officials fear prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his accomplices may renege on the deal, as in the past. Likewise, Hamas elements and rival gangs have kept fighting. The terrorist group is not disarming; Israeli forces have not fully withdrawn to the agreed lines. US-framed security, governance and reconstruction proposals remain vague, hypothetical and contentious. The war’s root causes, principally the denial of Palestinian sovereignty and statehood, are not addressed. Unless that changes, it will all kick off again.…

On 4 April, Amadou Bagayoko died suddenly, aged 70, in Bamako, Mali. The country’s ministry of culture announced the news. Thousands attended the funeral, including former collaborators Manu Chao and Youssou N’Dour, all paying homage to a man they knew as an uncle, a blues-guitar giant, a leader, a friend. “I miss him so much,” says Mariam Doumbia, his wife and musical partner of 44 years in the duo Amadou and Mariam. “We did everything together. We travelled together. We composed together. The sound of his guitar is always between my two ears. Especially at night, it comes into my mind. Even right now, I just heard it.” Dressed with characteristic verve in white lace, gold jewellery and black shades, Doumbia is on a video call, to discuss, in French,…

That Australians have turned to local libraries in record numbers comes as no surprise. I’ve just returned from a speaking tour of regional and outer suburban libraries that reinforced in me the unquantifiable community value of these institutions. I’ve rarely felt more connected to readers than during these two weeks. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise given the remarkable bond between libraries and the readers they serve highlighted in the latest Australian public libraries statistical report. From 2023 to 2024 there were 88m in-person visits (up 10%) to libraries, while people borrowed 119m physical and 55m digital items. Libraries delivered 409,000 programmes nationally for more than 7 million participants. So, take one beige sedan, two ageing blokes (the crime novelist Michael Brissenden and me) each with a new novel, a…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 1 One offering unwanted advice to support troubled advertiser (4-4,6) 8 Mathematician’s principle, first to last attached to basis of logarithms (5)  9 Date energy stabilised (2,6) 11 Being caught probing religious ascetic (7) 12 Program linked to a reduced kind of plants (7) 13 Short comic piece brother’s written capturing Queen (5) 15 Players in soccer game forming line on another pitch? (6-3) 17 Keen frost wrecked fasteners (4,5)  20 US farm subdivision not opening for business (5)  21 Performing for men in unit (7) 23 Look at sites, backing corporation’s slice (7)  25 Spring not entirely long? There’s an extra day in it (4,4)  26 Krypton, oxygen, neon and tin from Scandinavia (5) 27 Twice note collapses in funds for Durham…