Innholdsfortegnelse for 23rd July 2021 i Guardian Weekly

Tom O’Connor Merseyside-born comedian and host of British TV gameshows. He died on 18 July, aged 81. Kurt Westergaard Danish cartoonist, known for drawing a caricature of the prophet Muhammad that caused outrage around the Muslim world. He died on 14 July, aged 86. Dawn Foster Journalist and author who wrote powerfully about social inequality and chronic illness for the Guardian, Jacobin magazine and the London Review of Books. She died on 15 July, aged 34. Graham Vick Internationally acclaimed British opera director and Artistic director of Birmingham Opera Company. He died on 17 July, aged 67. Danish Siddiqui Pulitzer prizewinning Indian photojournalist who worked for Reuters news agency. He was killed while on assignment in southern Afghanistan. He died on 16 July, aged 38.…

The Pegasus project Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers across the world have been targeted by authoritarian governments using hacking software sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group, according to an investigation into a massive data leak. The investigation by the Guardian and 15 other media outlets suggests continuing abuse of NSO’s hacking spyware, Pegasus, which the company insists is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists. Pegasus infects iPhones and Android devices to enable its operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones. The leak contains a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that, it is believed, have been identified as persons of interest by clients of NSO since 2016. The consortium’s analysis of the data identified at least 10 governments…

`Billions of people are inseparable from their phones. Their devices are within reach – and earshot – for almost every daily experience, from the most mundane to the most intimate. Few pause to think that their phones can be transformed into surveillance devices, with someone thousands of miles away silently extracting their messages, photos and location, activating their microphone to record them in real time. Such are the capabilities of Pegasus, the spyware made by NSO Group, the Israeli purveyor of weapons of mass surveillance. NSO rejects this label. It insists only carefully vetted government intelligence and law enforcement agencies can use Pegasus, and only against the phones of “legitimate criminal or terror group targets”. Yet this week the Guardian has revealed the identities of many innocent people who have…

South African authorities this week feared a new wave of attacks aimed at undermining the economy, investment and the rule of law as networks loyal to former president Jacob Zuma seek to force his return to power. Investigators believe the unrest earlier this month, which killed more than 200 and caused massive damage across the country, was deliberately provoked as part of a broader strategy by political opponents to force president Cyril Ramaphosa to pardon Zuma or even step down. The worst violence since the end of the apartheid regime 27 years ago has injured many people beyond those killed and caused huge economic damage. Hundreds of shops have been looted, factories destroyed, warehouses razed, clinics vandalised and ports disabled. The immediate trigger for the chaos was the imprisonment earlier…

‘All I wanted to do was help vulnerable people,” said Shaun Apong, tears streaking down his face, from behind the bars of a squalid police cell in Ho City in eastern Ghana. Apong was one of 21 people who were arrested in early June, charged with unlawful assembly and accused of spreading an LGBT+ agenda, amid a marked and sudden increase in sensitivities around the rights and advocacy of gay and queer people in the west African country. For years, Apong (not his real name) had held training sessions for paralegals, activists and care workers on how to support vulnerable groups. “We were never afraid to conduct the training because we aren’t breaking the law,” he said. Apong and the others were arrested during a training session after journalists called…

Angela Merkel thrice called him “dear Joe”. He pledged unity in taking on “democratic backsliding, corruption, phony populism”. But he also warned: “If we don’t leave right now, we’re going to miss dinner” – one that included crispy sea bass, black pepper tagliatelle and kabocha squash. Joe Biden’s meeting with German chancellor last week offered comfort food for anyone nostalgic for the old global order. But, as Merkel steps down after 16 years, certain of her legacy as a towering figure in European politics, Biden is striving to make his mark. This week marked six months in office for the 46th president. He inherited from Donald Trump a nation deeply divided. He promised to demonstrate that government still works – able to deliver for its people better than rising autocracies…

The sun is setting on another hazy summer evening in Oceanside, California, a city 57 km north of San Diego, and a tiny figure is flying through the sky. She bends her knees, clutches the end of her skateboard and comes gliding down an enormous ramp, her sun-bleached surfer hair bouncing in the wind. “That was sick!” Sky Brown shouts, as she makes an immaculate landing. The skateboarder is ranked third in the world and on 4 August will take to her board to represent Team GB at the postponed Tokyo Olympics. When she competes in the women’s park event, she will be one of the UK’s first Olympic skateboarders, and Team GB’s youngest ever summer Olympian. Aged 13 years and 23 days, she will surpass Margery Hinton, who was…

There is a man outside, doing something to the windows of Fiona Shaw’s house in London, and he appears to be following her from room to room. No sooner has she laughed, apologised, picked up her laptop (we’re speaking on Zoom) and sought peace elsewhere than – scrape, tap – the top of a ladder appears again, and his face looms behind her. No wonder. I feel like following Shaw around everywhere too. She is such fun, bracing company. She can swing from references to Freud to word-perfect renditions of Yeats learned in childhood, and makes some lovely observations: describing lunch with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, she says the Fleabag creator is “like April or May. She’s blossoming on all fronts, all her fingers are light green”. Even the man working on…

1 Art: Reversing the order of the digits of my age and doubling gives my age a year hence.Bert: That’s strange: doing exactly the same to my age gives my age two years ago. How old are Art and Bert? 2 Wordpool COTTER a) small but swift sloopb) split pinc) maker of cottage creamd)scraper NEBEL a) letter of Yiddish alphabetb) distinct cloudc) useless character in Yiddishd) Hebrew dulcimer 3 E pluribus unum Rearrange the letters of EARLY BAT to make a single word. 4 NonOlympic Games Find two games using each of the letters of SOPHOCLES once and once only. 5 Cracker Barrel What’s the difference between a man and his dog in a heatwave? 6 Missing Links Find a word that follows the first word in the clue and…

NOTES & QUERIES The friendliest thing might be to tactfully change the subject What’s the appropriate response to a friend who tells you they are sending their child to private school? Say something supportive because that person is a friend? If you don’t approve, don’t say anything because it’s none of your business. HKSingg irl via theguardian.com • I don’t see the difference between having enough money to send kids to private school and having enough money to afford a house in a posh location so your kids go to the best state schools. waddlecakes via theguardian.com • Tell them it can’t be that private if they are telling people about it. Martin Lodge San Diego, California, US It’s a change from getting locked out, anyway Why are we “locked…

This week’s big story delves into the Pegasus project, the work of a consortium of 16 international media organisations exploring how spyware sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group infects smartphones to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activates microphones. After analysing a massive data leak containing more than 50,000 phone numbers, the Pegasus project believes the data indicates potential targets that NSO’s government clients have identified since 2016 in advance of possible surveillance. Our reporting team explains how the software works, who wants to use it and why, and reveal how activists, journalists and lawyers worldwide seem to be among those particularly targeted. Most of this week’s edition could have been filled with the findings of this huge investigation, so get up to speed with…

MEDICINE Deadly spider venom could be a heart-attack life saver A protein in the venom of a deadly Australian spider may be able to reduce cardiac damage from heart attacks and extend the life of donor hearts used in transplants. Venom from the Fraser Island funnel-web contains a protein known as Hi1a. Prof Glenn King of the University of Queensland said the protein works by disrupting a signal for a cell to die if it is not receiving enough oxygen, such as in the case of a heart attack or when a heart is removed for transplantation. King’s research team tested the drug candidate on beating human cardiac cells, finding that cells exposed to heart attack stresses were significantly more likely to survive when treated with the protein. King said…

Boris Johnson’s pendulum swing from Monday’s “freedom day” in England to unlocking with “extreme caution” relayed a shift in the government’s thinking – that the relaxation of almost all restrictions at this stage comes with significant risk. The move to make fully vaccinated people returning from France continue to quarantine – because of the risk of the Beta variant – appears to be another sign of panic setting in. Delta, the dominant variant in the UK, is far more transmissible than the Beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa. But the danger of Beta has long been its ability to thwart any vaccine shield, particularly the AstraZeneca jab. Beta was first recorded in the UK in December but never quite took off. In South Africa, it has dominated.…

There’s a man from the government playing love songs in the park. Orlando Fuentes has a table and an awning against the hard Caribbean sun. Silvio Rodríguez’s Cita con Ángeles floats from his sound system. A woman says she can’t listen, that it’s a beautiful song ruined by being played at too many government rallies. After 16 months of Covid and a week of unprecedented protests, the Cuban government wants to soothe the anger. Music is being played in parks across the country. “I call for solidarity and not to let hatred take over the Cuban soul, which is a soul of goodness, affection and love,” tweeted President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Only days earlier he had called his supporters on to the streets to face down “vulgar, indecent and delinquent” protesters,…

Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust At the root of every pandemic is an encounter between a disease-causing microorganism and a human being … It is a social phenomenon as much as it is a biological one,” writes Laura Spinney in her book Pale Rider, arguing that Spanish flu “pushed India closer to independence, South Africa closer to apartheid, and Switzerland to the brink of civil war”. It will be a long time before anyone can fully assess Covid’s impact. But its social and political effects are emerging more clearly. It has played a role in extraordinary turmoil from Colombia to Cuba to South Africa, exacerbating poverty and frustration. The unrest is rooted in longstanding social and economic problems. In South Africa, where 10,000 troops have been deployed, it…

There are writers that Jo Hamya admires: Virginia Woolf, for one. Lines from A Room of One’s Own, Woolf’s 1928 Cambridge lecture about women writers and independence, provide the epigraph to Hamya’s ultra-contemporary debut novel, Three Rooms. It’s Oxford University, though, where Three Rooms begins, with a young unnamed woman of colour struggling to find her place as she starts a job as a research assistant. Hamya admires Rosemary Tonks, too – the now largely forgotten mid 20th-century poet. She quotes Tonks when her forlorn narrator leaves Oxford for a poorly paid job as a copy editor at a London society magazine: “On my bad days (and I’m being broken / At this very moment) I speak of my ambitions …” It’s the same melancholy that underpins this bleak novel…

Prep 10 min Prove 1 hr 45min Cook 1 hr Makes 1 large focaccia, to feed 6-8 people • VEGAN Ingredients 550g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting2 tsp (1 x 7g sachet) instant yeast Fine sea salt10 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed8 tbsp (120ml) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing and more to finish1½ tbsp lemon juice1 small handful polenta or cornmeal5-6 tbsp (20g) flatleaf parsley, finely chopped Coarse sea salt I’ve always loved garlic bread, but why baguette? It has such a dense crumb that often the garlic flavour cannot soak through. I believe that focaccia, with its more open structure and dimples, is a far superior loaf for even distribution of a garlic-infused, parsley-flecked olive oil. I hope you’ll agree. Method A plastic dough…

Had the formidable white arc of the Hooverd am never held back the Colorado River, the US west would probably have no Los Angeles or Las Vegas as we know them today. No sprawling food bowl of wheat, alfalfa and corn. No dreams of relocating to live in a tamed desert. The river, and dam, made the west; now the climate crisis threatens to break it. The situation is emblematic of a planet slowly, inexorably overheating. And the catastrophic consequences of the extreme weather this brings. Hooverd am is the height of a 60-storey building, is 14 metres thick at the top and 200 metres at the bottom. Its construction, in the teeth of the Great Depression, was a source of such national pride in America that thousands of people…

Reversing global heating will be the real challenge The Big Story on extreme weather, and the accompanying Spotlight piece on the US petroleum giants (9 July), would be frightening for anyone who hasn’t been keeping an eye on the worsening weather of the world, and perhaps more so for anyone who has been. The far bigger problem, and greater challenge, we face is to reverse the climate change. Recognising this would surely speed action in the minor phase of stopping global warming, and focus attention on actions that will also be effective in reversing it. Neville Holmes Creswick, Victoria, Australia • Clearly there has been discouragingly insufficient political courage and will to properly act upon the cause and effect of manmade global warming and climate change. But I still see…

“I’m still looking for something,” sings Jackson Browne on the opening track of his first album in eight years. “I’m way out over my due date.” It sounds like a stark admission, as if he’s as surprised as anyone that he’s still recording at 72. Browne was the most artful of the 1970s west coast songwriters, who chronicled the boomer generation’s uncertain and increasingly disillusioned path through a landscape in which hippie idealism had withered. Nevertheless, decades later, there is a sense in which Browne still embodies the classic boomer singer-songwriter, at least insofar as he spends a lot of Downhill from Everywhere doing precisely the kinds of things that septuagenarian songwriters of a certain cast tend to do, including worrying about the environment, wondering aloud about the younger generation,…

A Cambridge PhD student, Reem Hameed, has gone missing in Cairo and hasn’t responded to her WhatsApp messages for days. Her friend, Fauzia, works on the foreign desk of a newspaper and is well positioned to investigate this disappearance, which turns out to be not entirely unexpected. Indeed Fauzia immediately realises that maybe she knows too much already about why Reem was in Cairo and what she might have found out. Reem was investigating a diplomat, Martin Wilcox Smith, his wife, Phoebe, and the fortune they amassed while in Tehran in the early 1970s. It gets more complicated very quickly. Fauzia is Martin and Phoebe’s daughter-in-law. And Reem knows the family too. Whatever Reem has found out is probably something neither woman would like to know about. And whatever it…

Boris Johnson indicated to the people of England that, even after 19 July, trumpeted as Covid freedom day, “precautions” might be needed. Praecautio means circumspection or wariness, in Latin deriving ultimately from cavere, to take care. Its first recorded use in English is by the diplomat Sir Henry Wotton, writing to the poet John Donne in 1599. Wotton recommends a certain “gentleman of Germany” who might be helped with a sum of money after “due precaution” taken to ensure his deservingness. Much later, “precautions” became a 20th-century euphemism for birth control. Philosophers and lawyers talk of a “precautionary principle”, which says that in the face of a risk, one should err on the side of caution. Oddly, this does not seem to be a thought that previously occurred to Johnson.…