Innholdsfortegnelse for 8th October 2021 i Guardian Weekly

Mohib Ullah Prominent Rohingya Muslim leader, praised for his devotion to serving his community. He was shot dead at a refugee camp in Bangladesh on 29 September, aged 46. Marcia Freedman The first US-born woman to serve in the Israeli parliament, who helped lead the feminist movement in Israel in the 1970s. She died on 21 September, aged 83. Pee Wee Ellis American jazz saxophonist and bandleader who played with James Brown and Van Morrison. He died on 23 September, aged 80. Roger Hunt One of Liverpool football club’s greatest strikers who played in England’s 1966 World Cup victory. He died on 27 September, aged 83. Bernard Tapie French business magnate, actor, former politician and scandal-ridden president of Olympique de Marseille football club. He died on 3 October, aged 78.…

The secret deals and hidden assets of some of the world’s richest and most powerful people have been revealed in the biggest trove of leaked offshore data in history. Branded the Pandora papers, the cache includes 11.9m files from companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts in tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. They expose the secret offshore affairs of 35 world leaders, including current and former presidents, prime ministers and heads of state. They also shine a light on the secret finances of more than 300 other public officials such as government ministers, judges, mayors and military generals in more than 90 countries. The files include disclosures about major donors to the UK’s Conservative party, raising difficult questions for…

Since the grim details about what happened to Sarah Everard in her final hours were revealed at the Old Bailey, a sense of despair has risen among women, and the campaigners pushing to make society safer for them. The hope that Everard’s murder would bring about rapid change has all but evaporated. On 18 September, nearly seven months after the 33-year-old was killed, a member of the public found the body of the teacher Sabina Nessa in Cator Park in south-east London. In the time between the two deaths, another 80 women were killed in the UK, according to Karen Ingala Smith of the Counting Dead Women project. That brings the total for 2021, which she is sure is an underestimate, to at least 109. “After Sarah was killed there…

The first clinical trial results have shown a positive effect for an antiviral pill to treat coronavirus which was found to cut hospitalisations and deaths by half and which can be taken at home. Molnupiravir has been hailed as a potential gamechanger that could provide a new way to protect the most vulnerable people from the worst effects of Covid-19, and joins a growing list of medicines that have shown promise. Here are some of the main developments. Favipiravir This drug is designed to block virus replication at the early stage of illness. It has been licensed to treat flu in Japan since 2014 and was the first antiviral drug to be included in the UK’s Principle trial in people’s homes or residential homes, with phase 3 results expected soon.…

Last month, proceedings opened in Austria in a civil suit brought against the authorities by the widow and son of a man who died of Covid-19 after staying in Ischgl, the ski resort widely regarded as having hosted a super-spreader event early in the pandemic. A week before, former French health minister Agnès Buzyn was ordered by a court to answer for the government’s lack of anticipation of the pandemic. In the UK, meanwhile, the government has promised a public inquiry into the handling of the crisis. It’s due to start next spring. Those pushing for it to begin sooner argue that the lessons learned could still save lives, but another function of a public inquiry is apportioning blame. It’s understandable that people who are grieving should want answers, and…

Five years after the Panama papers exposed the vast scale of offshore banking and business services via the activities of the wealth management specialist Mossack Fonseca, hundreds of billions of dollars are still being secreted away in tax havens. The leak of almost 12m documents, known as the Pandora papers, reveals that 35 current or former heads of state are among the customers of secrecy jurisdictions where huge sums of money are hidden in order to avoid tax and transparency, along with more than 100 billionaires and rich individuals from all over the world. Beyond any specific acts of venality, as outrageous as these are, looms a system whose existence is a global disgrace. As a matter of course, and in spite of their immense personal advantages, the ultra-rich are…

An editing error led to a confusing sentence in our Guardian View column of 24 September. It should have read: “Britain was dragged along in the US’s slipstream during the Afghan debacle and forced to follow a withdrawal policy it did not support.” The late comedian Norm Macdonald (Deaths, 24 September) was Canadian, not American. Sail of the Century (17 September) omitted the full name of Ambassador Cruise Line, and should have said that the Ambience’s dinners will have five courses, not three.…

Daniel Craig’s final film as the diva of British intelligence is an epic barnstormer, with a script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The film shows us a romantic, uxorious Bond who is unafraid of showing his feelings. A dreamlike prelude hints at a terrible trauma in the childhood of Dr Madeleine Swann (Lea Séydoux), who is now enjoying a romantic getaway with James. But a shocking act of violence destroys their idyll. It all has to do with a biowarfare plan being developed by M (Ralph Fiennes) using a renegade scientist, but both creepy boffin and weapon are stolen. MI6 and the CIA want this man back – but British intelligence does not care to involve Bond who is now in retirement, and M has handed…

The Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka ’s new novel tells the multidimensional story of a secret society dealing in human parts for sacrificial uses, whose members include the highest political and religious figures in the land. It details how the conspiracy and cover-up of this quasi-organisation affect not only the life of the nation but, more specifically, the lives of four friends. Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is essentially a whistle blower’s book. It is a novel that explodes criminal racketeering of a most sinister and deadly kind that is operating in an African nation uncomfortably like Nigeria. It is a vivid and wild romp through corruption, opportunism, fraudulence and even statesanctioned murder. This is a novel written at the end of an artist’s tether. It…

MEDICINE Markers for identical twins identified in their DNA The medical mystery of identical twins may have been solved by scientists in the Netherlands, raising hopes for treatment of disorders that disproportionately afflict them. Identical twins form after a fertilised egg splits into two embryos with the same genes. The prevailing theory has been that “monozygotic twinning” is random. But international researchers led by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam believe identical twins share similar marks at 834 points across their genome, the sum total of an organism’s DNA. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications. NOBEL PRIZE Research into sense of touch wins medicine award Two US researchers – Prof David Julius, a physiologist at the University of California in San Francisco, and Prof Ardem Patapoutian, a neuroscientist at…

For years Volodymyr Zelenskiy entertained Ukrainians with the sitcom Servant of the People, playing a teacher outraged by chronic corruption who runs for president. In 2019 he took part in Ukraine’s actual election. Zelenskiy pledged to clean up the oligarch-dominated system and criticised politicians who hid assets offshore. He won 73% of the vote. The Pandora papers, however, suggest he is not so different from those politicians. They show he had, or has, a stake in an offshore company, which he apparently transferred to a friend before the vote. He has not commented on the claim despite many attempts to reach him. The files reveal a network of offshore companies, co-owned with friends and business partners. They include Serhiy Shefir, his producer; Shefir’s brother Borys, who wrote the scripts; and…

When the rich and powerful stash their money in tax havens, they’re essentially buying secrecy. Those wealthy enough to organise their financial affairs in places such as the Cayman Islands and Monaco expect to be shielded from public scrutiny. Yet public scrutiny is precisely what awaits some of the clients of 14 offshore providers whose data is contained in the Pandora papers. Leaks such as these raise valid questions about the balance between confidentiality, privacy and the public interest. What exactly is in the Pandora papers? Why did the Guardian decide to explore the leaked data? And how did we decide what to publish? In terms of volume, this is the largest trove of leaked offshore data in history. It comes from offshore service providers operating in Anguilla, Belize, Singapore,…

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EARLIER THIS YEAR, Jeremy Strong left his apartment in Brooklyn, walked across the bridge to Manhattan and headed towards the far west side of the island, where he was filming the third season of the feverishly adored and heavily accoladed HBO series Succession. Strong plays Kendall, the alternately bullied and rebellious son of the vilified, Murdoch-esque media tycoon Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, and Succession follows the jostling among the patriarch’s four children for his affection and respect, both of which he generally withholds. None of them is as visibly crushed by this as Kendall, who bears more than a slight resemblance to James Murdoch, even down to the dabblings in hip-hop. With every timid step Strong makes on screen, every apologetic dip of his chin when he starts…

We often think of bias as a problem that other people have. It’s harder to find someone willing to admit to it in themselves. That was what struck me reading American journalist Jessica Nordell’s thoughtful book The End of Bias, which I picked up at the same time as being absorbed in the new reality TV series My Unorthodox Life. The show follows Julia Haart, a New Yorker who in her 40s left an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to transform herself into a global fashion magnate. Today, she has no qualms about striding into her former Orthodox neighbourhood in shorts and a low-cut top, whatever people may think. It’s not as easy for others to make that leap, though. In one scene, Haart’s adult daughter, who has previously only worn skirts,…

Our mother died earlier this year. She deposited her will with a solicitor, having appointed one of my two siblings as executor, and shared her estate equally between the three of us. However, the other sibling purloined the original copy of the will from the solicitor by falsely claiming the executor had instructed them to do so. They now refuse to return it. Some years ago, our parents gave the sibling who is the executor a loan of several thousand pounds and I suspect my other sibling is holding the will hostage until it’s proved that either the loan was paid back, or the role of executor is relinquished. Has a criminal offence been committed? How can we get hold of the will so that we can settle our mother’s…

Prep 20 min Cook 25 min Serves 4 • VEGETARIAN Ingredients 40g butter, softened70g white miso2 tsp honey, plus1-2 tsp extra for the noodles3 tbsp soy sauce4 spring onions, roughly sliced, white and green parts separated2 large hispi cabbages, each cut into 8 wedges through the stem For the noodles 250g medium egg noodles2 ½ tbsp tahini1 tbsp sesame oil1 tbsp rice-wine vinegar To serve 1 tsp sesame seeds (a mix of black and white looks fun)Chilli oil There is a growing realisation that how we eat can play a pivotal role in the fight against climate change. Adopting a (healthier) diet that swaps factory-farmed meat and dairy for much smaller amounts of wellreared food is creatively compelling. Take this noodle dish:char grill, then roast in-season hispi cabbage with a…

The Queen’s crown estate has begun an internal review over a £67m ($90m) London property it appears to have bought from Azerbaijan’s ruling family, who are accused of corruption. The Pandora papers reveal how offshore companies linked to the family and associates of President Ilham Aliyev have traded close to £400m of UK property over 15 years. The purchases include one building acquired for £33.5m in 2009 by an offshore company beneficially owned by President Aliyev’s son, Heydar, then just 11. The revelations raise fears of potential loopholes in the property registration system, and whether they prevent proper due diligence even by the crown estate, which is run for the benefit of the nation’s finances. An estate spokesperson said: “Before our purchase … we conducted checks including those required by…

When Hawa Jama Abdi was eight years old, she got lost in a forest and found herself in the path of a hyena. Many people would have run, some would have frozen – but Jama Abdi, the blind daughter of Somali pastoralists, kept her cool, and composed her first poem. The verse ran: I lived in fear of you, day and night It is a miracle world if I am standing in front of you, tonight Since I am blind and cannot see anything Come to my rescue and let your voice be my company Jama Abdi does not know if the animal was deterred by the power of poetry, or perhaps a slightly less mystical force, but she emerged unscathed by the encounter. “After a while of walking with…

Aukus draws the same old lines in the water The Aukus pact is not a “new global order” (Big story, 24 September) but very much an old order; it is colonial gunboats. I do not expect politicians to have read history such as the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839, but I do expect them to be aware of history in their own lifetimes. China has been very clear about Taiwan since 1950. When Biden said, “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries”, he was committing to another battle in the Pacific. The global dominance of China has been clear for more than 20 years, and yet we are unwillingly signed up to face this new…

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s auto-fictional epic, My Struggle (2009-11), was followed by several works of non - fiction. Mining his recall rather than his imagination, he bypassed the need for invention. The Morning Star, then, feels like an event – his return to the novel, huge and self-consciously serious. Gone is Knausgaard himself as subject and device. Instead, a sprawl of narrators, clustered around a heavyweight fictional event: the appearance of a new star. Initially, Knausgaard’s patented accretion of detail feels enriched with a new and welcome undertow: unnamed dread. The atmosphere is still and eerily fragile. Something seismic is just off-frame, advancing. The narrator, Arne, rounds a corner in his car and sees first a crawling mass of crabs and then, above him, the fiercely bright new star, towards which…

QUIZ Thomas Eaton 1 Who came back from the dead in 1894? 2 Where is a CAPTCHA test taken? 3 Who was the first woman to be paid $1m for a film role? 4 Which island is named after the navigator Lancelotto Malocello? 5 Who got a haircut in Judges 16:19? 6 The Ostwald process converts ammonia into which acid? 7 Which rock festival began as a farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction? 8 By area, what is the smallest borough in New York? What links: 9 Hr and Fr; Sr and Sra; M and Mme? 10 Brunelleschi; Michelangelo; Richard Rogers? 11 Up; down; top; bottom; strange; charm? 12 Derry; Hull; Coventry? 13 Sylvia Plath; Emily Brontë; Margaret Mitchell; Anna Sewell? 14 Mrs Chippy; Towser; Hamish McHamish; Hodge? 15 Jungle Cruise;…