Innholdsfortegnelse for 26th November 2021 i Guardian Weekly

In from the cold People sleep on makeshift pallet beds at a warehouse in Bruzgi, near the border with Poland, where Belarus was accused of engineering an artificial migrant crisis with the EU. Although Belarus last week said it had cleared the camps, Poland said Minsk had merely directed smaller groups to points along the frontier. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Guardian Weekly is an edited selection of some of the best journalism found in the Guardian and Observer newspapers in the UK and the Guardian’s digital editions in the UK, US and Australia. The weekly magazine has an international focus and three editions: global, Australia and North America. The Guardian was founded in 1821, and Guardian Weekly in 1919. We exist to hold power to…

Every year, a British Asian small business owner in West Yorkshire sends his neighbour a card and leaves a gift on his doorstep. And every year, without fail, that neighbour ignores him. “Ever since we moved in, he won’t look at me and my family, he doesn’t respond when we say hello. He even planted conifers so we couldn’t see into his garden and he can’t see us,” the man, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “But I still send him Christmas cards and buy him a gift. He won’t even open the door when I knock, so I just leave it on the doorstep.” Azeem Rafiq’s devastating testimony on the racism he experienced as cricket player has resonated deeply with the British Asian community in Yorkshire. The shocking allegations,…

Kyle Rittenhouse is a free man after fatally shooting two men and wounding a third during anti-racism protests last year, but his trial has left behind a divided America – and done little to ease tensions in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the killings took place. Rittenhouse, 18, who faced charges of homicide, was acquitted in full on the grounds of self-defen ce. But the jury’s decision did not calm those outside the Kenosha county courthouse in the hours after the verdict last Friday. The shouting matches that flared on the steps outside between opposing sides embodied the wildly different lenses through which a divided country viewed the case. Many saw the treatment a white and armed man had received from law enforcement as different to that experienced by anti-racism protesters. Meanwhile,…

ANN IS SITTING IN A WINDOWLESS and sparsely furnished white room with high ceilings and a red concrete floor. There is a bed in the corner, next to shelves full of medical equipment. She seems small against the large black sofa, her hands clasped together to minimise the involuntary swaying caused by her Parkinson’s disease. She is in pain, she is tired and, for the first time that day, she is getting a little anxious. She is waiting for someone to arrive with the drug that will kill her. Her fear is not of dying; she passed that point a long time ago. She is worried about the pharmacy’s supplies, suddenly scared that the people in whose hands she has put her death could let her down. Ann Bruce, my…

Pick a humanitarian emergency in any part of the world, and the needs will seem remarkably consistent. Once people have escaped immediate danger, they need food, shelter, clothing and medical assistance – the things, in other words, that sustain us physically. The most pressing questions are about how to source the items and services required, and how to distribute them effectively. What determines whether an emergency is resolved quickly or allowed to persist, however, is politics. And if you want to see what happens when political solutions fail, then the scrubland of the northern French coast, just across the Channel from England, is an instructive place to look. The recent decision by Choose Love – a celebrity-backed charity set up in the aftermath of the 2015 European refugee crisis –…

Lubaina Himid has waited a long time for a show at London’s Tate Modern. She is now 67, and in 2017 she had the bittersweet honour of being the first Black woman, and the oldest-ever artist (at 63), to win the Turner prize. Bittersweet because “I knew very definitely, in the way that you don’t necessarily if you’re 45, that I had more years behind me than in front. You could think, if you won it at 45, that you might have the same amount of time again to try things, to fail, to try things again … I suppose at 63 I thought: ‘Well, at best, I’ve probably got 20 years of making.’” We are in Preston, the city where she has lived since the age of 36. She…

If he hadn’t become a musician, Paul McCartney says, he would probably have been an English teacher. He has fond memories of his English teacher, Alan Durband, who taught the young Paul the value of close reading. When he wrote songs with John Lennon, the chords and melody came first. But the words mattered too. Where the straight-up, irony-free early lyrics wooed their audience through a flurry of pronouns – She Loves You, From Me to You, Please Please Me, etc – the later lyrics aspired to poetry. Take Eleanor Rigby, which began as a song about the kind of old lady McCartney did chores for as a scout during bob-a-job week. “The secret to successful songwriting is the ability to paint a picture,” he says, and the picture of…

Family misfortunes From David Lynch to Jonathan Franzen to Charles Ray, Guardian critics offer suggestions of culture that can mess you up at least as much as your mum and dad Film Eraserhead “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” wrote Tolstoy – and then there is Eraserhead. Quoted almost as often as the opening of Anna Karenina is the nugget that David Lynch made his first, horrified feature in response to his status as a new father. But the monstrous baby is only part of a wider freakout. The whole family structure is a nightmare – on display in the dinner scene where Jack Nance’s woebegone Henry meets his prospective in-laws. Danny Leigh Stage Die! Die! Die! Old People Die! At 120-something…

What has happen ed? A huge storm dumped record rainfall across swathes of British Columbia in Canada and Washington state in the US between 13 and 15 November. Thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes, others became trapped on impassable roads, and several towns were completely cut off. Mud and landslides have destroyed sections of highways. British Columbia’s premier declared a state of emergency last Wednesday and troops were deployed to help those still stranded. The port of Vancouver, the largest in Canada, was forced to suspend all rail access, and the city was all but cut off from the rest of Canada. At least four people have been confirmed dead with others missing. In the town of Abbotsford, farmers ignored an evacuation order to try to…

English cricket has issued an unreserved apology to Azeem Rafiq, saying the racism he experienced is a blight on the game, before promising to take swift measures to restore trust. The apology, which came after crisis talks at the Oval between the ECB, first-class counties and the sport’s other key stakeholders, praised the former Yorkshire player for “shining a light on our game that has shocked, shamed and saddened us all” and committed to publishing a 12-point action plan this week. “Racism and discrimination is a blight on our game,” the joint statement said. “To Azeem and all those who have experienced any form of discrimination, we are truly sorry. Our sport did not welcome you, our game did not accept you as we should have done. We apologise unreservedly…

It was around midnight when Kitti chai Boodchan heard two loud crashes coming from in front of his home. He knew immediately what was happening. An elephant was outside, and it wanted the family’s stash of bananas. Boonchuay, a bull from Kaeng Krachan national park notorious for his habit of raiding the village in search of snacks, had come to call. Kittichai had bought 200kg of bananas to sell and, although stored inside, the scent had piqued Boonchuay’s interest. Kittichai leapt out of bed and began slamming the door and shouting to try to scare the elephant away. Boonchuay, undeterred, continued to ram his head into the wall, cracking through the structure. He stopped only after about 10 or 15 minutes, when, unable to reach the fresh fruit, he sauntered…

Is Europe entering a dangerous new age of instability? Not since the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union has it looked so vulnerable to hostile forces. Accumulating external threats and internal divisions, coupled with a weakening US security alliance, relentless Russian subversion and power-hungry China’s war on western values are exposing fundamental strategic weaknesses. Europe increasingly resembles a beleaguered democratic island in an anarchic world, where a rising tide of authoritarianism, impunity and international rule-breaking threatens to inundate it. Some leaders understand this, notably French president Emmanuel Macron, yet long-term policy remedies elude them. For example, Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s use of migrants to pressure the EU is plainly outrageous. Yet it worked, in the sense that Germany’s caretaker chancellor, Angela Merkel, phoned him for a chat,…

Let’s Eat Grandma arrive in a cafe, looking exactly like a pair of pop stars. Jazzed up in opulent jewel tones and immaculate eyeliner, they are both tall – about 1.75 metres – but the resemblance ends there. Rosa Walton has the plump red curls of a 40s movie star, while Jenny Hollingworth channels something of the young Kate Bush. They find it funny, being back in band mode after three years away, says Hollingworth, “because we view ourselves as just …” “… us,” says Walton. It feels right that the pair, both 22, spend much of the next two hours talking to each other. It’s easy to bask in their fervent, thoughtful, funny company. They offer each other backup and emotional reassurance, cackle at absurdities, and tenderly analyse their…

As usual, I was putting off the moment when I settled down to write, by browsing property porn – and that’s when I found my dream barn. It was everything I ever wanted, in just the right part of the Yorkshire Dales. Some deft person had made it over with utmost care. I liked the bedrooms. I adored the garden. But most of all I loved the kitchen, which consisted only of a huge stove and a couple of waist-high cabinets on casters, to move as and when the fancy takes. Is the fitted kitchen on its way out? I’m beginning to think it might be. Space inside is at an ever greater premium, and as we grow more concerned about waste and the politics of owning stuff, the fashion…

1 UNITED STATES At least five dead as car ploughs into festive parade Authorities in Wisconsin on Monday identified a 39-year-old man as the person who ploughed his vehicle into a Christmas parade last Sunday night, killing five people and injuring another 48, including two children who remained in a critical condition. Darrell E Brooks was charged with five counts of intentional first-degree homicide in Waukesha, a city 30km west of Milwaukee. Police said the suspect was involved in an unspecified domestic disturbance immediately before the parade inciden, children have diedt and that further charges were expected. Several of those killed were members of a “Dancing Grannies” troupe that was entertaining holiday crowds. Teenage girls dancing with a marching band were also hit when the red sports utility vehicle sped through…

ASYLUM & IMMIGRATION Channel crossings lead to desperate Tory plans Conservative MPs are urging ministers to send people travelling to the UK by small boats to off shore centres as far away as the Falkland Islands as concern grows that the party is losing support among red wall voters. Priti Patel, the home secretary, should also be willing to automatically return migrants to France if the party is to fulfil the Brexit promise of taking control of the UK’s borders, MPs said. The increasingly extreme demands come as Patel is being put under “immense pressure” from Downing Street and Conservative MPs over government efforts to halt the crossings. The government has repeatedly promised to make such crossings “unviable” and pledged tens of millions of pounds to France to help tackle…

A man crosses a blocked road on the outskirts of Delhi as fireworks explode during celebrations marking an announcement by India’s prime minister Narendra Modi that he would repeal three contentious farm laws that had prompted a year of protests and unrest in India, in one of the most significant concessions made by his government. Last week’s U-turn was a huge victory for India’s farmers, who fought hard for the repeal of what they called the “black laws”. Modi remained adamant that the reforms were necessary, but acknowledged that they were unfeasible given the fierce opposition. He had passed the laws in 2020 in an attempt to overhaul India’s archaic agriculture sector by rolling back farm subsidies and price regulation on crops. The agriculture sector still employs about 60% of…

Boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics in February may seem a simple, symbolic diplomatic gesture – when put alongside the allegations of labour camps in Xinjiang province and the apparent sexual exploitation of the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai – but such is the contemporary economic power of China that the step will only be taken after much agonising. The threats and economic boycotts that Australia, Canada and more recently Lithuania have suffered at the hands of the Chinese for challenging Beijing’s authority are not experiences other countries will want to copy lightly. The west has always argued that its secret weapon against China is the strength of its alliances. China, by contrast, has no friends. So if a boycott is to happen – by, for instance, withdrawing ambassadors, royalty and…

For the past 11 months, the two walls that make up a street corner in east Madrid have engaged in a mute but bitter debate that mirrors the fault lines, fights and ferocities of Spanish politics. On the left wall are 24 street signs commemorating poets and writers including Federico García Lorca, Miguel Hernández, Victoria Kent and Carmen Laforet. On the right one are 25 others honouring the likes of Francisco Franco, his coup-mongering colleague General Emilio Mola, and General José Millán-Astray, the founder of the Spanish legion. Each wall bears a QR code that leads to detailed biographies of all those featured. The installation called Fachada derecha – Fachada izquierda (Right Facade – Left Facade) is by Mateo Maté, a Spanish conceptual artist long preoccupied with how nationalism can invade…

It was initially seen as an audacious enlistment by Joe Biden of Australia into the 21st-century struggle against China, elevating the country to a regional military power and giving substance to Global Britain and its tilt to the Indo-Pacific. But since then the “ruckus” about Aukus, as Boris Johnson described it, has not stopped. If this was the start of a new “anti-hegemonic coalition” to balance China’s rise, it has not quite blown up on the launchpad, but nor has it taken off smoothly. At the heart of the matter is Australia’s announcement on 16 September that it was ditching its A$90bn ($65.3bn) “deal of the century” contract to buy 12 diesel-powered submarines from France, and was instead buying eight nuclear-propelled submarines from the US and the UK. This duplicity…

At 1.35pm on 6 January, the top Republican in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, stood before his party and delivered a dire warning. If they overruled the will of 81 million voters by blocking Joe Biden’s certification as president in a bid to snatch re-election for the defeated candidate, Donald Trump, “it would damage our republic forever”. Five minutes before he started speaking, hundreds of Trump supporters incited by the then president’s false claim that the 2020 election had been stolen broke through Capitol police lines and were storming the building. McConnell’s next remark has been forgotten in the catastrophe that followed – the inner sanctums of America’s democracy defiled, five people dead, and 138 police officers injured. He said: “If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the…

On 4 November 2020 the world was occupied with the US election. For myself and many others with family and friends in Tigray, however, that day marked the beginning of a continuing nightmare. And it’s one that the world has, mostly, ignored. When on that day the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel peace prize winner, announced a military offensive in Tigray, the region was cut off from the world. Phone and internet was cut, banks were closed and journalists were barred from the region, which lies in the far north of Ethiopia and is home to more than 7 million people. Those of us with family in Tigray braced ourselves, waiting to hear what had become of family and friends. Now, a year on, we have a manmade…

The party of sleaze leaves a nasty smell of hypocrisy The Tory party since Boris Johns on was voted into the top job has had the entirely justifiabl e reputation of being the party of sleaze (Big story, 12 November). This latest debacle should be a wake up call to the British people. Such behaviour sanctioned at the highest level of government and by it s lawmakers surely erodes the foundations of our democratic institutions and, if left unchecked, destroys them. The stench emanating from Westminster will linger in the public nostrils for a long time. Let’s hope common sense will prevail and human greed in all its manifestations will be expunged. We deserve better. Raymond Clark Allardyce Irvine, Scotland, UK The Zaghari-Ratcliffe family deserve better The Zaghari-Ratcliffe fiasco is…