Innholdsfortegnelse for 18 March 2022 i Guardian Weekly

Syria’s military has begun recruiting troops from its own ranks to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, promising $3,000 a month – a sum up to 50 times a Syrian soldier’s salary. Enlistment notices have been posted on regime linked websites, including profiles linked to the 4th Division, one of Bashar al-Assad’s core units. One advert states that troops who sign up will be fighting in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin gave the green light last week for what he claimed would be up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East deploying alongside Russian backed rebels in Ukraine, as the invasion struggles to maintain momentum. Russia’s defence ministry said the deployment would be made to the breakaway Donbas region of eastern Ukraine where much of the fighting had been focused. Even for…

ALLIES OF THE UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, say Vladimir Putin will only accept a compromise on Ukraine’s future neutrality if he is facing a credible threat to his economic power base by a rapid and permanent exclusion of Russia’s oil and gas exports from its lucrative European markets. The Russian government receives 40% of its budget revenues from energy exports. But Ukraine is meeting stubborn resistance from Germany, which insists its economy would be plunged into recession if it suddenly lost access to Russian gas and oil. In an interview reflecting the moral pressure Germany is under to do more, the country’s Green economics minister, Robert Habeck, admitted Europe in the past had fed Ukraine false promises, but said Germany could not afford “the loss of hundreds of thousands of…

After a dizzying rise from student protest leader to head of state in just over a decade, Gabriel Boric was sworn in last Friday as Chile’s youngest-ever president in front of delegates from the United States, Spain, Argentina and Peru. Boric, 36, who wore a jacket but no tie for the ceremony in Valparaíso, was flanked by several of the student leaders who served alongside him through two terms in congress and are joining his cabinet. “This is the best generation of young politicians Chile has had in 50 years,” said Lu is Maira, 81, a former minister who was a mentor to the new president. “Without a shadow of a doubt, Boric is leading us into a new chapter.” Chile was rocked by months of unrest in 2019 over…

The election of an avowed “anti-feminist” as the next president of South Korea has been greeted with dismay amid accusations Yoon Suk-yeol fuelled the gender divide to garner support from young male voters. Former top prosecutor Yoon defeated the liberal ruling party candidate Lee Jae-myung by 263,000 votes in a closely contested poll on 9 March. Yoon has blamed South Korea’s low birthrate on feminism. He has called for the abolition of the gender equality ministry, which he says focuses too much on women’s rights and is no longer necessary. He has promised to enhance punishments for false accusations of sexual violence, a step campaigners say will deter even more women from coming forward. An exit poll showed only 34% of women in their 20s marked Yoon on their ballot…

Joe Biden’s hardline stance on Russia has won him wide-spread plaudits, but with the most serious oil shock in decades now a reality, the US president’s attempt to cushion the blow-back continues to meet resistance from the two allies he needs most. Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, had last weekend still to agree to a phone call with the west’s most powerful man – a scenario all but unthinkable during previous administrations. Biden’s immediate priority is for both countries to help exert maximum pressure on Russia by cranking up their oil output. Each is a major oil supplier, with excess capacity, which would soften the effect on US consumers through fuel prices before midterm elections in…

Nata Schepy is a Ukrainian illustrator living in the Netherlands DAVID ADLER Why the global south stays neutral Page 47→ In the Ukrainian countryside, there is a long tradition of having plenty of bread on the table and of eating it with butter and salt or dipping it in milk. Bread dipped in fresh cow’s milk was also given to little kids and they loved it. Our boys have always loved fresh bread. In our village shop, we would buy our favourite Makariv loaf – a soft, white, brick-shaped loaf. It was baked at the well-known Makariv bakery, which is 20km from our village. Occasionally, you could find this bread in Kyiv, but only in small corner shops, not supermarkets. I have been thinking about that bread for several days…

1 Oxygen Starvation (1992) This study of a Ukrainian soldier dealing with abuse as a recruit in the Soviet army is based on the experiences of director Andrii Donchyk and writer Yurii Andrukhovych. 2 Chernobyl: Chronicles of the Difficult Weeks (1987) A documentary started days after the catastrophic nuclear power plant explosion. Volodymyr Shevchenko, the director, died of radiation poisoning a month after its release. 3 Tomorrow Is a Holiday (1987) Shot at the start of the “perestroika” era, this exposed the difficulties of everyday life at a poultry processing factory. 4 The Wall (1988) Documentary about the Wall of Memory, the monumental reliefs at Kyiv crematorium by artists Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko. 5 Levels of Democracy (1992) A montage of rough video telling the story of the mass demonstrations that took place in…

Few people can keep up with US rap phenomenon Megan Thee Stallion, let alone upstage her. But Lick – her collaboration with Jamaican dancehall artist Shenseea – proves it is at least possible. That’s partly thanks to the latter’s imperious, hypnotically rhythmic flow. Lick is an ode to receiving oral sex, and eye-wateringly blunt (sample lyric: “Me want me pum-pum sucked, sucked, sucked”). Shenseea, above, is staggeringly profane, sometimes to the point of unintentional comedy (the sweetly romantic slow jam Deserve It somehow manages to find room for the line “put that pussy in a hearse every time”) but usually it feels like a suitable accompaniment to the uninhibited energy of her music. She also knows how to entertain a guest, pairing with stars – Beenie Man, 21 Savage, Offset…

I’m moving to a home with a small kitchen and limited storage. What’s the most essential kit? Ellie, Nottingham “Most things are frills – few are essentials,” wrote Laurie Colwin in her essay The Low-Tech Person’s Batterie de Cuisine. Colwin added: “Pans are like sweaters: you may have lots of them, but you find yourself using two or three over and over again.” As with clothing, versatility is key. For Carla Lalli Music, the author of the cookbook That Sounds So Good, a 25cm cast-iron skillet (or saute pan) is invaluable, “for all your pan-frying, all your searing, most stir-fries, and it goes from stovetop to oven, so you could also roast a chicken in it”. Then, you’ll want a small (about 20cm), nonstick pan and a Dutch oven (a…

It’s my first walk after Covid. Here in Scotland, we still have to self-isolate for 10 days and, because I live with my GP husband and a lodger, that meant sticking to a couple of rooms and only sneaking down to the kitchen with mask and disinfectant spray when they were out. I even stopped patting the dog. On my last walk before my positive test, the strath was deep in snow, every tree cloaked in white, the forest silent. Now, scraps of snow linger on the hills, but the valley is clear. Today, the sun beams from a pale-blue sky and the cohorts of clouds look too lazy to do much. The air feels fresh on my skin. I bask in the fragrances of soil and trees again. The…

UKRAINE INVASION Moscow has backing of Beijing, say US officials China has decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support during its war on Ukraine and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones, US officials fear. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, laid out the case against the invasion in a meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, pointing out Moscow had feigned interest in diplomacy while preparing to invade Ukraine. “It was an intense seven-hour session,” a senior official said. “This meeting was not about negotiating specific issues or outcomes, but about a candid, direct exchange of views.” The Americans walked away from the meeting pessimistic that the Chinese government would reverse its backing for Moscow. “They’ve already decided that they’re going to…

A uthorities in Lviv, 80km from the border with Poland and a haven for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Ukrainians, last week ordered dozens of statues to be wrapped in padding to protect them from Russian attacks. Despite being untouched by the bombings at that stage, the 700,000 inhabitants of this magnificent Unesco world heritage site knew their time would come. So when the cities of Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, about 130km away, were targeted by Russian forces last Friday in one of the military attacks closest to the west since the beginning of the war, it came as no surprise. The citizens of Lviv, among the strongest supporters of Ukraine’s separation from the Soviet Union, are well aware that their town – which is described as the soul of…

Nazis, genocide, Nato, history: Russia has no shortage of apparent justifications for its war in Ukraine. But are any of them valid? Were Russian speakers endangered in the country’s east? Is Nato’s expansion a threat to Moscow? Were neo-Nazis running amok in Ukraine? We assess whether Russia’s claims justify the invasion of a sovereign country. Claim Nato has encircled Russia, threatening Russian security, despite assurances that it would not Since 1991, Nato has absorbed 11 eastern European countries and three former Soviet republics. Some say assurances were given to the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, that Nato wouldn’t move an inch farther east after German reunification in 1990. But this is hotly disputed Russia’s logic is shaped by history. “The Russian historical view is that every hundred years or so…

‘We had a plan for when the war started,” says Bogdan Nesvit, the 30-year-old cofounder of Ukrainian tech developer Holy Water. “We relocated the female part of the team to Poland. With men not allowed to leave the country, we are all working between bomb shelters and hotels.” Nesvit is sharing a hotel room with six of his 80 colleagues in western Ukraine. He is one of the country’s army of almost 300,000 tech workers who have embarked on an unprecedented migration to keep their firms running during the Russian invasion. The hotel where he is based has turned its gym into a makeshift communal office space. Nesvit estimates it is being used by about 100 workers around the clock, as the relative safety of the west of Ukraine has…

The big western brands showed Vladimir Putin how to do it. While the Kremlin’s army was getting bogged down in Ukraine, Coca-Cola and Starbucks lost no time in closing their doors to Russian customers. But the most emblematic move of all came from McDonald’s, which has shut all 850 of its outlets in Russia. The availability of Big Macs in the Soviet Union was seen in 1990 as evidence that the west’s old cold war foe was turning its back on communism, but the past fortnight has rekindled memories of the bad old days. There were queues outside McDonald’s when it first opened in Moscow. Last week, Russians queued for one last burger Lenin once said there were decades when nothing happened and weeks when decades happen ed, and that’s…

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Brasília after one of the Brazil’s leading musician, Caetano Veloso, called a protest to denounce what environmentalists are calling a historic assault on the environment under President Jair Bolsonaro. The Ato pela Terra (Stand for the Earth) demonstration in the capital opposed what activists call a “death combo” of five bills being considered by congress. The senate is expected to vote on three of those bills in the coming weeks, while two are expected to face votes in the lower house. If approved, the proposals would give the go-ahead for commercial mining on indigenous lands and jeopardi se the land rights of tens of thousands of indigenous people; loosen environmental licensing requirements and regulations over pesticide use; and boost land grabbers and illegal loggers in…

IF you want a physical manifestation of Britain’s unquestioning acceptance of oligarchs and its refusal to examine the origin of their wealth, you should walk past Harrods towards the Victoria and Albert Museum. After about 200 metres, you will see on the right-hand side of the road the unmistakable burgundy glazed tiles of a tube station. That is your destination. You can’t get on the underground here, because the station stopped accepting passengers decades ago and became a Ministry of Defence office. But it still has the platforms and shafts of a tube station, and that’s why it came to the attention of a former banker called Ajit Chambers in 2009. Chambers had a plan, which he revealed at one of the public events Boris Johnson used to hold when he…

As the number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s brutal invasion reached 1 million, the United Nations security council called an emergency session of the general assembly on 2 March. There, 193 nations reviewed a resolution on Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine” and voted overwhelmingly to approve it: 141 votes in favour, 35 abstentions and five votes against. Even some of Russia’s closest allies in Europe – Serbia, for example, or Hungary – condemned the invasion. “The message of the general assembly is loud and clear,” said the UN secretary general, António Guterres. What exactly is that message? Many commentators have pointed to the unity of the west and the world in taking on the Putin government. But to make sense of the geopolitical consequences of the Russian invasion, we must examine…

A drunk woman in the seat next to me is softly caressing my hair as though stroking a spaniel. It’s a strange sensation, but I can’t really complain because I’m at the theatre. You’re not meant to talk. Just as I rouse myself to say something, she stumbles to her feet and lurches to the exit. “Finally!” mutters the woman in front, who had asked her to be quiet a few minutes earlier (when my neighbour was dancing in her seat and yelling “That’s right!” after lines she particularly enjoyed), resulting in a whispered row. Order restored, we settle back down to watch Frozen, a family show about sisterhood and redemption. Your average West End audience, however, is not always one big happy family. Especially not when complaints about drunken,…

The short story is seen as either a natural form, close to conversation, or an art like poetry, requiring great skill and restraint. But some poems are huge and some short stories are restless, just about contained. Some stories push at their own edges, trying to escape themselves. In The Ways, the second story in Colin Barrett’s superb second collection, every sentence is as full and alive as a sentence can be, while managing to stay ordinary. A landline “mewls”, waking a girl from the “cosy rut” of her bed. As she comes downstairs, “she swatted each light switch as she passed, in order to feel less alone”. Every chosen word catches and enlarges the character of Pell, one of three siblings who try to nurture each other after the…

Russia’s deadly multiple missile strike last Sunday on Ukraine’s military base in Yavoriv, less than 25km from the Polish border, was clearly designed to send a message. Not only can Russian forces strike the western limits of Ukraine, killing at least 35 people near where western arms will be crossing into the country, but the Kremlin does not care if US or other volunteer fighters were training there. A day earlier, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, had said its military would treat arms shipments to Ukraine from Nato countries as “legitimate targets”. The facility, well known as a location where Nato forces trained Ukrainians in years before the war began, is near the most direct route between Rzeszow airport, where western arms are being flown in, and the city…

Igor Gavrylko was at his home in west London when the Russian bombs began to fall on Ukraine. A British citizen originally from Ukraine, he had lived in the UK since 1996. He rang his boss. “I knew a Russian invasion was going to happen,” he said. “My Ukrainian grandfather fought against the Red Army and the Nazis … Now it’s my turn.” Gavrylko set off by car and drove across Europe. By the time he arrived in Ukraine, his elderly parents had already had a narrow escape. Russian missiles had destroyed the airport in their home town of Ivano-Frankivsk. “My city was bombarded,” he said. Gavrylko arranged for his mother, sister and four-year-old niece to escape to Poland. His 74-year-old father, Bog dan, refused to leave. Gavrylko is one…

Three weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China is still turning diplomatic cartwheels to prevent the war from damaging its global standing, while preserving its strategic partnership with Moscow. China offers to mediate! China offers aid! China is “extremely concerned” about citizens’ safety! Xi mentions the word “war”! The plethora of headlines alone is evidence for how Beijing has been subtly shifting its language to put some distance between itself and Moscow and its increasingly bloody military tactics. But for the moment, such protestations should be ignored. Beijing’s core message is that it is standing by Russia, or perhaps more the point, against the US, which it continues to blame for the war. If there was ever any doubt as to Beijing’s authentic view, Zhao Lijian, the foreign ministry spokes…

The water beneath our boat is teeming with life. It is a fine Sunday morning on Loch Slapin on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, and Dr Judith Brown and Andrew Airnes point below the surface to where they hope to grow more than 100 tonnes of high-quality animal protein suspended from four ropes. “You probably wouldn’t be able to grow one sheep on that land-wise,” says Airnes. Due in part to its tremendous efficiency, mussel farming is seen by a new generation of food producers as having exciting potential for feeding a growing population while restoring native biodiversity that has been damaged or destroyed by pollution and harmful fishing practices. “Mussel farming with suspended ropes creates a marine habitat, an ecosystem which is permanent. All you do is rotate…

Naamcial’s craft beers often have distinctly Thai flavours, as he experiments with native produce, boiling the pulp of jackfruit and mango to mix into different concoctions. Yet his homemade products are forbidden Talking to the Guardian under a pseudonym, Naamcial said he would like to operate a legal brewery, but Thailand’s laws around alcohol production make this ambition almost impossible for newcomers. Current laws restrict brewing licences to manufacturers that have capital of 10 million baht ($300,000), while brewpubs must produce at least 100,000 litres a year and only serve their beer on their premises. The legislation effectively blocks new, small breweries from opening, and tips the market firmly in favour of two powerful companies – Thai Beverage, which produces Chang beer, and Boon Rawd Brewery, which produces Singha and…

In a Washington riven by discord, it could seem like a throwback to a gentler time. “I’m proud to stand with my Republican and Democrat colleagues” to send help to Ukraine, Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the US House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee, said last week. But even as they express solidarity with Joe Biden’s stance on Russia, Republicans are launching partisan attacks against the president. The party has, critics say, seized on soaring US petrol prices to exploit the tragedy in Ukraine for political benefit. Since war broke out, Republicans have honed a message that the US achieved “energy independence” under Donald Trump only for it to be squandered by Biden, whose preoccupation with the climate crisis hurt domestic production, drove up fuel prices and strengthened oil-rich…

Two groups of politicians have looked at the burning hospitals and ravaged cities and thought: “This is the ideal opportunity to advance my career by lying about a merciless imperial war.” The first consists of Vladimir Putin and his organised crime gang. The second consists of Boris Johnson and his ministers. If – and I hope when – Putin’s gangsters face trial, they will plead that the boss gave them no choice. If Sergei Lavrov does not pretend the war is not a war and “we have not even attacked Ukraine”, he will lose his job and maybe more than his job as Putinism turns into Stalinism. The few Russians with the courage to speak out risk 15 years in jail for publishing “fake news” (or “telling the truth”, as…

Only a few years ago the Uyghur minority in China was unknown to most people in the west. China’s record on human rights, however, was an open secret, albeit covered in a miasma of hypocrisy by foreign governments intent on expanding their trading opportunities. In the past few years, the sites in Xinjiang province where the Uyghur Muslim people are detained have turned into something akin to concentration camps, with between 1 million and 3 million prisoners; the evidence points to a planned programme to erase an entire ethnic identity. As well as mass internment, there are accounts of forced labour, torture, death, disappearances and the removal of children from their parents to orphanages in order to “deracinate” them. Satellite and drone evidence has shown that mosques and Muslim burial…

My daughter is 15 months old, and since I gave birth, my libido has been very low. Sex is the last thing on my mind, which frustrates my husband and makes him feel unwanted. He is understanding and very loving, but I do sense his frustration. Of course, there is intimacy between us and I still feel attracted to him, but caring for our child 24/7 leaves me quite drained, emotionally. I fear that our relationship will be affected and we might get distanced if this carries on for a while. How you feel is completely normal. While some women feel sexual soon after birth, many don’t for some time. Everything has changed for you – your body has changed and your life has changed. After giving birth, I remember…

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