Innholdsfortegnelse for 27 January 2023 i Guardian Weekly

A couple take a selfie in front of lanterns marking the lunar new year at a Buddhist temple in Jenjarom, Selangor. With last Sunday marking the start of the year of the rabbit, pet welfare groups in the country warned consumers not to buy the animals, fearing a plethora of abandoned pets could follow. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol 208 | Issue № 4 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…

Mick Cullen, known as Speedo Mick, walks through Glencoe in Scotland in sub-zero temperatures wearing only his swimming trunks. Cullen is walking 1,600km from John O’Groats to Land’s End while also scaling the highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales along the way. He has raised nearly £50,000 ($62,000) for the SpeedoMick Foundation, which will give grants to small charities supporting mental health awareness, disadvantaged young people and the homeless.…

Step 1 Offsetting project set up A project is established to mitigate global heating. Many are avoided-emission projects that prevent greenhouse gases from being released from deforestation or fossil fuels, but do not remove carbon from the atmosphere Step 2 Credits are calculated Carbon credits are calculated using dozens of methods. Avoided-deforestation projects estimate what would happen if the project was not there. Projects claim the difference between what happens and what could happened have as credits Step 3 Company makes net zero strategy Some firms work out the emissions they are producing every year from their own activities. In order to meet their net zero strategy, alongside efforts to cut emissions, some companies decide to buy carbon offsets Step 4 Company acquires carbon credits Firms get carbon credits through…

What is the Leopard 2? The Leopard 2 is a German-manufactured main battle tank with a range of about 500km. It first came into service in 1979 and has a top speed of 68 km/h. Equipped with a 120mm smooth bore gun as its main armament, it is also armed with two coaxial light machine guns. As well as being used by the German military, Leopard 2 has been in wide service in Europe, with more than a dozen countries using the tank, as well as a number of other countries including Canada. The tanks have been deployed in Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Syria (by Turkey) where several were lost to anti-tank missiles. Why does Kyiv want them? Ukraine says it urgently needs heavier weaponry in its war against Russia’s…

Lecturers at UK universities have been urged to review the way in which their courses are assessed amid concerns that students are already using a potent new AI tool capable of producing high-quality essays with minimal human input. ChatGPT, the latest chatbot from OpenAI, founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and others, has only been publicly available for a few weeks, but has already triggered concerns about the potential for hard-to-detect plagiarism and questions about the validity of the essay as a future form of assessment. Not lost for words ChatGPT is an AI program that can create essays, stories and even job application letters. The program is a product of OpenAI, a US research laboratory. Known as a large language model or LLM, the AI is fed hundreds of…

The world has become hard-wired for pessimism, and there was plenty of it on display in Davos last week. Much has changed in the 52 years since the World Economic Forum was first held in the Swiss ski resort. At that original WEF summit, the global economy was dominated by the rich nations of Europe and northern America, currencies were fixed under the Bretton Woods system, and oil was $2 a barrel. The cold war between the US and the Soviet Union was still raging. It was a pre-digital age; personal computers and smartphones were things of the future. Artificial intelligence (AI) was the stuff of science fiction. But what has really changed is that a sense of things getting better has been replaced in the developed world by a…

The Democratic party’s rationale for shaking up its presidential primary process was fairly straightforward: the system is dominated by two predominantly white states that vote first, giving people of colour little say in choosing the potential next president. Facing fuming New Hampshire officials, however, and a Georgia Republican party happy to meddle in Democrats’ plans, the Joe Biden-led effort to make things more equitable looks increasingly in peril. New Hampshire, which has held the first presidential primary for decades, is proving particularly unyielding, raising the prospect of a rogue vote taking place in the state. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) approved a revised primary schedule last month, which would mean the most significant changes in decades to the way that a candidate is selected Under the new plan, Iowa –…

At 11pm on the last day of January, it will be precisely three years since the UK departed the European Union, an anniversary that prompts me to ask: how are you enjoying the “new golden age”? That’s what we were promised by the Brexit proselytisers, none more hyperbolic than Jacob Rees-Mogg. “The moment of national renewal has come,” he ejaculated on the pages of the Mail on Sunday. “We can embark on this new age with confidence and excitement. Over two millenniums since mighty Augustus quelled the unrest and strife in ancient Rome … our auriferous prime minister is bringing in a new era of revitalisation to our nation.” The prognostications of Mystic Mogg have proved to be crystal balls. His sleazy Caesar has since been dethroned. Unrest is not…

It is an inalienable convention of fiction that a mystery entails a solution. Imagine a whodunnit in which the murderer is never revealed! Readers would howl in frustration. It would be wrong to suggest that Scottish writer Martin MacInnes cheats the reader of the satisfactions of solution. He is not a frustrating or peekaboo author: quite the reverse. And yet, though his novels tell stories that hang on mysteries, his distinctiveness as a writer does not depend on plot reveals. In his first novel, 2016’s Infinite Ground, a middle-aged man disappears during a family meal, and an eminent detective is brought in to investigate. But as the investigation proceeds, throwing up other mysteries as it goes, the understanding grows in the reader that something more than a missing persons narrative…

It’s an age-old question: how do we adjust to our elderly societies? Japan has faced such realities for a while now, but the challenges are becoming increasingly common across much of the world where families are getting smaller, and people are living longer. Even India – which will soon overtake China as the world’s most populous country – is seeing an older demographic become more prevalent in some states. The countries of sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, look most likely to enjoy the benefits of a younger population as the century progresses. For this week’s big story, Emma Graham-Harrison and Justin McCurry assess what ageing populations hold in store for the world. And Verna Yu reports on the reasons why many young people in China seem reluctant to start families. Of related…

Chris Hipkins was due to be sworn in as New Zealand’s next prime minister this week after a formal vote that endorsed him as Jacinda Ardern’s successor. New Zealand was also expected to swear in its first ever Pasifika deputy prime minister, with the social development minister, Carmel Sepuloni, who is of Tongan and Samoan descent, taking the role. “I take on this job at a challenging time for New Zealanders,” Hipkins said in his first speech after the vote, promising to focus on economic issues. “Covid-19 and the global pandemic created a health crisis, and now it’s created an economic one – and that’s where my government’s focus will be. “Our focus will be on the right now, on the bread and butter issues that people care about. Some…

Thousands of devotees return after taking part in the final day of a three-day Islamic gathering on the banks of the River Turag in Tongi, near Dhaka. The second phase of Biswa Ijtema (World Congregation) ended last Sunday with Akheri Munajat, or the Final Prayer, in which devotees prayed for world peace. The annual prayer meeting was first held by the River Turag in 1967 and has grown to become the second-largest global congregation of Muslims, attracting up to 5 million worshippers from 150 countries. Since 2011, the Ijtema has been divided into two phases, to accommodate the large number of attendees. This year’s gathering followed a two-year hiatus due to the Covid pandemic.…

It is hard to believe that in the small Sicilian town of Campobello di Mazara, where everyone knows each other and their secrets, no one thought to inquire after the identity of the man who had turned up out of the blue, with no known family or friends, over a year ago. Impeccably dressed in designer clothes, he could be seen drinking an espresso at the local cafe on most mornings, dining in a pizzeria, strolling the streets, shopping and cordially greeting his neighbours. That is until last Monday, when he was arrested coming out of a clinic in Palermo and revealed to be Matteo Messina Denaro, the last godfather of the Sicilian mafia and the world’s most wanted mob boss. There is a Sicilian proverb that roughly translates as:…

If what tickles your tastebuds for supper is duck brain served in the skull, edible pine cones, sweetbreads in reindeer moss and dried plum and pheasant heart followed by a berry-leather and black-garlic beetle, you’d better get a move on. Noma, the fine-dining restaurant in Copenhagen on whose winter “game and forest” menu (it also does vegetable and seafood seasons) those delicacies feature, is closing at the end of next year, and the waiting list for tables is very long. Opened in 2003 and judged the world’s best restaurant in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2021, the year it also won its third Michelin star, chef René Redzepi’s temple of Nordic gastronomy is to become a food lab. The move has sent shock waves through the world of haute cuisine…

Amid the dangerous storms that have hit California in recent weeks, the state is beginning to grapple with the destruction and death left by weeks of extreme weather that wreaked havoc in nearly every region from the northern coast to Los Angeles. The series of storms that have pummelled the state since late December have killed at least 19 people, brought hurricane force winds that toppled trees and power lines, cutting energy to thousands, and flooded roads and rivers, covering swaths of land in mud and debris. Entire communities have been forced to evacuate while road closures and power disruptions left some rural regions isolated and almost cut off from the outside world. Last week, authorities were still documenting the toll of the disaster, an effort hampered by a fresh…

It’s a little more than two years since Meta suspended Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram over his actions in regard to the January 6 Capitol riots. Now, it must decide – reinstate his account, or keep him off the platform for good? It’s a decision that will set a precedent for the way that social media interests balance free speech with content moderation, especially when it comes to high-profile individuals. Any announcement would stem from a self-imposed deadline. While Trump’s ban was initially indefinite, Meta later pledged to revisit the decision and possibly reinstate his account in January 2023, two years after the start of the suspension The stakes are high, and with Trump reportedly looking to shift his 2024 presidential campaign into a higher gear, it was revealed…

Almost a year on, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has lost little of its shock value. A targeted missile strike hollowed out a residential building in Dnipro, killing 45 civilians, two weeks ago. Now, the UK, France and even ever-cautious Germany are talking about supplying Ukraine with western tanks – something that seemed unthinkable even a month ago as western allies remained stuck in a bureaucratic game of chicken, with none willing to be the first to send tanks. So what has changed? Top defence officials in the US and EU have explained the development as a way to help Ukraine gain decisive battlefield success that would force Russia into peace negotiations. Yet Ukraine has been desperately pleading with the west to provide offensive weapons since the early days of the…

I’m spending a fortune on takeaway coffee. Can I make a good one at home without a machine? Harry, Leeds, England, UK You could save hundreds of pounds a year by upping your home coffee game. A little investment goes a long way, says James Hoffmann, author of How to Make the Best Coffee at Home: “Take a month’s budget of cafe coffee and spend it on a grinder.” “Buying ground coffee is like buying a diced apple,” he adds. “It rapidly starts to go stale and break down.” A grinder also lets you make coffee in a host of ways, by adjusting the grind size. “But make sure you go for a burr grinder for a consistent texture.” A set of scales for weighing the beans is also handy…

Winter has been unusually warm in Kyiv this year, but the day I visited the sprawling parkland at Babyn Yar the temperature was a biting-7C. However, the park was busy. Dog walkers hurried across the frozen ground. Mothers with pushchairs checked on their warmly bundled infants. An elderly couple marched along a path using walking poles The phrase babyn yar translates as “old woman’s ravine”, yar being of Turkic origin. In September 1941, when the Nazis and their collaborators began their murderous extermination of Kyiv’s Jews here, the ravine was set in open ground on the fringes of the city. The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko discovered it had become a suburban waste tip in 1961, when he wrote his famous poem, later set to music by Shostakovich. “Here all things scream…

1 UKRAINE Memorial held for officials killed in helicopter crash A tearful Volodymyr Zelenskiy attended a memorial service last Saturday for seven senior interior ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash last week. The former interior minister Denys Monastyrskyi, his deputy and five other high-ranking officials were killed when their French-made Super Puma helicopter crashed into a nursery on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv in foggy conditions last Wednesday. Another seven people were also killed, including a child. Officials are investigating the cause of the crash. The helicopter went down days after at least 45 people were killed in a Russian missile attack that partially levelled a block of flats in the south-eastern city of Dnipro. On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are fending off an unrelenting Russian onslaught in the east,…

CONSERVATIVES PM asks ethics adviser to look into Zahawi tax case Rishi Sunak told his ethics adviser to investigate suggestions that Nadhim Zahawi was forced to pay a fine and millions of pounds in unpaid taxes to HMRC, as the UK prime minister acknowledged there were “questions that need answering”. In a move that placed the Conservative party chair under further intense scrutiny but allow ed the government to deflect immediate calls for him to be sacked, Sunak reiterated the importance of “integrity and accountability”. During the investigation, Zahawi will remain chair of the Conservatives, which over the next few months will involve masterminding the party’s strategy in the runup to local elections in May. Zahawi has faced mounting calls to quit since the Guardian was told he agreed to…

Talk to any young woman in urban China about the prospects of having children and the chances are, they are not keen. “It costs too much to give kids a decent life. The stuff they teach at school is propaganda, so I’d want to send them to an international school or abroad. But I can’t afford that,” said Kongkong, a 26-year-old researcher who swears she will not have children. Last week, the Chinese government announced the country has entered an “era of negative population growth”, after figures showed a historic drop in the number of people for the first time since the great famine between 1958 and 1961. Official statistics show the population fell by 850,000 to 1.41 billion people in 2022. But unlike the famine, whose effects were temporary,…

Poland reiterated that it was ready to send tanks to Ukraine without Germany’s consent, as pressure built on Berlin to supply the heavy weapons that Kyiv has been calling for. The Polish prime minister said on Monday his government would seek permission from Berlin to send its German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but described that consent as of “secondary importance”. Mateusz Morawiecki said: “Even if we did not get this approval … we would still transfer our tanks together with others to Ukraine.” He added that “the condition for us at the moment is to build at least a small coalition of countries”. Berlin was this week under heavy pressure to release the military hardware, or at least allow countries that bought them from Germany to reexport them, after failing…

Dozens of asylum-seeking children have been kidnapped by gangs from a Brighton hotel run by the Home Office in a pattern apparently being repeated across the south coast A whistleblower, who works for Home Office contractor Mitie, and child protection sources describe children being abducted off the street outside the hotel and bundled into cars. “Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They’re being taken from the street by traffickers,” said the source. It has also emerged that the Home Office was warned repeatedly by police that the vulnerable occupants of the hotel – asylum-seeking children who had recently arrived in the UK without parents or carers – would be targeted by criminal networks. About 600 unaccompanied children have passed through the…

Every 40 days a language dies. This “catastrophic” loss is being amplified by the climate crisis, according to linguists. If nothing is done, conservative estimates suggest that half of all the 7,000 languages currently spoken will be extinct by the end of the century. Speakers of minority languages have experienced a long history of persecution, with the result that by the 1920s half of all Indigenous languages in Australia, the US, South Africa and Argentina were extinct. The climate crisis is now considered the “final nail in the coffin” for many Indigenous languages and the knowledge they represent. “Languages are already vulnerable and endangered,” says Anastasia Riehl, the director of the Strathy language unit at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Huge factors are globalisation and migration, as communities move to…

1 Normal cell Cancer cells are normal cells dividing uncontrollably 2 DNA strand The cancer cells have many mutations in their DNA. The mutations are identified by sequencing and comparing DNA from both types of cells 3 Selection Some of these problem mutations are selected as targets for the cancer vaccine 4 Instruction A molecule of messenger RNA (mRNA) is designed containing instructions on how to recognise those problem mutations 5 Injection Once injected, the mRNA molecules help train the body’s immune cells to seek out the cancer cells and attack them Sources: Moderna, CDC, FT…

Like millions of New Yorkers, Antoinette Wilson and Ciarah Richmond spend time on the subway system. One day this month, they were on a platform at 168th street in Washington Heights, where the 1 and A lines connect at one of the system’s warmest stations. That makes it a likely spot to meet people experiencing homelessness, an issue that appears to many to be observably worsening across the city. Wilson and Richmond are members of SOS, an outreach programme connected to The Bridge, a charitable organisation founded in 1954 by former long-term residents of a psychiatric hospital as a self-help collective offering support to adults who, like themselves, had struggled with serious mental illness. One recent morning, Wilson and Richmond happened upon G and Lily, a couple who are frequently…

Britain, take note. A post-Elizabethan era is taking shape here in Jamaica. And it looks like a republic. “The government will be moving with haste and alacrity towards transforming Jamaica into a republic,” said our prime minister, Andrew Holness, last week. “Please move ahead with speed,” he urged his minister of constitutional affairs. If there are obstacles, the government will do whatever it takes. But then, the signs have long been there. Little or no notice was taken in Jamaica of the Queen’s jubilee last year. There was no bunting, no official party at King’s House. The main celebration was a big party celebrating a different jubilee – the 50th anniversary of The Harder They Come, the Jamaican feature film that introduced reggae and Rastafari culture to the world. But…

When reporting on gun deaths in the United States, I always asked bereaved parents about what they thought had made the tragedy possible. Generally they mentioned bad parenting, teenage pregnancies and a range of other cable TV talking points. The one thing they would never raise was guns. After 12 years in the US, I concluded that many Americans regard gun deaths like traffic fatalities – an unavoidable, if horrific, consequence of everyday life. This sense of learned hopelessness bleeds through to the polity. Most Americans who are shot dead do not die in mass shootings, but those are the spectacles that catch attention and galvanise protesters and legislators. Whenever such an incident occurs, the urgent feeling that something should be done is soon eclipsed by a sense of resignation…