Innholdsfortegnelse for 7 March 2025 i Guardian Weekly

Sweetness and light Farmer Robert Tomlinson harvests forced rhubarb in candlelit sheds. Tomlinson’s farm lies inside an area of West Yorkshire known as the rhubarb triangle. The dark environment prevents photosynthesis, meaning the sugar stays in the stick, rather than going into the leaves. Do you have a recently taken picture you’d like to share with Guardian Weekly? Scan the QR code or visit theguardian.com/pictures-guardian-weekly and we’ll print your best submissions…

Olena Palash heard a loud buzzing above her flat in the Ukrainian port of Odesa. It was 11pm. First one drone, and another, then more. Soon afterwards, one of the Shaheeds crashed into the children’s clinic where she works. An explosion shredded the building’s facade. The metal covering of a car park was remade into a spaghetti-like jumble. Another drone smashed into a nearby kindergarten. The attack on 18 February knocked out a substation and plunged some of the city into darkness. Four people were injured, including a 10-year-old girl, and 80,000 were left without heat. Last week the Kremlin dispatched a record 267 drones on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Over last weekend two civilians were killed, and at least 20 injured. Each strike fans anger at…

Briefing the Israeli press after Benjamin Netanyahu’s order last Sunday to turn off the aid supply to Gaza – in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting a change in the ceasefire agreement to allow for the release of hostages without an Israeli troop withdrawal – government officials claimed the Palestinian territory had several months’ worth of food stockpiled from earlier deliveries. However, the announcement led to an instant jump in prices of basic necessities in Gaza, with residents saying they had doubled. The office of the Israeli prime minister said it was imposing a blockade on Gaza because Hamas would not accept a plan that it claimed had been put forward by the US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to extend phase one of the ceasefire and continue to release…

Inside one of the oldest bookshops in Delhi’s Urdu Bazaar, Rafiq Ahmad, a film critic and writer, is scrutinising the bookshelves for material to help with his next project. Ahmad often travels from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh to Urdu Bazaar in search of the books he needs. “I know this is the place where I can find any Urdu book from any era. Whenever I have to write anything, I come here for material. Currently, I am looking for books about Dilip Kumar, the renowned Bollywood actor,” Ahmad said. Once known as a literary hub for book lovers, poets, writers and calligraphers, the Urdu market, nestled among the old and narrow lanes of India’s capital, is silently mourning its own slow death. About 40 years ago, there were 60 shops…

Central America has long been a source of immigrants, and in recent years, it’s also become a major transit route for those from around the world heading to the United States. That shift led to record numbers of immigrants arriving at the US border, and contributed to the supposed crisis that helped Donald Trump win last year’s election. Now Trump is strong-arming Central American leaders into collaborating with his hardline immigration agenda, forcing their countries to act as a dumping ground for immigrants that the United States can’t simply deport back to their home countries. “In Trump’s first term, it was said that it was a transactional logic,” said Ana María Méndez-Dardón, Central America director for the Washington Office on Latin America. “In this case, I would say that it’s…

THE BATTLEGROUND AT THE HEART of a struggle between an 89-year-old man and a multibillion-pound multinational is a small junction in a Norfolk village, where a red phone box stands. And at the red phone box, sheltering from the wind, is Derek Harris. In January, he learned that BT (formerly British Telecom) was threatening to close the phone box in the village of Sharrington, where he has lived for 50 years, when he saw it on the agenda of the parish council meeting. “I thought: ‘I’d better do something about this,’” says Harris. He has described it as a “David and Goliath” campaign. It is that, and so much more. We will talk mortality and reprieves, heritage and value. I’ll leave with a renewed sense of how it’s possible to…

Get right down to it and there are two reasons for thinking that cuts to Britain’s aid budget to pay for defence are a seriously bad idea. The first is that people will die as a result. There will be less money to respond to humanitarian crises and less money for vaccination programmes and hospitals. Realpolitik is being blamed for the decision, but realpolitik doesn’t make it right. But there are also economic arguments for rich countries providing financial support to less well-off nations, which were summed up succinctly in last year’s Labour party manifesto. This document could not have been clearer. International assistance, it said, helps make “the world a safer, more prosperous place”. That remains as true as it was when Labour came to power last summer, and…

I can never get my vegan yorkshire puddings to work – help! Traditional yorkshire puddings have eggs and milk to thank for their golden, crisp and puffy looks, so it’s no wonder people run into bother in their absence. “Vegan yorkshires are a mighty task,” says Lianna Lee Davies, who is behind the much-lauded vegan Sunday roast at Our Black Heart in Camden, London. You have a few options for replacements. “I use aquafaba and whisk it with apple cider vinegar, rapeseed oil, dijon mustard, unsweetened soya milk and water,” she says. She then combines plain flour, chickpea flour, salt and turmeric, and whisks that into the wet mix to make a batter. Marc Joseph, of E3 Vegan, prefers a combination of soya milk, baking powder and self-raising flour. Once…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 1 Leading actors, high-pitched? (6) 5 Superficial harm resulting from friction among climbers (4,4) 9 Piano included in arrangement of eg Irish or Italian composer (8) 10 Extended rant from one caught in traffic (6) 11 Doctor agreed on cure – given new heart (12) 13 Accumulation of ice in December gales (4) 14 Campanological scandal? Pay to get through it (8) 17 Herb and I coming across right area for capital (8) 18 His jumble is included by Disraeli – for instance! (4) 20 Measure concealing dishonest statements about firm is most unwise (12) 23 Colour used finally in my opening statement? (6) 24 Plant one in Guardian, perhaps, with indication of hesitancy (8) 25 Like English author, they check for flaws…

1 US/UKRAINE Aid to Kyiv suspended after Trump-Zelenskyy row The Trump administration on Monday suspended delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine, as the White House piled pressure on Ukraine to sue for peace with Vladimir Putin. The decision affects deliveries of ammunition, vehicles and other equipment, including shipments agreed to when Joe Biden was president. It came after a dramatic blow-up in the White House last Friday during which Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he was “gambling with” a third world war. The Ukrainian president was told to come back “when he is ready for peace”. A senior administration official told Fox News that “this is not permanent termination of aid, it’s a pause”. Bloomberg reported that all US military equipment not in Ukraine would be held back,…

As Keir Starmer and his aides discussed their response to last Friday’s White House meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which the Ukrainian president was berated live on camera by the US president and his deputy, JD Vance, Starmer’s team pondered whether to issue a statement on social media. Already messages of support were flooding in for the Ukrainian president from other European leaders, including Emmanuel Macron of France and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. But the UK prime minister decided to stay silent, and instead display his backing with action rather than words. After several phone calls last Friday night, Starmer brought forward a planned visit by Zelenskyy to London, giving him the opportunity for a symbolic meeting at No 10, followed by an…

Inside the Trump White House, officials blamed the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the meltdown in the Oval Office last Friday, and expressed frustration that he pushed for security guarantees even though the US had made clear they wanted to negotiate that later. The officials had told their Ukrainian counterparts in advance of the meeting that Trump wanted to sign an economic partnership this week at a ministerial level, as aides worked on the details about security guarantees. Trump saw the minerals deal as the first phase of a broader economic partnership and told aides it showed the US was effectively making a commitment on security guarantees, because the agreement deal would mean the US had a vested interest in Ukraine’s economic prosperity. The officials believed that had all been…

Chris Jones, a beef farmer, is proud of his beavers. “They are just extraordinary,” he said. Since releasing a couple into an enclosure on his Cornwall farm in 2017, he says they have saved it from drought, prevented flooding in the nearby village, boosted the local economy and even improved oyster beds in Falmouth Bay. The rodents, which were hunted to extinction in England hundreds of years ago for their fur and oil, were once a common feature of our rivers. They may be again, after the UK government last week announced it would approve the first wild beaver releases in England for hundreds of years. Walking to the edge of Jones’s farm, you can feel the soil getting damper. Lush grass – perfect for his cattle – grows around…

It’s a dreary day in Bedford, but on a flight simulator the skies above San Francisco airport are blue and the wind is low. That is a good thing, because there is an amateur at the joystick of the world’s biggest aircraft. The flight simulator models trips by the Airlander 10, which is part airship, part aeroplane. If all goes to plan for its designer, Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), two dozen will be built each year from 2030 in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. The virtual 98-metre aircraft noses its way into the air gently, responding to adjustments about 300 metres over the city. This reporter is an old hand when it comes to crashing flight simulators, but the journey passes without incident, albeit with considerable help from one of the five…

As New Mexico authorities investigate the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, their adopted home town of Santa Fe is grappling with the mystery of what happened to the couple. Hackman, a Hollywood legend with two Academy Awards over a 60-year career, and Arakawa, a classical pianist, had lived in the area for decades and had embraced the close-knit community that is New Mexico’s capital city. Their deaths at the ages of 95 and 65 sent shock waves through the area, famous for its vibrant art scene, adobe buildings and bright blue skies. “Everybody is really sad – we hold on to our community here,” Nedret Gürler, a Santa Fe resident for more than three decades, said inside the rug store she helps run in the city’s…

It’s not only about Donald Trump. It’s not just about saving Ukraine, or defeating Russia, or how to boost Europe’s security, or what to do about an America gone rogue. It’s about a world turned upside down – a dark, fretful, more dangerous place where treaties and laws are no longer respected, alliances are broken, trust is fungible, principles are negotiable and morality is a dirty word. It’s an ugly, disordered world of raw power, brute force, selfish arrogance, dodgy deals and brazen lies. It’s been coming for a while; the US president is its noisy harbinger. Take the issues one at a time. Trump is a toxic symptom of the wider malaise. For sure, he is an extraordinarily malign, unfeeling and irresponsible man. He cares nothing for the people…

So, as Conan O’Brien pointed out, the Oscars went to a film about someone standing up to a Russian, and maybe recent events mean we have to probe its political metaphor even further. Sean Baker’s cacophonous, crazy non-love story Anora won five Academy Awards, including best actress for that rather amazing and newly born star Mikey Madison, playing the tough, smart, beautiful New York lap dancer who gets a Vegas quickie marriage to the spoilt and pusillanimous son of a Russian oligarch and then has to stand up to his parents. Madison embodies Anora’s complex courage: not exactly romantic, not exactly in love, but certainly believing in the wedding contract, in her own status as a legally married woman and in the possibility of happiness, which is no more remote…

Novels had always felt to me truer than what was real,” declares a character in Dream Count, the highly anticipated new novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It is a statement echoed in the accompanying author’s note, which contends that the “point of art is to look at our world and be moved by it, and then to engage in a series of attempts at clearly seeing that world, interpreting it, questioning it”. Since the publication of her extraordinarily assured debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, in 2003, Adichie’s fiction has performed this task of seeing, interpreting and questioning to huge acclaim, garnering her major awards as well as a public profile far beyond most writers. Dream Count is perhaps the surest bet so far for this year’s Women’s prize. However, its publication…

England over-65s and over-50s had contrasting experiences last week at the World Senior Team Championships in Prague. The over-65s led throughout and were unbeaten with 16/18 match points, seven wins and two draws. Two German teams, Lasker Germany and Saxonia, took silver and bronze. England over-50s faltered in the final round crunch matches against USA, which they lost for the third year in a row, and Kazakhstan, with a draw. England had the best game points total of all the 50+ teams, and four of five players finished in gold or silver medal positions, but it was match points that mattered. USA won gold, Italy silver and Kazakhstan bronze, with England fourth and England’s second team fifth. Michael Adams and Mark Hebden won gold in the 50+, as did Sheila…

FOREIGN POLICY Dispute over plan to seize Russian assets for US arms Tensions have surfaced between France and the UK over whether hundreds of billions of frozen Russian assets can be seized and offered to the US to buy defence equipment, binding America closer to the defence of Europe. The UK’s willingness to seize the assets is longstanding, but its position has become more pronounced in recent weeks. The proposal has also had the support of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, in common with the European Central Bank and Germany, Emmanuel Macron opposes the move over fears that it would breach the principle of the immunity of sovereign assets and deter investment in the eurozone area by countries like Saudi Arabia and China. Speaking alongside Donald Trump last week,…

KEIR STARMER PROMISED at the UN last September that the UK would “be a leading contributor to development”. Just five months later few expected an announcement that could result in UK aid spending falling to its lowest level this century. Overseas development aid will fall from 0.5% of the UK’s gross national income to 0.3% – a cut of about £6bn ($7.6bn) – to pay for increased defence spending. The cut will have dire consequences, according to the groups delivering much of that aid. Describing it as a betrayal of poorer countries, Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, said: “This will cost lives.” Anneliese Dodds, the UK international development minister, resigned over the decision last Friday. UK aid funds projects offering humanitarian assistance and health…

Within days of an appeal by the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) for the group to disarm and dissolve, its executive committee announced that it would do just that. It paves the way towards ending the 40-year conflict between militant Kurdish groups and the Turkish state and has far-reaching implications for the rest of the Middle East. “I am making a call for the laying down of arms and I take on the historical responsibility for this call,” Abdullah Öcalan was quoted as saying in a letter read out by political allies in Istanbul. The declaration follows a surprise peace gesture to Öcalan from Devlet Bahçeli, a hardline nationalist ally of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, last October. What is the PKK? When the Ottoman empire…

It was a blaze that left two people dead and destroyed the fabric of one of the world’s largest secondhand clothes markets. It also wiped out the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people in a matter of hours. Two months on from the 1 January fire in Ghana’s capital, Accra, the aluminium roofing has been replaced and wooden frames have been erected, but many stalls remain unfinished and empty. In the heart of the market, the sound of hammering and building work fills the air. Vendors mill around with little to sell. The narrow passageways – once so rammed with customers there was a stampede two months ago – are easy to pass through. Before the fire, Kantamanto was a complex of thousands of stalls crammed with clothes from…

The idea of duality is difficult to avoid when thinking about waves. In them we see energy and matter collapse into each other, find fluidity with structure and form and apprehend beauty and symmetry and violence and terror. Likewise, the physics of waves are simultaneously very simple and impossibly complex, the non-linear nature of fluid dynamics meaning they can remain relatively regular or combine without warning into rogue waves capable of sweeping people off rocks and sinking ships. Waves are a vital part of the ocean system, helping to control the rate at which the ocean absorbs heat and carbon dioxide and shaping and sustaining coastlines. And as ocean temperatures rise and weather patterns shift, they are changing, in some oceans growing bigger and more powerful. This has frightening implications…

Supermarkets have wheeled out the 20kg bags of rice. High-street stores have popped hijabs on mannequins. Cosmetic companies are churning out products scented with pomegranate, cardamom, saffron and “sticky date” – at Lush you can buy Salam shower gel, Noor lip butter and a massage bar that apparently smells like a turmeric latte. All this can only mean one thing in our modern, consumerist world: Ramadan is upon us. Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar, began last weekend. It is my favourite time of the year (and not because I can bulk-buy rice for the year in Tesco). It is a time of spiritual growth and reflection, of turning away from our own desires and egos to focus on God, and of letting go of the trappings of…

The Quarry Hill flats in Leeds were once the largest social housing complex in the UK. A utopian vision of homes for 3,000 people. Built in the 1930s, they were modelled on the Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna and La Cité de la Muette in Paris. However, after just 40 years, the buildings were crumbling and largely deserted. Over five years in the 1970s, Peter Mitchell documented their demolition, from smashed windows and wrecked apartments to abandoned wardrobes and solitary shoes. Finally, when all that was left standing was a lone arch, he tried to photograph the wrecking crew standing in front of it, but couldn’t get the arch in. “So,” Mitchell remembers, “the foreman said, ‘We do have a crane. ’ I can’t stand heights but they lowered the crane down…

In the small hours of the morning, the phone rings beside Simon Hart’s bed. On the line is a drunk Tory MP, claiming to be stuck in a Bayswater brothel with a woman he thinks might be a KGB agent, who has just demanded £500 ($630) “and left me in a room with twelve naked women and CCTV”. It sounds like something from The Thick of It, but for the chief whip to the last Conservative government, calls like this were all part of a day’s (or night’s) work. “Amongst today’s HR joys,” he writes later, “is the report from Emma [his special adviser] that a departmental spad went to an orgy over the weekend and ended up taking a crap on another person’s head. To make matters worse, in…

A “ten-pound pom” left Glasgow for Australia after the war and never saw her family again. My gran’s little sister occupied an empty space for me until last year, when a couple of enterprising women posted a photo online they had taken of a tombstone in a Tasmanian cemetery. It would bring me in touch with a second cousin I never knew existed. We came with a camera to an English churchyard intending to reciprocate for the Australians, Canadians, Americans and others who request a picture of their own ancestors’ final resting place through Findagrave.com. Success feels like giving a kind of life beyond death, but we had learned from experience not to be too hopeful. The hallowed ground had thawed in readiness for gales to sweep across that night.…

Across 1 Jute bag? (4) 3 Programme where celebrities interviewed (4,4) 8 Costume (4) 9 Cold Spanish soup (8) 11 Paid solver (7,3) 14 Uncanny (6) 15 ‘Inner Light’ Christian (6) 17 Yawn of a town? (10) 20 Tea set? (8) 21 Burning substance (4) 22 All included (8) 23 Active in one’s later years (4) Down 1 Pointer (8) 2 Railway carriage passageway (8) 4 Elysium (6) 5 Head over heels (5-5) 6 White (4) 7 (Old) golf club (4) 10 Get down to the nitty-gritty (4,6) 12 Jewish headgear (8) 13 Warm (8) 16 Old 10p (6) 18 0.405 hectares (4) 19 Crack – prank (4) Solution No 17,094…