Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1091 i The Week

What happened May’s school reforms Theresa May last week unveiled plans to allow any secondary school in England to become a grammar school, as part of the biggest shake-up of the education system in decades. The Prime Minister’s proposals would end the ban on new grammars imposed by Tony Blair in 1998, enabling new selective schools to open, and current comprehensives to introduce selection. England’s 164 existing grammars would also be able to expand. Selective schools could be required to meet quotas for poorer pupils, and to accept entry at 14 and 16, as well as at 11, to allow for late developers. May insisted that her vision was not a return to the past, but an effort to make the country a “true meritocracy”. Her proposals came under attack,…

Paris Terror plot: Four women aged between 19 and 39, and two men, have been charged with terrorist offences for allegedly trying to blow up a car near Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The bombers apparently fled after six gas canisters in the Peugeot 607, parked close to the cathedral, failed to explode. On being arrested, two of the women reportedly tried to stab the police officers. It is the first time that women have been identified as commandos involved in jihadi attacks inside France: police say they were also plotting an attack on Paris’s Gare de Lyon. A letter found in a handbag that one of the suspects had left in the car suggested that the women were responding to calls for terrorist action from Isis leader Abu Mohammed…

GREECE Creditors are sucking the life out of us Dimokratia (Athens) Greece’s “nightmare of austerity” seems to have no end, says Dimokratia. The left-wing Syriza government, elected in 2015 expressly to end the vicious cuts, signed a third memorandum with international creditors last year, and those creditors’ demands are now coming in waves. Just when we’d got used to eking out some kind of existence, another round of benefit cuts and tax hikes hits pensioners and wage earners alike. Unemployment is at nearly 24%, the highest in the EU: the slump is comparable only to the US’s Great Depression in the 1930s. Yet rather than trying to stimulate growth, the creditors are sucking all life out of the economy: we simply don’t have the money to pay for anything other…

One in four samples of supermarket chicken contains antibiotic-resistant strains of the food poisoning bacteria E. coli, according to new research. Scientists tested 92 chicken products, including drumsticks, whole chickens and breast meat, and found ESBL E. coli – which causes urinary tract infections and which is resistant to several common antibiotics – on 22 of them, reports the Daily Mail. Study leader Dr Mark Holmes, a lecturer in preventative veterinary medicine at Cambridge University, described the results as “worrying”. “Scientific evidence is accumulating that the overuse of antibiotics on farms is an important contributor to antibiotic resistance in E. coli infections,” said Cóilín Nunan, of Save Our Antibiotics, which commissioned the research. The Government has pledged to tackle the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals.…

“The boundaries of UK parliamentary constituencies may not sound particularly thrilling”, but they matter, said Sebastian Payne in the FT. “The shape and size of the 650 seats dictate the make-up of the House of Commons, and they are long overdue a rethink.” The Boundaries Commission this week published draft proposals which would slash the number of constituencies from 650 to 600, saving £12m per year, and even up the numbers of voters in each seat. Labour would suffer most – losing about 25 MPs – since its seats, mostly in the inner cities and the North, have grown less populous as people have moved from cities to suburbs and from north to south. If they are approved, before the 2020 election “hundreds of constituencies will be reshaped and many…

“His speeches go on for so long because he has nothing to say, so he has no way of knowing when he has finished saying it.” John Major on Neil Kinnock, quoted in The Times “There are few things of greater advantage than learning to appreciate the strong points of your opponents.” J.W. von Goethe, quoted on The Browser “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you’re heading.” Philosopher Lao Tzu, quoted in The Guardian “Work isn’t to make money; you work to justify life.” Marc Chagall, quoted on Bustle.com “The best things in life are free. The second-best things are very, very expensive.” Coco Chanel, quoted in the Financial Times “To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the…

A great leader? To The Daily Telegraph In 2005 the Conservatives lost a third consecutive election, with only 32% of the vote and 198 seats. Within months of becoming Tory leader later that year, David Cameron, who ceased being an MP this week, had achieved a sustained Tory poll lead for the first time since 1992. At the 2010 general election, the Conservatives gained more than 100 seats on the thirdbiggest swing (5.1%) since 1945 and were back in government after 13 long years in opposition. Last year’s small overall majority was achieved against formidable odds and was largely attributable to swing voters’ trust in Mr Cameron’s leadership. David Cameron should be remembered as one of the party’s greatest leaders, who modernised its image without tearing up its belief in…

Profile 288pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 Joe Moran, like many of us, is shy, said Paul Laity in The Guardian. He is hopeless at small talk and has a “dread of being boring”. Thankfully, his new book, a “field guide” to shyness, “exhibits all the sparkle and fluency on the page he might lack when chatting to strangers”. Unlike others who have tackled this subject, Moran doesn’t set out to be a “cheerleader” for introverts. He recognises that shyness is a “multilayered condition” that can affect the “talented and untalented alike”. Instead, his aim is to “entertain” – and much of his book consists of enjoyable portraits of history’s more interesting shrinking violets. Among its subjects are the 5th Duke of Portland (who built tunnels under his land so…

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: The Skeleton Tree Bad Seed Ltd £9.99 Nick Cave was halfway through writing this record last July when his 15-year-old son, Arthur, fell to his death from a Sussex clifftop. It will prove scant consolation that in his grief, Cave has produced “a piece of art that will surely prove unforgettable to all who hear it”, said Dave Simpson in The Guardian. The Skeleton Tree is a “masterpiece of love and devastation”: a harrowingly bleak but “heart-rendingly beautiful” record which captures the traumatic pain and “bewildered numbness” of grief, yet also contains “beauty, empathy and love”. Gone is the “old, lush assurance” in Cave’s voice, said Jess Denham in The Independent, to be replaced by “a poised fragility” as he sings about lacing up…

So we beat on… at the Eagle Gallery When the Eagle Gallery opened above a Clerkenwell pub in 1991, as a space for contemporary abstract painting, few would have given it a long shelf life. The neighbourhood was miles from the traditional centre of London’s art world, and worse, painting was so unfashionable that many wondered whether it had become a redundant art form. But 25 years later, it is still going strong, and this group show presents the work of six painters with longstanding connections to the gallery. The late Prunella Clough, who supported the gallery from its inception, is represented by a spectral black-andwhite work, and Andrew Bick’s bright paintings hint at a thrilling junction between Russian constructivism and video game graphics. Julia Farrer, Dan Roach and James…

Unlikely as it might sound, “bag-inbox” and pouch wines are “having a moment”, says Fiona Beckett in The Guardian. Bags are better for the environment than bottles; and the wine generally lasts longer after they are opened. Tom Craven of Vinnaturo (a bag-in-box specialist; see www.vinnaturo.com) has a range from Tuscan biodynamic producer Cosimo Maria Masini, including a £40 three-litre box of a delicious, dark, fruity Sangiovese Rosé that tastes of just-squished strawberries, and an organic Sangiovese Red (£36, three litres), a wild, edgy wine that is delicious lightly chilled. Andrew Nielsen of Le Grappin (see www.eebria.com/legrappin), meanwhile, has a classy – and pricey – white burgundy: Du Grappin Mâcon-Villages at £28 for 1.5 litres. He calls it a “bagnum”. Bag-in-box wines have untapped potential for supermarkets, too. Asda is…

Leeu Estates, Franschhoek, South Africa South Africa’s spectacular Cape Winelands are known for their stylish farm and winery hotels. Set between the Franschhoek River and the Dassenberg mountains, this one is the most “ambitious” of the lot, says Peter Browne in Condé Nast Traveller. The main, Cape Dutch-style house is decorated in a “restrained” palette of grey, cream and lavender, with oak floors and bespoke furniture. Chef Oliver Cattermole “deploys farm-fresh ingredients to prodigious effect” in the restaurant, and there’s a “sleek” spa, a wine-tasting studio and a rose garden that’s home to a herd of small antelope. Doubles from £385. +27 21 492 2222, www.leeucollection.com.…

Charismatic Australian who co-founded Oz magazine Richard Neville 1941-2016 “It was a priapic Rupert Bear that landed Richard Neville at the centre of one of the greatest causes célèbres of the past half-century,” said The Times. In the spring of 1970, he and two of his fellow editors of the counterculture magazine Oz responded to criticism that they had lost touch with the young by recruiting 20 secondary school children (most of them boys) to work on the next issue. The so-called School Kids’ Oz came out in May, with photos of naked women cavorting suggestively on the cover, and inside, a cartoon featuring Rupert Bear’s head pasted onto some X-rated Robert Crumb drawings. It didn’t sell well, and in court, prosecutors failed to produce a single child who’d read…

When the Financial Reporting Council recently dropped its investigation into Tesco’s former finance director, Laurie McIlwee, it looked as if the various probes into the grocer’s £263m accounts hole might be at an end. Not so, said Sarah Butler in The Guardian. Last week, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) charged three former senior directors – Carl Rogberg, John Scouler and the former UK MD, Christopher Bush – with fraud. If convicted, they face up to ten years in jail. The SFO launched a criminal investigation in October 2014 after a whistleblower alerted the then-new CEO, Dave Lewis, to irregularities. Tesco subsequently admitted it had “overstated profits” by incorrectly booking payments from suppliers. The speed of prosecution is “something of a personal best” for the SFO, where four-year investigations are the…

In a rare show of collaboration, the US and Russia last week brokered a breakthrough deal to put Syria’s peace process back on track. The pact, covering the Assad regime and mainstream rebel groups, included a nationwide truce and access for aid convoys to besieged towns and villages. The US also agreed that provided the ceasefire held for at least seven days, it would join Moscow in preparing a coordinated air campaign against the two leading Islamist groups, Isis and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. The deal is the culmination of months of talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Few casualties were reported in the opening days of the ceasefire, and the UN scheduled emergency aid deliveries to the besieged city of Aleppo. Despite…

Why Keith Vaz’s sex life matters Janice Turner The Times As a rule, I don’t care what politicians get up to in bed, says Janice Turner. Sex is a private matter. But if they use prostitutes, in the belief that sexual consent can be “bought by the rich from the powerless with cash”, it’s a different matter – particularly if, like the disgraced Keith Vaz, they’ve a role in setting prostitution policy. In July, his Home Affairs Committee published an interim report on prostitution recommending the decriminalisation of the sex trade: it concluded that changing the law to criminalise those who pay for sex – an enlightened approach first introduced by Sweden and later adopted by Norway, Iceland, Canada, France and Northern Ireland – wouldn’t be appropriate for Britain. “Do…

The 3.7 billion-year-old fossils Scientists may have discovered the oldest physical evidence of life on Earth, in the form of fossils embedded in 3.7 billionyear-old rocks in Greenland. Tiny and cone-shaped, they are believed to be stromatolites – layered mounds of sediment formed in shallow water by microscopic bacteria. If this is confirmed, their discovery pushes back the earliest evidence of life on our planet by 220 million years, and shows that life began relatively soon after the period of sustained asteroid bombardment – the Hadean period – which followed Earth’s formation some 4.6 billion years ago. “This indicates the Earth was no longer some sort of hell 3.7 billion years ago,” said Professor Allen Nutman, of the University of Wollongong, Australia, who co-authored the study, published in Nature. “It…

The former frontman of 1980s pop band Black Lace – whose hits included Agadoo and Do the Conga – has been leading the inmates of Leeds prison a merry dance, literally. Dene Michael Betteridge recently spent ten weeks in jail for falsely claiming some £25,000 in disability benefits. “Everyone wanted to sing Agadoo with me,” he told The Sun. “People were obsessed. At night when we were all in our cells, the entire wing was singing in chorus: ‘Agadoo doo doo.’” At one point, he led a conga line of 60 inmates around the jail. “It was very odd,” he admits, “but when these terrifying criminals tell you to do something, you do it.” Owen Smith is not daunted by overwhelming odds. The Labour leadership hopeful points out that he…

Almost exactly 20 years ago, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole slipped and fell off a stage during a rally. He was 73 at the time, said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian, and the tumble swiftly led TV comedians to rename him Bob Old. His campaign never recovered. Is history about to repeat itself with Hillary Clinton? For months, right-wing websites have been circulating conspiracy theories about Clinton suffering from some grave, secret illness, and these wild claims appeared to be vindicated on Sunday when she was filmed collapsing after leaving early from a memorial event for 9/11 victims in New York. It later emerged that she had been diagnosed two days earlier with pneumonia. Her team insist she’s now on the mend, but with less than a fortnight to go…

Cricket: has England’s captain let down the team? “For those who only tune into English cricket when it lurches into crisis mode, grab the popcorn,” said Ali Martin in The Guardian. On Sunday, one-day captain Eoin Morgan and bighitting opening batsman Alex Hales ruled themselves out of this winter’s Bangladesh tour, over security fears. There have been deep concerns over the trip since July, when Islamic State terrorists killed 22 people – 18 of them foreigners – at a café in Dhaka. After extensive security consultations, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) green-lighted the tour last month – but assured players that they wouldn’t be punished if they decided not to travel. “Morgan has always been his own man,” said Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail. “But an England…

To The Times In the 1950s and 1960s we had good grammar schools and poor secondary moderns. Most areas responded by closing the good schools, not the bad ones. In Trafford, we kept the excellent grammars and improved the rest. The schools system today is more diverse, and new selective schools can be an important part of the mix. More grammar schools, especially in disadvantaged areas, will extend opportunities to people of all backgrounds that are too often available only to those who can pay. Theresa May should be congratulated on this early step towards building a country that works for all. Graham Brady MP (Con), chairman, 1922 Committee To The Times The headline to Tim Montgomerie’s article has it that “smarter grammar schools can be fair to all”. Not…

Selection Day Picador 352pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £12.99 Aravind Adiga’s “engrossing and nuanced” third novel tells the story of a pair of cricketing brothers in Mumbai, said Adam Lively in The Sunday Times. Their tyrannical father, a chutney salesman, has made it his life’s mission to drive his sons towards cricketing glory. The action focuses on the build-up to “selection day”, when a lucky few will be chosen for the city’s youth team – an essential staging post to greatness. Which, if either, of the brothers will make it? In detailing the pair’s quest for on-field success, Adiga has produced a “powerful individual story” that also does justice to life’s “great indeterminacies”. Selection Day isn’t just about sport, said Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the FT. It’s also a fable of…

Captain Fantastic Dir: Matt Ross 1hr 58mins (15) Viggo Mortensen puts the hippy ideal to the test “What is the ideal way in which to bring up children?” That’s the provocative question at the heart of Captain Fantastic, “a family movie with very sharp claws”, said Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. It stars Viggo Mortensen as Ben, an idealistic hippy bringing up his kids in the wilds of Washington state, far from the corruptions of modern life. They kill what they eat, and can quote Marx but not Mario Puzo. Then the death of their mother, and the need to attend her funeral, brings the children into contact with a world they’ve never known. Writerdirector Matt Ross, who based the story on his own experiences of growing up in communes,…

It is “the end of an era” for the Tate galleries, said Jack Malvern in The Times. Last week Tate’s director, Nicholas Serota, “the longest-serving and arguably most influential” of Britain’s arts chiefs, announced his resignation after 28 years. Serota (pictured) “transformed British attitudes to art” by opening Tate Modern in a derelict power station in Bankside. It became “the most popular museum of modern art in the world”; a major extension was added this year. Serota, 70, also oversaw the opening of Tate St Ives. The popularity of Tate Modern took him by surprise, said Adrian Searle in The Guardian. No one expected so many visitors: 5.25 million in its first year alone. “Serota thought he had an art museum; what he got was a major tourist attraction.” But…

Helen’s trial begins. Rob – using a walking stick – enters the witness box. He says that he tried to take the knife from Helen, but looked down to see it disappear into his shirt. During cross-examination, Anna puts it to him that he placed the knife in Helen’s hand and dared her to kill herself; Helen then acted in defence of her son. Rob insists Helen’s a liar. When Anna accuses him of being a bully, Rob breaks down, crying: “Why, Helen? All I ever did was love you.” In the stand, Kirsty admits that when she arrived Helen had done nothing to save Rob – but adds: “Rob’s the worst kind of abuser, one who leaves no bruises; he lies and bullies and manipulates.” Anna asks Helen why…

Acorn Vegetarian Kitchen 2 North Parade Passage, Bath (01225-446059) Is Bath a bit twee? Certainly, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. In the same alley as this “dinky little vegetarian place”, you’ll find a café called The Bath Bun Tea Shoppe and a confectioner’s inviting you to “enjoy the taste of yesteryear”. Round the corner are shops selling pipes and fudge. “It’s a bit like stepping back into the 1930s”, but in a nice way, and with much better food. At Acorn we ordered nine small dishes that arrived with such impressive speed, I wondered if they’d been pulled out of a packet – “but no, they were zingingly fresh”. The dukkah (an Egyptian seasoning consisting of crunched-up roasted nuts into which you dip oily bread) was delicious. A…

New cars: what the critics say Top Gear The G-Wiz was “infamous”: launched in 2001, it was classed as an electric quadricycle (rather than a car). As a result, it didn’t have to pass crash tests – and had a dire safety record. It was eventually bought by the Indian car-maker Mahindra, who put it “out of its misery” in 2011. But now, the firm has followed it up with the e2o, a proper electric car with “some official crashworthiness”. The Daily Telegraph Like the G-Wiz, the e2o is a small, jaunty thing. It claims to be able to do 79 miles on one charge (charging fully takes about 90 minutes), but the battery will run down faster at high speeds. Not that you’ll be going that fast: the car…

Cruising and cycling in Croatia Combining luxurious small-ship cruising with daily cycling expeditions, Freedom Treks’ “boat and bike” breaks in Croatia are a wonderful way to explore the hills and islands of the North Dalmatian coast, says Adam Ruck in The Sunday Telegraph. The company’s new boat, Melody, has 15 stylish air-conditioned cabins and a good chef. On a week-long trip, five mornings are spent cycling with professional guides, mostly on “empty little roads” through olive groves, vineyards and fragrant Mediterranean scrub. There’s also a boat trip up the Krka River to visit its waterfalls, and afternoon tours of pretty towns including Zadar, Trogir and Primošten. The views from the saddle are wonderful; swimming off the back of the boat is a delight; and the camaraderie that cycling breeds makes…

Hewlett-Packard/Micro Focus: autonomy comes home Britain’s Micro Focus is to buy Hewlett-Packard Enterprise’s software division for $8.8bn. And judging by “the gushing reaction” to the news, you would think we were witnessing the birth of “a British version of Microsoft”, said Jeremy Warner in The Sunday Telegraph. The deal has been hailed as “some kind of post-Brexit triumph for the UK technology sector”, which is “more than a little misleading”. Micro Focus isn’t some kind of “whizzo” start-up whose technology is about to “take the world by storm”. It’s a “very conservatively run, acquisition-led collection of rather dull and substantially mature software assets”, whose driving force, Kevin Loosemore, is more adept at management than writing code. This is one of the largest takeovers by a British company in recent years,…

The Bank of England’s baffling list Neil Unmack Reuters Breakingviews The Bank of England has published a list of 100 companies making what it calls a “material contribution” to the British economy, and thereby qualifying for its £10bn corporate bondbuying “spree”, says Neil Unmack. Yet so far, the “main achievement” of the stimulus has been “to flummox traders”. The main problem is that the definition of “material contribution” is pretty vague. Companies don’t need to be headquartered in Britain (hence the inclusion of Apple and McDonald’s), but must employ people or sell goods here. And the absence of “precise thresholds” has meant some confusing anomalies. For instance, although the US telecom behemoth AT&T is eligible, O2’s owner, Telefónica – with 23 million UK customers – is not. And why include…

● Sanofi health warning Business history was made last week when the French pharma Sanofi and the German consumer goods group Henkel (which makes Persil) between them sold s1.5bn of bonds with an interest rate of -0.05%, said John Kay in the FT. “They are thought to be the first private businesses to charge bondholders for the privilege of lending them money.” We’ve grown used to this kind of “twisted logic” in the world of government debt. But the move into private business debt marks a new milestone. Investors are reportedly willing to stomach the losses because they are smaller than those on government bonds. “But as a fund manager, you really have to question if you can justify this type of investment,” said Chris Telfer of ECM Asset Management.…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best buys Ashtead Group The Times Boosted by weak sterling and strong construction markets, shares in the equipment hire firm have leapt 37%, yet are still good value. Ashstead is committed to returning cash to shareholders. Buy. £12.58. Dechra Pharmaceuticals Investors Chronicle Shares in the veterinary pharma trade at a justifiable premium, given growth opportunities. Revenue is up following acquisitions of Genera, Brovel and Putney, which give access to new markets and territories. Buy. £13.49. Dixons Carphone The Times The electrical and telecommunications retailer’s shares were clobbered by the Brexit vote. But demand and sales remain strong, and the company is less exposed to a downturn than had been feared. Buy. 389p. Dunelm Group The Sunday Times The Brexit shock has passed, but there may…

This week’s crossword winner will receive an Ettinger (www.ettinger.co.uk) Bridle Hide Red Travel Pass Holder, which retails at £95, and two Connell Guides (www.connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Top sandwiches first in restaurant: beef or fish (4) 3 Challenging type caught in different locations (10) 9 Right name possibly for unpleasant experience (9) 11 Railway found on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro (5) 12 Aristocrat holds assistant back from specialist (having little patience, it’s said!) (13) 14 English relative is after butter dish (7) 16 Tell someone quickly that film is cancelled (4,3) 17 Queen has one in bed? Unlikely! (7) 19 Son in straw hat, a swanky one (7) 20 New shoe-horn a bit quirky? Could be my design (5,8) 23 Muse about backing a Conservative? Not half (5) 24…

“Is David Cameron trying to trash his own reputation?” asked Fraser Nelson on his Spectator blog. First he produced “the worst resignation honours list for decades”, showering peerages and gongs on the members of his “chumocracy”. Then, this week, he “handed a gift” to those who had always claimed he had no real “sense of public service”, and that he would only remain in politics while it was “useful to him”. Having promised several times that he would stay on as an MP, to fulfil his duty to the people of Witney, he abruptly resigned. Even Gordon Brown fought another election – but Cameron has “bolted”. He couldn’t even be bothered to hang around long enough to defend his record. He has “gone and done a Tony Blair”, said Peter…

Waite’s recovery It is now 25 years since Terry Waite was released from captivity, and the psychological wounds have healed. “I don’t have dreams or flashbacks or memories that have caused me to have real terror,” he told Peter Stanford in The Daily Telegraph. At the time, though, he was in an awful state. As the Archbishop of Canterbury’s international envoy, he had been taken hostage in war-torn Beirut, and spent five years chained up in a series of basements, where he was tortured and kept in solitary confinement. Back in England, with his wife and four children, he found he couldn’t cope with sitting down for a family meal. “I had been alone for so long that I found the emotional exchange too much. I used to get up…

A woman has been arrested in the US for stealing three chips from a police officer. The suspect allegedly sat down next to the cop, in a pizza restaurant in Washington, and tried to engage him in conversation. She then reached out and took one of his fries. The police officer told her to stop, but she took another – at which point, he warned her that she was engaging in theft. When she reached out again, he arrested her. On the chart sheet, the stolen goods are listed as “French fried potato… three”. A man held up a bank, was handed almost $3,000 in cash – and then sat down in the lobby and waited for police to arrive, having earlier told his wife that he’d “rather be in…

ISRAEL American aid is making us weaker The Boston Globe (Boston) “I support Israel,” says Jeff Jacoby, “which is why I don’t support US aid to Israel.” That might seem a non sequitur, but it makes perfect sense. For decades, the traditional pro-Israel view has been that military aid from Washington – now $3.1bn a year – is a vital cornerstone of the US-Israel alliance. But the reality is that Israel has a booming economy today and has no need of American “charity”. The largesse “comes with strings attached”, and might actually be making Israel weaker. The US, for instance, stipulates that Jerusalem must spend around 75% of each year’s assistance in America. The aid thus subsidises US defence contractors, rather than helping Israel develop its domestic arms industry. What’s…

About a third of Africa’s savannah elephants were wiped out between 2007 and 2014, according to the first ever continent-wide survey of the species. That’s equivalent to the loss of 20,000 each year – or almost 55 a day. Examination of elephant carcasses indicates that poachers are largely to blame for the decline. Often, the creatures are found with their faces hacked off. Using a fleet of small planes, the Great Elephant Census, funded by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, surveyed 15 of the 18 African countries with significant elephant populations, and counted 352,271 of the larger savannah elephants – far fewer than previous estimates. A separate study recently found that the population of forest-dwelling elephants has dropped by more than 60% since 2002. In the 1800s, before industrialisation massively increased…

“What else is new,” cynics might have asked, in response to the reports last week that North Korea had conducted yet another nuclear test, firing three medium-range ballistic missiles close to the Chinese border during the G20 summit. There is something wearyingly predictable about the way these tests play out, said John Nilsson-Wright in The Independent: the bravura announcement on North Korean TV, swiftly followed by international condemnation, and the imposition of new sanctions, “to little effect”. Meanwhile, the country’s brutal young leader, Kim Jong Un, carries on taunting the West for its powerlessness, “while boasting of his country’s growing military and technological prowess”. Yet we shouldn’t ignore this provocation, said The Guardian. Last week’s test may have been the fifth since 2006, but it was the second this year…

In 1972, a picture of a naked, screaming girl appeared on front pages around the world. Taken by Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut, it showed nine-year-old Kim Phuc fleeing an attack on her village: she had torn off her clothes after they were spattered with burning napalm. The image “made real for audiences the atrocities of the Vietnam war”, said Nicole Smith Dahmen on Quartz, and helped to shift Western public opinion. The Terror of War became one of the most famous photographs of all time. Yet last week, Facebook tried to censor it on the grounds of indecency. This wasn’t a blip in an algorithm, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian, but a policy of “radioactive creepiness”. First Facebook suspended the account of a Norwegian author, Tom Egeland, who had…

Wawrinka’s perfect timing Stan Wawrinka “was the huge underdog going into the US Open final”, says Simon Briggs in The Daily Telegraph. The Swiss had spent 18 hours on court over the course of the tournament, twice as long as his opponent, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic. He had been forced to save a match point against lowly British player Dan Evans. And he had beaten only one top-ten player all season – Kei Nishikori, in the semi-final. Yet somehow, Wawrinka prevailed at Flushing Meadows, overcoming Djokovic in four sets to clinch his third grand slam title. His secret? Wawrinka peaks at exactly the right moment: he has won every one of his last 11 finals. He’s “like a reveller who only comes awake after midnight”. Whitehead’s achievement Richard Whitehead’s…

“You gotta love the Hampstead Theatre” for its risk-taking verve, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. The start of the autumn season is the most “frenziedly competitive point” of the theatrical calendar. And what has Hampstead programmed? A new play “about the origins and onset of the Latin American debt crisis” of the 1980s, featuring a 14-strong cast of relative unknowns. It’s not as if the writer, Beth Steel – whose debut, Wonderland, won praise two years ago – is a big name either. But if Labyrinth is a gamble, it’s a gamble that “pays off handsomely”. The play, though not entirely original (“its topical boom-to-bust subject matter” owes a debt to Lucy Prebble’s 2009 hit Enron), is “richly researched and almost indecently entertaining”. This “fizzing” play has an…

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, 2011 (Europa Editions £11.99). The first of Ferrante’s four Neapolitan novels is a rich, detailed and intricate analysis of a friendship between two girls, Lenu Greco and Lila Cerullo. A vivid description of human emotions, rivalry and the wish to escape from poverty and violence. A masterpiece. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, 2000 (Vintage £9.99). A comic book-style memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Intelligently written, wonderfully funny, yet also devastatingly heartbreaking, it contains my favourite quote of all time (from Marjane’s grandmother): “In life you’ll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it’s because they’re stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance……

Programmes The Battle for the Labour Party Dispatches’ Antony Barnett investigates the state of the Labour Party as Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership is challenged. Mon 19 Sept, C4 7.30pm (30mins). Who’s Afraid of Conceptual Art Dashing don Dr James Fox explains the appeal of conceptual art for those who don’t “get it”. Mon 19 Sept, BBC4 9pm (60mins). National Treasure Fourpart drama starring Robbie Coltrane as a veteran comedian who gets caught up in a sex abuse scandal. With Julie Walters and Andrea Riseborough. Tue 20 Sept, C4 9pm (60mins). Conviction: Murder at the Station Two-part documentary following the charity Inside Justice as it investigates the conviction of a man in prison for a murder he denies. Wed 21 Sept, BBC2 9pm (60mins). Paranoid Eight-part conspiracy thriller. A female GP is…

Polenta fries with pesto Serves 6 500ml good-quality stock 125g fine quick-cook polenta 30g butter 50g finely grated Parmesan sunflower oil, for frying baking sheet, oiled For the pesto: 2 large handfuls of fresh basil leaves 2 garlic cloves 120ml extra virgin olive oil zest of 1 lemon and the juice of ½ 50g finely grated Parmesan sea salt flakes, to season • Bring the stock to the boil in a saucepan. Turn the heat down and slowly add the polenta, stirring all the time. Continue stirring until the polenta is thick and smooth and comes away from the sides of the pan. • Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and Parmesan. • Spread the polenta over the baking sheet to a depth of about 1cm. Leave…

Canal boating in Shropshire Experience Halloween on the Shropshire Union Canal with a northbound cruise to Brewood on the 4-berth Sir Fergus. A week’s trip from 28 October costs from £788. 0844-984 0322, www.drifters.co.uk. An Italian lakeside resort The 4-star Hotel Alexander, in the lakeside resort of Limone on Lake Garda, offers 7 nights, half board, from £549pp for 24 September departures (incl. Verona flights). 01483-791116, www.inghams.co.uk. New York and Boston Depart on 13 October for 3 nights at the Wyndham New Yorker, followed by 3 nights at the Hilton Boston Back Bay. From £1,199pp room only, incl. flights. 01293-762456, www.hayesandjarvis.co.uk. Icelandic short stay Two nights at the Hotel Cabin, in Faxaflói Bay, Reykjavík, with a Northern Lights tour, costs from £159pp b&b, incl. flights – see www.cheapflights.co.uk/hot-travel-deals. Selected dates…

The summer calm in stock markets came to an abrupt end as jitters about the timing of the US Fed’s second interest rate hike took hold, exacerbated by anxiety over the US election. Stock markets globally stomached the biggest falls since the Brexit vote. Bond yields, meanwhile, marched higher. In Britain, the upbeat economic mood also took a hit. The British Chambers of Commerce more than halved its growth forecast for next year to 1%, predicting that the UK economy “would skirt with”, but avoid, a recession. Bank of England governor Mark Carney defended its stimulus programme, telling MPs he was “absolutely serene” about the judgements made before the Brexit vote. The Government was reported to be preparing a new crackdown on whitecollar crime, which could see company boards face…

Simon Kirby Britain’s £56bn high-speed rail project has been left without a driver “at a critical juncture”, says Mark Hookham in The Sunday Times. Simon Kirby, the chief executive of HS2, has been poached by the engineering giant Rolls-Royce, “with no successor lined up”. Kirby, who joined the scheme from Network Rail, is Britain’s “highestpaid civil servant”, with a pay package of £750,000. Rolls-Royce has apparently been trying to recruit him for some time: he’ll join as COO, but without a position on the board. HS2 said it would launch a “global search” for Kirby’s successor, but the Government may have to offer “an even bigger pay package” to lure someone of Kirby’s calibre. Private sector engineers, with experience of managing big projects, are on “very serious money”. Dame Nemat…

This week Britain experienced “a cash revolution”, said Katie Allen in The Guardian. The first polymer £5 notes were issued by the Bank of England on Tuesday, with a design featuring Winston Churchill. For Victoria Cleland, the Bank’s chief cashier, it was “a momentous day”. Her team has been working for six years to develop the note’s “cutting-edge security features” and improved durability. The fivers have also had to pass health and safety tests “just in case they should fall into the paws of peckish toddlers and pets”. Last year 5,364 notes “had to be replaced because they had been chewed or eaten”. The Bank has issued 440 million of the new fivers, and is planning to introduce plastic £10 and £20 notes by 2020, said The Economist. Indeed, “despite…