Innholdsfortegnelse for 23 May 2025 i Guardian Weekly

Rhapsody in blue Some of the 3,076 people who gathered in Landerneau, Brittany, to set a world record for the biggest gathering of Smurf-costumed people in one place. The town twice failed to best a mark of 2,762, set in 2019, but were persuaded to try again by the makers of a new Smurfs film, due out in July. The Guardian Weekly Founded in Manchester, England 4 July 1919 Vol212 | Issue№ 21 Guardian Weekly is an edited selection of some of the best journalism found in the Guardian’s digital editions in the UK, US and Australia, and the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The weekly magazine has an international focus and four editions: global, Europe, Australia and North America. The Guardian was founded in 1821, and Guardian Weekly in…

Ukrainian officials believe a largely stalemated war of attrition with Russia is likely to continue for several more years, despite international efforts pushed by Donald Trump to end it. After the inconclusive breakup of the first direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul last Friday, and despite the US president’s calls with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they see no evidence that Moscow is serious about peace. The comments came as Russia last Sunday launched its largest drone attack of the war, with 273 aimed against the central Kyiv region and the Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions in the country’s east. “The Russians can’t destroy us and we can’t liberate territory,” one senior Ukrainian official told the Guardian, adding that without significant US assistance that situation was likely…

“Britain is back on the world stage,” Keir Starmer said after shaking hands on a high-stakes agreement with the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen in London. The British prime minister vowed his EU reset deal would deliver cheaper food and energy bills for British people, heralding a “winwin” for the UK and Brussels after sealing a high-stakes agreement that meant concessions on youth visas and fishing rights. The deal, said Starmer, gives Britain “unprecedented access to the EU market, the best of any country outside of the EU or Efta, all while sticking to the red lines in our manifesto.” Acknowledging for the first time the true damage Brexit has done to Britain’s trade, Starmer said the deal to remove red tape from agrifoods trade would give a boost of…

Götz Valien is Berlin’s last movie poster artist, for more than three decades earning a modest living producing giant hand-painted film adverts to hang at the city’s historic cinemas. The studios’ own posters serve as a template, but Austrian-born Valien, 65, adds a distinctive pop art flourish to each image coupled with the beauty of imperfection. “Advertising is about drawing attention and I add the human touch, which is why it works,” he said. Valien’s work plays up the image’s essence: the imposing bow of a ship, the haunting eyes of a screen siren, a mysterious smile. He jokingly calls himself a Kinosaurier – a play on the German words for cinema and dinosaur. His nearly 7x9-metre canvases long-graced the “film palaces” of the German capital, including the majestic…

Former White House lawyers, diplomatic protocol officers and foreign affairs experts claim Donald Trump’s receipt of overseas gifts and targeted investments are “unprecedented”, as the White House remakes US foreign policy under a pay-for-access code that eclipses past administrations with characteristic Trumpian excess. The US president was feted in the Gulf states last week, inking deals he said were worth trillions of dollars and pumping local leaders for investments. He says he is prioritising “America first” – putting aside concerns of human rights or international law for the bottom line of US businesses and taxpayers. But often the bottom line has benefited Trump. His family’s wealth has ballooned by more than $3bn, according to press estimates, and the reported benefits from cryptocurrencies and other investment deals, such as plans for…

‘I love seeing the sheer delight of the children when they discover the wildlife here’ Steve Kell, 59, countryside ranger, Warwickshire Country Parks I always loved being in nature. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was 18, so I got a job at a high-street bank. My grandfather was made up – he was convinced I was going to be the governor of the Bank of England. But over the years I became disenchanted. Then, in my early 30s, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer and had to take months off work. I couldn’t help thinking about how finite life is. I decided I wanted to do something I really enjoyed. My partner, Rachael – now my wife – supported me going back to college…

Just over a week on from Keir Starmer’s latest pronouncements about immigration, plenty of people on his own side are still gripped by a queasy sense of fury and disappointment. His aides and allies will now try to gladden left-liberal hearts by emphasising gains from Monday’s UK-EU summit, and the prime minister’s remodelling of Brexit. But the acrid cloud over Starmer will surely remain, and with good reason. Whatever the context – and whether or not he was consciously echoing Enoch Powell – his suggestion that Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers” sounded like a horribly calculated provocation. The insistence that the government was set on closing “a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy and our country” was even more brazen. So was the suggestion after years of…

Filo pies are my go-to when I’m entertaining, but what are the best fillings? The wonderful thing about filo pies and tarts is that they look fancy even when they’re knocked up from just a handful of ingredients, they require little more than a green salad to please and, much like the rest of us, they really do benefit from some downtime. “They’re even better at room temperature because the flavour evolves,” says Rosie Kellett, author of In for Dinner. Kellett likes to wrap as many spring greens as possible in filo, along with cheese and hot honey butter. “The key is a flavoured butter,” Kellett says, so, rather than simply painting melted butter between every filo sheet so it goes nice and crisp in the oven, she also adds…

✱ All solutions published next week Across 1 Reportedly purchase farming tool for a penny farthing? (7) 5 Steady earner from clubs beginning to collaborate in adult entertainment (4,3) 9 English involved in slight about Aussie football (5) 10 Force once made rough bombs (4,5) 11 Top hack’s office tried so desperately to get joint (10) 12/14 Only real mugs should survive its scrutiny (4,11) 18/21 Perhaps cyborg’s faulty power unit discharged at random (11,4)  22 Having a change of heart, female sheep chasing castrated ram around area shows alert gaze (7,3) 25 Longing for what was left in Santiago, unfortunately (9) 26 Fling means of protection, sacrificing first rook (5) 27 Posy heads evenly covered in mist (7) 28 Boy cycling in bay maybe finds lever (7) Down 1/2…

1 UNITED STATES ‘Joe is a fighter,’ says Harris after Biden’s diagnosis Joe Biden made his first public remarks on Monday about the diagnosis of an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. “Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support,” Biden wrote on social media. Biden, 82, and his family are reviewing treatment options. The cancer appears to be hormone sensitive, allowing for effective treatment, according to his office. “Joe is a fighter” said Kamala Harris, the former vice-president who took over from Biden as the Democratic candidate in the 2024 election after Biden stepped down. Barack Obama posted on social media…

It’s tempting to hope the establishment last week of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, to give its full name, will lead to the trial and indefinite incarceration of Vladimir Putin and Russian leaders. After all, the new court is backed by about 40 countries, including the UK and the EU. Only fools like Donald Trump are confused about who the aggressor is in this conflict. Sadly, this appealing notion has scant basis in reality. Ducking peace talks and dodging responsibility for the war he started, a smirking Putin manspreads smugly in the safety of the Kremlin. He also hides behind the outdated convention that serving heads of state enjoy legal immunity. The bottom line is unchanging: Russia will ignore the new tribunal, just as it…

A week after fleeing artillery fire from across the border, Rina Begum returned to find her home in Kashmir devastated. The 45-year-old gazed out through a fractured window frame at the looming mountains. “Hell has been raining down from there,” she said. Begum lives in a hamlet near Uri, a town 100km north-west of Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir. The hamlet is perilously close to the line of control, the heavily militarised de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Tensions between the nucleararmed neighbours escalated into open military confrontation after a militant attack on 22 April killed 25 tourists and a local guide in Pahalgam. India accused Pakistan of having “linkages” to the attack, without publicly presenting evidence. Pakistan denied any involvement. Soon after, artillery fire erupted…

For years, Sitaram and Binita Das had longed for a son. The couple loved their five daughters, but on the deeply conservative southern plains of Nepal, they faced having to raise large sums to pay for each of their dowries. With no way to afford such costs, they decided that Sitaram should join tens of thousands of other Nepalis going to Saudi Arabia in search of work. The Gulf kingdom has seen a rise in demand for cheap migrant labour as it seeks to rebrand itself on the world stage, in part through large construction projects including futuristic cities, luxury resorts, theme parks and the hosting of the 2034 men’s football World Cup. Such rapid transformation is attracting global attention and, along with it, greater scrutiny of the alleged treatment…

There is an episode in the Netflix drama When Life Gives You Tangerines where a woman dives into the sea and brings back a catch of abalone, which she says will feed her family. The woman is a haenyeo or “woman of the sea”. Haenyeo can be traced back to the 17th century and are unique to the island of Jeju in South Korea, where they fish sustainably, diving on a single breath to bring back shellfish and seaweed. Yet the scene, set in the 1960s, wouldn’t happen today, said Myeonghyo Go, a haenyeo who lives on Jeju. “The seaweeds here are disappearing, and seaweed is the food for abalone. Because we don’t have the seaweeds, we don’t have abalone,” she said. In her 40s, Myeonghyo represents the new generation…

Rightwing Catholic Americans in positions of power – from the vice-president, JD Vance, to Leonard Leo – may have breathed a brief sigh of relief when, after the white smoke cleared, Pope Leo XIV emerged on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica donning a traditional red mozzetta with a papal stole. It was, observers pointed out, a starkly different choice than his predecessor Pope Francis, a reviled figure among many staunch conservatives, who had worn all white on the same occasion in 2013 to symbolise his desire for simplicity and humility. In another nod to tradition, the American pope opted to sing – not recite – the Regina Caeli prayer in his first Sunday blessing, and dedicated one of his first audiences to the head of Opus Dei, the ultra-conservative…

Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East last week was an exercise in disorientation. Both in terms of rebalancing the relationship between the US and the region, and in scrambling perceptions. In Riyadh, he told the Saudi royals there would be no more “lectures on how to live”. He lifted sanctions on Syria so that the country may have a “fresh start”, and he fawned over the camels and lavish architecture. Never has Trump appeared more in his element, surrounded by the wealth of sovereigns, the marshalling power of absolute monarchies, and their calculated self-orientalisation and over-the-top flattery. The man who enacted the Muslim ban in his first term was strolling around mosques and shrugging off the radical path to power of the Syrian president: “Handsome guy … Tough past,…

First, a disclaimer: I had never fully bought into the Michelle Obama hype. Also, I am not a huge fan of the celebrity podcast genre, so I was sceptical when Michelle’s podcast, IMO, was launched in March. Yet when I listened to it, I was immediately charmed and hooked. In truth, I came to sneer and stayed to cheer. She is honest, reflective and vulnerable. The irony is that just as Michelle is finding her voice, her popularity appears to be falling – the podcast received poor ratings on launch, though it’s arguably the best thing she’s ever done. The most arresting thing about IMO, despite the truly interesting high-profile Black guests, is Obama herself. She has always been one of the great orators in US politics – one of…

A recent piece of research commissioned by Channel 4 suggested that more than half of people aged between 13 and 27 would prefer the UK to be an authoritarian dictatorship. The results shocked a lot of people concerned about the rising threat of autocracy across the world, including me. Yet, on reflection, I don’t think we should be surprised. The way we evolved predisposes us to place trust in those who often deserve it least – in a sense, hardwiring us to support the most machiavellian among us and to propel them into power. This seems like an intractable problem. But it’s what we do in the face of that knowledge that matters. Recent work in anthropology and primatology shows how this wiring evolved. Our ancient ancestors, like most primates today,…

Across 1 Gaudy and OTT (12) 9 Ram in the sky (5) 10 Increasingly drizzly – former Monacan ruler (7)  11 What you may do to oats or your ‘r’s (4)  12 What a full stop ends (8)  14 Scallywag (6) 15 Hoyle’s predecessor (6)  18 Playful marine mammal (3,5)  20 Apple’s digital assistant (4) 22 In an intemperate manner (7) 23 She said ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ (5)  24 Bandit at the bird-feeder (4,8) Down 2 South ___ – guards (7) 3 Timor or Grinstead (4) 4 Fowl – country (6) 5 Square root of 169 (8) 6 One often pickled in the pub (5) 7 Script scribe (12) 8 Rigid harness (anag) – doing the ‘do’? (12) 13 Nitwit’s quality (8) 16 Thai, for one (7) 17 Ta-ra! (3,3)…

TRADE No 10 says deal with EU will add billions to the economy A landmark deal clinched between the UK and EU to remove checks on food exports will add £9bn ($12bn) to the UK economy and lower food prices, No 10 said, as the last-minute agreement was secured on Monday morning. Keir Starmer said the deal, billed as a “historic” turning of the page, delivered the “reset” he had promised after winning the general election last July. It will grant EU fishers access to British waters for an additional 12 years and pave the way for the removal of checks on British food exports, allowing everything from the “great British burger to shellfish” to be sold again with ease in the EU, Starmer said. The deal also holds out…

Last week began with four European leaders standing defiantly in Kyiv with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, issuing an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin: sign a ceasefire or, together with Donald Trump, we will force you to do so, with sanctions and other tough measures. There followed a series of offers, counter-offers, ultimatums and deflections, in a dizzying week of high-stakes diplomacy that often resembled geopolitical poker. Halfway through the week, the Guardian spent an hour with Zelenskyy, with three other European journalists, in his office in Kyiv. He had just made the surprise announcement that he would travel to Turkey personally for talks, and challenged Putin to join him. It was a dramatic raising of the stakes, and we asked if he felt a bit like he was playing poker. He said: “With…

At about 2am last Sunday, Basel al-Barawi was dozing fitfully in his home in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza. For hours, he had listened fearfully to the sound of explosions and shooting. Then there was a massive blast. Barawi’s cousin’s house had been bombed, with 10 people inside. The strikes on Beit Lahiya came days after Israel launched a major new offensive, named Operation Gideon’s Chariots. “They were all martyred. Only a six-year-old girl survived, and she is now in the hospital. We started pulling them from under the rubble – their features were disfigured, their bodies covered in dirt, their clothes torn. I felt my heart tearing apart as I carried them and handed them over to others,” the 46-year-old said. Hours later, Barawi loaded his own family into a…

When Gérard Depardieu, one of France’s biggest film stars, was placed on the sex offender register last week after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021, it was a historic moment for the country’s #MeToo movement. “It was a message to all men in power that they are answerable to the courts and can be convicted,” said Catherine Le Magueresse, who represented the European Association Against Violence Towards Women at Work (AVFT) at the trial. “The message is: watch out, the impunity is over.” Depardieu, 76, who has made more than 200 films and TV series, had personified one of the obstacles to the French #MeToo movement: France’s cult of the creative genius. Depardieu’s fame was seen as so great that he was…

In 2012 Dianne Hoffman, a retired consultant, became a peeping Tom. For five hours a day she watched a couple, Harriet and Ozzie, who lived in Dunrovin ranch in Montana. The pair were nesting ospreys, being streamed live as they incubated their clutch of eggs. The eggs never hatched, but the ospreys sat on them for months before finally kicking them out of the nest. “I do think they experienced grief,” said Hoffman, now 81, who watched the birds each day from 3,000km away in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Hoffman was processing her own grief after the loss of her husband, brother and father, and watching the live streams was how she “rejoined the world”. “It was a very black time,” she said. Although Ozzie died in 2014, she still watches…

Thousands of migrant workers are likely to die in Saudi Arabia as a result of a building boom fuelled by the 2034 men’s World Cup and other construction projects, human rights groups have warned. The Gulf kingdom has seen a significant increase in foreign workers since 2021, as it prepares to host the World Cup and drives forward projects including futuristic megacity Neom. In two reports released last week, human rights groups said workers face severe risks to life and have criticised the lack of transparency around migrant workers’ deaths. “Hundreds of thousands of young men … are being pitched into a labour system that poses a serious risk to their lives,” said James Lynch, a co-director of FairSquare, which has written a report on risks faced by workers. “While…

Autoimmune diseases affect as many as 800 million people around the world – about one in 10 of us. From multiple sclerosis and lupus to type one diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, these conditions all share a common trait: the body’s own immune system turns against itself. Current treatments aim to suppress that response, but dialing down the entire immune system comes at a steep cost: it leaves patients vulnerable to other illnesses and often requires daily, invasive care. A revolution is now afoot, as researchers are developing a new approach that targets only the specific part of the immune system that’s gone rogue. These treatments are known as “inverse vaccines” because they suppress a particular part of the immune system, rather than amplifying it, as existing vaccines do. “This is…

ON 4 FEBRUARY 2025, Lucy Letby’s barrister, Mark McDonald, convened a press conference at the grand baroque Westminster venue One Great George Street. It became a landmark moment, the culmination of months in which a number of distinguished experts had spoken out to question the former nurse’s convictions. The media were addressed for an hour by a Canadian medical professor, Dr Shoo Lee. He said that a panel of international experts disputed the prosecution case that had led to Letby being found guilty in two trials of murdering seven babies at the Countess of Chester hospital in 2015 and 2016, and attempting to murder seven others. She was sentenced to 15 whole-life orders, and the court of appeal unanimously refused her permission to appeal. “We did not find any murders,”…

Whenever a Brit learns that I’m a New Zealander – grew up there, got the passport, only moved to the UK in 2017 – often their faces scrunch up with confusion: “Why would you live here when you could be living there?” It doesn’t seem to matter if they’ve been to New Zealand themselves or not. The implication is that I have known the Garden of Eden, even been granted a key, and responded by saying: “Actually, you know what? I’ll take Norwich instead.” Whether it better reflects contemptuous familiarity with the UK, or an idealised view of New Zealand, I’m not sure. But few people seem to believe me that, in many ways, the quality of life is much better in Britain. So I was not surprised by the…

I’m a pro ud member of H appy (the Hitchin association of pavement plant yokels), so-called by my friend Phil, a fellow wildflower enthusiast. You’ll find us roaming the town centre, scanning brick walls and peering into paving crevices on the hunt for the tenacious species that thrive in these oft-overlooked habitats. I had my pavement epiphany a couple of years ago outside the chemist on Hitchin high street when I saw a little lass scrutinising the paving stones. She’d noticed a community of self-seeded plants growing in a semicircular crack. The diversity of the miniature garden astonished me: mosses, meadow grass, goosegrass, common whitlowgrass, sow thistle, fleabane and there, among the annual plants and perennial cigarette butts, a seedling with trilobed leaves – rue-leaved saxifrage (Saxifraga tridactylites). Now this…