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世界生活的一周 | 全球版
2026年7月24日 | 第215卷 第4期 | £6.50 | €9.95
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潮汐的转变 加沙市的居民在黄昏时分在海中游泳。上周披露，唐纳德·特朗普的和平委员会（Board of Peace）所推进的恢复计划已大幅缩减，从一个重建整个加沙地带的宏伟蓝图，变成了一个位于该领土南部的小型试点项目。
照片：新华社/SHUTTERSTOCK
《卫报》周刊（Guardian Weekly）是从《卫报》在英国、美国和澳大利亚的数字版以及英国《卫报》报纸中精选出的部分优秀新闻报道。本周刊具有国际视野，分为四个版本：全球版、欧洲版、澳大利亚版和北美版。《卫报》创立于 1821,，而《卫报》周刊创立于 1919.。我们的存在是为了以公众利益之名监督权力，维护自由和进步的价值观，为共同利益而战，并建立希望。正如编辑 CP Scott 在 1921, 年所阐述的，我们的价值观是诚实、正直、勇气、公正，以及对读者和社区的责任感。《卫报》完全由斯科特信托（Scott Trust）所有，该机构的目的旨在“永久确保《卫报》的财务和编辑独立性”。我们没有所有者或股东，任何利润都将被重新投资于新闻事业。
《卫报》周刊 创立于英格兰曼彻斯特 1919年7月4日
第 215 卷 | 第 4 期
世界生活的一周 2026年7月24日
全球报告
特写
过去七天的头条新闻
长篇报道、访谈与评论 致力于野化重建的激进贵族 文/帕特里克·巴克汉姆 (Patrick Barkham)............. 34 私人生活：意大利海滩的真实状态 文/托比亚斯·琼斯 (Tobias Jones) ...................40
英国 ................... 8 科学与环境 ........ 9 深度报道
野火 面对不可能选择的消防员 .......10
观点
文化
电视、电影、音乐、戏剧、艺术、建筑等 音乐 灵魂摇滚乐队 Alabama Shakes 的史诗般回归 ...................51 荧屏 缅怀演员 萨姆·尼尔 (Sam Neill) ............................ 54 荧屏 为什么《嗜睡》(Fleabag) 被证明是难以逾越的高度 ...............55 书评 脱欧遗产、婚姻画像与寄生虫....... 58
乔纳森·利夫 (Jonathan Liew) 世界杯揭示了民族国家认同的脆弱性........ 45
▼ 瑞安农·露西·科斯莱特 (Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett) 全女性假期带来的自由与自我发现..47 波莉·托伊比 (Polly Toynbee) 伯纳姆看起来像那么回事，但这足以让他成为首相吗？ ......... 48
聚焦
深入报道与分析 美国/伊朗 为什么特朗普冒着期中选举灾难的风险重启战争？... 15 乌克兰 解雇国防部长给 泽连斯基 带来压力...19 英国 安迪·伯纳姆 能否跟上“加速”的承诺？.....22 老挝 让穿山甲陷入威胁的秘密贸易...............26 科学 世界是否正面临男性生殖危机？............. 30 美国 美国移民与海关执法局 (ICE) 的致命枪击事件再次引发对驱逐计划的愤怒 ..32
“女孩之旅”已成为解放以及女性深切需要共度时光的代名词
美国移民与海关执法局 (ICE) 将要求其人员在拦截车辆时必须配备至少一个身体记录仪。特朗普政府的“边境沙皇”汤姆·霍曼在周日如此表示。在此举之前，由于 ICE 警员在本月初枪杀两名男子，该机构再次面临审查。
白宫在周一宣布，唐纳德·特朗普将对大多数加拿大商品征收 50% 的关税，以应对该国对美国此前关税采取的报复行动，并宣称加拿大对美国汽车、酒精和乳制品存在不公平歧视。
费利佩还赞扬了他们的坚韧：“你们受过苦，带着伤痕和疲惫回到家，承受了一些批评，但与将奖杯带回家的喜悦相比，这一切算什么？” 见《目击者》第 20 页
美国和加拿大 gwsubsus @theguardian.com 免费电话：
+1-844-632-2010
澳大利亚和新西兰 apac.help @theguardian.com 免费电话：1 800 773 766
高额关税可能会引发新一波经济混乱，并带来更高的通胀风险，进一步损害两国关系。
“他们赦免的执法人员比定罪的还多……我希望美国人民能看到警员在采取行动时所看到的情况，”霍曼在《福克斯与朋友们周末》节目中说道。见《聚光灯》第 32 页
白宫表示，关税将在 30 天内生效，为可能的谈判留出时间。
英国、欧洲及世界其他地区 gwsubs@ theguardian.com
+44 (0) 330 333 6767
9 尼加拉瓜
长期执政的总统丹尼尔·奥尔特加表示，该国将不再举行选举，以防止反对派上台。
6 美国/英国
这位 80 岁的权威领导人还表示，他将与他所控制的国会合作，通过新法律，针对反对派“筑起一道墙”。
备受争议的影响力博主兄弟安德鲁·泰特和特里斯坦·泰特在迈阿密被捕，这是英国警方对一系列涉嫌性犯罪调查的一部分。
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奥尔特加在周日举行纪念 1979 年桑地诺革命 47 周年的官方仪式上发表了这一声明，在那次革命中，他协助推翻了阿纳斯塔西奥·索莫萨的残暴独裁统治。非政府组织“武装冲突地点与事件数据项目”的高级分析师蒂齐亚诺·布雷达表示，这一决定“封死了该国向完全家族独裁政体转型的路径”。
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39 岁的安德鲁·泰特被指控面临 7 项额外的强奸罪名、3 项组织或协助以性剥削为目的的人贩罪名、3 项导致实际身体伤害的袭击罪名以及 19 项额外指控。38 岁的特里斯坦·泰特被指控面临 1 项额外的性侵犯罪名、2 项强奸罪名和 3 项组织或协助以性剥削为目的的人贩罪名。
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检察官表示，这些指控涉及 2010 年 7 月至 2017 年 8 月期间的涉嫌犯罪行为。
10 意大利
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7 秘鲁
波多黎各音乐之星 Bad Bunny 的一场露天演出在周六晚上因剧烈的冰雹天气而取消。
8 西班牙/直布罗陀
社交媒体上发布的视频显示，在这位说唱歌手于米兰 Snai La Maura 赛马场开始表演后，强风和暴雨伴随着巨大的冰雹击中了这场售罄演出的观众。
西班牙和直布罗陀在签署一项脱欧后协议后，庆祝了西欧最后一座边境围栏的拆除。该协议结束了对居民、游客以及每天进入该英国海外领地的数千名西班牙工人的边境检查。这项协议标志着在英国退出欧盟后，英国、西班牙、直布罗陀与欧盟之间长达四年多谈判的结束。它取消了边境管制和海关检查，并将直布罗陀机场和港口的申根管制责任交给西班牙。这也导致了自 1908 年以来将西班牙与直布罗陀隔开的围栏被拆除。
当局于上周日表示，一次 5.5 级地震摇撼了秘鲁的安第斯地区，造成至少六人死亡。有 30 多人受伤，300 人流离失所。
票务运营商 Live Nation 表示，演出“由于不利的天气条件”而中断，但该区域已安全撤离。该公司补充说，所有持票者将获得全额退款。
美国地质调查局报告称，地震发生在周六晚上 9.24pm，震中位于万凯省（Huancayo province）西卡亚市（Sicaya）西南 2 公里处。震源深度为 10 公里。
包括当地教堂和修道院在内的多栋建筑倒塌或遭受结构性损坏。
12 中东
14 日本
在周日的演习中，一艘中国导弹驱逐舰首次在日本专属经济区内发射实弹，而一天后，中国和菲律宾水手在南海发生冲突。周日上午，三艘中国军舰和一艘俄罗斯护卫舰被发现位于太平洋冲之鸟礁西南约 330 公里处。
周二早些时候，伊朗在霍尔木兹海峡袭击了一艘油轮，迫使其船员弃船；与此同时，也门受伊朗支持的胡塞武装表示，红海的曼德海峡将对沙特阿拉伯关闭，以回应该王国“对也门人长达 10 年以上的不公正封锁”。
日本政府首席发言人木原稔（Minoru Kihara）批评了此次演习并表示：“我们将继续关注中国和俄罗斯船只在我们国家周围海域的行为。”
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连续 10 个夜晚的美国空袭未能迫使德黑兰放宽对霍尔木兹海峡的掌控。然而，随着伊朗内政部长前往巴基斯坦进行谈判，出现了一丝希望。焦点页 15
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13 阿富汗
11 乌干达
该国灾害管理机构周一表示，努里斯坦省（Nuristan province）遭遇的洪灾造成至少 20 人死亡，80 多人受伤。
在最后一名确诊的埃博拉患者出院后，乌干达已开始游说各国取消与埃博拉相关的旅行限制。
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努里斯坦省长发言人费雷多恩·萨米姆（Feraidon Samim）表示，在省会帕伦（Parun），包括市长在内的另外 105 人失踪。
上周一名刚果国民从坎帕拉的穆拉戈国家转诊医院出院，这触发了世界卫生组织要求的 42 天倒计时，只要在此期间未检测到新感染，乌干达即可被正式宣布为无埃博拉地区。
熟悉该偏远东北地区的记者表示，帕伦的河岸附近设有市场、商店和其他建筑。
乌干达此次疫情感染了 20 人，造成两人死亡。疫情爆发后，有 15 个国家继续对乌干达维持部分或全面的旅行限制。
该镇一家非政府组织的负责人阿希库拉·萨菲（Ashiqullah Safi）表示，洪水“完全摧毁了该市”，包括酒店和数十家商店。
主篇报道 p10
数千人无视警方禁令，要求部长辞职
数千名抗议者无视警方命令，涌向德里，要求印度教育部长辞职。
从周一早晨起，一个由学生和 Z 世代为主的庞大群体填满了街道。
受中央政府控制的德里警方否决了游行许可，市中心的互联网也被切断。抗议者试图向议会大厦推进，遭到了警方的武力对待，包括使用警棍和催泪瓦斯。
然而，数千名抗议者依然现身，其中许多人强烈表达对纳伦德拉·莫迪政府及其执政的印度人民党 (BJP) 的愤怒，指责他们辜负了国家的年轻人。
17 香港
19 日本
当局搜查了两家书店，并逮捕了五人，涉嫌销售所谓的煽动性出版物。
当局正在搜寻一只潜入一对老年夫妇家中并洗劫其冰箱的熊，此前人们担心该熊可能是最近几周镇上 14 起闯入事件的元凶。
加里·索伯斯 (Garry Sobers) 西印度群岛板球运动员，被广泛认为是该项运动史上最伟大的全能球员。他于 7 月 17 日去世，享年 89 岁。
视频和照片显示，警方从一家由前记者创办的书店 Have a Nice Stay 所在的建筑中没收了箱子。
上周一晚上，87 岁的松原光雄 (Mitsuo Matsubara) 在去厨房调查噪音时，遇到了一只巨大的亚洲黑熊。他的冰箱被打开，食物散落在地板上。他的妻子报了警。
在几个街区外，类似的场景也在上演，Greenfield 书店所在的建筑中也被拿走了箱子。
凯文·基根 (Kevin Keegan) 前英格兰足球运动员及教练。他于 7 月 20 日去世，享年 75 岁。
警方表示，在搜查旺角区的两家商店后，他们逮捕了两名男子和三名女性，涉嫌展示和提供出售具有“煽动意图”的物品，违反了 2024 年国家安全法，但未透露具体地点。
在东北部的雫石镇报告了五处闯入地点，导致官员怀疑一只熊可能是惯犯。
他们设置了箱式陷阱，在多次被袭击的房屋周围安装了电网，并部署巡逻队警告民众注意该熊。
布伦达·弗里克 (Brenda Fricker) 爱尔兰演员，曾凭借《我的左脚》获得奥斯卡奖。她于 7 月 16 日去世，享年 81 岁。
这是在 3 月和 6 月进行类似行动后，与独立书店相关的第三轮逮捕。
盖·斯科特 (Guy Scott) 赞比亚政治家，曾短暂担任代理总统，成为 20 多年来非洲首位白人国家元首。他于 7 月 15 日去世，享年 82 岁。
香港曾以出版自由和表达自由著称。当时，一些中国居民会跨境购买在内地被认为政治过于敏感的书籍。
18 菲律宾
20 澳大利亚
肯·贝茨 (Ken Bates) 切尔西和利兹联足球俱乐部前所有者兼主席。他于 7 月 11 日去世，享年 94 岁。
联合国表示，自 6 月下旬以来，缅甸近海报告了两起大型海难，恐有 500 多人死亡。
马尼拉强烈谴责国营的《中国日报》发布一段将菲律宾人描绘成猴子的 AI 生成视频，称这种“种族主义”意象是“冒犯性的、令人痛苦且不可接受的”。
近 2.2 million 名 15 岁及以上的澳大利亚人生活在福祉贫困线以下，过去十年中，报告生活满意度极低的人数比例翻了一番。
联合国国际移民组织及其难民署（UNHCR）在一份联合声明中对相关报告表示担忧，报告称“近日可能有两艘载有 500 多人的船只在缅甸海岸附近翻覆”。
帕特·奥利凡特 (Pat Oliphant)，澳大利亚出生的美国普利策奖获奖政治漫画家。他于 7 月 13 日去世，享年 90 岁。
菲律宾要求删除本月发布在中国日报 (China Daily) Facebook 账号上的视频。中国驻马尼拉大使馆未立即回应置评请求。
根据《卫报》澳大利亚版对澳大利亚统计局社会概况调查的分析，2025, 9.7%（或约 10 分之一）的澳大利亚人对生活的总体满意度评分为 10 分中的 4 分或更低。
初步信息显示，这两艘船于 6 月底从战火纷飞的缅甸若开邦出发，船上主要是该国的罗兴亚少数民族成员。
菲律宾国防部长吉尔伯托·特奥多罗 (Gilberto Teodoro) 谴责该素材为“卑劣的宣传”，且是“任何声称行使负责任地区领导权的国家的耻辱”。
相比之下，2014. 年报告整体生活满意度极低的人数比例为 20 分之一，即 4.8%。生活成本的飙升是满意度骤降的一个因素。
英国新闻
自然
一名 14 岁少年否认策划对南伦敦两座清真寺进行恐怖袭击。
英格兰教会投票反对将 30% 的土地恢复为自然栖息地的计划。英格兰教会拥有 42,500 公顷土地，使其成为英格兰最大的地主之一。目前仅有 3.5% 的土地用于自然恢复。
该少年上周出庭，在警方搜查发现一项涉嫌针对萨顿 (Sutton) 地区清真寺的阴谋后，他被指控犯有与“极右翼恐怖主义”相关的罪行。在威斯敏斯特治安法庭出庭时，该少年对准备恐怖主义行为和种族加剧财产破坏的指控否认，并被还押至青少年拘留中心。
工党
该教会的国家议会于上周二通过了一项修正案，其中不包含任何可衡量的重新野化目标。详见第 34 页专题。
安迪·伯纳姆表示，他的上台将是英国的一个“电路断路器”时刻，并承诺他的政府将为数百万人恢复希望，
——他在唐宁街首次向全国发表讲话时如此说道。在周一接替基尔·斯塔默 (Keir Starmer) 之后，这位新任首相表示，他将在今年晚些时候制定一项 10 年计划，将英国从“目前的状况”转变为“我相信我们所有人都希望英国成为的样子”。
在承认全国面临生活成本压力的情况下，他表示本周将宣布相关措施，给人们提供“一些喘息空间”。他的新内阁已初步成型：前国防部长约翰·希利 (John Healey) 被任命为财政大臣；前能源部长埃德·米利班德 (Ed Miliband) 被任命为外交大臣；沙巴娜·马哈茂德 (Shabana Mahmood) 继续担任内政大臣。
演讲后，伯纳姆告诉记者，他正在考虑
——削减能源账单和公交票价，将其作为一套资金充足的生活成本支持方案的一部分，该方案最终可能包括冻结私营部门租金等更激进的计划。他宣布，上台后的首要指令将是终结露宿街头现象，尽管他在担任大曼彻斯特市市长时也做出过类似承诺，而他在任期间该市的街头无家可归者人数连续四年增加。
伦敦警察厅表示，已与相关清真寺取得联系，并由专业警员提供支持，且警方目前没有在寻找与该涉嫌阴谋相关的其他嫌疑人。
健康
改革英国党
根据旨在改善青少年健康状况的新法律，从明年 4 月起，英格兰将禁止向 16 岁以下未成年人销售高咖啡因能量饮料。
奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）承认，他的亲密朋友、诈骗犯乔治·科特雷尔（George Cottrell）曾让他使用其在伦敦的一处住宅，并在上届选举前支付了社交媒体拍摄费用，但他坚称这件事“在任何方面都完全不需要申报”。这位英国改革党（Reform UK）领导人在接受反觉醒（anti-woke）播客 Triggernometry 采访时，谈到了他获得的来自科特雷尔的支持，以及来自常驻泰国商人克里斯托弗·哈博恩（Christopher Harborne）的 £5m ($6.7m) 赠款。
政府表示，目前全国约有 100,000 名儿童每天饮用高咖啡因能量饮料，其中生活在较贫困地区和家庭的人群更有可能饮用。部长们表示，饮用此类饮料与身心健康影响以及负面的教育结果相关。
他承认议会标准体系可能会对他做出不利裁定，但他声称曾被告知，由于该 £5m 赠款是没有条件的，因此不需要申报。关于科特雷尔，法拉奇表示，自 2024 年 7 月当选以来，其朋友未向其提供任何财物，而在此之前的财务支持与政治无关。法拉奇从科特雷尔获得的实物支持以及哈博恩的 £5m 赠款是否应公开登记，目前正在调查中。
根据高薪中心（High Pay Centre）的数据，富时 100 指数（FTSE 100）首席执行官的中位数薪酬与英国平均全职工作者薪酬的比率——在 2024-25 财年上升至 124 倍。这是自该比率在 2018 年达到 137 倍以来的最大差距。
禁令将适用于商店、自动贩卖机和网络渠道。
伯纳姆（Burnham）成为了 2016 年以来英国的第七任首相，他承认这种更替速度已导致许多人对政治感到“厌烦”。焦点见第 22 页。
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读者的目击见闻 手语 “我在酒吧看英格兰对阵阿根廷的比赛，中场休息时我想去洗手间。为了避开酒吧里的队伍，我快步走回家，结果在镇广场上看到了这一幕。我想，这也许是一个不祥之兆，预示着球队最终没能‘回家’。” —— 切莉·巴特勒-鲍顿（Cherry Butler-Bowdon），英格兰伍德斯托克
科学与环境
当他在 2021 年同意试用该技术时，他处于轮椅状态，但在接受脑部电极植入手术并经过数月的训练后，他能够再次活动肢体。
太空
极端天气
研究人员在 49 光年外的一颗类地行星周围发现了大气层，该行星表面可能存在液态水。
费恩斯坦医学研究所（Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research）的研究人员为托马斯（Thomas）安装了一个脑机接口，这不仅帮助他活动手臂和双手，还能向其大脑发送信号以重建触觉。
科学家得出结论，上个月袭击西非沿海地区的洪水是由气候崩溃而加剧的。他们表示，全球变暖将原本应是常规的天气事件变成了气候灾难。
“这是首次通过观测证实，在太阳系外的宜居带岩石行星上存在大气层，”该研究的第一作者、原哈佛大学的科林·切鲁比姆（Collin Cherubim）博士说道。
野生动物
他在《科学》（Science）杂志上撰文补充道，这一发现还标志着首次直接鉴定出任何岩石系外行星的大气物种。
他们还警告说，受影响的国家必须适应新的现实。“气候变化的幅度快于大多数国家的适应速度，”伦敦帝国理工学院的气候科学教授弗里德里克·奥托（Friederike Otto）表示。在 72 小时内，强降雨席卷了科特迪瓦、加纳、多哥和尼日利亚的沿海地区。一些城市在不到一天的时间里降水量就超过了 140 毫米。奥托和世界天气归因（World Weather Attribution）团队表示，在当今的气候条件下，发生如此特大暴雨的可能性是之前的五倍。
初步研究表明，蜜蜂的营养补充剂可以帮助这些昆虫更好地承受与气候变化相关的温度压力。
N EU ROSCI ENCE
由伊朗扎博尔大学的 Najmeh Sahebzadeh 博士领导的科学家发现，喂食益生菌和菊粉（一种植物来源的益生元）混合物的工蜂在长期寒冷暴露中的生存能力强于喂食普通糖类饮食的蜜蜂。但在 40°C 的实验室测试中，无论饮食如何，所有蜜蜂都在几天内死亡，尽管部分接受较高剂量补充剂的蜜蜂生存时间略长。
根据《卫报》的分析，今年世界杯中在不安全的高温高湿环境下进行的比赛比例
一名六年前在游泳事故中胸部以下瘫痪的男子，得益于一个绕过脊髓损伤的脑植入物，现在已经能够自行进食并用杯子喝水。
“适应这些事件至关重要，”奥托说，“但进一步且更快地减少排放也同样重要。”
来自纽约马萨佩夸（Massapequa）的基思·托马斯（Keith Thomas）无法将手臂抬离
重磅报道 山火
随着气候危机将猛烈火灾推向世界的更多地区，消防员被迫克扣资源并选择救援目标
火，到处都是火
作者：Ajit Niranjan 和 Caroline Davies
致命山火席卷西班牙阿尔梅里亚（Almería），火焰与浓烟升腾
PABLO BLÁZQUEZ DOMÍNGUEZ/GETTY
丛林电报 澳大利亚人如何与火灾风险共存 第 13 页
CÉSAR ALCARAZ 在 20 世纪 90 年代末刚刚成为一名消防员，就发现自己被一场迅速蔓延的大火伏击了。
几乎无法呼吸，且消防车中已无水可用，他和同事们逃离了蹂躏西班牙蒙特戈 (Montgó) 山区的炼狱之火，心中期盼上级能派遣更多支援。
但近三十年后，作为阿利坎特 (Alicante) 省消防队的一名官员，Alcaraz 对指挥官必须做出的痛苦选择产生了更多共情。当山火席卷一个地区时，他的工作就像一名在呼吸机严重不足的急诊室里工作的医生。
在法国，这种极端情况正迫使当局在稀缺的资源之间进行分配。民防局局长 Julien Marion 在上周四视察仍在阴燃的枫丹白露森林时表示，法国消防员在过去三周内同时应对了 250-300 场火灾。
▲ 一团巨大的烟云笼罩在法国南部的比利牛斯山脉
7 月早些时候，东伦敦沃尔瑟姆斯托 (Walthamstow) 的一场大火出动了 125 名消防员进行扑救。强风和干燥的植被助长了火势的迅速蔓延。
随着地中海地区的山火日益恶化，这种困境变得愈发沉重——而且像英国这样寒冷的国家也开始面临这一挑战，山火正在侵入城市、家庭和花园。
“我周末看到的一件令人惊恐的事情是，该国很大一部分地区的持续点火概率达到了 100%，”伦敦政治经济学院的山火科学家 Thomas Smith 表示。“特别是对于干燥速度极快的草本燃料，只需要两到三周的干燥天气就能达到这些阈值。”
JC MILHET/AFP/GETTY
在西班牙，习惯于一次处理两三场大火的消防员们表示，他们正难以应对火灾数量和强度的增加。由于冬季和春季多雨，植被生长茂盛——导致夏季必然干燥时留下了更多过剩的燃料——以及曾经能隔断易燃乡村的农田被废弃，这种情况进一步恶化。
▼ 消防员在西班牙北部阿拉贡地区处理一场山火
“这不仅是需要扑灭更多火灾的问题，而是面临行动崩溃的风险，”在指挥中心工作的 Alcaraz 说，他看到多场火灾并发的情况出现得更加频繁且在一年中的时间更早。“当两三场火灾同时爆发时，我们被迫立即做出分诊决策。”
SPANISH MILITARY EMERGENCY UNIT/ REUTERS
“20 世纪的气候已经消失了，”英国科学家在上周三的一份报告中警告称，该报告发现 2025 年是该国有记录以来最热的一年。科学家们表示，在 1980 年代几乎未知的平均气温，现在覆盖了近五分之一的土地；与此同时，消防部门正努力扑灭从英格兰东北部的达勒姆 (Durham) 到西南部的德文 (Devon) 的大火。次日，一场山火在苏格兰的凯恩戈姆山国家公园 (Cairngorms national park) 烧毁了 300 公顷土地。
“最终，响应能力是有限的，”波考斯塔基金会 (Pau Costa Foundation) 的培训主管 Juan Caamaño 表示。该非营利组织正在帮助北爱尔兰及北欧其他寒冷地区应对日益恶化的山火。“当我们面对这些巨大的火灾、这些极端事件时，就像是试图在海滩上部署消防员来阻止海啸。”
本月，致命的野火席卷了西欧——这是三波热浪带来的惨痛后果，茂盛的植被被变成了干燥的tinder（引火物）——而另一场大火则用浓稠的烟雾令北美窒息。法国、葡萄牙和西班牙在这一时期的野火数量均创下纪录，导致法国前所未有的大面积土地被烈火吞噬，并且
在火灾发生的地区，火势通常更猛烈，更不可预测，数量也更多
在英国，火灾威胁在草地而非森林中更为普遍，在经历了酷热的夏季开端后，本月从城市到国家公园均暴发了火灾。一场席卷而过的野火
“同时爆发的野火给应急服务部门带来了巨大压力，”英国生态与水文学中心（UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology）的野火科学家玛丽亚·巴博萨（Maria Barbosa）说道。“消防机构依赖于在环境变化时在不同地区之间调动人员、设备和飞机的能力。但当多起大型火灾同时发生时，这种灵活性会被大大削弱。”
在大西洋彼岸，安大略省北部 100 场燃烧的火灾产生的烟雾，使得多伦多在上周三成为全球污染最严重的城市，随后烟雾跨境进入美国，令纽约窒息。一项去年公布的研究发现，加拿大野火产生的远距离烟雾威力巨大，导致 2023, 年有 80,000 人过早死亡，其中美国 33,000 人，欧洲 22,000 人。
史密斯（Smith）表示，从扑灭所有火灾转向“选择性作战”对于北欧国家来说是“一件非常新鲜的事情”，但对于地中海国家则不然。“他们在灭火时不得不改变战术，而我们则在战略决策上面临真正的挣扎。”
或许令人惊讶的是，全球野火规模的趋势是过火面积（公顷）在减少，这主要是因为非洲萨瓦纳（savannah）中大片易燃区域正处于
伦敦消防员记忆犹新的是在 2022, 年 7 月的一场猛烈热浪期间，一场野火摧毁了温宁顿村（Wennington village）的 18 栋房屋，那是伦敦消防局自第二次世界大战以来最糟糕的一天。此后，该部门购买了四辆全地形支持车，其灵活性足以抵达消防车无法到达的地方。这些具备“边泵水边行驶”能力的 4x4 消防车今年已被动员 34 次，包括用于应对常规火灾。
伦敦消防局还鼓励地方当局和私人土地所有者通过在房屋和企业附近修剪草坪、耕种土地以清除易燃材料以及清理排水沟中的枯叶（这些都是澳大利亚人熟知的策略）来引入天然防火带，以阻止火势蔓延。
随着消防员人数的下降，此类建议变得愈发重要。消防员工会（Fire Brigades Union）总书记史蒂夫·赖特（Steve Wright）表示，由于人员削减——英国如今的消防员比 2010 年少了 12,000 人——导致消防队伍压力过大，延迟到达事故现场，从而导致更多火灾失控。“情况只会变得更糟，政府必须掌控局面，”他说道。“这不仅仅发生在荒原或石南原，它正发生在英国各地的城镇、城市和村庄中。”
当地服务机构所承受的压力在全球范围内也得到了共鸣。北美和澳大利亚的山火季节正变得越来越长，且日益同步，这阻碍了美国、加拿大和澳大利亚之间共享飞机和消防员的安排。一项去年发布的研究发现，到 2050, 这些地区之间的重叠期预计每年将增加到 4 至 29 天。
2023, 因加拿大野火产生的远距离烟雾而导致早逝的人数，其中 33,000 人在美国，22,000 人在欧洲
然而，富裕国家减少碳污染的政策远未达到在本世纪末前阻止全球升温 1.5C 所需的程度。与此同时，在这些国家中，利用火来管理土地的努力（例如通过受控焚烧来防止引发特大火灾的植被过度生长）仍被认为是新颖的。例外的是加拿大和澳大利亚，这两个国家已努力将原住民的用火策略纳入其中，而不是仅仅依赖于扑灭火灾。
根据 2 月份发布的研究，虽然气候崩溃是全球火灾季节日益“同步化”的主要驱动因素，但自然波动往往会使其恶化。厄尔尼诺现象（一种加剧极端天气的周期性气候模式）的回归让澳大利亚和印度尼西亚感到担忧，因为这带来了更高的火灾风险。澳大利亚气象局警告称，此次出现的厄尔尼诺可能是史上最强的一次，并且可能伴随正相位印度洋偶极子（一种相关的天气模式），后者与厄尔尼诺共同作用，曾导致澳大利亚出现了一些最炎热且最干燥的年份。东南亚和大洋洲的大片地区可能很快将被火焰吞噬。
但卡马尼奥（Caamaño）表示，尽管机制本身“运作完美”，但消防团队被部署在他们从未见过的极端情况下。他是在印度尼西亚发表上述讲话的，当时他正为东南亚即将面临的“野火焚烧”准备消防团队。
自 2010, 以来，英国消防队削减的消防员职位数量，导致消防站人手不足
“我的感觉是我们总是处于应急状态之后，”他说。“是紧急情况在支配我们，而不是我们在管理紧急情况。”
在欧洲，消防员之间的文化转变已开始渗透到政策中。6 月下旬，欧盟成员国批准了一项非约束性的野火风险管理战略，鼓励采取计划性焚烧、手动清除灌木以及建立更多样化的景观。其民防机制允许陷入困境的成员国请求邻国提供消防支持，今年该机制通过从其他地区预先部署消防员得到了加强。2025, 创纪录的野火烧毁了 100 万公顷土地，导致寻求帮助的请求数量达到历史最高水平。
政府是否在认真对待这一威胁？西班牙首相佩德罗·桑切斯（Pedro Sánchez）在访问阿尔梅里亚（Almería）的前线指挥部时表示——消防员在此扑灭了该国记录中最致命的几次大火之一——“气候紧急状态正在夺走生命。因此，各级政府以及整个社会必须共同迎接我们面前的挑战。”
AJIT NIRANJAN 是《卫报》的欧洲环境记者；CAROLINE DAVIES 是《卫报》的撰稿人
▼ 简·哈里斯（Jan Harris）位于新南威尔士州里迪沼泽（Reedy Swamp）的家在 3 月 2018 被烧毁
澳大利亚
以及加拿大，且与欧洲一样，这些火灾与极端热浪同步发生。随着气候危机延长并恶化全球范围内的火灾季节，这一景象正变得过于熟悉。
哈里斯能回想起 2018 年 3 月 18 日周日那些微小的细节：电视新闻上的时钟显示的是 12.34pm，那些“难以置信的大风”，以及当一道火焰和烟雾之墙向他们的房子冲来时，她的丈夫约翰是如何说“我们快上车……宝贝，我们必须马上离开”的。那天气温达到了 38C。
哈里斯夫妇的家并没有经过耐火能力评估，但他们做了常规的准备工作。水槽中的碎片已被清理，以降低飞溅的余烬在屋顶引发火灾的可能性；消防软管经过检查且运行正常；一个额外的水箱已装满并准备就绪。但火势逼近的速度让他们根本没时间考虑保卫家园。“在不到两分钟的时间里，它就从仅仅是一丝烟雾变成了巨大的火墙，”她说。
随后，在住在附近的一处租赁房期间，哈里斯夫妇在后来被称为“黑色之夏”的火灾中撤离了两次。这场火灾夺走了 33 人的生命，摧毁了 3,000 多个房屋，焚毁的面积几乎是英格兰的两倍。
丛林火灾一直是澳大利亚景观的一部分。澳大利亚原住民数千年来一直利用火来管理景观。与山火威胁共存是常态，尤其是对于农村地区的人们来说。永久性的路标会显示当天的火灾风险，家庭拥有“丛林火灾生存计划”，公共广播则播报警报。
回想起来，她说她本该将所有重要的生活文件——出生证明、结婚证和护照——放在同一个地方。在决定离开后，哈里斯只冲进了屋里的一间房（厨房），仅仅是为了拿她患有糖尿病的儿子埃文的胰岛素供应。
在火灾季节到来前的几个月里，会有提醒人们清理水槽碎片、修剪悬垂树枝、清理周围空间的通知。
作者：Graham Readfearn
▲ 安大略湖的一名游泳者在森林火灾产生的烟雾笼罩下，眺望着多伦多的天际线
英国和欧洲各地致命山火那猛烈的炽红火焰，以及社区恐慌的景象
珍、约翰和埃文开车前往镇上的一家酒吧避难。
路标显示当天的丛林火灾风险，住户们则制定了“生存计划”
“我们能看到那一根黑烟柱。那就是我们的房子，”她说。这座房子以及其中的所有东西都损失了，当天晚些时候另有 64 栋房屋和建筑被毁。两年
对于珍·哈里斯来说，逃离家园这件事在地理位置上至少无法更遥远了。但坐在她位于澳大利亚新南威尔士州乡村里迪沼泽（Reedy Swamp）的新家中，这位 67 岁的女性不禁流下了眼泪。
STEVE RUSSELL/GETTY
“这对人们来说太令人心碎了，”她说，“他们面前的路如此艰难。”对于一个因山火失去家园的人来说，她比任何人都清楚这一点。
在英国，专家们上周将此次山火描述为该国有记录以来最严重的爆发。在北威尔士，居民不得不撤离家园。在欧洲其他地区，山火横扫西班牙、葡萄牙和法国的部分地区。
消防员在今年 1 月澳大利亚维多利亚州的一场丛林火灾后，正在扑灭残余的热点
在巴黎市外约 65 公里处，随着消防员与一片被联合国教科文组织列入名录的森林中的大火搏斗，数百户家庭被疏散。据怀疑是纵火所为。在西班牙安达卢西亚的火灾中，有 13 人死亡。
MICHAEL CURRIE/ AAP/REUTERS
美国正发生重大火灾
在澳大利亚学习了一个世纪或更久的常规操作和惯例，正面临着更高温、更频繁火灾的考验。气候变化延长了澳大利亚的火灾季节，且高火险天数已经增加。这是一个全球范围内熟悉的叙事。
本周将由近 70 名人员跟进。
2019 年，一架直升机在新南威尔士州巴尔莫拉（Balmoral）投放灭火缓释剂以保护一项财产
“在世界各地，我们正看到前所未见的状况，”谢泼德说，“我们彼此学习得越多，对全球所有人的影响就越好。”
格雷格·马林斯担任消防员近 40 年，并在新南威尔士州消防救援局担任专员 14 年。
塔斯马尼亚大学的山火专家格兰特·威廉姆森博士表示，有“强有力的证据表明，在人类驱动的气候变化下，全球火灾天气正在增加”。
PETER PARKS/ AFP/GETTY
二十多年来，他一直断断续续地向欧洲消防局局长们讲述山火风险上升的问题，对于英国和欧洲的景象他“并不感到惊讶”。
“火灾现在且将继续以更高的温度燃烧，这种影响在温带和地中海气候区尤为明显，”他说。
‘我们彼此学习得越多，对全球所有人的影响就越好’
远离任何易燃物的存放地，并在必须保卫房屋时检查是否有可靠的水源。
2004, 年，他在都柏林的一次火灾科学会议上发言，提到“由于气候变化的影响，欧洲的消防部门需要为丛林火灾做好准备”。
“澳大利亚拥有世界上最易发生丛林火灾的土地之一，”新南威尔士州消防救援局的监督员本·谢泼德说。“我们一直主张这是一个共担责任的问题。公众必须了解风险以及他们可以采取什么措施来减轻风险。”谢泼德表示，这意味着要制定丛林火灾计划，并与家庭成员讨论在什么阶段决定撤离。
“就灾难性山火而言，火灾风险最高的是富裕且人口密集地区，包括美国西部、澳大利亚和地中海欧洲，且在 2015 年之后，灾害的发生率和影响急剧增加——在破坏性最大的 200 场山火中，有 43% 发生在过去十年。”
“那时我有点像个孤独的呐喊者，”他说。“但所有东西都在干涸。这就是几十年来一直被预测的情况。热浪正让这片景观成为火灾的温床。”
“在过去，人们习惯于看到荒原上的火灾，但现在森林火灾开始出现。然而，所有的设备都是为了扑救建筑物火灾而设计的。”
在里迪沼泽（Reedy Swamp），哈里斯一家利用保险金在他们的地块上重建了房屋。与之前的家不同，这座房屋达到了山火防护等级。房屋四周有 50 米的清理区域；增加了一个水箱；房屋外部没有使用木材；水槽装有护栏以防止碎片堆积；配备了消防泵，且在他们 500 米长的车道上设有宽阔的避让区。
每日的山火预警等级从“无等级”到“灾难级”不等——在最高级别预警日，消防部门建议人们离开该地区，最好在前一天晚上就离开。
在森林或山丘上灭火与在城市环境中灭火截然不同。穆林斯说，建筑物火灾通常有消防车可通行的道路，并且“能够快速获得水源”。“但在荒原和森林中并非如此。在城镇里，你知道火在哪里——就在 16 号房——但在森林里可能需要几个小时才能找到火源，而那时火势可能已经失控。”
澳大利亚在山火方面的专业知识和经验，意味着其消防部门近年来经常与美国和加拿大交换人员和设备，反之亦然。澳大利亚的一架大型空中消防员在近几周一直驻在美西海岸协助灭火，并且计划……
“但我会直接离开，”哈里斯说。“如果上次我们多留 10 分钟，我们就没命了。”
对于那些可能首次面临山火威胁的人，哈里斯有自己的建议。
上周日，苏格兰爱丁堡亚瑟之席（Arthur’s Seat）的一场火灾
“我们往往没有花足够的时间去面对所发生的一切，”她说。“这令人恐惧且心碎。是的，我们在经济上陷入了困境，但我们可以挺过去，但情感代价巨大。如果有心理援助，我会建议接受它。人们说失去的只是财物，这没错——但那是我的东西。”
NEIL POORAN/PA
“当当局要求你撤离时，如果我们选择不走，是不是在要求他们来救我们？这是一个非常过分的要求。”
“尽管我对失去的一切感到悲痛，但我很高兴能活在这里。”
GRAHAM READFEARN 是《卫报》澳大利亚环境与气候记者
深度报道与分析
2026 世界杯
塑造本次赛事关键时刻的瞬间
第 20 页
半个世纪以来，唐纳德·特朗普一直进行着一场基于高风险和打破既有规范的“钢丝表演”，以获取他想要的东西。这种方法使他在经历破产后依然能达到亿万富翁的地位，并在无数法律和政治丑闻中两次当选美国总统。
在 11 月的中期选举前不到四个月，特朗普似乎在通过重启一场选民早已不欢迎的战争而与选举灾难地缘调情——尤其是考虑到这场战争对燃料和生活成本产生的通货膨胀影响。
现在，他在同意停火不到一个月后，可能即将通过重启与伊朗的战争来进行一场巨大的豪赌。此前他曾称这次停火对于阻止一场与大萧条相当的经济危机至关重要。
“基本上没有任何时间表能让这件事在维持（共和党）中期选举表现方面产生任何意义，”《美国保守派》（American Conservative）杂志的执行编辑柯特·米尔斯（Curt Mills）说道。该杂志旨在推广特朗普的“美国优先”支持者所青睐的孤立主义外交政策目标。
Continued 由 Robert Tait 撰写 华盛顿编辑 中东
“这是一个彻头彻尾的失败者……在这件事上，他就像那个向太阳飞去的伊卡洛斯（Icarus）一样”
上周，特朗普在认定 17 June 签署的谅解备忘录（MoU）已毫无希望后，下令恢复对伊朗的袭击。
▲ 德黑兰的一栋建筑上的广告牌，描绘了唐纳德·特朗普淹没在“复仇之红海”中的场景
MAJID ASGARIPOUR/ 路透社
专家警告称，局势升级可能会不可避免地导致对伊朗领土的地面入侵——而这一决定反过来可能会引发他此前曾誓言摒弃、并谴责前任总统们所陷入的那种长期的“永远战争”。
与此同时，伊朗将重新开放海峡（此前为应对美国和以色列的袭击而关闭，导致全球油价飙升），以换取显著的制裁缓解，包括在国际市场上销售石油的权利以及解冻数十亿美元的资产。
“这份谅解备忘录主要是给特朗普一个喘息之机，让他尝试获得他想要的东西，即控制该海峡或将其从伊朗手中夺走，”纳斯尔（Nasr）表示。“特朗普试图在谈判前将其从他们手中夺走，这样他们就没有能力抵制他在核问题或其他任何问题上的要求。”
“伊朗也在进行一场豪赌，认为它基本上可以利用这 60 天的时间，通过向国内引入进口商品来获得一些经济缓解，同时加强自己的地位。底线是，可能存在误判，但不存在误解。”
误判的可能性因特朗普政府中缺乏伊朗专家的而进一步增加。
斯旺森（Swanson）将这一缺陷归咎于国务卿马可·鲁比奥（Marco Rubio），他称鲁比奥“强行撤换”了关键人员。
“我对关于这场战争决策过程的一些泄露信息感到震惊。据报道，鲁比奥对以色列向特朗普建议的政权更迭目标持怀疑态度，但却保持沉默，”现就职于大西洋议会（Atlantic Council）的斯旺森说。
问题在几天内就出现了。在邻近的海湾王国商船在美军海军保护下，使用了靠近中立国阿曼海岸的航线，而非此前在伊朗海岸附近使用的路线后，伊朗向这些船只开火。在之前的路线上，德黑兰官员可以控制通行并收取“服务费”，而华盛顿及其盟友称这些费用等同于非法过路费。
“我认为这并不是误解。我认为这正是特朗普的意图，”他说道。
“我认为这是一个彻头彻尾的失败者。这证明了特朗普并不真正关心中期选举。在这件事上，他就像那个向太阳飞去的伊卡洛斯——这似乎是他与伊朗人之间的私人恩怨。”
在 60 day 的停火期间，双方本应就伊朗的核计划进行谈判。
“我的初步评估是，这不过是另一次短暂的波动，一些周期性的暴力，然后我们会回到［停火和谈判阶段］，”前国务院和白宫伊朗问题顾问内特·斯旺森（Nate Swanson）表示。“我认为这是一次重新建立筹码并试图重新谈判谅解备忘录（MoU）的尝试，但这极具风险，可能会产生毁灭性的后果——而且在我看来，很可能会失败。”
一些分析人士将这次冲突归咎于美国谈判不力，据称这导致了谅解备忘录中的误解和含糊之处，其中并未提及航道。但约翰斯·霍普金斯大学高级国际研究学院的教授瓦利·纳斯尔（Vali Nasr）认为，谅解备忘录的
此次暴力冲突的核心是对霍尔木兹海峡的控制。这是一条战略性水道，在2月28日战争开始前，全球20%的能源出口通过此处。现在，随着德黑兰寻求抵御在核计划以及支持真主党（黎巴嫩什叶派团体）等代理人问题上做出让步的压力，该海峡已成为其最大的谈判筹码。
▼ 美国中央司令部发布的一段视频中，对伊朗的一次空袭
2月28日之前通过霍尔木兹海峡的世界能源出口比例
谅解备忘录旨在铺平
路透社（REUTERS）
唐纳德·特朗普并没有依赖资深的伊朗专家，而是依赖他信任的谈判团队——即其首席特使史蒂夫·威特科夫（Steve Witkoff）、他的女婿贾里德·库什纳（Jared Kushner），以及后来的美国副总统JD·万斯（JD Vance）。后者反对最初的参战决定，并且在谈判谅解备忘录中扮演了关键角色。
“这就是他从根本上误解对手的方式，”华盛顿特区中东研究所的高级研究员亚历克斯·瓦坦卡（Alex Vatanka）说。“专业知识本可以为总统提供帮助，让他真正倾听那些观察过伊朗体制的人，他们会告诉他：‘他们不是纽约的商人。他们的DNA类型不同。’”
“特朗普现在的对手愿意承受比他想象中多得多的痛苦。他们愿意冒风险打出霍尔木兹海峡这张牌，因为这让他们掌控了如此之多的全球能源供应，并将海湾地区一些最富有的国家变成了他们的质子。”
分析 | 伊朗
随着美国在欧曼湾重新实施封锁，截至上周四，通过霍尔木兹海峡的每日过境次数下降到3次，为5月以来最低，布伦特原油价格上涨至$82.
武装响应：尽管美国发动攻击，德黑兰仍能造成严重破坏
一个感到挫败的美国正在探索如何让伊朗屈服，尽管目前还不清楚在不进行大规模地面行动的情况下如何实现这一点，而美国既没有准备好，也没有意愿这样做。美国海军“拳击手”号（USS Boxer）两栖打击群的2,200名海军陆战队员也参与执行美国的封锁行动。
白宫情境室的一次会议上考虑了军事升级，随后有泄露消息称，考虑的方案包括夺取哈格岛（Kharg Island），如果没有美国封锁，伊朗90%的石油出口将通过该岛。
作者：丹·萨巴格（Dan Sabbagh）
伊朗赌博的倾向可能会促使唐纳德·特朗普进一步提高筹码，从而使进一步升级——包括地面入侵——变得更有可能。
▲ JD·万斯在巴基斯坦，与贾里德·库什纳（左）和史蒂夫·威特科夫在一起
伊朗和美国再次互相攻击，有充足的迹象表明，新一轮的战斗将进一步恶化。德黑兰和华盛顿在外交上依然分歧巨大，尽管美国保持着显著的军事优势，但伊朗有足够的能量造成破坏。
政权更迭——这是战争开始时通过刺杀最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊（Ayatollah Ali Khamenei）及其后其他关键人物所追求的目标——目前看来已不再可行。
JACQUELYN MARTIN/ GETTY
美国有可能占领哈格岛（Kharg），但挑战在于如何守住，因为那里不可避免地会成为伊朗导弹和无人机的目标。与此同时，根据战略与国际研究中心（Center for Strategic and International Studies）智库的估计，美国持续的轰炸将进一步减少伊朗的防空拦截弹储备（已减少一半），以及昂贵的导弹储备（减少了四分之一到三分之一）。
哈梅内伊（Khamenei）的葬礼持续一周，其灵柩在数个伊朗城市的庞大民众簇拥下经过，最后安葬在圣城马什哈德（Mashhad）。人们普遍认为，这是该政权在面对生存外部威胁时，试图重新建立民众团结与合法性的努力。
美国曾声称，其与以色列开展的为期 38 天的轰炸行动已经摧毁或重创了伊朗的军队。上周，唐纳德·特朗普告诉福克斯新闻（Fox News），伊朗的“武器减少了 91%”，但 5 月流出的美国情报评估结论认为，伊朗已重新获得了霍尔木兹海峡沿线 33 个导弹发射点中的 30 个的访问权限，并且可能恢复了战前 70% 的整体导弹储备和发射器。
由于伊朗愿意报复美国的波斯湾盟友，如阿联酋、卡塔尔甚至阿曼——这些国家被该政权描绘为华盛顿的“协作共犯”——瓦坦卡（Vatanka）警告称，可能会出现一场为期 5 年或 10 年的冲突。
特朗普还威胁要轰炸“他们所有的发电厂”。这种程度的升级将招致国际谴责，因为它将被广泛视为战争罪行，同时也会带来伊朗在波斯湾进行危险报复的风险。
“你可以想象，美国在接下来的数周甚至数月内反复轰炸伊朗，”他说。“我不知道特朗普打算如何在军事上击败该政权，除非他想要占领那个地方。”
根据英国海事贸易组织（Maritime Trade Organisation）的消息，上周在靠近阿曼的霍尔木兹海峡南部航线上行驶的两艘油轮遭到导弹袭击，导致一名水手死亡，八人受伤。第三艘油轮在更东侧的阿曼湾被击中，位于卡尔哈特（Qalhat）西北 70 公里处，这展示了伊朗针对油轮的空中打击范围。
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伊朗政权已经证明了它能够承受。剑桥大学讲师罗克珊·法曼法尔马伊安（Roxane Farmanfarmaian）指出，阿里·哈梅内伊（Ali Khamenei）为期一周的葬礼组织工作凸显了其政权的凝聚力。她担心会出现剧烈的军事升级，尽管“我的感觉是，这次会比春季时更短”，因为双方都已精疲力竭，最终会导致与现在相似的结果。
除了那个选项之外，另一个选择可能是入侵哈格岛，那里是伊朗原油出口业务的中心。
但约瑟夫·沃特尔（Joseph Votel）认为，此类举措的实用性有限。他是一位退休美国将军，在特朗普第一次总统任期内担任美国中央司令部负责人，他表示一个有效的战略必须包含外交手段。
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结果在预料之中：
这提醒人们，带着不切实际的目标发动战争，比结束战争更容易。“双方都无法以可接受的代价给予对方致命一击，”法曼法尔马伊安说。
“我们正看到军事行动中持续的以牙还牙。我们打击，他们反击，”沃特尔说。“这让我得出结论，这可能需要数周甚至数月的时间。这需要极大的战略耐心——而且其中蕴含着巨大的风险。”
美国有可能占领哈格岛，但挑战在于如何守住
丹·萨巴格（DAN SABBAGH）是《卫报》国防与安全记者
罗伯特·泰特（ROBERT TAIT）是《卫报》美国政治记者
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加勒比地区
古巴
德克萨斯大学。“而且他们已经老了，崩溃了，疲惫不堪了。”
5 月，佛罗里达州的一家法院指控现年 95 岁的劳尔·卡斯特罗（Raúl Castro）犯有谋杀罪。这发生在 30 年前从迈阿密起飞并在哈瓦那投撒传单的小型飞机被击落之后，这开启了类似于委内瑞拉式人员撤离的可能性。
另一个“德尔西” 在危机初期，美国明确表示一直在寻找另一个“德尔西”——即相当于委内瑞拉的德尔西·罗德里格斯（Delcy Rodríguez），后者取代了尼古拉斯·马杜罗的地位
随着夏季气温目前处于 30 多度且湿度达到 80%，人们的情绪开始崩溃。对许多人来说，全国范围的崩溃与早已萎缩的局部停电无缝衔接。曾经街道上充满了萨尔萨舞曲，而现在锅碗瓢盆的敲击声成了这个国家的背景音——这种“敲锅抗议”（cacerolazos）代表了无法入睡和食物腐烂的共同苦难。
甚至在美国加大压力之前，古巴国家机器就已经很虚弱了。现在，各项服务正在失效。犯罪行为在蔓延，街道上发生斗殴，车辆和房屋被闯入，抢劫案频发。曾经无处不在的警察现在却难以寻觅。
电力仅偶尔恢复。“一小时的时间不够运行水泵取水或为手机充电，”上周在哈瓦那的韦达多（Vedado）区，一名男子在嘈杂的锅碗瓢盆声中大声喊道。“人们希望政府现在就采取行动。”
古巴政府维持统一形象的决心似乎正面临压力。数月来，美国一直在泄露关于政治和经济改革可能达成协议的讨论，这些谈判是通过劳尔·卡斯特罗（Raúl Castro）的孙子劳尔·吉列尔莫·罗德里格斯·卡斯特罗（Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro）进行的。
作者：Ruaridh Nicoll，发自哈瓦那
政府表示，他们几乎没有选择。“我们之前说过，燃料完全匮乏，”能源部长 Vicente de la O Levy 说道。
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当古巴的国家电网崩溃时——正如上周二在 10 天内第三次发生的那样——一座城-
上周，42 岁的 Rodríguez Castro 接受了《今日美国》(USA Today) 的采访，邀请记者前往他在哈瓦那的祖父旧办公室之一。他穿着爱马仕 (Hermès) 运动鞋，戴着劳力士 (Rolex) 手表，拿着一个萨尔瓦多·费拉格慕 (Salvatore Ferragamo) 的包，里面装着官方文件。“许多人无法像我这样生活，这让我感到痛心，”他告诉记者，并补充说虽然他对政治没有兴趣，但“如果在某个时刻革命需要我挺身而出，我会这么做的”。
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自 3 January 以来，美国绑架委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗 (Nicolás Maduro)，唐纳德·特朗普一直承诺古巴将会垮台。“无论是通过解放它还是夺取它，我认为我可以随心所欲地处置它，”他在 3 月告诉记者。
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集体呻吟在城市中蔓延，人们再次思考，这座岛屿陈旧的电力系统是否很快将变得无法修复。
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这座全长 1,250 公里、拥有 9.5 million 人口的加勒比海岛国，一直处于美国实施的为期六个月石油封锁的酷暑之中，这是旨在推翻其共产主义政府行动的一部分。但古巴基础设施的危急状态则追溯得更早。
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为了实现这一目标，华盛顿利用制裁摧毁了古巴的工业。在该岛开展业务的外企——从酒店运营商、航空公司到航运公司——都被驱逐出境。“我们在金斯顿有 7 个集装箱，在中国还有 40 个，但我们不知道它们何时抵达，或者是否能抵达，”一名电动汽车进口商说道。
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▼ 在哈瓦那停电期间，人们使用手机手电筒玩多米诺骨牌
结果引起了古巴人的愤怒，他们对这种展示感到震惊，而在学者 Julio César Guanche 的措辞中，此人是“没有任何公认的机构公共职务”的人。
“系统的骨干仍然是大电厂，”资深能源研究员 Jorge Piñon 说道。
在世界杯期间进入沉寂后，战争鼓点再次在美国敲响。在珊瑚峡谷 (Coral Gables) 比尔特莫尔酒店 (Biltmore hotel) 这样一个不寻常的环境中，前佛罗里达州州长 Jeb Bush 站在一架伊朗 Shahed 无人机旁，此前有（未经证实）的报道称古巴购买了 300 架无人机。他表示伊朗一直与古巴合作。在白宫，特朗普随后表示：“我们不会允许这种情况发生。”
RAMON ESPINOSA/AP
与此同时，古巴政府试图通过开放经济来显示诚意，宣布了 176 项扩大私营部门和吸引投资的措施，但这些措施被美国国务院斥为“肤浅的烟雾信号”。
电网于上周三早上 7 点重新接通，如果所属街区恢复供电，人们会欢呼。但每个人都知道这只是暂时的。
RUARIDH NICOLL 是一位驻哈瓦那的记者
欧洲
泽连斯基上周确认，费多罗夫与瑟尔斯基之间的关系已经破裂。
在基辅的大规模公众抗议中，传闻泽连斯基本周将向压力低头并解雇瑟尔斯基。乌克兰总参谋部周一表示，瑟尔斯基及其副手 Andriy Hnatov 继续履行职责。
虽然显然高层出现了有毒的动态，但泽连斯基上周四对情况的最初分析缺乏说服力。他似乎在抱怨，有人要求他“在不同阵营之间做出选择 [而事实上] 我最想要的是团结”。这引发了猜测，认为泽连斯基及其圈子——且非首次——排挤了某个被视为受欢迎且具有潜在未来政治竞争对手的人。
在俄罗斯莫斯科地区波多尔斯克附近，乌克兰无人机袭击后浓烟滚滚
路透社 (REUTERS)
分析 乌克兰
他因精准把握了困扰乌克兰武装部队的几个关键问题而深受崇拜：精简军事采购并挑战易于腐败的系统、引入竞争性招标，以及寻求解决军队征兵和培训危机的方案。
《基辅独立报》（Kyiv Independent）的一位主编表示：“在一个人试图用技术和智能策略扭转这场消耗战，而另一个人则用微观管理和苏联思维破坏它之间，弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基……选择了后者。”
国防部？部长被迅速解职后，注意力转向泽连斯基
米哈伊洛·费多罗夫也被视为乌克兰高效无人机计划的关键推动者之一。
现在的问题是，如果五年内任命第五任国防部长，将产生怎样的深远影响。对于泽连斯基而言，这凸显出他在组建并留住一支凝聚力强的高级官员团队方面一直较为吃力。他任命叶夫根·克马拉（Yevhen Khmara）为临时国防部长的举动表明，对技术以及中远程无人机打击的重视可能会持续下去。克马拉曾是国家安全局 Alpha 部队的负责人，该部队深度参与了无人机打击行动。
他曾是一名接近泽连斯基的营销高管，从未在军队服役，由于其随意的风格、放任不羁的演讲以及坚持在基辅的战争工作中采用数据驱动的方法，他与高级将领之间存在摩擦。
彼得·博蒙 (Peter Beaumont) 报道
“我们将采集所有数据并查看哪些方案有效，”费多罗夫在被任命后表示，“所有运行良好的方案都将继续实施。”这包括一项旨在奖励最高效部队的“击杀得分制”，但军队中的一些人对此不屑一顾。费多罗夫还被认为在今年早些时候说服了埃隆·马斯克切断战场上未经授权的俄罗斯 Starlink 访问权限。
有迹象表明，泽连斯基排挤掉了一个被视为潜在未来竞争对手的人
在基辅似乎在与俄罗斯战争的多个领域获得优势之际，弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基突然解雇了乌克兰极具创新精神的国防部长米哈伊洛·费多罗夫，这暴露了总统领导力中一个令人不安的缺陷，且这已非首次。这一举动令欧洲高级官员感到震惊，并在乌克兰引发了示威活动。考虑到费多罗夫在推动明确的战争执行战略、利用乌克兰在无人机和导弹技术方面迅速发展的技术优势所起的作用，这次解职更令人震惊。
泽连斯基表示，他希望克马拉也能推进费多罗夫的若干关键改革计划。但问题在于，是否有人能被赋予权力在该职位上发挥实效。
费多罗夫出生于乌克兰脱离莫斯科独立之年，被视为不受苏联官僚经验束缚的一代人；相比之下，他的死对头是该国 60 岁的总参谋长亚历山德尔·瑟尔斯基，后者毕业于莫斯科高级合成兵种指挥学校，职业生涯始于一名炮兵军官。
目前尚不清楚费多罗夫是否会被复职（这是示威者的核心诉求），或者是否会以另一种身份回到政府中。如果不能，示威者承诺将在全国各城镇开展“普遍且无期限的抗议”。
彼得·博蒙 (PETER BEAUMONT) 是《卫报》的高级国际记者
费多罗夫 35 岁，于 1 月被任命，他受到了
2026 世界杯之眼
一张伟大的世界杯照片由什么决定？构图、新闻价值、情感共鸣、精准的时机以及运气，这些都可能在不同程度上起到作用。但它们共同的一点是，都拥有捕捉注意力的力量。
《卫报》体育图片编辑部在为期六周的赛事期间收到了超过 500,000 张世界杯照片，其中不乏许多经典之作。现在，《卫报》体育图片编辑 Jonny Weeks 将挑选他最喜欢的 2026 年世界杯影像。
▲▲ 已经 40 岁的佛得角门将 Vozinha 成为了本次赛事的突破之星
BRETT DAVIS/REUTERS
▲ Folarin Balogun 因一次时机不对的挑战而被出示红牌，但在唐纳德·特朗普游说后，他的一场禁赛被暂停执行
MICHAEL STEELE/GETTY
▲ 挪威球迷今夏表演的大规模划船动作在网络上引起了轰动
瑞士队的 Manuel Akanji 罚球不中，看起来球仿佛要飞出体育场
ANADOLU/GETTY
AGUSTIN MARCARIAN/REUTERS
堪萨斯城体育场环绕着一小块草地，世界上最著名的足球运动员独自在上面行走。你无法真切地看出那是 Lionel Messi，但不知为何，你能感觉到就是他
JULIAN FINNEY/FIFA/GETTY
你很少见到戴牙套的球员，但本月才满 19 岁的西班牙球员 Lamine Yamal 却自豪地戴着它
KARL BRIDGEMAN/GETTY
一个完美的瞬间，提醒人们 Harry Kane 和 Jude Bellingham 在本次赛事中为英格兰队创造的英雄壮举
IAN MACNICOL/GETTY
安迪·伯纳姆在周一就职后出现在 10 Downing Street 门外
ISABEL INFANTES/REUTERS
英国
对于英国新任首相而言，在面对重大政策变革时，一个巨大的问题将是他是否清楚自己想要走向何方
作者：Tom Clark
进入唐宁街10,号后，基尔·斯塔默在任的时间最终证明只有24个月，而在这期间他一直是个性急的人。他告诉国会议员，这份工作最大的挫败感在于“速度以及完成事情的能力”。他认为，根本问题在于，过去每当出现差错，“历任政府都会设立另一套程序、另一个机构或发起另一次磋商，试图防止我们再次犯错”。
斯塔默在表达不耐烦的同时（即便除此之外没做什么），也与这个他已失去足够民意支持而无法领导的国家保持了同步。Merlin Strategy的民调专家朱利安·加利（Julian Gallie）表示，选民们“十年以来一直在渴求变革”，即便他们对于应该是怎样的变革发出了不一致的信号。脱欧投票、2017年的科尔宾浪潮、2019年的约翰逊多数党政府，以及2024年保守党的惨败，都可以被视为“一场针对现状的绝望赌博”。
显然已经——一场紧急状态。最经典的案例是富兰克林·罗斯福的上任前100天。让他能够在一个充满敌意的国会中强行通过15项重大法律的，不仅是因为他的雄辩，更是因为1933年美国随处可见的破产、裁员和银行崩溃。
对北岩银行（Northern Rock）小规模波动的犹豫不决，突然之间变成了将半数银行系统国有化的决心。在疫情期间，新法律的闪击战将公民锁在家中，而沉睡的官僚机构苏醒过来，临时想出办法支付人们停工的费用。从数据治理到公共采购，此前不可逾越的各项协议被迅速扫除。
英国的国家机器是否已经由于过于僵化而无法运转？
英国战时内阁在1940年6月突然接纳与法国实现全面政治联盟的计划，人们记得较少，仅仅是因为紧急情况的演进速度超过了该计划。2008年，当面对自动取款机在数小时内被取空的局面时，一个此前刚刚花了几个月时间犹豫不决的英国政府突然召集起了国有化半数银行系统的决心。
如果没有大规模死亡或毁灭的威胁，英国的国家机器——如斯塔默所暗示的那样——是否已经由于过于僵化而无法运转？即将离任的首相的同事们则希望，工党在权力中心如此频繁地显得孤立无援的真正原因更多是个人层面的而非制度层面的。丽莎·南迪（Lisa Nandy）是核心决策层中预测安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）政府将立即变得“更快速、更大胆”的声音之一。
历史表明，摆脱麻木最有效的单一工具是安迪·伯纳姆所不具备的——他虽然擅长交友，但缺乏在筹集资金时愿意冒风险树敌的魄力。一份早期的加税预算案可能是一个信号，表明计划正拥有动力。
基尔·斯塔默在告别演说后拥抱其财政大臣瑞秋·里夫斯
伯纳姆在处理生活成本问题时，需要特别小心，避免陷入高职之位的陷阱。生活必需品价格降低将改变一切——前提是这种降幅能够持久。但事实上，那个在限制燃料账单方面采取最果断行动的首相是利兹·特拉斯，这凸显了瞬息万变的野心与顽固的财政现实之间的紧张关系。
ANDY RAIN/EPA
这并非一个愚蠢的希望。尽管斯塔默予以否认，但他正是弗朗西斯·福山（Francis Fukuyama）所称的“程序拜物教”政治的化身。这位美国智者最近告诉我，斯塔默看起来就像是“根本不想承担任何风险”，而有效的领导者会本能地抓住这些风险。有时，他们会通过将常规困境夸大为危机来达到目的。2010,年，乔治·奥斯本大谈英国可能会走上陷入危机地希腊之路的可能性。与此同时，他为大幅削减公共支出磨快了钢刀，并在进入唐宁街11号仅46天后就开始实施。
租房者。雅各布斯（Jacobs）并未退缩。他认为国家可以通过将此类房屋纳入社会住房库存来做出回应。
政治经济学家迈克尔·雅各布斯（Michael Jacobs）是伯纳姆非正式智囊团的长期成员，他认为尽管如此，仍能窥见一条获胜之路。他建议，伯纳姆不要像特拉斯那样对所有家庭能源进行封顶，而是仅在一定的用量水平（远低于平均水平）之内对单位价格提供补贴。这将使成本大致降低一半。
在与“以租养房”团体的争论持续进行之时，他设想政府应迅速着手大规模建设市政房屋。全国范围的发展公司可以负责组织物流。
并不只有挥金如土的左翼人士才能发现快速降低生活成本的方法。蒂姆·卢尼格（Tim Leunig）是一位坚定的亲竞争经济学家，刚刚被宣布为自由民主党议员，同时也是一个懂得如何快速采取行动的人。他是疫情期间休假补贴计划的幕后策划者，并就如何在该计划启动几周内投入运行为当时的财政大臣里希·苏纳克（Rishi Sunak）提供建议。
相比之下，斯塔默（Starmer）则是一位谨慎的前律师，他设定任务、里程碑和“第一步”，但从未真正直截了当地——
特拉斯（Truss）在实施其燃料补贴计划及其心心念念的减税方案时鲁莽地举债，而雅各布斯（Jacobs）则希望伯纳姆（Burnham）通过将资本利得税提高到与所得税相当的水平来为其方案筹资。政策纯洁主义者会担心未能将支持精准投放给最贫困和最阴冷（漏风）的家庭。但这种针对几乎所有人的直接转移支付可以快速完成，而且——有趣的是——支付账单的资本持有者发出的哀嚎越响，这种“变革”就越不容忽视。
【OCR清理说明：tion.】众所周知，他通过指向进度缓慢的国际诉讼程序，回避了任何关于以色列在加沙地带战争罪行的问题。他将社会护理糟糕现状的责任推给了一个独立委员会，并要求该委员会在 2028. 年才提交报告。该委员会主席路易丝·凯西（Louise Casey）在谈话时言辞犀利——且听起来带着一种预见性的沮丧——提到她已经“仔细审视了之前的 22 个委员会、评估报告、绿皮书和白皮书”。
今天，他提供了一长串廉价且易于实现的获胜方案：立即废除地租以支持租房者；允许客户访问保险算法；允许维珍媒体（Virgin Media）的竞争对手访问其有线网络；允许廉价通用药物制造商在包装上标明其与 Nurofen 或 Clarityn 等效。所有这些都需要在早期与既得利益集团发生冲突。但每次产生的效果将是安逸的统制主义（corporatism）极少能实现的：让具体某样东西变得更便宜。
雅各布斯的另一项提案将对一部分人的切实支持与对另一部分人的激烈争论相结合：临时冻结租金。同样，政策纯洁主义者会感到焦虑。一些房东可能会选择出售房产而非接受较低的回报，从而导致租房选择更少。
▼ 基尔·斯塔默（Keir Starmer）周一向查尔斯国王递交辞呈
伯纳姆自从担任卫生大臣起就一直鼓吹建立一个全面的护理服务体系，现在的他听起来正像凯西所渴望的那种领导者，誓言将投入“政治资本”来寻求解决方案。但每一项有意义的改革提案——成本上限、成本分担、权益保障、劳动力升级——都涉及增加支出。伯纳姆这位通过向四面八方播撒同理心而登顶的领导者，真的能迅速征调到所需的资源吗？
AARON CHOWN/PA
任何将斯塔默政府概括为统一迟缓的刻画都是不公平的。尽管最高层的人在抱怨，但这并没有阻止政府在租房者权利、雇佣权利和净零排放方面表现得相当积极。这些领域与其他领域的区别在于，政府已经明确地想到了自己要做什么。伯纳姆面临的巨大问题将是他是否知道自己想去哪里。一旦他掌握了方向盘，踩加速踏板就没那么成问题了。
这位前大曼彻斯特市长最近对受雷切尔·里夫斯（Rachel Reeves）两次大规模增税影响的雇主和养老金领取者表示担忧，并暗示会稍微放宽政策。护理仅仅是需要快速投入公共资金的紧迫优先事项中的一个例子。新任首相将立即需要
汤姆·克拉克（TOM CLARK）是《展望》（PROSPECT）杂志的特约编辑
英国
表明了首相在某些关键领域（尤其是国防支出）的思考方向。他上个月因抗议拟议中的国防投资计划而辞去国防大臣职务，这是基尔·斯塔默（Keir Starmer）垮台的关键时刻。
数周以来，随着各部长在争执、游说并为安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）政府的高职进行布局，新任首相依然像斯芬克斯一样难以捉摸。他在周一的一次采访中表示，他有一个装有内阁人选和重大政策公告的“黑匣子”，并补充道，即便在他准备进入唐宁街时：“黑匣子仍然密封着。”
一些斯塔默的盟友认为，辞职削弱了前首相与伯纳姆竞争首相之职的斗志。有些人甚至认为，希利在宣布从斯塔默政府辞职之前，已经达成协议将成为伯纳姆的财政大臣。
因此，在经历了埃德·米利班德（Ed Miliband）、沙巴娜·马哈茂德（Shabana Mahmood）和蕾切尔·里夫斯（Rachel Reeves）盟友的密集吹风后，当约翰·希利（John Healey）被任命为财政大臣时，甚至连工党高层都感到措手不及。“我们没预料到会这样，”一名工党议员说，“但这可能表明这是一个正确的决定。”
希利几乎肯定会利用他的新职位来增加国防支出。实现这一目标的一种方法可能是发行“国防债券”——即仅用于军事的新借款——希利在政府任职期间就主张这一点，现在有机会付诸实施。
官员表示，首相选择前国防大臣是因为两人在一系列政策问题上达成共识，包括坚持借款规则、再工业化、权力下放以及干预以应对生活成本危机。希利还拥有财政部资历，曾在戈登·布朗（Gordon Brown）执政期间在财政部担任五年初级部长。
作者：Kiran Stacey
虽然财政大臣的盟友一直在为他奔走，但他们不像其他人那样激烈。
在伯纳姆当选马克菲尔德（Makerfield）区议员的前几周，工党内部有些人认为里夫斯正在为留任财政大臣做准备。她提出冻结私营部门租金的建议——此前并未被列为政府政策，且迅速被斯塔默和其他高级部长否决——被视为向更倾向于干预主义的伯纳姆发出的刻意信号。
沙巴娜·马哈茂德 内政大臣
希利的任命提供了一个
约翰·希利 财政大臣
与此同时，她的最资深顾问之一凯蒂·马丁（Katie Martin）一直在给商业游说者和高管打电话，要求他们公开或私下地为里夫斯争取机会。支持她的议员们也集结起来，但最终这些压力都不足够。里夫斯在拒绝了另一个高职邀请（据报道是国防大臣）后，于周一从政府辞职。
ANDY RAIN/EPA; VICTORIA JONES, JAMES VEYSEY/SHUTTERSTOCK; YUI MOK/PA
与此同时，米利班德的盟友们也在为他争取。当有人暗示他不够亲商时，他的朋友们愤怒地回应，认为他增加绿色基础设施资金的努力是支持增长和支持工业化的。
几位工会领袖公开支持他——这对于潜在的内阁人选来说是前所未有的举动。许多与他最亲近的人认为……
“我们没预料到会这样。但这可能表明这是一个正确的决定”
埃德·米利班德 外交大臣
蕾切尔·里夫斯
离任财政大臣
【解析】由 Peter Walker 撰写 ▼ 安迪·伯纳姆
周一在 No 10 外发表讲话
伯纳姆还表示，他们认为他应该是被选中之人。但来自商业界和市场高层的资深人士对米利班德候选资格的强烈游说似乎对他不利，且随着伊朗战争威胁引发另一波通胀，甚至连他之前的支持者也表达了怀疑。
他进入 10 号唐宁街之时，或许比近代历史上任何一位首相都更像一张政治白纸。除了梅克菲尔德补选外，他没有经历过任何竞争或审查。他已经近 10 年没有进入议会，且 16 年没有参与政府工作。
“现在或许正是需要一名财政鹰派的时候，”一位议员说道。
正是在这种充满怨恨的背景下，马哈茂德（Mahmood）的亲信认为她有机会接管财政部。这位前内政大臣告诉朋友，她希望留在岗位上，以监督她今年启动的、极具争议的难民与移民系统改革。但随着工党在谁应出任财政大臣的问题上分歧加大，她的盟友们开始将她作为潜在的人选提及，尽管她此前对经济政策地谈论甚少。
时长仅五分多钟，涵盖了几个主题和
这就是传递的信息。同样显而易见的是，实现国家变革说起来容易做起来难。工党议员们已经意识到，这是他们为了抵御一个可能的奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）政府而进行的最后一次孤注一掷。
“我很快将走出我身后的这扇门，并发出我的第一项指示——结束我们国家的露宿街头现象。”这直接呼应了安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）在就任大曼彻斯特市长时做出的承诺，当时他表示将在 2020. 前结束其管辖范围内的露宿街头问题。但这并未实现——人数虽有下降，但随后又悄然回升。而现在，他拥有了一套明显更强大的政策杠杆。
“我将把关怀人们的需求置于我所做每一件事的核心……让我们让这一刻成为英国重新开始相信的时刻，成为我们找回希望的时刻。”伯纳姆一直以来——或者至少在他在曼彻斯特重塑形象之后——一直属于这类政治家，但公开地拥抱“希望”，至少在一定程度上反映了工党内部（包括迟到的基尔·斯塔默）意识到，2024 年大选后的最初信息过于阴沉。
这些词句对于关注安迪·伯纳姆的人来说十分熟悉。然而，这位新任首相在唐宁街的首次演讲中仍有相当多的内容。
“我敏锐地意识到，我是过去 10 年中第六个走上这条街的人。”伯纳姆在开篇就表达了许多选民可能在思考的问题：怎么又来了？然而，他也面临着一个初步挑战，即如何说服人们，在一次重大选举获胜仅两年后就罢免基尔·斯塔默是有正当理由的。
“在 20 世纪 80 年代，英国走了一些弯路……我们将改变政治，使其更具协作性，更多地关注解决问题，而非刷存在感。”如果伯纳姆演讲的某些部分让人感觉很熟悉，那是由于他之前地说过类似的话，几乎逐字重复，最近的一次是在上周五他就任党魁向工党忠实支持者发表的演讲中。
最终，她将被允许继续留在内政部，正如她一直表达的意愿，这是一个明确的信号，表明她的提案不会被大幅削弱。
不仅财政部成为了那些对前途感到不确定内阁大臣们密集游说的目标。即将离任的住房与社区大臣史蒂夫·里德（Steve Reed）在任职最后几周的采访和演讲中，强调了他对权力下放的承诺——而这正是伯纳姆的主要政策优先级之一。
伯纳姆在很大程度上将此定义为一次政治上的大规模忏悔。他说，英国政治家必须“提高水平并应对新挑战”，并最终带来稳定性。他继续说道：“我知道国内的人们已经厌倦了政治。我听到了你们的声音，我想对你们坦诚：我们做得还不够好，我们需要变得更好。”承认错误可以成为一个强大的工具，就像斯塔默在接管党魁之位时，对工党失败地进行的一种宣泄式承认一样。
这并不是一个缺陷。伯纳姆有一些关键但广泛的政策准则——试图扭转撒切尔时代去工业化带来的最糟糕影响；减少派系斗争；下放权力——而周一的演讲将触及他所能覆盖的最广泛受众。
里德的盟友们表示失望，认为政府在将权力移出白厅方面已做出的努力没有得到认可——但最终，这还不足以保住他的职位。
其他几位部长在私下里也坦诚地表达了他们理想中想从事的工作。不止一人谈到了自己在技术领域的专业知识——尽管这可能是徒劳的，因为伯纳姆很可能会直接撤销技术部门。
伯纳姆有一套信条，一套相对一致但偶尔模糊的核心信仰，这是他在担任大曼彻斯特市长期间定型而成的。盟友认为这一点至关重要。
在人们大谈财政黑洞和艰难选择之时，“情况只会变得更糟（直到，也许，如果我们运气好，它们会稍微好转一点）”在后保守党时代的初期阶段具有一定的实用价值，能够转移责任并争取一些时间。
由于首相可能会将大部分精力放在国内政策上，一些担任国际职务的人员急于强调自己的国内政策资历。然而，接近伯纳姆的人表示，由部长代理人发起的游说活动可能产生了反效果。
“我们将使这一时刻成为英国的电路断路器，带来过去 40 年来最大的变革” 这也许是对承认失败的显而易见地后续跟进。现在情况不同了，
“今年晚些时候，我将提出一项新的英国计划，一项 10 年计划” 关于多年计划的谈论可能会让国会议员感到战栗，更不用说选民了。尽管如此，这对伯纳姆来说至关重要，
“安迪讨厌那些通过放风来为自己争取职位的人，”一名助手说道。“任何这样做的人，同样有可能发现自己被踢出政府。”
在 2024 年之后两年，伯纳姆没有那种奢侈的余地。
PETER WALKER 是《卫报》的高级政治记者
KIRAN STACEY 是《卫报》的政策编辑
亚洲
食用穿山甲肉。在过去的十年中，至少有 1 百万只穿山甲被非法猎捕——数量超过了犀牛、大象和老虎的总和。这很大程度上是为了它们的鳞片（在传统中医中被视为珍品）以及它们的肉（被视为一种地位象征而食用）。
这些独特的生物是原产于亚洲和非洲部分地区的食蚁类动物，是唯一全身覆盖角质鳞片的哺乳动物。它们没有牙齿，在受到威胁时会蜷缩成球以防御捕食者，这使得它们很容易被人类捕捉。环保人士估计，每三分钟就有一只被猎捕，导致某些穿山甲物种处于极度濒危状态。
与此同时，尽管它们在野外的数量在减少，但救援中心老挝野生动物保护信托基金会（Lao Conservation Trust for Wildlife）主任 Jeremy Phan 表示，穿山甲出现在首都万象市中心，那里距离它们的自然栖息地非常遥远。
他的团队在万象的一家餐厅里救出了一只三周大的穿山甲，它当时正在被出售。它的母亲几乎肯定死于非法野生动物贸易。该团队在从另一次救援回家的途中救出了这只幼崽，而在此之前的几个小时，两只穿山甲在其他地方被接走。
老挝
在楼上，玻璃展柜填满了一个大房间，里面摆放着在世界上每个国家都被禁止的产品。
▲ 穿山甲很容易被猎人捕捉，因为它们的防御方式是蜷缩成球
有些产品一眼就能认出来，比如用闪亮的乳白色象牙制成的手镯和筷子，以及挂在墙上的的一整张完整的鳄鱼皮。另一些则不那么容易分辨：巨大的骨头、粉末状物品和一个装着液体的玻璃缸。
HUGH KINSELLA CUNNINGHAM/EPA
这是许多组织观察到的非法贸易增加的迹象之一，而这是由前往老挝的中国游客激增引起的。
这里最令人愤慨的产品或许是那些装满了像叶子或贝壳一样东西的碗。这些是穿山甲鳞片——正是这种产品将世界上被走私最严重的哺乳动物推向了灭绝的边缘。
这些旅行是通过中国的“一带一路”倡议实现的。这是一项庞大的基础设施投资计划，旨在通过铁路、公路、港口、发电厂和管道将中国与世界其他国家连接起来。于 2021, 年完工的中老铁路全长 965 公里以上，从中国昆明一直延伸到万象。列车已经
▼ 一名曼谷的海关官员举起准备运往老挝的穿山甲鳞片
在调查老挝非法野生动物贸易期间，《卫报》得以进入的店铺中，这家仅是其中之一。在另一家看似烟草店的店铺里，《卫报》发现货架上摆放着一段巨大的穿山甲尾巴，旁边则是浸在液体中的蛇罐。
作者：Robyn Vinter 和 Frances Rankin
路透社 (REUTERS)
这家店昏暗且冷清。虽然门开着，但显然并不期待有顾客从街上走进来。访问可能需要预约且面向特定的客户群。这家店是一个有组织犯罪网络的一部分。这里售卖的东西是高度非法且极其不道德的。
许多店是中医（TCM）药铺，销售合法与非法产品混合的商品；而其他一些店则伪装成面向中国游客的文化中心，通常戒备森严，装有坚固的电动门和闭路电视（CCTV）。
任何走进去的人都会在货架上看到大袋的特种茶、当地咖啡、小饰品和香烟。但墙上装饰的野生动物照片也为这里真正销售的产品提供了线索。
近年来，中国社交媒体网站上出现频率越来越高的视频显示，游客们在老挝甚至[[SOURCE_CLEANUP_NOTE: missing text]]展示他们购买的非法产品。
物种灭绝时代——扫描二维码，阅读我们关于灾难性物种损失及其应对方式系列报道的更多故事。
这个全球第二大经济体。中国越来越多拥有人文、艺术和语言学位的应届毕业生发现，市场对他们的技能需求很小。与此同时，为了响应国家在众多高科技产业中成为全球领导者的竞争，中国大学正在迅速调整课程，大规模剔除“过时”的学位。
中国活动人士兼行为艺术家“坚果兄弟”（Brother Nut）在一次旅行中潜入，并与《卫报》分享了他在被带往一家看似销售米粉的店铺时搜集的素材。
“实际上，那里在出售各种濒危动物的部位，例如犀牛角、熊胆和穿山甲，”他说道。
中国 ▲ 南京农业大学的一个毕业典礼
他用隐藏摄像机拍摄的片段显示，摊位上摆放着整只死穿山甲和许多碗鳞片，销售人员声称这些产品具有治疗癌症和减轻炎症等药用功效。没有任何科学证据表明穿山甲有助于治疗任何医疗状况。
“随着经济转型，毕业生提供的技能与劳动力市场需求的技能之间出现了错位，”该研究员表示。
中国新闻社/ GETTY
这里还出售虎骨，根据《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》（Cites），虎骨在全球范围内被禁止交易，该协议同样禁止在世界任何地方销售穿山甲身体部位。
根据咨询公司 China Education International 的创始人 Charles Jeffery Sun 的说法，虽然转向以 AI 和技术为中心的学位是一个全球趋势，但中国大学展开这一进程的速度是独一无二的。
作者：Alastair McCready
中国青年就业自 2020. 起一直是一个持久的问题。经济学智能单元（EIU）的一位研究员表示，这一趋势最初是由中国向电动汽车、电池、半导体和机器人等高价值产业的“生产力与制造业驱动增长模式”转型所促使的。
Brother Nut 描述了游客（其中许多是年长者）在支付低至 100 元（$15）的四晚行程费用后，在某些情况下如何被胁迫和压力地购买非法产品。他的怀疑是，旅行社能够将行程定价如此之低，是因为他们期望通过其他方式获利——例如，在那些作为非法野生动物贸易掩护的商店和“文化中心”中的消费。
此时正值中国的毕业季：传统上这是一个充满苦乐参半的告别与庆祝的时期，标志着学生从校园生活过渡到成年。现在，它还代表了对未来的焦虑。
“中国的高等教育是中央治理的。当北京设定战略方向时，数百所大学的执行速度非常快，”他说道。
今年夏天中国毕业的学生人数创下纪录，达数百万之多。
为了响应北京关于学位应更好地匹配劳动力需求的指示，中国大学在 2021 和 2025, 之间削减了 12,200 个本科专业，主要集中在艺术和人文领域，同时在新兴领域引入了 10,200 个专业。
每年都有数百万更多的毕业生被推入中国饱和的就业市场。对于今年的这一批学生来说，他们涌入一个竞争日益激烈、申请人数众多且职位数量不足的申请池中，情况可以说是一年比一年暗淡。
Brother Nut 收集的秘密拍摄画面显示，领队告诉游客这些产品在老挝是合法的——这并非事实——且购买产品以帮助陷入困境的老挝经济是他们的责任。
大学毕业生失业问题似乎是当局最关注的问题，他们已经推动了多项倡议以促使增加招聘。今年 3 月，当局还发出信号，计划利用人工智能在 2026, 增加 12 million 个城市就业岗位，包括在高速增长的新兴部门推出大规模培训计划和实习项目。
Jasmine 是一名在上海学习会计的 22 岁青年，她是今年创纪录的 12.7 million 名毕业生之一——比 2025. 增加了 480,000 人。在过去的一个月里，她发送了大约 150 份简历，但没有成功。
为了更好地匹配劳动力需求，大学在 2021 和 2025 之间削减的本科专业数量。
“事实上，没有钱给到当地的老挝人，”Brother Nut 说。“所有的支付都是通过微信支付或支付宝完成的，资金最终流入了经营这场骗局的人手中。”
“缺乏空缺是一个问题，而且竞争也非常激烈，尤其是那些提供周末休息和正规社会保险的工作，”她说。
但对于数百万中国年轻人来说，时间至关重要。Fan 是一名上个月从四川大学毕业的 22 岁青年，他说他看不到中国青年失业问题的任何“特别好的解决方案”，但仍保持希望，“未来的环境会更好”。
与此同时，尽管 Phan 已经能够将其中一只获救的穿山甲重新放归野外，但人类和动物仍然是那些通过将脆弱物种推向灭绝边缘而获利的犯罪网络的攻击目标。
虽然中国 16 至 24 岁人群的失业率为 15.6%，与欧盟的 15.1% 相当，但该国的就业市场对于那些正应对剧烈变革的毕业生来说尤其残酷。
ALASTAIR MCCREADY 是一名报道东南亚的记者
ROBYN VINTER 是《卫报》英国北部记者；FRANCES RANKIN 是一名视频制作人
Yu-chen Li 参与了额外报道
欧洲
她前往波罗的海，用一段原住民的吟唱来帮助那头鲸鱼，旨在“填补能量漏洞”。
“Timmy 激发了人们最好的一面，”《南德意志报》在剧目首演后写道。“但同时也激发了最坏的一面。”
除了据报道引发了以鲸鱼和海洋生物为主题的书籍销售热潮外，Timmy 的传奇故事还激发了多首歌曲的创作。在汉堡首演的结尾，摇滚乐队 Tulpe 演出了他们的热门曲目《Sprengt den Wal!》（“炸掉那头鲸鱼！”），其副歌部分唱道：“让鲸鱼萨拉米和肉排像雨一样落下”。
《Timmy：希望最后死去》（Timmy: Hope Dies Last）本月在汉堡首演
在 Timmy 热潮最高点时，一首在社交媒体上疯传的 AI 生成歌曲——在剧中由演员们以摇滚曲风演绎——将民众对心狠手辣的“专家”的民粹主义愤恨融合在其中。
GEORG WENDT/DPA
德国 (GER M A N Y)
“在他无量的大慈悲中，他成为了我们的载体，”这是剧中演员诺亚·托米亚克（Noah Tomiak）的一句台词，他身着礼拜袍，站在一个摆放着该生物充气复制品的祭坛后面。“我们将一切都注入其中：我们的恐惧、我们的愧疚、我们的欲望、我们的孤独。当我们说‘我们必须救他’时，也许情况恰恰相反：也许是他来救我们，”他说。
“在他依然呼吸之时，”台词写道，“他们已经在讨论之后会发生什么 / 讨论测试和数字 / 仿佛他只是一个没有心脏的空壳。”
最终，一次复杂且冒险的尝试——在两名百万富翁的私人资助下，并获得当局批准，试图用装满水的驳船将鲸鱼运回公海——在专家的建议反对之下得以实施，专家们当时认为这头动物已受伤且不太可能生存。
将 Timmy 提升至耶稣般的人物形象引起了天主教神学家的批评，但在新闻周刊《镜报》（Der Spiegel）的版面上却赢得了赞誉。《镜报》写道，这部剧揭示了“一个世俗化的公众是多么渴望在类宗教结构中寻求庇护，将其作为希望的载体”。
剧中重演了一场新闻发布会，在那场会议上，建议让鲸鱼在平静中死去的一批生物学家被一些随从指责为想要“谋杀”这头动物。一名女性表示，让鲸鱼死在海湾而非公海中，是“没有尊严的”。
作者：菲利普·奥尔特曼 (Philip Oltermann)
这头大翅鲸最初于 3 月在德国海域被发现，搁浅在蒂门多夫（Timmendorfer）度假胜地——这激发了其绰号的产生，但后来证明，这个绰号误将这头实际上是雌性的动物定为了雄性。早期的绰号“Hope”（希望），更能传达这头鲸鱼悲剧性的命运在国民意识中产生的情感牵引力。
德国人在四月份为一只搁浅在波罗的海沿岸的座头鲸组织救援行动时，一个深陷政治分歧和经济焦虑的国家似乎短暂地围绕着一个共同目标团结了起来。
然而，一部受此事件启发而创作的新讽刺剧表明，那些涌向海边表示支持的观众、社交媒体影响力者、政治人物和百万富翁，并不只是想地救援这头后来被昵称为“蒂米”（Timmy）的鲸鱼，而是希望蒂米能“救援”他们。
“蒂米激发了人们最好的一面，但同时也激发了最坏的一面”
最终，这次拯救蒂米的努力似乎在某种程度上是由针对“精英”的民粹主义愤恨所驱动的，而这种愤恨正是民族主义政党“德国选择党”（AfD）崛起的动力，它非但没有弥合德国的政治裂痕，反而将其加深。一名身穿潜水服的演员在指责官员导致蒂米死亡并号召普通人“觉醒”时，她身后升起了一面巨大的德国国旗。
在整场演出中，导演亚历山大·克莱辛格（Alexander Klessinger）播放了对那些前往蒂门多夫（Timmendorfer）试图与这头病弱哺乳动物建立联系的人们的采访片段。这些未经剪辑的坦白显示出，人们在多大程度上相信这头鲸鱼在直接与他们对话。“我觉得它在等我，我无法解释，但它需要我，”一名女性说道。
《蒂米：希望最后熄灭》（Timmy: Hope Dies Last）本月在汉堡的恩斯特·多伊奇剧院（Ernst Deutsch theatre）首演，它将这场媒体盛况重新构想为一场受难剧：这头巨兽被崇拜、被钉在十字架上，最后被切成祭祀用的油脂块。
在这一小时的表演过程中，对鲸鱼的崇拜演变成一种邪教般的狂热，演员们通过歌曲和标语表达他们的爱。在一段录音中，一名女性解释了为什么
《南德意志报》（Süddeutsche Zeitung）
菲利普·奥尔特曼（PHILIP OLTERMANN）是《卫报》的欧洲文化编辑
聚焦 29 非洲
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▼ 罗伯特·科菲（Robert Kofi）参与创建了 Deadly Prey 画廊
在21世纪初绘制海报，但由于网络营销和西方市场接受度高的客户群，需求量有所增加。
当天，科菲用加纳的主要语言——加语（Ga）告诉斯托格（Stoger），其中两只猫不够凶猛，而且食物太干净了。“我想要更丑陋的猫场景，”他后来解释道，“面条必须更脏一些。”
Deadly Prey 画廊一直与艺术家合作，以保护绘制手绘电影海报的文化，同时帮助满足日益增长的需求。
卡洛斯·穆雷希（CARLOS MUREITHI）
斯托格（原名本杰明·阿马特伊 Benjamin Amartey）在对电影产生兴趣并于 1992 年成为海报画家之前是一名雕塑家。“我运用想象力来创造能吸引人们的场景，这样他们才会爱上这张海报，”他说。
Deadly Prey 已与 15 位艺术家合作，其中包括已绘制海报长达四十年的 Heavy J；画廊将他们与网络客户联系起来，并在作品完成后发货。
阿谢希大学（Ashesi University）非洲大众文化中心主任约瑟夫·奥杜罗-弗林蓬（Joseph Oduro-Frimpong）表示，这种对夸张的强调源于非洲“将不可见之物可视化”的传统。
科菲表示，大多数订单来自美国。老牌动作片、科幻片和恐怖片的的需求最高。热门作品包括《驱魔人》以及《星球大战》和《终结者》系列。定制作品的价格从 $600 起。
在蒂米被释放近两周后的 14 May，这头鲸鱼被发现死在卡特加特海峡（Kattegat，丹麦与瑞典之间的一条宽阔海峡）的安霍尔特（Anholt）小岛附近。关于救援行动成本（估计约为 €2m ($2.3m)）的争议一直持续至今。
“海报的受众没有看过电影，所以他们不可能知道［这些海报是否准确］。因此，艺术家们利用了他们所谓的‘想象性绘画’，”他说道。“他们会突出这些元素，在这个过程中，他们加入了电影中并不存在的内容。这在某种程度上具有一种煽情主义色彩。”
作者：Carlos Mureithi 大阿克拉 (GREATER ACCRA) 全速行动。Deadly Prey 画廊以一部动作电影命名，由 Robert Kofi 于 2012 年共同创立。Kofi 在孩童时期曾在温内巴 (Winneba) 镇的视频中心担任“宣传员”。他开始收集并出售海报，在向芝加哥的一家视频租赁店店主 Brian Chankin 出售了一些作品后，与后者共同创办了这家企业。
在阿克拉附近的特谢（Teshie），Heavy J 坐在门廊上，将画笔浸在红色油漆中，小心地涂在
罗伯特·科菲（Robert Kofi）常驻阿克拉，兼任经理和编辑。他负责为每项作品选拔最合适的艺术家，与他们分享对海报的构思，并定期走访工作室以审查进度。
画布上——其实是一个面粉袋——为一名男子挥舞的刀刃添上血迹。在画布上方，他已经开始勾勒一个头骨的轮廓。
在阿克拉的国家文化中心，数十张来自“致命猎物画廊”（Deadly Prey Gallery）的海报被钉在木墙上。其中包括詹妮弗·洛佩兹在电影《巨蟒》中向一条蛇射箭，以及在《万圣节》中，一只老鼠从角色劳里·斯特罗德（Laurie Strode）的口中钻出。
在距离 Heavy J 家 17 公里的阿希曼（Ashaiman）的一家工作室里，另一位名为 Stoger 的艺术家正在进行两项委任创作：一张是恐怖片《灵异世界》（Poltergeist），另一张则是 1997 年的实验剧《Gummo》，该片包含多起针对猫的暴力行为，以及一个角色在浴缸里吃意大利面的场景。
Heavy J 正在创作一张海报，但出乎意料的是，并不是为了恐怖片。相反，它是为动画童话《小美人鱼》创作的。那个拿刀的男人并非杀手，而是电影中善良的埃里克王子。头骨也与故事无关。“我们增加更多内容是为了吸引人们的兴趣，”Heavy J 说道，他的真名是 Jeaurs Affutu。
“我们是在保护一种传统，”科菲在谈到这门手艺时说，“我们是在保存一段历史。”
海报上画着三只猫和一个在浴缸里的男人，他面前摆着一盘意大利面。在他给出的
卡洛斯·穆雷希（CARLOS MUREITHI）是《卫报》的东非通讯员
从 20 世纪 70 年代末到 21 世纪初，由当地艺术家手绘的电影海报是加纳电影文化的标志。在组织者意识到原版海报无法吸引观众后，这些手绘海报被用于宣传被称为“视频俱乐部”（video clubs）的社区放映场所。
故事情节被视为幽默且超现实的想象飞跃的起点。为不同视频俱乐部工作的艺术家们竞相创作出他们所谓的最佳“伪造品”，以此来描述他们对作品的诠释。
随着更多加纳人能够使用电力并拥有自己的电视机和视频播放机，这种做法在世纪之交开始衰落。许多视频俱乐部关门大吉，画师们转行从事其他工作。但到那时，这些海报已经引起了全球关注，在书籍和国外展览中流行起来，古旧且罕见的画作成为了珍贵的收藏品。
对于新作品的兴趣曾一度陷入低谷
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Pacey 说道：“这支持了我们的观点。对于那些认为世界正陷入混乱且我们都注定毁灭的人来说，睾酮水平和精子数量的下降是合乎逻辑的。”
本月，科学家在提交数据时发出警告，称世界正不自觉地陷入一场男性生殖危机。
在最近一项关于精子数量轨迹的分析中，Pacey 的团队采用了被认为更一致的测量技术，结果未发现大幅下降的证据（尽管精子质量似乎在恶化）。其他尝试复制该研究结果的尝试则产生了不一的结果。
数据表明，在过去的 50 年里，成年男性的平均睾酮水平似乎下降了一半。
“睾酮水平下降了 50%，这简直令人震惊，”领导这项工作的 Hagai Levine 教授告诉《卫报》。“这是一个巨大的降幅。人们快醒醒吧。快醒醒。”
“我认为男性不育是否存在问题？是的，”Pacey 表示。“但精子数量下降并不是我所担心的那个问题。”
这一发现是一系列近期结果中的最新一项，这些结果表明男性生育能力正处于危机之中。Levine 的团队此前记录了全球精子数量明显的剧烈下降，该研究在后来被人们称为“精子末日”（spermageddon）论文。
一个较少引起争议的切入点是，男性生殖健康反映了男性的整体健康状况。科学家们一致认为，关于睾酮的最新发现可能在一定程度上可以用肥胖症和糖尿病发病率的急剧上升来解释。
美国卫生部长 Robert F Kennedy Jr 将精子数量下降称为一场“生存危机”，而 Levine 的研究成果被“男性圈”（manosphere）利用，作为现代社会使男性丧失阳刚之气的证据。这些发现还激起了人们对内分泌干扰化学物质、空气污染以及全球变暖对人类健康产生危害性影响的担忧。
“整体代谢健康发生了深刻的变化，”伦敦帝国理工学院教授、生殖内分泌顾问 Channa Jayasena 表示。
过多的体脂会加速睾酮向雌激素的转换，并干扰大脑的激素信号传导。虽然估算结果不一，但在一项研究中，BMI 每增加一个单位，与睾酮水平下降 2% 相关，这可能会降低精子的产量。体重超标会增加阴囊温度，而为了产生健康的精子，阴囊温度理想情况下需要比核心体温低几度。糖尿病则与睾酮水平较低、精子 DNA 损伤和勃起功能障碍相关。
然而，在科学家中，这一趋势存在争议。虽然 Levine 及其同事接受了“末日叙事”——他的美国共同作者 Shanna Swan 教授甚至暗示，到 2045 年精子数量可能会归零——但其他人对此持怀疑态度。曼彻斯特大学 Andrology（男性学）教授 Allan Pacey 教授便是其中之一。
“存在一种挑选数据的倾向……”
作者：Hannah Devlin
《卫报》周刊 2024 年 7 月 24 日
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“肥胖可能足以解释所有这些下降，”杰亚塞纳（Jayasena）在谈到报道中提到的 50 年间睾酮水平下降这一趋势时表示，他认为这一趋势令人信服。“目前的问题在于，污染和环境因素是否也起到了影响。”
更多男性开始使用睾酮凝胶或注射液，但这可能会产生反直觉的效果，即停止精子的产生，因为它会导致身体减少自身的激素分泌。
他认为，肥胖也是原因之一，而且考虑到其影响之大，应当适用预警原则。
“你不需要 90% 的证据，”莱文（Levine）说。“假设我们现在所做的事情有 1% 的概率导致 100 年后生育变得极其罕见。我们是否应该采取行动？我认为应该。”
根据最新研究，过去 50 年中男性平均睾酮水平下降的百分比
“睾丸中需要很高水平的睾酮才能产生精子，”杰亚塞纳说。“我们真正不需要的是一个由滥用睾酮而造成的自找麻烦的问题。不幸的是，我们看到整个英国的情况在真实增加，其他国家也存在类似情况……男性在网上购买睾酮，或者在没有医疗指征的情况下被开具处方。”
精液中已发现微塑料，且怀孕的大鼠接触 Pfas 会导致雄性后代精子异常。一项意大利研究表明，污染可能导致阴茎尺寸减小；而另一项来自美国的研究发现，在过去的 29 年里，平均勃起阴茎长度增加了 24%；两组作者都推测，内分泌干扰化学物质可能在改变男性的发育。
莱文从全球公共卫生角度看待这个问题。但对于个体男性而言，由于改善生育机会的时间和资金窗口有限，这个问题变得更加紧迫。邓迪大学生殖医学专家克里斯托弗·巴拉特（Christopher Barratt）教授表示，在相互矛盾的说法和不确定的证据中寻找方向可能是一场“噩梦”。
据近期一项研究的共同作者称，到 2045 年精子计数可能会降至该数值，尽管这一观点受到其他科学家的质疑
然而，人们也感到乐观，认为数十年关于男性生育能力的研究即将产生临床成效。在前景最可期的一系列技术中，包括使用微流控系统，该系统通过微型迷宫、障碍物和通道让精子进行“竞速”，以筛选出最健康的单个细胞。
一些研究，包括本月一项将空气污染暴露与精子 DNA 的细微变化联系起来的研究，被认为是
对于比例日益增加的接受 IVF（体外受精）治疗的夫妇来说，一个共同的主题是男性不育被视为次要问题。一些男性描述说，在他们的女性伴侣接受连续扫描和血液测试时，他们却等待了数月甚至数年才被诊断出可治疗的问题。
高质量的。但随着公众对微塑料关注度的增强，一场“发表竞赛”正在进行，导致基础的污染控制被忽视，并基于薄弱的证据做出了大胆的断言。
人们对精子 DNA 碎片化（随年龄增长而增加）也表现出浓厚兴趣。目前的检测通常提供受问题 DNA 损伤影响的精子百分比读数，但尚无法可靠地筛选出最健康的个体精子。
“这听起来极其简单——而且相当乏味——但我们需要把基础工作做好，”巴拉特（Barratt）说。“男性必须接受体格检查、病史采集和精液分析。”
“有研究证明睾丸中存在微塑料，由此推论这一定非常糟糕，”爱丁堡大学的儿科内分泌学家罗德·米切尔（Rod Mitchell）教授说。
考虑到平均每次射精会释放 40 million 到 300 million 个精子细胞，巴拉特表示，改进精子筛选是 AI 可以解决的完美问题。“你有如此庞大数量的细胞，它们[看起来]彼此不同，”他说。
自 20 世纪 50 年代精子数量和活力检测变得更为普及以来，精子分析也一直没有真正的改变。
米切尔开展了一些迄今为止控制最为严密的实验，使用了一套将人类胎儿睾丸组织在小鼠体内孵化的系统。此前，他发现了某些环境毒素对大鼠生殖系统发育的负面影响。
“它可以告诉你非常直白的信息，”佩西（Pacey）说。“没有精子：我们有问题。活力问题：你需要 IVF 或 ICSI [sperm 胞质内直接注射法]。”
硅谷投资者为瞄准实验室培育卵子和精子的初创公司提供了巨额支持。一家名为 Paterna 的公司最近声称，已成功利用产生精子的干细胞在实验室中培育出具有功能的人类精子，并利用这些细胞创造了外观健康的胚胎。该公司表示，这种方法未来可以帮助那些没有精子的男性。
当低质量精子被确定为问题时，通常通过离心法将更健康、密度更高的精子大致分离出来。
“我们从增塑剂、邻苯二甲酸盐、BPA（双酚A）开始研究——这些都是新闻中经常提到可能有害的物质，”他说。“我们认为它们可能是潜在的候选因素，但我们没有发现睾酮水平的变化，也没有发现睾丸发育的变化。动物研究具有误导性。”关于环境因素是否在驱动生育力下降，米切尔持有“中立”态度。
在这一真空地带，近期出现了社交媒体上对男性生育力检测和补充剂的营销扩张，以及诊所提供的“附加服务”，但其中极少有项目能获得英国生育监管机构——人类受精与胚胎学管理局（Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority）所采用的“红绿灯”评估系统中的“绿灯”认可。
a a d
男性不育是一个问题，但我并不担心精子数量
‘男性生育力
与此同时，探索男性生育力的研究仍在继续，但许多人希望在面对不确定性时避免引起恐慌。
插图：GUARDIAN DESIGN; PRILL/GETTY
“我不担心我们会立即灭绝，”米切尔说。“有些预测认为男性精子数量将在 20 到 30 年内降至零——我不买账。就我们的未来而言，问题可能更多在于我们所生活的世界的其他问题。”
特别令人担忧的是一种由男性健康影响力者和在线处方公司广泛推广的说法，即男性应该通过睾酮替代疗法来治疗“低T”（low T），甚至进行“T-maxxing”（睾酮最大化）。Pacey及其他人担心，围绕最新研究结果的宣传可能会导致
尽管自信地声称环境因素应负有责任，但Levine承认，关于涉及的精确生物学机制在很大程度上仍存在不确定性。但解决空气污染问题具有更广泛的健康益处
Allan Pacey Andrology（男科学）教授
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HANNAH DEVLIN 是《卫报》科学记者
HA SCIE
北美
美 国
他们的街道。为了兑现特朗普大规模逮捕和遣返的承诺，配备军事装备的美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）执法人员一直在美国各地暴力地拘留人们——在交通拦截点、百货公司外、公交车站、仓库、农场和学校。
资金提升 特朗普政府的移民执法机构目前是美国资金最充足的执法机构。上个月，总统签署了一项法案，为美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）和美国海关及边境保护局确保了 $70bnin 的资金，其中 $38bn 为 ICE 用于扩大逮捕、拘留和遣返行动。
枪击事件激发了数千名抗议者的行动，并导致当地领导人和民权团体要求进行独立调查。在休斯顿，数千名抗议者游行，要求 ICE 完全撤出该市，并要求休斯顿警察局停止与该机构的所有合作。
根据 Trace（一家在其枪支暴力数据中心追踪此类枪击事件的媒体机构）的数据，Salgado Araujo 和 Durán Guerrero 是自去年特朗普就任以来，被 ICE 执法人员开枪击中的第 29 和 第 30 位人员。执法人员杀死了其中的 8 人，包括明尼苏达州的 Renee Good 和 Alex Pretti。
权益倡导者们越来越多地在思考一个更重大的问题：当 ICE 在显然不受惩罚的情况下侵犯人们的权利时，会发生什么？休斯顿美国民主社会主义者（Houston Democratic Socialists of America）的移民权利组织者 Jasmine Khadem Gonzalez 表示，她现在的培训包括在公共场合记录执法人员的指令——记录警号、车牌号和时间戳，并拍摄执法人员——这一切都是为了创建违规记录。
事实证明，最近两起枪击事件中的受害者都不是 ICE 执法行动的目标。Salgado Araujo 来自墨西哥，但在美国生活和工作了 35 年。他是一名丈夫，也是三名美国公民子女的父亲。来自哥伦比亚的 Durán Guerrero 则通过从事多份工作来养活他的妻子和女儿。
作者：Maanvi Singh（旧金山）和 Fabiola Cineas（休斯顿）
近几个月来，政府招募了数千名移民代理人，其中许多人未经适当审核。
在公众对 Good 和 Pretti 被杀表示愤怒以及全国范围内爆发大规模抗议之后，特朗普暗示将转变策略。他降职了格雷戈里·波维诺（Gregory Bovino）——这位自命不凡的边境巡逻官员曾带领着一群武装且戴面具的代理人穿梭于城市之间，并随行配备拍摄团队；他还解雇了国土安全部部长克里斯蒂·诺姆（Kristi Noem）。曾因公然发布虚假新闻声明而臭名昭著的 DHS 首席发言人特里西亚·麦克劳林（Tricia McLaughlin）也离职了。
洛伦佐·萨尔加多·阿劳霍（Lorenzo Salgado Araujo），52 岁，当时正与他的兄弟和另外两名乘客在德克萨斯州休斯顿开车前往工作，这时
移民代理人开始跟踪他的车辆。他们将他拦下，并透过打开的窗户开出了致命的一枪。
美国国土安全部（DHS）——该部门监管 ICE 和美国边境巡逻队——在每次枪击后迅速发表声明，但并未提供证据，声称受害者应承担责任。DHS 表示，萨尔加多·阿劳霍将他的“车辆武器化”以攻击警员，这与警员杀死 Good 之后所使用的措辞如出一辙。
六天后，在缅因州比德福德，胡安·塞巴斯蒂安·杜兰·格雷罗（Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero），26 岁，在开车时被代理人在一个十字路口拦下并被枪杀。
这两起杀人事件引发了阵阵悲痛与愤怒。示威者聚集起来要求美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）——这个负责执行唐纳德·特朗普激进驱逐计划的机构——将其代理人从
逮捕行动正在常规性地发生——在许多情况下，邻居们还没意识到发生了什么。国家移民项目（National Immigration Project）的律师格雷西·威利斯（Gracie Willis）表示：“这一切发生得太快了。人们无法及时赶到现场来观察、记录并报告他们所看到的。通常最后留下的只是一辆停在那里的空车。”
▼ 休斯顿一场反对杀害洛伦佐·萨尔加多·阿劳霍的抗议活动
DHS 表示，向杜兰·格雷罗开枪的警员是在“担心公共安全”的情况下这么做的。但每起事件的目击者视频已经让这些官方声明产生了疑问。
MARK FELIX/AFP/GETTY
移民律师和倡导者正准备迎接更多的逮捕行动。最高法院最近的一项裁决允许政府撤销海地和叙利亚移民的临时保护身份（TPS）认定，这将使约 1.3 百万人的合法身份被剥夺。那些无法找到合法居留途径的人可能会被逮捕并驱逐出境。
在休斯顿，居民们表示他们将继续抵制。
“我们不能再含糊其词了……ICE 是一个国内恐怖组织，”哈德姆·冈萨雷斯（Khadem Gonzalez）说。“他们正在这个国家的大街小巷冷血地杀害我们的父亲。”
MAANVI SINGH 是《卫报》美国版的移民记者；FABIOLA CINEAS 是《卫报》美国版的社会运动报道记者
北美
异议观点得出的结论是，“我们没有信息表明中国试图干预选举进程”。
白宫上周发布了一批此前被保密的材料，试图推翻该结论。但这些文件经过了大量删减，很难评估其具体内容。其中至少部分文件似乎也削弱了中国意图干预 2020 年选举这一观点。CNN 在审查这些文件后得出结论，其中没有太多新内容。此次发布文件似乎并非为了提供确凿证据，而是回归到特朗普的经典策略：用海量信息淹没领域，试图混淆视听，使真相变得不确定。
美国宪法并未赋予唐纳德·特朗普干预选举的权力
JEFF KOWALSKY/ AFP/GETTY
分析 美国
（国家获取数据的手段）。他声称中国通过其他方式干预，以破坏他 2020 年的竞选活动，并且这些信息被情报官员压制了。
特朗普还声称，FBI官员调查了密歇根州马斯基根的一项选民游说行动，在该行动中，游说者承认他们提交了使用虚假名称的选民登记申请。虽然目前尚不清楚FBI为何没有提起指控，但该事件并未导致非法选票的投出，并被当地书记员拦截。这一事件多年来一直被密歇根州的共和党人和极右翼网站 Gateway Pundit 大肆宣扬。
责任之争 为什么特朗普在对 2020 年大选产生质疑？
由于其共和党盟友面临失去众议院控制权的风险，特朗普在演说中重新翻炒关于 2020 年大选（他在该次选举中输给了乔·拜登）的指控，这引发了人们的担忧，认为他正在寻找确保 11 月选举结果对他有利的方法。
关于选举漏洞的特朗普主张此前已由情报官员调查，他们在 2021 年以高度信心得出结论，中国“没有部署干扰行动，且虽然考虑过但并未部署旨在改变美国总统选举结果的影响行动”。
特朗普表示，国土安全部在四个州的选民名单中发现了 270,000 名以上的非公民（美国有 211 million 多个登记选民），但并未说明该机构是如何识别这些非公民的。
作者：Sam Levine 新约克
唐纳德·特朗普利用总统的职权及其美国情报
唐纳德·特朗普声称国土安全部在四个州的选民名单中识别出的非公民人数（单位：千人）
机构，试图在上一周的总统致辞中破坏对美国选举的信心，这次致辞似乎旨在为 11 月中期选举前进一步动摇选举制度奠定基础。
国家网络情报官在公开报告中加入的一份少数派观点认为：“中国采取了至少某些步骤来破坏……特朗普的连任机会，主要是通过社交媒体、官方公开声明和媒体。”但即便如此，
美国宪法并未赋予特朗普管辖选举的权力，而是将其赋予了各州。但其演说中最阴险的一句话或许是他提到他的政府将尝试加强对选举的控制。他说，国土安全部将在第二天举行简报会，讨论州投票系统的漏洞，并将命令各州将非公民从名单中删除。
特朗普试图给人留下这样一种印象：他的政府发现了关于美国选举系统漏洞的新爆料。他声称，中国非法获取了 220 million 美国人的选民信息（许多州允许任何人购买选民名单信息；特朗普并未说明
这次发布似乎回到了特朗普经典的“淹没地带”策略
SAM LEVINE 是《卫报》美国版选民权利记者
Chris Stein 对本报道亦有贡献
在英格兰东部格兰瑟姆南部的寂静乡村，三座巨大的钢棚在微风中发出哐当声。在棚屋旁散成一个松散圆圈的是 15 位地主、土地代理人和几位年轻投资者；全部是穿着昂贵的男性，许多人神色怀疑。那是 2022 年 6 月，查尔斯·雷蒙德·伯雷尔爵士（Sir Charles Raymond Burrell，第 10 代准男爵）正在解释，购买 617 公顷荒芜的小麦和豆类草原原野，将如何给农业和自然保护带来革命，不仅是在林肯郡南部，而且是在整个英国及其他地区。
直到最近，在这个地点上运行的模式更多地体现了 Burrell 所说的如今那种“死板（hard-arsed）”的耕作方式。Boothby Lodge Farm 曾是一家由缺席地主拥有的企业。没有人通过这片土地生存，也没有人居住在上面。租户租用农舍，但在其他地方工作。超过 92% 的土地是犁过的农田。一名合同农民每年仅在几天内开着大型机器进来，在相对贫瘠的粘土土壤中种植小麦和豆类。在农场仅占 3% 的林地中释放了雉鸡。每年的冬天，人们会付费来猎杀它们。
Boothby Lodge Farm 每年获利 £250,000 ($335,000)，但其中一半来自于“基础付款（basic payment）”，这是一种针对土地所有权的简单且慷慨的补贴，政府计划在 2027. 年前停止这项补贴。在此日期之后，得益于迈克尔·戈夫（Michael Gove）在担任环境大臣期间引入的改革，农民将只能获得“用于公共利益的公共资金”——也就是说，如果他们的土地能提供清洁的水源、健康的土壤或野生动物丰富的树篱，才能获得资金，而 Boothby 似乎没有一项在做。
被大家都称为 Charlie 的 Burrell 带领该团体从那座令人讨厌的现代农舍旁的谷仓出发散步。那是一座红砖巨兽，窗户很小，像猪眼一样。我们首先穿过一片蚕豆田。不到一个世纪前，这里曾是由 10 块农田组成的拼图。当我们走在坚硬、开裂的地面上时，没遇到一只昆虫。至于人类，在两个半小时穿过一系列小径和田边地的散步中，我们没有遇到任何一个人。“这是一个被毁掉的景观，”其中一位客人、建筑历史学家马修·赖斯（Matthew Rice）说道，“不是因为土壤。是因为这里没有了人。我很遗憾这里没有足够的白鼬，但我也希望这里能有一些孩子。”
ILLUSTRATION: GUARDIAN DESIGN; GETTY
“死板”的耕作方式一直是英国为全球灭绝危机做出贡献的主要驱动力。在过去一个世纪中，英格兰和威尔士失去了 98% 的野花草甸。我们还摧毁了英国一半的古老林地、一半的低地池塘、90% 的淡水湿地以及 62% 的所有“农田”野生鸟类。
什么是农场？我们大多数人脑海中依然是童年故事书中的图像：牛、猪、小麦、池塘、农民、一个家庭。
当我们行走时，Burrell 解释了我们如何可能扭转这一局面，至少在这个农场上是这样。在 2021, 年末，他共同创立的公司，
Nattergal 以 £13.8m 的价格买下了这个农场。它打算摒弃这片土地上 6,000 年的耕作历史。不再播种作物。不再添加化肥或杀虫剂。他们计划砸毁由几代农民辛苦安装的、用于从农田中排除雨水的排水管。土壤中将长出杂草。Boothby Lodge Farm 将变成 Boothby Wildland（Boothby 野地）。
……以及允许灌木和树木再生。与所有农民一样，Burrell 仍然希望获得一些政府补贴，但这一次，拨款将用于环保的土地管理。
他说，他学到的一课是让当地人参与进来。Boothby 看起来是空地，但它被三个美丽的村庄——Boothby Pagnell, Ingoldsby 和 Bitchfield 环绕。Burrell 和 Nattergal 的自然资本主管 Ivan de Klee 在向媒体透露收购消息之前，明智地主持了村公所会议。与 2000 年他的“再野化”项目所遭遇的困惑相比，到 2022 年，人们对这个想法充满了热情，这种热情在英国由乔治·蒙比奥特（George Monbiot）等作家，以及伊莎贝拉·特里（Isabella Tree）讲述 Knepp 革命故事的书籍和纪录片《Wilding》所激发。
这些地主们专心地听着一份会让大多数农民感到惊恐的计划书。他们之所以这么做，是因为伯勒尔（Burrell）凭借其随和的魅力、强健的体魄和粗壮的双手，看起来和听起来都像他曾经接受培训而成为的那种务实农民。这位具有误导性激进色彩的贵族此前也取得过巨大的成功。在西萨塞克斯郡 1,400 公顷的克内普（Knepp）庄园里，他与妻子伊莎贝拉·特里（Isabella Tree）在 2000 年扭转了农业历史。在被邻居嘲讽了十五年之后，这对夫妇现在主导着英国再野化（rewilding）的典范——一个已成为稀有夜莺、斑鸠、白鹳和紫帝王蝶聚集地的农场；这是一个极受欢迎的生态旅游目的地，依然生产走地肉类和蔬菜，且雇佣的人员比标准农场多出数十人。而对于今天的观众来说最相关的一点是，通过对庄园进行再野化，伯勒尔将一项亏损的业务变成了高度盈利的业务。
“每个人都说：‘别说再野化，林肯郡的人讨厌这个词。’但我还是要叫它再野化，”德·克莱（De Klee）说道。他是一个身材高大的年轻人，继承了伯勒尔在面对质疑时保持冷静的技巧。德克莱与伯勒尔一起参加了第一次村会集会。“在开场的前半小时里，有两个声音很大、非常愤怒的人，在讨论粮食产量的损失，”他说。“然后，一位来自农业界的人站起来说：‘我们也许不会全部进行再野化，但农业将会发生变化，我们需要创新，’于是房间里一半的人轻声鼓掌，这在很大程度上变成了一次对话。”
在这种转变的鼓舞下，伯勒尔希望扩展克内普模式。他打算证明我们可以“耕种”野生动物，并从中获利。他说，我们必须向金融市场证明，恢复自然对商业是有利的，因为只有吸引私营部门的巨额投资，我们才能扭转地球上其他物种灾难性的下降趋势。
几个月后，我参加了一次邀请当地人参加的布思比（Boothby）秋季徒步活动。大约 30 名主要为退休人员的居民出席了，对于一个人口稀少的地区来说，这是一个不错的出席率。这片野地在早期取得了成功，赢得了政府在英格兰首批 22 个景观恢复计划（Landscape Recovery Schemes）之一的竞标——这是一个支持关键野生动物区域自然恢复的新补贴计划。布思比在农场设立了首位雇员：利齐·莱蒙（Lizzie Lemon），场地与社区协调员，一位曾为野生鸟类保护协会（RSPB）工作的友好当地女性。“当地人看到这些对冲基金公司的人进来，觉得一切都会出问题，
伯勒尔在林肯郡的项目是他的一次开创性尝试，也是英国范围内扭转传统土地管理规模最大、最戏剧性的案例之一。在一个被誉为“英国面包篮”的郡放弃耕种，几乎具有挑衅意味。在这样一个如此缺乏生命力的景观中恢复自然，简直难以想象。但这就是伯勒尔着手去做的事情。因此，在过去的四年里，我一直在关注布思比野地及其周边发生的事情，以观察它是否真的能实现伯勒尔的野心，以及他那种理想主义与商业现实主义的奇特结合。
而纳特加尔（Nattergal）当时的首席执行官尼尔·佩里（Neil Perry）参加了这次徒步，而他的太阳能背景对此并没有帮助。佩里认为新兴的“自然资本”市场与太阳能市场类似。“以前没有人理会投资太阳能的请求——然后突然在 2008-09 年，主流资金大量涌入。所有的制造业迅速转移到了中国。”
布思比那种荒凉的感觉在第一天从未离开过我。由于错过了介绍环节，我花了几个小时才弄清楚谁是
“没有太阳能电站吗？”一名游客问道。“没有，绝对没有，”佩里说，“我们这里不搞那个。”一场风暴袭来，我们躲在一棵树下。在等待风暴减弱时，徒步者们向德克莱（De Klee）质询。“你们所有的杂草种子都会飘到我们村子里，”其中一人说。“会有杂草漂移，”德克莱毫不犹豫地回答，“我们与邻居之间设有 50 米的缓冲带，就像在克内普（Knepp）那样。这将能阻挡大部分种子。克内普周围有很多园丁，他们的花园都非常干净整洁。”
巴雷尔（Burrell）是一个随和的向导。他自信而不傲慢，允许客人们发言并礼貌地倾听。他对布思比（Boothby）的愿景是在接下来的三年内停止耕种这些田地。五年到七年后，他将引入放养的食草动物。可能是牛、矮马、汤姆沃思猪，甚至是野牛。他解释说，食草动物对野化项目至关重要，因为它们的粪便能恢复土壤生命，且它们的放牧能防止土地变成阴暗的林地，而后者不适合大量植物和无脊椎动物生存。
当地人的看法不一。四分之一的人非常热情（“就像中了彩票一样，”克莱夫和萨拉·卡尔说道；“我们的女儿五岁了——这对她来说将是非常奇妙的，”乔·埃尔斯顿-莫斯克罗普说）。四分之一的人坚决反对。（“人们认为这不过是一堆‘觉醒’的胡言乱语，”一个人说。“有很多浪漫的幻想，”简·沃茨说，“村里很多带着孩子的年轻母亲认为她们的孩子将在雏菊丛中跳跃嬉戏。”）
布思比野地（Boothby Wildland）的商业模式围绕销售“生物多样性净增益”（BNG）单位展开。从 2024 年起，政府将强制要求房屋建筑商和基础设施项目在开发前比原场地多创造 10% 的自然空间。如果开发商无法在自己的场地内增加自然空间，他们可以购买信用额度，以保证在其他地方恢复自然。布思比还将通过停止耕种而封存的碳排放来出售碳信用额。
面对这些质疑者，佩里引用了《迪姆布尔比报告》（Dimbleby report）中的一个事实，这是一份在 2021 年制定国家食品战略的有影响力的政府文件：将生产力最低的 20% 农田退出生产，英国生产食品的热量值仅会下降 3%。佩里认为，像布思比这样的谷物农场并不直接
[[IMG_000]] 野性之侧：布思比野地的一片田野；在土地上工作的志愿者；一只雌性黑顶噪鹛；释放的河狸 JONATHAN PERUGIA/GAIA VISUAL/NATTERGAL
由野地团队监督收获最后一批作物的人员发现，每公顷小麦产量达到了 9.2 吨，而使用的“投入品”——即化肥——比之前的模式减少了 40%。“事实证明，我们很擅长耕种这片土地，”布思比的新场地经理洛瑞恩·惠特尔（Lorienne Whittle）说道。
生产供人类消费的食物。谷物被喂给牛和鸡，而豆类最终成了挪威三文鱼的鱼粉，并以“M&S 三文鱼包装”的形式回到我们的餐桌上。“如果生物多样性丧失持续下去，所有的传粉者都消失了，10 年后我们全球将面临一个严重得多的食品危机。”
野化者的宣传口径发生了变化，因为当地人被媒体（包括我自己在内）将此地描绘成自然枯竭且相当糟糕的农田而感到愤怒。“我们必须小心，不能说这是劣地。这是具有韧性的耕种土地，”惠特尔说。
大约一半的当地人似乎持观望态度。我遇到的一位名叫帕迪·特纳（Paddy Turner）的男子将自己描述为“礼貌地怀疑”。“人们不喜欢改变，”他说，“这就是问题所在。”
“坦率地说，关于这片土地，我忘掉的知识比他们永远能了解的还要多，”一位优雅的白发女性阿曼达·迪克森（Amanda Dixon）宣称。迪克森和她的前夫曾拥有 400 公顷的布思比（Boothby）土地。她目前仍住在农场边缘一个由车棚改造的住所里，拥有 4.4 公顷土地，其中包括一片羊场（这在野化运动中是被厌恶的）。她说，他们过去很好地耕种了这片土地。他们在小树林里种了 20,000 棵树。在一些较好的田地里，他们种植小麦，“那在当时是农业的圣杯”。她觉得这片土地的生产力被新业主“轻视”了。“我认为它应该被用来生产食物，因为我们必须自给自足。”
我在门口见到了布思比的新护林员劳埃德·帕克（Lloyd Park）。帕克是一名热情的观鸟者，在转向野化之前，他在传统的自然保护领域工作了 14 年。“十年前，我开始认为自然保护必须走向一个不同的方向，”他说。他认为这就是那个方向。传统的自然保护倾向于确定一个特殊的栖息地及其特定的物种组合，然后对土地进行微观管理以保护这些物种。而野化没有具体的目标，其准则是让更多的自然进程繁荣生长，并庆祝生物多样性的丰盈以及任何出现这里的野生动物。
尽管这听起来很美好，但布思比也是一个务实的项目。为了从生物多样性净增益（BNG）和其他计划中获得收入，它必须在提供丰盈的同时实现生物多样性的增长，因此帕克和布思比野地团队正在采取干预措施以加速修复。碎枝——枯死树枝——被倾倒在田地中央，以便鸟类在上面栖息，它们的粪便由此播下树种。河床将被填平，这样溪流将被迫流向原先的泛滥平原，为这个小山谷带来水资源和生命。该团队还挖掘了 8 个新池塘，部分资金由国家铁路公司（Network Rail）提供。现场正在进行三项博士研究，包括研究野化如何促进昆虫和水生生物的增长。
即便如此，她仍有被说服的可能。30 年前，夜莺在布思比的树篱间鸣唱，但随着灌木栖息地的丧失，它们消失了。迪克森告诉巴雷尔（Burrell），她愿意原谅他，但有一个条件：他得让夜莺回来。
那是 2023 年一个潮湿的秋季夜晚，我回到了布思比。谷仓仍在风中发出凄凉的嘎吱声。三分之二的田地现在已不再生产；仅有 150 公顷将在最后一个作物年度（即 2024 年）播种小麦。被雇佣的农学家
巴雷尔将野化事业与理想主义以及商业头脑的现实主义相结合Transformer水资源给山谷带来了野生动物；查理
JONATHAN PERUGIA/GAIA VISUAL/NATTERGAL; KNEPP ESTATE
布思比野地的使命还将人们带回这片土地；未来的生态旅游收入将依赖于此，而利齐·莱蒙（Lizzie Lemon）一直在为此忙碌：在夏天最热的一天，有 150 人参加了舞会和开放日，30 名当地人获得了前往克内普（Knepp）的一次免费游览机会（以及一本特里（Tree）的书）。我到达这里是为了观看最新的工作坊，在会上征询当地人的意见。在“优势”一栏中，当地人列出了：让孩子回归自然、路径和残障人士通道，以及“请给我们海狸！”。而“劣势”那一堆则更厚：人行道需要管理、杂草、漂绿、大门标志太小、“食物生产怎么办？”以及“看起来乱七八糟”。
看起来乱七八糟吗？我跟着惠特尔（Whittle）坐上一辆从中国进口的崭新四座全地形车参观了一圈。布思比呈现出的面貌确实与典型的英国低地截然不同。大多数田地里长满了农民通常讨厌的杂草：高大的柳叶菜（带有亮紫粉色花朵）、开黄花的千里光、酸模，尤其是蓟。在批评者眼中，这些是蛮横的、摧毁牧场的植物（而且千里光对马有毒）。
倾倒的碎石使其显得有些荒废，尽管你仍能看到生命的迹象。长草中刻满了如迷宫般的小鼠通道。一只短尾鼬跑进了我们面前的田野，头顶上有一小群椋鸟在盘旋，此外还有一只红隼、一只鵟和两只红鸢。
按照更常规的做法，其中一个区域正在种植树木，该计划由政府为新建原生林提供丰厚的补贴；另一个田地则被作为干草草甸管理。他们在 2022 年铺设了绿干草，现在那里已经长满了黄质律草——一种寄生在草类上的花卉，能为更多种类的花卉多样性创造空间。“这是我们的林肯郡草原，”惠特尔自豪地说。当我们停下来时，燕子在我们的车周围盘旋。“太美了，”惠特尔说，“我们现在正处于‘野生动物时刻’！这在布思比场地上相当罕见。”
几个月后，在2月的某一天，布思比举办了另一场研讨会，有 18 位农民和地主参加。会议探讨的是一个颇具争议的下一步计划：重新引入河狸。野地团队计划使用挖掘机让河流“重新蜿蜒”——重建那些在多年集约化耕作中被移除的“自然”河曲，因为之前的耕作已将其变成了渠化排水道。他们还将建造英国最大的河狸围栏（因为政府尚未允许这种回归的原生品种在英格兰野外释放）。他们已经做好了面对敌意的准备，许多农民对河狸非常警惕。
然而，那些劳工通常是在新播种的行间拔除杂草，操纵自然以产出食物。而布思比的志愿者们却在把杂草种回去。
由于布思比在播种野花混种种子之前，没有在耕地杂草上使用有毒除草剂草甘膦，这片特定的田地在今年早些时候引起了争议（野花是更被认可的“杂草”，因为它们侵略性较弱，且通常开出更漂亮的花朵）。“这意味着这里生长了大量红花柳叶草、千里光和蓟，这让当地人感到非常不安，”帕克皱眉说道。他们承诺的是野花田，结果长出来的却是许多当地人极其厌恶的侵略性一年生杂草。因此，这片田地被收割、再次耕种，并重新播种了价值 £6,000 的野花混种种子。现在，志愿者们正在铺设从林肯郡路边收集的绿干草，这将引入正确类型的花卉杂草：具有当地来源的多年生野花。
德克利向农民们详细介绍了河狸的情况。它们带来的好处很多：它们会筑坝，在布思比 2公里的河段创建新的湿地，并减缓水流，确保夏季河水供应稳定，并减轻冬季洪涝。
德克利以其标志性的干脆坦诚指出，在前一年，英格兰各地共有 27 次将河狸释放到围栏内的记录，其中一半出现了河狸逃逸的情况。他停顿了一下，农民们显得有些好笑。“每一只都被抓获并带回去了，”德克利说。农民们被引导至河边，查看河狸将被释放的位置。他们似乎不仅被所听到的内容所安抚，也被所见之景所打动，其中包括树篱铺设、水貂捕获以及野花草甸的修复。
磋商拖延不前，昂贵的围栏安装缓慢，我开始怀疑纳特格尔（Nattergal）是否失去了勇气，或者失去了资金。
“很多年前我们一直在拔除树篱，”一名农民说。“我们被告知要拔掉它们，”迪克森补充道。我问她对河狸怎么看。“这是一个非常好的主意。那个围栏规模会相当大，”她外交辞令般地说道，“我想不出如果它们被围起来，为什么还会有人反对河狸。”
与此同时，这片荒野首个豪华露营产品并未获得成功。“林肯郡的一片蓟地吸引力有限，”德克利（De Klee）苦笑道。Nattergal 承诺，一旦有更多野生动物可见，将重新启动生态旅游。我决定在八月的一场热浪中测试这次体验，并带着我的儿子特德（Ted）和我们的帐篷前来野营。蓟绒像被撒在干涸地面上的羽绒被，地面布满了裂缝，仿佛随时会将我们吞没。
迪克森（Dixon）抱怨说，来自布斯比（Boothby）的杂草种子飘到了她的土地上，但她发现，通过在围栏草场内将羊群分小块进行集群放牧，并让草长得更长，种子就无法入侵。“我们已经适应了，”她说。
2024年9月，12个人在最近耕种的田地里弯腰劳作，照顾土地，呈现出一世纪前的场景。
当地人仍在抱怨布斯比那令人惊叹的蓟绒作物所散播的杂草种子。“这是‘马麦酱’阶段（指评价两极分化）。人们要么热爱它，要么讨厌它，”帕克（Park）说。但他说这只是一个阶段。当猪群被引入后，它们会把蓟根刨出来。树木和灌木很快就会遮蔽蓟和乌金盏，使其变得微不足道。
我再次采访了帕迪·特纳（Paddy Turner），他像迪克森一样，最初对这片荒野持谨慎态度。四年后， he 似乎基本被说服了。“看到它演变和变化绝对是一种享受，”他说。“有些人可能会认为目前这里的景色不是最迷人的，但我并不这么看。这里虽然有很多酸模和蓟，但看看上面还栖息着什么。”
特德和我绕过与肩同高的蓟、刺蓬、乌金盏和酸模。特德在棕色和漂白金色的草丛中发现了一种奇怪的杂草。那是一只黌鹿的鹿角，它正注视着我们。
布斯比在近几个月取得了一些财务上的成功。Nattergal 与工程咨询公司 Arup 签署了一项重大协议，后者同意在三十年内购买布斯比 £1m 的高质量碳去除信用额度。这个价格大约是市场价的三倍，因为这片荒野还将提供生物多样性、洪水蓄留和社区参与。在经过当局多次延迟后，Nattergal 与当地议会签署了一项 BNG（生物多样性净增益）协议，提供 338 BNG 单位。随后又增加了 1,075 个单位。BNG 的价格取决于损失的栖息地，但通常一个 20 栋房屋的开发项目可能仅需要 1.5 个单位，开发商为此可能支付每单位 £25,000。以此价格计算，布斯比的 413 BNG 单位价值可能超过 £35。随着林肯郡规划的大型基础设施项目，BNG 在未来 20 年内可能会提供稳定的收入。
几分钟后，我在农舍找到了帕克，他几乎快要跳起来了，因为有人发现一只环噪鸫（ring ouzel）——一种极其罕见的鸫类——在海狸池中沐浴。此外，金雀花和桦树在整片田地中喷涌而出。“这让你的心之歌响起！——在曾经的小麦地里看到一丛小刺金雀花，”他说。至于当地人的抱怨？“你必须脸皮厚。我是一头‘野化犀牛’，”他开玩笑说，他的方法是“用善良感化他们”。前几天，当一名邻居抱怨乌金盏时，布斯比团队提出派遣志愿者去帮他们拔掉所有令人反感的“杂草”。
查理·伯勒尔（Charlie Burrell）当时也在布思比（Boothby）的农舍里，在旧餐厅参加一次董事会会议。在室内，讨论的全部是碳信用额的不足和投资者的信心。在室外，他坐在阳光下的长凳上，当我问他是否对 2022 年以来这里发生的变化感到惊讶时，他露出了笑容。“一切看起来正是我预想的样子。我在克内普（Knepp）学习过渡期间度过了每一个业余时间。这一切对我来说都非常熟悉。我喜欢看到员工们感到惊讶的时候——比如当看到 the hen harriers（欧盟林鸮/欧洲草鸮）时——那种兴奋感。”他想起了与迪克森（Dixon）关于夜莺的对话。“它们他妈的还没来，对吧？”他说，“我估计它们会在接下来的四年内到来。前提是它们还没有在英格兰彻底消失。”
特德（Ted）和我是在凌晨 5.30 被帐篷外一只 Roe deer（狍子）的吠叫声吵醒的。当太阳在一片依然荒凉的蓟田上冉冉升起时，我们吃起了早餐。
二月的一个晴天，一家四口乘坐一辆从苏格兰开来的白色面包车抵达布思比，渴望探索他们的新家。“这是一个激动人心的日子，”德·克莱（De Klee）说，他现在留着一副令人印象深刻的新胡子，看起来像个年轻的殖民地探险家。“没有什么比将海狸释放到这片景观中更美好的事情了。”莱蒙（Lemon）在 Facebook 上发布了一则“安静”的帖子招募海狸志愿者。“结果引起了疯狂的反响。”
他承认，商业模式所需的财务交易进度之慢让他感到措手不及。“每件事花费的时间都比我想象的要长，”他说。在过去的四年里，政治格局也发生了变化，伯勒尔认为再野化（rewilding）的前景不再那么乐观。他说，当他们在 2022, 年筹集初始资金购买布思比时，伦敦城（City of London）的每一位首席执行官似乎都在说：“我有孩子，我担心未来、气候以及我们还剩下多少生物多样性。”他们谈论自己的责任，并计算“我们在生活中利用环境的真实成本”。而现在，他说，典型的企业措辞变成了：“我们先等着看别人怎么做。”但他说，“情况最终会好转，因为当气候变化的真实打击袭来时，必须如此”。
四名志愿者通过抽签被选中协助释放海狸。覆盖着的笼子被搬到一个被香蒲和树木环绕的褐色池塘边。金属舱门打开，海狸一家蹒跚而出，滑入水中。它们看起来很适应这里。布思比团队拥抱在一起，有些人几乎落泪。
上个月，我回到布思比查看海狸的近况。阿曼达·迪克森（Amanda Dixon）很担心。“对它们来说水够吗？”她想道，“下面的这些小溪并不是一直有水的。”
前几年我见到她时，迪克森听起来像是已经适应，甚至可能开始热爱布思比荒野（Boothby Wildland）了。但现在情况变了。“情绪非常激动，”她说。问题出在杂草上——她指着布思比的鹿围栏和她的羊场之间的杂草——以及围栏。“每个人都非常愤怒。他们告诉我们我们会养牛，这没问题。我知道克内普那里有牛。但前几天我才得知他们不打算买任何牛。”她说，相反，放牧者将临时引入牛群，但由于杂草太多，目前没有足够的草供它们 grazing（吃草）。对于迪克森来说，牲畜回归土地是某种形式的重新耕种；而这件事没有按照最初的计划实现，对她来说是一个巨大的失望。（当我与伯勒尔交谈时，他说他们一直很明确地表示，可能需要长达七年的时间才能永久性地引入牛等牲畜。）
在纸面上，布思比的数据看起来很惊人。Nattergal 2026 年的“影响力报告”提到：国家登记册中增加了 1,413 个 BNG 单位；在接下来的 50 年中将封存 138,000 吨碳；公众通行权在达成一致的情况下增加了 58%；整体生物多样性增加了 108%，此外还有许多其他数据。
但这一切在土地上具体是如何体现的？我随同 Park 一起沿河散步。阳光穿透云层，突然之间，四面八方涌现出令人眼花缭乱的生命喧嚣。我以前也经历过这样的时刻，但仅限于特殊的自然保护区——那些土地碎片通常如此之小，以至于它们只是繁荣的拟像。然而，此时我们正站在一片广阔的普通乡村土地上，直到三年前，这里还是一块耕地。现在，它成了一片生机勃勃的湿地。
可以看到灰鹭在拍打翅膀，灰矶在鸣叫。一只黑尾蜻蜓在水面上疾速飞过。一只大斑啄木鸟落在枯死的悬铃木上。茂盛的草丛和蓟草中，草地 the meadow grasshoppers 正在跳跃，数十只蝴蝶在穿梭。这一切令人震撼；到处在运动，耳边环绕着嗡嗡声、啁啾声和鸣叫声。说这片土地在歌唱也许太天马行空，但这里确实在发生某些事情。某种极其鲜活的东西。
“你知道什么真正让我作呕吗？”迪克森（Dixon）说道，“他们在这片土地上耕作了 1,000 年。我们周围有三座教堂。比奇菲尔德（Bitchfield）有撒克逊时期的地基。如果他们没有在那片土地上务农，就无法建起那些教堂。几代人一千年的艰苦劳作在四年内化为乌有，而且他们永远无法将其夺回。查理·巴雷尔（Charlie Burrell）说：‘想想紫帝蝶吧！’但你不能吃蝴蝶。”
帕特里克·巴克汉姆（PATRICK BARKHAM）是《卫报》的自然撰稿人
[[IMG_XXXX]] 照片由 GIANNI CIPRIANO 拍摄
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意大利 8,000km 的海岸线上，几乎所有的沙滩都由私人牟利者、军队和黑手党掌控——而“免费海滩”则被挤压在那些环境恶劣、垃圾遍地的狭小区域。但那些致力于解放海滨浴场的人们正开始看到正义的曙光。作者：托比亚斯·琼斯（Tobias Jones）
漫步在意大利的海滩上就像在彩虹中徜徉。沙滩被划分为不同的颜色：大约 50 米范围内，间距完美的遮阳伞和躺椅全部是红色的，然后变成橙色，接着是黄色、绿色，以此类推。
spiaggia libera，即免费海滩，是指没有私人海滨浴场、允许游泳者在沙滩上铺毛巾并撑起自己遮阳伞的区域。这些“免费海滩”总是位于偏远且缺乏吸引力的地带，靠近河口、碍眼的建筑，或者沙地变为岩石的地方。这里通常存在垃圾问题，冰淇淋包装纸被随意丢弃在沙滩上。这里没有救生员，也没有厕所。
“这种安排太疯狂了，”我在那不勒斯附近的一片免费海滩上遇到的一位荷兰游客说道，“我想坐在那边海滩上，”他指向私人海滨浴场，“结果他们把我赶走了。而这里，”他耸耸肩，“没有厕所，没有淋浴，没有垃圾桶……”
这些就是该国著名的 bagni（海滨浴场），正式名称为 concessioni balneari（洗浴特许权）。它们简约而时尚。黎明时分，沙滩会被耙平。酒吧播放着氛围音乐，供应内格罗尼鸡尾酒或炸鱿鱼。那里可能还设有乒乓球桌或沙滩排球区。有些浴场还配有游泳池。
关于私有化海滩与免费海滩之争，以及如何管理意大利近 8,000km 海岸线的问题，近年来已成为一个充满争议的话题。该国约有 30,000 个海滨浴场。
这些浴场的一切都井然有序。躺椅的价格像电影票一样精确，靠近水边空间的费用通常是靠近酒吧空间的两倍（今年夏天，在风景稍逊的亚得里亚海沿岸的米拉诺马里蒂马，靠近酒吧的遮阳伞和两把躺椅收费 €30 [$34]，而靠近水边则高达 €60）。许多家庭年复一年地租用同一个空间度过整个夏天。
Legambiente（一家意大利环保组织） 2022 年的一份报告计算出，意大利约 43% 的沙质海岸目前被私人企业占用。
守住阵地：在巴科利（Bacoli）的米塞诺海滩（Miseno beach），军队和私人浴场占据了大部分区域。
Mare Libero（自由之海）运动负责人丹尼洛·鲁吉耶罗（Danilo Ruggiero）表示：“海滩已被改造成为一个个小度假村。
有时你得走上一两英里才能找到一个
——这些综合体可能包括游泳池、停车场、健身房、餐厅和服装店。”鲁吉耶罗住在罗马西部的奥斯蒂亚（Ostia），那里 80% 的城镇海滩被他称为“海滨浴场合众国”。“该地区周围建起了防御工事——墙壁、大门、栅栏和树篱——以防止进入并遮挡视线。通常在好几公里的范围内，你甚至根本看不到大海。”
他不断谴责当地政府的渎职行为，导致他家经营的熟食店遭到纵火袭击。但在 2015 年，年仅 28 岁的他以近 65% 的得票率当选市长。尽管他的政府在执政仅一年后就倒台了，但他在 2019. 年回归。他担任巴科利（Bacoli）市长已有七年时间。
巴科利之所以不同寻常，是因为镇议会拥有 13 平方公里土地中超过四分之一的份额，其中 60% 位于沿海。许多迷人的地点落入了当地黑手党“卡莫拉”（Camorra）之手。费雷蒂别墅（Villa Ferretti）是一座建在罗马遗迹旁的 19 世纪别墅，这些遗迹至今仍可见于波佐利湾（Pozzuoli bay）清澈的海水之下。在别墅阳台的右侧就有一片公共海滩——长度可能不到 100 米。费雷蒂家族是富有的热那亚人，但这座别墅最终落入了臭名昭著的卡莫拉家族帕里安特（Pariante）家族之手，后者关闭了进入海滩的公共通道。
托斯卡纳（Tuscany）和罗马尼亚（Romagna）是海滩私有化最密集地区。在托斯卡纳海岸向西延伸的沙滩——福尔特代马尔米（Forte dei Marmi），该镇 94% 的海滨地带被出租给度假村。在附近的皮埃特拉圣塔（Pietrasanta）和卡迈奥雷（Camaiore），这一比例分别为 98.8% 和 98.4%。直到最近，亚得里亚海沿岸的加泰奥阿马雷（Gatteo a Mare）还没有一片免费海滩；在公众愤怒抗议后，那里现在拥有 1.4% 的免费海滩——在总共约 700 米的长度中，仅有 10 米。
由于经营海滨浴场是一项非常获利且通常以现金交易的业务，它们对有组织犯罪具有吸引力，因此争取更多免费海滩的运动往往与更广泛的反黑手党抵制行动重叠。
该房产于 1995 年被意大利反黑手党调查局没收，并于 2003 年移交给巴科利市政府。在 2016, 年，镇议会将海滩和花园改造成了公共公园，并创建了一个露天剧场，恢复了公众进入海滩的权力，并将别墅租赁给那不勒斯腓特烈二世大学（University of Naples Federico II）。
巴科利是一座位于那不勒斯湾最西北端的城镇。这是一个绝美但并不稳定的地方：活跃和死火山形成了同心圆状的火山口湖和海中的岩石半岛。整个城镇坐落在弗莱格雷欧区（Phlegraean Fields）翻滚的岩浆之上，道路和建筑经常因地表运动而升高或下降，导致裂缝和坑洞。
在许多方面，德拉·拉吉奥内（Della Ragione）在海滩问题上的立场与他的广泛政治愿景并无二致。“我们试图将城市还给公民，基于这样一个理念：公共行政部门不发放恩惠，也不参与政治分赃，”他说。这种政治愿景在意大利南部有时难以生根发芽，根据德拉·拉吉奥内的说法，在当地，“公共利益”被视为“一块用来在朋友、选民和亲戚之间瓜分的蛋糕”。
‘显而易见，通过暴力和霸凌强占的公共财产，将会被暴力和霸凌所捍卫’
“在这里，”意大利民防部门国家负责人法比奥·奇切利亚诺（Fabio Ciciliano）告诉我，“他们不是住在火山上，而是住在火山内部。”
“这就像在玩‘鹅游戏’（game of the goose），”镇市长、蓄着长发的 39 岁青年约西·杰拉尔多·德拉·拉吉奥内笑着说，他上下跳动着手掌，意思是就像在玩“蛇与梯子”游戏一样，他的城镇正在与命运的反复无常作斗争。
米塞诺海滩（Miseno beach）是巴科利（Bacoli）的另一个冲突点。这是一条弯曲的沙滩，长度仅 800 多米。但你无法从那条以老普林尼（Pliny the Elder）命名的现代道路进入。那里有通往私人度假村的凯旋门，以及为会员提供的免费停车位，但除非你知道那些度假村之间狭窄的走廊在哪里，否则你很难看到沙滩，更不用说站在上面了。
德拉·拉吉奥内（Della Ragione）因致力于将小镇海滩从私人牟利者手中解放出来而闻名。“直到最近，”他告诉我，“我们的海滩上到处是违章搭建的棚屋、铁丝网、大门和对讲机。”进入各处海滩必须经过某个或另一个院落。“你得按对讲机，”他解释道，“[对方的回答是] 如果我认识你，我就开门。”市长说，这种“裙带关系、朋友的朋友”的安排是这里典型的心态。
“它们全是军事海滩，”德拉·拉吉奥内说。“海军有一个度假村，空军有一个，意大利陆军有两个，海岸警卫队有一个。”如果算上附近的财务警察（Guardia di Finanza）度假村，这意味着约 100,000 平方米的米塞诺沙滩被划为专属使用。但当你最终在
海滩准入问题在拿波利（Naples）感受尤为深刻，因为这座城市将大海视为灵魂。拿波利港务局负责特许经营权的分配，许多人认为公共与私人之间的分配极其不均衡：在坎帕尼亚（Campania，围绕拿波利的地区），私人特许经营权的比例为 70%，而在拿波利市内则高达 95%。
军事设施之间找到一条小巷时，一切就值得了。海水清凉透明，著名的岛屿——普罗奇达（Procida）、伊斯基亚（Ischia）和卡普里（Capri）感觉如此之近，仿佛游过去就能到达。左侧有十几个洞穴，曾被罗马海军用作仓库。
最终你会来到一座建筑的残骸前，那里被锁链锁住，但布满了涂鸦。这就是“免费海滩”。这里看起来几乎是刻意地破旧，沙滩上散落着湿纸巾和吸管。垃圾问题是私人经营者经常提及的论据；他们说，公共海滩脏乱是不可避免的。但这里的氛围截然不同。这里没有整齐排列的座椅，而是各种群体围坐在一个蓝牙扬声器周围。
德拉·拉吉奥内说，许多海滨浴场（lidos）是通过缴纳罚款获得许可证的。“他们占据了一段水域和一段海滩，”他说。“在夏季结束时，他们因未经授权的占用而被港务局罚款。”通过市长所称的“合法化侵占”，罚款成了使占用合法化的手段。
“很明显，通过强权和欺凌夺取的公共财产，将会通过强权和欺凌来捍卫，”德拉·拉吉奥内说。在卡塞韦基（Casevecchie）的一处海滩，德拉·拉吉奥内部署了重型机械，拆除公共土地上的违章建筑。“我们不得不开来推土机拆除仓库，”他说。“在其中一个仓库里，我们发现经营者拿着电锯向市政工人冲过来。这就是我们要面对的犯罪行为。”
我与一名叫马可（Marco）的男子交谈，并对他提到的破旧状况感到好奇。“我们必须进行一场文化战争，”他说。“因为当我去某些免费海滩时，那里没有垃圾桶，人们把烟蒂和瓶盖扔在沙子里。这需要一定的教育，一定的文化。”
多年来，“自由之海”（Mare Libero）的活动人士在准入受限的冲突热点地区组织快闪活动和海滩占领行动。位于拿波利西部的唐娜·安娜（Donn’Anna）海滩自 1999. 年起就被封闭。市民只能在钥匙持有者（一家名为 Bagno Elena 的海滨浴场经理）的允许下进入。即使获得了进入权限，在盛夏时节找到一个空位几乎是不可能的：
德拉·拉吉奥内参与这场斗争已久。十七年前，他共同发起了一场名为“自由巴科利”（FreeBacoli）的社交媒体活动。他曾兼职担任体育记者，是一位擅长倾听的人。他
意大利被私人企业占用的沙滩海岸比例
那不勒斯由私人经营的海滩特许经营权百分比
在这片海滩 4,490 平方米中，仅有 290 平方米被认为是免费的。Mare Libero 的那不勒斯分会发起了一场“解放”海滩的运动，组织静坐活动，并在法庭上主张封闭的大门违反了进入权。那不勒斯港务局对拆除大门的决定提出上诉，但败诉了。今年 2 月，坎帕尼亚大区行政法院支持了 Mare Libero 的主张，唐纳·安娜 (Donn’Anna) 海滩终于可以自由进入，Mare Libero 希望在整个半岛上复制这一胜利。
在这些紧张的空间中，德拉·拉吉奥内 (Della Ragione) 展现出一种社会主义式的乐观：他为争取海滩进入权的斗争，是他计划将镇议会所有土地重新转化为公共资源的整体方案的一部分。“所有个人利益的总和，都低于公共利益，”他说道。
德拉·拉吉奥内拥有一套不寻常的技能组合。他将网红的沟通技巧（经常身着三色肩带被引用和拍摄，并在紧急情况下在网上分享个人电话号码）与年长律师的官僚处理能力结合在一起。他的沟通方式显得既自然又经过深思熟虑。“在这个传播时代，如果你不说你做了某事，就好像你没做一样。你必须去做，而且必须说你做了。”但他的高知名度也是一种保障：他所做的事情很危险（他收到过死亡威胁），而全国性的知名度为他提供了一定的保护。
尽管这位市长看起来像个革命者，但他也非常讲究形式。他拒绝接见穿着短裤的人；当地人讲述了一些可能是杜撰的故事，说有几组访客在市长办公室外共用一条长裤。当我走进一家当地精品店解释为什么必须买一条裤子时，店主笑了：“这种情况经常发生。”
当你和德拉·拉吉奥内在镇上散步时，人们不断地走过来要求与他握手。其他人则挥手大喊：“Sindaco!”（市长）。这种崇拜是持续不断的。如果你与镇上的任何人交谈——店主、游泳者、朋友——他们都对他表达出真挚的爱。
你可以感受到巴科莱 (Bacolesi) 人试图在这里创造的东西。在日落时分，青少年在米塞诺 (Miseno) 的咸水湖上玩独木舟水球。在收回的 Casevecchie 沙滩上，有一个新的沙滩排球场，其泛光灯由太阳能电池板供电。半夜时分，幼儿在父母的指导下移动腰部高度的棋子，而父母们手里拿着冰淇淋在下棋。“这是一个关于缓慢而广泛再生的积极微观故事，”威尼斯 IUAV 大学研究员克拉丽莎·皮卡 (Klarissa Pica) 在她的博士论文《领海》(Territorio Mare) 中写道。
“我们不想与‘秩序力量’发生任何战争，”德拉·拉吉奥内笑着对这个想法的荒诞性表示不屑，“但我们确实希望面对现实：这些私人俱乐部剥夺了海滩属于每个人的观念。在 2026 年，这是不可容忍的。”
这种从微型摊位演变为巨型度假村的 LIDO（海滨浴场）演变历时近一个世纪。20 世纪初，意大利政府开始将矩形沙地租给销售咖啡、利口酒并出租椅子的企业。那里并不是富人去的地方：他们在主广场的豪华咖啡馆或自己的游艇上喝酒。
即便在 1945 年之后，意大利漫长的海滩也并不光鲜。它们与战争联系在一起——到处散落着碎片和被遗弃的军事设备——或者与荒野联系在一起。那是漂流木、孤独者、情侣和罪犯在风中栖息的空间。
战场 (Battleground) 从上至下：巴科莱米塞诺海滩上的遮阳伞；米塞诺一家军事海滩俱乐部的封闭入口；巴科莱市长乔西·热拉尔多·德拉·拉吉奥内 (Josi Gerardo Della Ragione) 在那不勒斯发表的 Mare Libero 全国会议演讲
但最初的小亭子随着 20 世纪 60 年代起旅游业的繁荣而不断扩大。这些海滨浴场（Bagni）开始建造休息区，搭建附属建筑，安装淋浴和厕所，挖掘泳池，并为运动区和餐厅围起栅栏。在沙滩后面的松树林中，许多人开辟了停车位和露营地。其中有些是合法的，有些则不然。
这些空间的租赁协议始终是“滚动”协议，会自动续约。直到 2020 年，海滨度假村的最低
希望你就在这里
海滨浴场以欧元支付的年租金——对于一个估计产生 €7-8bn 收入的行业来说，这简直微不足道。
“commercium”（“商业之外的事物”）。然而，对于权利持有者来说，这些特许经营权是意大利最重要的产业之一——旅游业——中至关重要且具有爱国色彩的支柱。根据意大利国家统计局 2023 年的一项研究，该部门占该国 GDP 的 9.6%。在全国近 477 million 游客（包括国内和国外）中，39.2% 的人会在海边停留，而没有哪个爱国政治家愿意干扰这样一个充满活力的行业。
无论是乔治亚·梅洛尼（总理），还是马泰奥·萨尔维尼（与梅洛尼结盟的联盟党领导人），亦或是罗伯托·范纳奇（一名极右翼新星，退役陆军将领），从未有人批评海滨度假村的现状。有些人甚至投资其中：曾深陷丑闻的前旅游部长丹妮拉·桑坦切曾是弗拉维奥·布里亚托雷旗下 Twiga（福特代马尔米的一个豪华海滨浴场）的股东；而前联盟党欧洲议会议员马西莫·卡萨诺瓦则拥有米兰诺马里蒂马的另一个豪华度假村 Papeete。
他们声称，海滨浴场确实发挥着重要作用：保护海滩安全。意大利海滨经营者联盟 (SIB) 主席安东尼奥·卡帕基奥内表示：“在意大利，我们很幸运，溺水人数只有法国的一半。”卡帕基奥内认为，这很大程度上是因为海滨浴场有提供救生服务的人道主义义务，如果忽视安全条例，将面临过失杀人指控。
愤怒的抗议者。在那不勒斯的一次“Mare Libero”（自由之海）抗议活动中，示威者在巴尼奥利游行。他们是一个全国性运动的一部分，旨在争取自由进入意大利海岸线的公共权利。
年租金仅为区区 €364；且根据意大利审计法院 2016-20, 年的报告，国家每年从这些海滨浴场收取的费用仅为 €101.7，对于一个估计产生 €7-8bn 收入的行业来说，这简直是一笔极小的金额。
海滨浴场制度的捍卫者还认为，在过度旅游的时代，它们在保护海岸线方面发挥了作用。考虑到新冠疫情后的旅行狂热，意大利的某些城市和城镇已变得面目全非。威尼斯提供给游客的床位数量最近已超过了当地居民的床位数量。罗马的特雷维喷泉现在要求预约并收取 €2 门票。
许多度假村承接婚礼、生日、洗礼和毕业典礼，据透露，有些度假村一个晚上的收入就超过了其支付的年租金。据计算，海滨度假村的平均年利润仍高达 €260,000。
这种情况也发生在海滩上。蓬塔（Punta）是撒丁岛最顶级的海滩之一：它的精致——岩石哨所与透明海水之间仅有一层薄薄的沙滩——正是其吸引力所在。而且它
这本应在 2006 年结束，当时欧盟的波尔克斯坦（Bolkestein）
不可否认地需要保护，以免被数千名游客破坏。因此，上个月，维拉西米乌斯（Villasimius）议会宣布将向游客收取 €10 费用，并将人数限制在 150 人和 70 辆车以内。具有争议的是，除非同行者包括 65 岁以上或 10 岁以下的人员，否则禁止携带私人遮阳伞进入海滩。
指令强制成员国通过“有限期限，并基于非歧视、透明和客观标准，通过公开的公共筛选程序”提供海岸特许权。
“如果业主看到你进入他们的空间，你会被视为闯入他们自家的入侵者”
该指令旨在打破保护主义做法。但历届意大利政府通过发布 prorgoghe（延期令）来推迟任何招标过程，从而避免执行该立法。首先是延期至 2012，然后是 2015，随后被移至 2020。在 2018， “黄绿”政府（联盟党-五星运动联盟）通过了一项法律，将现状（即海滨浴场长期租赁沙滩）延长至 2033。
尽管争论激烈，但各方在一点上达成一致：简单的沙滩在意大利人的记忆和身份认同中占据着珍贵的位置。对于数百万人来说，躺在沙滩躺椅和遮阳伞下的悠闲时光便是度过漫长学校假期的方式。皮卡（Pica）说：“从六月到九月，退休人员会在同一个海滩、找同一个经营者撑起他们的遮阳伞，周围全是他们的海滩好友——因此，对他们而言，这就是享受海滨生活的全部意义。”
近期，意大利政府试图使情况更加公平。它将海滩特许经营权的最低年租金提高到了 €2,500，随后又提高到 €3,225。海滨度假村支付 22% 的增值税（VAT），而其他所有旅游运营商则适用 10% 的折扣税率。海滨浴场还需支付 IMU（意大利财产税），这通常仅要求实际所有者支付，尽管这引发了自身的问题：据鲁杰罗（Ruggiero）称，“那些管理海滩特许经营权的人认为他们在某种程度上就是所有者。如果所有者看到你进入他们的空间，你会被视为闯入了他们自己的家。”
在欧盟与意大利的僵局中，下一步将如何发展尚不确定。根据卡帕基奥内（Capacchione）的说法，任何招标过程都应包含涵盖基础设施投资补偿（“indennizzo”）的条款，并规定应给予在该行业具有经验的竞标者优惠待遇。
在鲁杰罗看来，这听起来像是一场操纵。“关于补偿：特许经营权是固定期限的，所以一旦到期——且你已经充分利用到最后时刻——为什么我还要补偿你？”
关于海滩的争论往往沿着清晰的左右翼路线展开。对于左翼来说，这是一个典型的公共所有权和准入权的例子。意大利庞大的前社会主义者和共产主义者群体认为，连阴凉都被商业化，揭示了资本主义的病态。对于 Mare Libero 的活动人士来说，解放海滩并非一场轻率的活动，而是一场基于生态学和包容性的民权运动。皮卡认为海滩不仅是一个社会正义问题，也是一个空间正义问题。她在这些斗争中看到了罗马法概念的共鸣，即 “res communis omnium”（“所有人共有的事物”）应被视为 “res extra
对于鲁杰罗来说，“经验条款”更成问题。“鉴于市场一直处于冻结状态，除了那些一直经营到现在的人，谁还能声称在经营海滩业务方面拥有经验？”他将现任政府的立场总结为：“我不能给你延期，但我会确保你赢得招标。”他说，这是一个非常“意大利式”的解决方案。
托比亚斯·琼斯 (TOBIAS JONES) 是《卫报》的常驻特约撰稿人
由布鲁诺·阿巴特 (Bruno Abate) 提供额外研究
评论自由，事实神圣 CP Scott 1918
波莉·托伊比 (POLLY TOYNBEE)
伯纳姆能否胜任这项工作？唯有时间能给出答案
第 48 页
这次世界杯之后还剩下什么？一种混乱的希望 乔纳森·利乌 (Jonathan Liew)
体育
插图：GUARDIAN DEISGN; GETTY; MOHAMMAD BASHIR ALDAHER
这是世界杯决赛，所以你得选一边支持。如果你恰好属于人类中 98.9% 既非西班牙人也非阿根廷人的群体，也不必担心。也许你喜欢西班牙队的球衣。也许你一直仰慕利昂内尔·梅西。也许你对马尔维纳斯群岛（福克兰群岛）或迭戈·马拉多纳仍心怀激愤，也许你不同意佩德罗·桑切斯 (Pedro Sánchez) 的观点
这一切甚至还没涉及到球队本身：在许多情况下，这些球队与其说是对国家认同的有力表达，或者说是某个体制下可识别的产物，不如说是全球化和移民在特定时刻将分散在多个层面的庞大侨民群体截取的快照，是出于方便和权宜之计而组建的。在 48 个参赛国中，有 40 个国家的球队包含在海外出生的球员。库拉索队中只有一名成员实际上出生在该加勒比海岛上。佛得角队的阵容中，出生在鹿特丹的球员比出生在该国首都的球员还要多。
政府对巴勒斯坦/以色列的立场，或者也许你在间隔年期间吃过一个糟糕的拉丁美洲馅饼（empanada）。没人需要看你的推导过程。真正适用且仅有的两条规则是：要持有立场，且动作要快。
周日晚上的新泽西大都会体育场（MetLife Stadium）成了一个相互冲突的矛盾体和临时身份的熔炉。前重量级拳王迈克·泰森穿着一件阿根廷队球衣。喜剧演员特雷弗·诺亚穿着一件西班牙队球衣。门票销售数据表明，观众中绝大多数是美国人。事实证明，这项国际体育赛事中最重要的对决，不过是为新泽西休闲市场打造的一场盛大角色扮演。
因此，现代世界杯承担着两个突兀的功能。首先，它强迫我们面对这样一个事实：我们大多数人都拥有跨越甚至违背国家边界的多重身份。其次，它审视我们宣誓效忠于一个国家的标准——这一过程在大多数时候是潜伏且心照不宣的，只有在面对一个紧急的二元问题时才会迸发到表面：“这场比赛我支持谁？”历史学家艾瑞克·霍布斯鲍姆（Eric Hobsbawm）关于足球孕育了“数百万人的想象共同体”的名言，当你意识到这个共同体通常没有明确的边界或政体，且在 90 分钟内从地球每个角落汲取成员时，这句话产生了一种微妙且不同的共鸣。
在决赛之外，这或许是本届世界杯中一个被隐藏的故事：国家效忠正逐渐被重新构想为一种一次性消费品牌。在六周的时间里，整个孟加拉国都为阿根廷而疯狂。一群住在北伦敦的中亚朋友搁置了他们之间的内斗，共同为乌兹别克斯坦喝彩。随着赛事的推进，阿拉伯侨民坚定地支持摩洛哥和埃及。那些在小型环岛上看到圣乔治十字旗就被斥为厌恶的左翼进步主义者，突然之间将这个十字在自己的脸颊上涂抹。
奇怪的是，这一现象既没有被完全定义为左翼，也没有被完全定义为右翼。如果说民族主义长期以来被视为民粹主义右翼的专属，而国际主义被视为知识分子左翼的专属，那么如今的情况要微妙得多。如今的右翼煽动者既可能宣誓效忠唐纳德·特朗普或挥舞以色列国旗，也同样可能维护他们实际所属的国家。特朗普政府一贯表现出对南非白人比对美国黑人更多的团结。在英语世界中，保守派媒体随意地跨越国界建立联盟，诉诸于“犹太-基督教价值观”或“西方文明”等抽象概念，同时谴责并非人性化地将许多同胞视为叛徒和人渣。
这一切都颠覆了数十年以来人们告知我们的关于世界杯以及国际体育运动的认知。一场理论上应该是民族主义终极游乐场的赛事，实际上却证明了恰恰相反的结果：国家意识作为一种观念，其脆弱性日益增加。社会心理学家迈克尔·比利格（Michael Billig）所称的“平庸民族主义”（banal nationalism）——即潜意识中日常的国家认同符号——现在已经变得如此平庸，以至于本质上是可以随意丢弃的。如果国家认同现在变成了像一件足球球衣一样可以轻松穿上和脱掉的东西，那么它究竟有什么用处？
足球在构建国家认同方面的作用往往被夸大了。法国在 1998 年世界杯上的夺冠被誉为对其多民族认同的肯定，但
我们生活在一个国家边界既被前所未有地尖锐地唤起，又被模糊地定义的时代。在西欧，极右翼的声音在宣扬民族主义教条的同时，又因为自己的国家队有太多黑人球员而对其进行谩骂。在哥伦比亚和巴西，许多左翼球迷拒绝穿国家队球衣
四年后，它将让-玛丽·勒潘（Jean-Marie Le Pen）进入总统大选的最终轮。阿根廷 1978 年在主场获得胜利，引发了该国军事独裁政权的支持率飙升，但到 1983 年
乔纳森·刘（Jonathan Liew）是
《卫报》专栏作家
——这是由于它被右翼民粹主义者所利用。
它便崩溃了。英格兰在 2021 年闯入欧洲冠军杯决赛，尽管带来了许多积极氛围和公开信，但并未能阻止我们更广泛地陷入低俗政治和文化战争。
尽管有旗帜和盛典，国籍最终不过是一个品牌，一种消费选择
但偶尔，它能起到一面镜子的作用。或许这次世界杯反映出一种混乱的希望：一个物理边界日益僵化的世界，注定在与现实接触时分崩离析。尽管有旗帜和盛典，国籍最终不过是一个品牌，一种消费选择——一个任何人都可以愉快地穿上六周，然后同样轻松地脱掉的面具。
除了深夜的笑声，女性之行是一次难得的反思机会
社会
“女性之行”（girls’ trip）已成为一种制度，是“猎人”文化（hun culture）的核心教义，也是无数电影、书籍和电视节目的主题，最近的一部是《五星级周末》（The Five-Star Weekend），在片中，丧偶的詹妮弗·加纳（Jennifer Garner）将人生不同阶段的朋友们聚集在一起度假。我自己的小说《女性，裸体》（Female, Nude）以一次前往希腊别墅的女性之行为背景，探讨了四名 30 岁出头女性之间的友谊，她们都开始对自己关于抱负、婚姻和母亲身份的问题产生疑问。我的主角索菲（Sophie）对自己认为在人生下一阶段必须做出的牺牲感到最强烈的不满，这也是部分原因导致她陷入了一段激烈的婚外情。
她的故事并不新鲜。自从被压抑和控制的家庭主妇雪莉·瓦伦丁（Shirley Valentine）在 1980 年代与好友简（Jane）一起前往希腊起，女性之行就成了解放的代名词（即使对于那些没有背离感情关系的人来说也是如此），以及女性对共同远离喧嚣之时间的深切需求。作为一名成年女性重新观看《雪莉》时，感到一种强烈的酸楚。并非我们所有人都有机会旅行，或者感到如此自由。在我出发旅行前，另一位女性对我说：“你能这么做太棒了。”当时我们讨论了在家里有如此多相互冲突的需求时，组织一次假期会有多么困难。
我认识我的旅伴已经快 20 年了，我们现在共有七个孩子，
全部在八岁以下。在不需要担心必须回到他们身边的情况下游向大海，
进行一场没有他们打扰且没有男性的对话，感觉如此罕见而珍贵。甚至可以说是一种奢侈。我们谈论了一切：出生、死亡、健康，我们的身体以及感官。
瑞安农·露西·科斯莱特 (Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett) 是《卫报》专栏作家
刚刚结束了一次期待已久的普利亚女子之旅，如果说这次旅行达到了预期，那简直是轻描淡写。我们游泳、小睡、地 reminisce（追忆往昔），品尝着少许生鱼片（crudo），啜饮着美味的菲亚诺（fiano）白葡萄酒；我们在 Airbnb 的餐桌旁跳舞，并跟着《Sarà perché ti amo》一起合唱。
关于身份，关于我们爱过、正爱着以及不爱的人，关于我们的孩子，以及我们对他们的希望与恐惧。我们聊到了时尚、足球、是否要买人寿保险、在海滩上把炸米团（arancino）放多久吃起来还安全，以及变老这件事。对话起伏波动——我们随心所欲地切入或退出——在这种融合了喜剧感与心碎的、极具女性色彩的氛围中，我们抵达了一些深刻的真理（或者，也许那只是因为辛辣的玛格丽特鸡尾酒在起作用）。
最重要的是，我们大笑，有时笑到肚子痛，脸上挂满泪珠。
人们倾向于将女子之旅琐碎化——“噢看，那些姑娘们在喝酒了！”——事实上，我刚才关于玛格丽特酒的调侃就在这么做。确实有些人认为女子之旅不是一个值得进行严肃文化或文学探讨的主题（那些糟糕的《欲望之城》电影对此毫无帮助）。但我知道我想写一次这样的旅行，因为正是通过这种暂时脱离生活、与一群认识多年且深为关心的女性共处的机会，你的情感才会被深刻地凸显出来。
女人们的旅行真是太快乐了（尽管考虑到我们的年龄，在这里用“女性”这个词总觉得哪里不对）。也许是因为在度假期间，有时我被带回了我们确实还是“女孩”并在意大利一起学习的时光（尽管这次遭遇的街头骚扰少得多——意识到这一点让我心情复杂，直到一句迟到的“Che bellissime!”挽救了局面）。
由 Aperol 提供动力——它完全可以赞助这些旅行
随之而来的启示或许会带来改变，或许不会，但当自由、欢乐和严肃的自我审视交织的机会出现时，应该永远把握住。我回国时确实带着一种全新的视角。是时候开始计划下一次旅行了 •
VERSHININ/GETTY
联合王国
作为首席秘书，他深谙内阁的内部运作之法，他管理过国民医疗服务体系（NHS）和大曼彻斯特地区。除此之外，他深知外部日常世界中人们不满的情绪，那里收入停滞不前。
“我有一个计划，”他敢于声称，这让愤世嫉俗者和心怀恶意的人冷笑，因为每个人都知道战争、瘟疫、暴乱、唐纳德·特朗普以及未知的未知因素，总会打乱唐宁街电子表格中精心设计的规划。他知道现在是最好的时代，是浪尖，是希望的涨潮。因此，他绝不能浪费这个机会。
为了提醒人们时间紧迫且道路艰辛，基尔·斯塔默正确地表示，他使这个国家变得“更强大、更公平”。他被推翻的并非是因为阴谋家，而是因为公众毫不掩饰的敌意：仅有 28% 的人认为他做得好，而 64% 的人并不认同。他的胜利在于吸引了足够的选票，从而扫除那个带来了脱欧、摧毁了 NHS、削减了地方议会资金、阻碍了法院运作、填满了监狱、使食品银行成为默认社会保障体系并降低公共服务水平的政党。
只有极大的雄心能将一个人带到 10 号，而安迪·伯纳姆的雄心达到了惊人的高度。他真的能实现 40 年来最大的变革吗？他能建立一个新的经济体系吗？这位新任首相将自己与那些强大的目标紧紧绑定在一起。
伯纳姆就任之初是近年来最受欢迎的首相：他的净支持率远高于基尔·斯塔默、鲍里斯·约翰逊、伊丽莎斯·特拉斯或里希·苏纳克在就职时的水平。而这些人没过多久支持率就全部暴跌。预计在就任的前 100 天内，将出现大量标志性政策。通过观察他的内阁人选来解读其意图，他在指示每位成员具体实现什么样的
愿景之余，还加入了一项风险更高的任务——立即结束露宿街头。这一目标极具可见度，将成为对其权力范围的一次考验。
他深知前方任务的艰巨。事实上，他是近年来进入那扇门（唐宁街）的最有经验的首相。他了解财政部
[[IMG_ILLUSTRATION: GUARDIAN DESIGN; ANDY RAIN/EPA]]
成立于 1821 年，由 斯科特信托 独立所有
与其说是在进行“中国最大化”，不如说世界正变得“避美”
他希望财政部发挥的作用：作为财政大臣的约翰·希利将是他计划的关键，无论该计划是什么。
预计他将展现出在梅克菲尔德竞选时那种大胆的作风，当时改革党刚刚横扫了所有议会席位。如果他当时失败了，对他个人以及可能的工党而言，一切都将宣告结束。
伯纳姆可能比斯塔默是一个更幸运的统帅：《金融时报》报道称，他拥有额外的 £16bn ($21.5bn) 用于资本支出。经济学家们在他的办公桌上堆满了建议，指出在不违反竞选宣言承诺或惊动债券市场的情况下，可以搜集到数十亿资金：其中一人威尔·哈顿宣称，“仓库并非空空如也”。
今年早些时候，一批西方 TikTok 和 Instagram 创作者宣布，他们正处于“人生中一个非常中国化的时刻”——在家里喝热水并穿拖鞋。这种“中式最大化”（Chinamaxxing）现象主要反映了网红们对新颖内容的持续需求。但社交媒体的趋势也反映出人们对中国日益增长的着迷。
对北京的严重担忧依然存在，但北京可能会从较低的预期中获益。众所周知，北京只有一个盟友：朝鲜。华盛顿则有 50 多个——但似乎对他们的尊重程度还不如对对手。北京拘留了两名加拿大公民 1,000 多天。但唐纳德·特朗普宣布加拿大将成为第 51 个州。
皮尤研究中心（Pew Research Center）一项令人震惊的新民调显示，当特朗普政府在苦思冥想中国的经济、军事和技术进步时，反而加速了北京的外交进展。在受访的 36 个主要国家（包括加拿大、墨西哥和澳大利亚）中，中国和习近平首次被认为比美国及其总统更受欢迎。只有在六个国家中，人们对美国的评价更高。在 20 个国家中，对中国持好感的人数中位数从 2023 年的 32%上升到今年的 46%；而美国的这一比例则从 58%下降到 36%。拉丁美洲、非洲以及南亚和东南亚部分地区对中国的看法比在较富裕的欧洲和东亚国家更为积极。
中国正在投资海外影响力行动，包括与当地社交媒体内容创作者合作或放大其内容。内容范围可能从付费的新疆旅游日志到关于饮食或技术的温和素材。
干扰其他国家的程度被认为比中国所做的还要深。唐纳德·特朗普要求接管格陵兰岛、绑架当时委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗以及对伊朗发起的非法战争，都留下了印记。甚至世界杯也被他的霸凌行为所玷污。
他在对手方面很幸运。奈杰尔·法拉奇在克莱克顿与“宾面伯爵”（Count Binface）搏斗时把自己搞得像个蠢货，同时愤怒地回避关于巨额资金的问题。凯米·巴德诺克在那些喧闹的媒体意识形态分子的误导下，领导她的政党离选民越来越远：支持净零气候目标的人数是反对者的两倍，但她认为即使在热浪袭来之时，放弃该目标也是一张获胜的入场券。安迪·伯纳姆将在竞选宣言的承诺上保持稳定。随着公众对脱欧感到后悔并希望与欧洲建立更紧密的联系，巴德诺克却反常地计划将任何支持留在《欧洲人权公约》中的“软弱者”（wets）驱逐出党。在她的这代保守党人离职或为脱欧灾难请求原谅之前，她的政党注定将处于边缘地带。
她有理由担心。巴德诺克称伯纳姆身上那种“飘飘然”的特质，其实是他所拥有的、而她所缺乏的温暖和亲和力。这无法伪造。“能引起共鸣”（Relatable）是一个经常被用来形容他的词——其他词还包括“有连接感”、“契合”，
“倾听”和“理解”。他擅长运用语言和情感氛围。他很擅长承认自己走到了今天，而没有陷入自吹自擂或反向自卑。
波莉·托因比（Polly Toynbee）是《卫报》专栏作家
在写关于阶级的回忆录时，我请每个人告诉我一个因为阶级而感到尴尬的时刻。我很喜欢他的回答：在剑桥大学，一名女孩邀请这个工人阶级男孩共进晚餐，但他却在中午而不是晚上出现了。这种经历起初让他产生了冒充者综合征，但现在他似乎在任何地方都感到自在。这也是斯塔默的真实故事，然而，无论他多么频繁地谈论他那个做工具制造工的父亲，某种沟通温度的缺失使得人们无法那样看待他。那位就读于利兹大学的首相是一个穿着西装的“先生”，而这位受过剑桥教育的首相安迪则是穿着 T 恤的“共鸣先生”。
皮尤研究中心（Pew）的调查结果可能会进一步使中国确信华盛顿的霸权地位正在衰落。中国热衷于引导一种认知，即它正跃向一个充满赛博朋克城市的闪亮新未来，而西方则在生活水平下降中苦苦挣扎。
但公众对其他国家的感知通常是复杂且不稳定的。美国的声望在因伊拉克战争而大幅下降后有所回升；中国的好感度评级在疫情期间下降，反映了其对疫情的处理方式。对于这两个超级大国来说，持久的教训无疑应该是：形象塑造决定观点，但他人将根据其行动来评判——并做出相应的反应 •
一个成功的首相所具备的素质是难以捉摸的；没有现成的手册。你永远不知道他们的脊梁有多坚硬。他们会在逆境中屈服，还是会被矛盾的建议吹离航道——或者，他们是否知道在必要时何时该弯曲？我原以为斯塔默（Starmer）和布朗（Brown）具备这些素质：两人都是聪明、体面且严肃的人，但事实证明，他们并非领导者。公众对两人都没产生好感。毫无疑问，那些敢于觊觎这份最可怕工作的古怪之辈，永远不知道自己是否真的具备这些素质。他们是否都觉得自己像个冒牌货？
上周四，唐纳德·特朗普指责中国干预 2020 选举——这让人们对中期选举前的民调产生怀疑，据预测，共和党将在中期选举中遭受重创。尽管缺乏证据，但这并不重要；他曾在去年 10 月向阿根廷人提供 200 亿美元的经济激励，以诱导其按照他的偏好投票。在几乎每个受访国家中，更多的人认为美国
在唐宁街听他的讲话，我们听到的是一位优秀的演说家，有着良好的政治记录和良好的人格，带来了诚意。其余的则是希望 •
读者来信
免受极端高温的影响。
抗击气候变化有益于我们的心理健康。伦敦帝国理工学院公布的关于 5 月和 6 月热浪导致死亡人数的数据是一个严峻的提醒：气候变化不仅是用温度等级来衡量的，也是用失去的生命来衡量的（英国报告称，6 月热浪在高峰期“每天导致 440 人死亡”，7 月 17 日）。
[此处缺失/断层] 其在宣传高温健康紧急情况方面尽了一份力。1940 年，丘吉尔和艾特利跨党派合作。在 2026 年，谁将团结我们共同防御致命的高温？ 伍迪·坎（Woody Caan），英国，英格兰，达克斯福德
为了纪念“大橡树”（Major oak）而开展的共同国家行动可能会具有变革意义。 丽贝卡·克利福德教授（Prof Rebecca Clifford），英国，英格兰，杜伦大学
好消息是，解决方案是存在的。例如，南澳大利亚州的高温健康预警系统包括对弱势群体（包括心理健康状况不佳者）进行每日福利检查。
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在制造汽车时，尺寸确实至关重要。世界迫切需要更聪明地对待车辆燃料消耗；我们需要放弃购买那些对环境危害最严重的车辆（自 2000 年以来，欧洲汽车的尺寸每年都在增长，“科学与环境”版，7 月 3 日）。
请提供完整的邮寄地址并注明参考文章。我们可能会对信件进行编辑。所有信件的提交和发表均受我们的条款和条件约束，详见：
在罗宾汉橡树令人悲伤的死亡后我们可以采取的步骤。我相信人们在得知舍伍德森林的“大橡树”死亡时一定感到非常悲痛（英国报告称，据传曾隐藏罗宾汉的古老橡树已死亡，6 月 26 日）。我们可以共同采取一些步骤，为这棵非凡的树建立一个合适的纪念碑。
极端高温现在正在影响我们的健康，无论是通过夺走生命，还是通过恶化我们的心理健康。因此，气候行动也是为了心理健康的行动。
虽然每一次因极端高温导致的死亡都是一场可以避免的悲剧，但死亡率仅是高温影响我们健康的冰山一角。极端高温还会影响我们的心理健康。在过去几周的北半球，我们都体会到了它如何让我们更难入睡，让我们变得更加烦躁，并降低了我们的注意力集中能力。
Alessandro Massazza 博士，全球心理健康联盟 (United for Global Mental Health)，意大利米兰
THEGUARDIAN.COM/ LETTERS-TERMS
在加拿大，许多驾驶巨型耗油车辆的人似乎认为这是一项基本人权。仅仅是想象一个他们再也无法轻易为这项“权利”加油的世界，就可能让这些驾驶员感到恐惧，尤其是因为对于他们来说，安静得多的电动汽车根本无法替代。Frank Sterle Jr，加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省白岩市 (White Rock, BC)
编辑：Graham Snowdon
• 我一直在思考一个统计数据：近期的热浪每天导致 440 人的超额死亡。我查阅了帝国战争博物馆关于闪电战的统计数据，读到在“黑色星期六”（1940 年 9 月 7 日），最初的轰炸导致约 430 名伦敦人死亡。自 1938 年起，英国皇家空军 (RAF) 等部门一直在忙于规划防御，但闪电战的猛烈程度依然震惊了人们。政策制定者和规划者进行了紧急讨论，而新闻界（在战时审查的限制内）也积极地做出了贡献。
首先，我们需要坚持要求给我们的树木提供适当的法律保护。《卫报》去年报道称，政府已就此主题委托撰写了一份报告。纪念“少校橡树” (Major oak) 的一个合适方式就是联系你的国会议员，敦促他们紧急推进这一议题。另一种方式是在林地信托基金会 (Woodland Trust) 的在线树木清单中记录你所在地区的古树、老树或著名树木。第三种方式则是为任何能够美化周围环境的树木申请树木保护令。任何人都可以这样做，而且
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研究表明，温度升高与负面情绪激增以及自杀风险增加有关。极端高温导致更多心理健康疾病患者入院，同时不幸地导致现有心理健康状况患者的死亡率上升。我们必须确保心理健康
更正 (COR R ECT IONS)
所有法国市镇都建立了弱势居民的热浪登记册，而不仅仅是巴黎和其他城市（《帮助人们在热浪期间适应的四种方法》，特写报道，7 月 3 日）。
《卫报》已经执行
BECK Y BA R N ICOAT 论千禧一代生活 (MILLEN N I A L LIFE)
电影、音乐、艺术、书籍及更多
电影、音乐、艺术、书籍及更多
屏幕 (SCREEN)
EE
第 55 页
age 55
在 Brittany Howard 的带领下，Alabama Shakes 带着新专辑回归，对 2026 年的美国现状发起抨击
音乐
访谈 (INTERVIEW)
在人群中，但我们没有告诉任何人我们要演出。所以这是一个巨大的惊喜——而且非常令人兴奋。”
在 2024 年秋季，Alabama Shakes 没有表现出结束无限期休止的迹象——而且也没有人要求他们这么做。自从这支在 2009 年从阿拉巴马州雅典市 (Athens, Alabama) 爆发的蓝调-灵魂-摇滚乐队最后一次同台演出以来，已经过去了 7 年。他们 2012 年在跨大西洋 Top 10 榜单上亮相的出道专辑《Boys & Girls》让人们认识了他们。随后在 2015 年发行、销量达百万级的《Sound &
作者：Dave Simpson
封面照片
Howard 知道不能就此停止。“觉得很自然地想到：‘让我们再次聚在一起吧。让我们排练。让我们写歌。让我们去巡演，’”她说。“我天真地以为我们会去一些俱乐部和剧院演出，但我们现在参加的一些演出是我们有史以来规模最大的。”
Bobbi Rich
答案的一部分是一首歌。今年 4 月发布的《American Dream》——一幅带有福音色彩的、关于一个正在分崩离析但拒绝为此绝望的国家之快照——在网络上疯传。在接下来的两周里，在经历了十年备受赞誉但影响力较低的个人作品后，Howard 发现自己重新回到了文化讨论的中心。这位歌手将歌词（涉及枪支暴力、气候危机、堕胎权、低薪甚至唐纳德·特朗普对白宫的翻修）描述为“2026 年的一幅快照”，并表达了她希望后代听到这首歌时会想：“‘没错，那时候真糟糕，但我们挺过来了。’”
《Color》在美国夺冠并为他们赢得了四座格莱美奖。他们的粉丝群体包括布鲁斯·斯普林斯汀、罗伯特·普兰特和巴拉克·奥巴马。但到 2017 年，他们在体力上和创意上都精疲力竭，于是停止了活动。随后，在 2024 年 12 月，几乎没有任何预告，他们举行了七年多来的首场演出。
“我们在图斯卡卢萨有个开酿酒厂的朋友，但在新冠疫情后生意不太好，”歌手 Brittany Howard 解释道，“他给我打电话说要举办一场募捐活动，问我想不想演出。我说：‘当然想。’”但随后她开始回忆，记得那位特别的朋友不仅是对她个人，而且是对整个乐队都给予了巨大的帮助。她觉得乐队在集体层面欠他一份情。“于是我给伙计们打了电话，”她笑着说，“‘你们想在这次活动上演出吗——我是说，我们所有人一起？’他们立刻答应了。”
考虑到 2026 年抗议音乐的惨淡现状，这首歌的成功就显得更加难能可贵。除了像布鲁斯·斯普林斯汀的《Streets of Minneapolis》（对美国移民与海关执法局 ICE 杀害 Renée Good 和 Alex Pretti 的强力回应），或者露辛达·威廉姆斯温婉地愤怒的《The World’s Gone Wrong》等光彩的例外，大多数试图探讨唐纳德·特朗普治下美国破败现状的尝试都失败了，要么是因为陈词滥调，要么是因为过于分裂。然而，一夜之间，Alabama Shakes 重新找到了他们的文化定位——这是一个几乎能以同样的气息同时表达愤怒与希望的独特乐队，阐明了数百万人的感受。正如 Howard 所说：“我们以前可能触及过这些主题，但程度远不如现在。”
不久之后，他们发现自己在排练多年未演的歌曲。随后，在 2024 年 12 月 18 日，他们在可容纳 1,000 人的 Bama 剧院演出，受到了热烈的欢迎。吉他手 Heath Fogg 对那场演出记忆犹新。“对我来说，那感觉就像是一种出体体验，”他说，“就是……一种最纯粹的极乐感。自从上次演出后我就没弹过那些歌。除非在餐厅之类的地方偶然听到，否则我根本没听过。然后在演出时，我们认出了那么多人
▲ 6 月，在田纳西州曼彻斯特的 Bonnaroo 音乐与艺术节上，云层遮住了 Alabama Shakes
我们在利兹见面，就在他们在该市千禧广场演出的前一天——这是他们十年来的首次欧洲演出。
SAVANNAH LAUREN SHEALY
Howard 还没缓过时差。Fogg 也是，但他已经出外探索了这座城市。贝斯手 Zac Cockrell 没有加入我们，可能还在睡觉。
此前曾说过这次事件在“我们的家庭上空笼罩了一片雨云”，但她将 2019 年的个人专辑命名为《Jaime》，以纪念教她弹钢琴的姐姐。Howard 本人从该疾病中幸存，尽管这导致她一只眼睛部分失明。
从外部看，停止活动可能显得很疯狂，但这个团体的初衷一直是保护彼此
除了像《Hold On》这样的老歌，这场演出还将揭晓他们即将推出的精彩第三张专辑《I Must Be Dreaming》中的歌曲，这与他们之前大嗓门的复古灵魂乐截然不同。它更加空灵，歌曲主题关于人际关系、他们祖国的现状以及现代生活的节奏与不和谐感。
由于乐队为她提供了表达渠道，他们开始在当地酒吧、养老院，以及远在伯明翰或纳什维尔 150 公里车程外的演出场所表演，只要有人邀请他们就去。最终，在 Drive-By Truckers 和 Jack White 等艺人的邀请下担任开场嘉宾后，他们开始走红。“我们想要的只是组建一支乐队并制作一张专辑，”霍华德说道，“我们从未想到人们会对它如此喜爱。”
“我觉得第一张专辑和第二张之间有相当大的区别，”霍华德说，“但它们之间有一条主线，我对这张专辑的感觉也是如此。我们比以前大了 10 岁，经验也更丰富，但前往不可预测的地方一直是这个组合有趣的部分。”该专辑的第一首单曲《Another Life》从 R&B 演变为朦胧、狂躁的摇滚，并包含一段宏大且令人愉悦的副歌：“我们可以再试一次吗？我们可以在另一个生命中尝试吗？”
这是一次令人心跳加速的崛起，也是那个时代的产物：2010 年代初期或许是大型唱片公司与年轻的流媒体平台协同合作打造新星的最后一个时期，而 Shakes 乐队显然是其中的受益者。但到 2017, 年，随着乐队中两个家庭即将迎来新生儿，霍华德觉得“我们面临着把事情搞砸的危险。从外界看来，停止活动可能很疯狂，但这个组合一直以来就是关于彼此保护和关心的。”于是，他们进入了休息期。
“这是一种表达方式：‘这段关系已经触礁了，’”霍华德说，“‘但也许在下一个生命中，一切都会好起来。’”
这首歌在某种程度上，甚至是潜意识里，是否部分关于这支乐队？“也许吧，当我想到这一点时，因为像这样回归是很不寻常的，”她思考道，“因为这样感觉很好且坦诚。我不是被强迫地这么做的。”
霍华德并没有完全隐退，她制作了两次格莱美提名作品《Jaime》以及广受好评的《What Now》(2024)，同时也很享受能够“只做普通琐事”的状态。2019 年，她与音乐家杰西·拉夫瑟（Jesse Lafser）结婚；这段婚姻仅维持了不到一年。“非常快，”霍华德笑着说，“我们可以进入下一个话题吗？”我们可以，但接下来的话题更为棘手。在 2020, 年，乐队的原鼓手史蒂夫·约翰逊（Steve Johnson）因违反家庭暴力保护令而被判处缓刑和缓刑监督，随后又因故意虐待儿童被逮捕。那些指控后来被撤销。乐队在他离开后重新组建。“我想，经历了像我们这样漫长的旅程，你不能指望什么都不会发生，”霍华德说。她不愿充分讨论这一话题的态度既明显也令人理解。
三人就读于同一所高中，但并不真正认识。后来，霍华德注意到考克雷尔（Cockrell）穿着一件 At the Drive-In 的 T 恤，认为他可能会喜欢她创作的音乐并愿意一起演奏。“我在课堂上找他，在他的本田 Civic 汽车里给他听了一张 CD，这在当时是一件非常有风险（让自己处于弱势）的事情，”她回忆道，“他在快速切过音轨，我当时在想：‘噢，他不喜欢这个。’但随后他说：‘这很酷。我们来做吧。’”福格（Fogg）比他们大三岁，在加入时已经离开大学，三人通过摇滚、朋克、R&B 以及从父母那里学到的老音乐（如 Dionne Warwick、Elvis、Motown）建立了纽带。
如今，霍华德说她的经历让她变成了一个更温柔、更有耐心的人。“我内心一直有那种斗志，但我比以前更倾向于沉思了，”她说，“我知道我无法改变世界上的一切。”这并不是说她不想尝试。另一首新歌，充满爵士灵魂乐风情的《I Feel Hope Coming》，与《American Dream》探讨了相同的主题，但传递了更多的积极情绪。
HOWARD 可以像经典的、老派的灵魂歌手那样倾诉心声，但她最初是一名鼓手，出于必要而开始接触其他乐器，直到她的母亲听到她的磁带并说：“我不知道你会唱歌”，她才意识到自己拥有歌喉。她将自己在石灰县（Limestone County）度过的童年描述为“节奏缓慢”，处于“牧场、小鸟和山火”之间。这并不意味着她缺乏创作歌曲所需的艰辛生活经验。Howard 是同性恋，且是混血儿——在她八岁时，她的白人母亲和黑人父亲分开了，而在此之前，她的姐姐 Jaime 因视网膜母细胞瘤去世。 Howard 曾表示：
“我的观点是，我看到很多人感到愤怒，人们走上街头，保护那些一无所有的人，对抗那些拥有一切的人，”她说。“但愤怒导致抗议，抗议促使人们彼此交流。对我来说，这是充满希望的。美国人民不想要战争。我们希望能够养活自己，给孩子穿衣，为他们编织梦想，并像任何人一样拥有行动自由。这就是那些歌曲所表达的。”
[[IMG_XXXX]] 本月早些时候，Brittany Howard 在意大利的 Lucca 夏季音乐节上的样子
在几个小时后，她将在舞台上表达这些心声。她希望像 《American Dream》和《I Feel Hope Coming》这样的歌曲能成为一个时代的背景音乐：她认为现在正处于一个转折点，美国人开始拒绝仇恨与分裂，转向自由、社会正义和问责制。
FRANCESCO PRANDONI/ GETTY
“我环顾四周，看到所有这些不满的人终于将手指指向那些造成这种情况的人，”她说。“人们终于团结起来并说：‘我错了。让我们采取行动改变它。’”Fogg 表示赞同：“希望可以成为催化剂。首先我们希望，然后我们使其成为现实。”
DAVE SIMPSON 是《卫报》音乐评论家兼作家
《I Must Be Dreaming》将于 28 August 由 Island Records 发行
Culture Screen（文化之窗）
为众多配角表演带来了深度和分量。该从哪里说起？
在《寻找野生之人》（Hunt for the Wilderpeople）中，他是那个令人无法抗拒、脾气古怪的老古板 Hector，是一个调皮的违纪少年 Ricky Baker（Julian Dennison 饰）的养叔叔。在《我的灿烂前程》（My Brilliant Career）中，他是那个风度翩翩、举止得体的 Harry Beecham，试图请求女主角结婚。在《浴血黑帮》（Peaky Blinders）中，他是那个“触怒牛群，必遭顶撞”的强悍警察 Chester Campbell。在《接收》（The Dish）中，他温暖且像长辈一样地诠释了天文台主任 Cliff Buxton……仅举几例。但 Neill 同样能提供极具震撼力的主角表演，他能够赋予角色出人意料的才情和古怪特质，这让人想起好莱坞那句老话：“一个住在男主角身体里的性格演员。”
他最有趣的主角角色之一是在《梅林》（Merlin）中，这是一部两集系列剧，由 Neill 饰演亚瑟王时代的巫师。这部剧在如今可能不再被广泛铭记，但在 1998, 年上映时是一件大事，据报道预算约为 $30m（这在当时的电视制作中是一个巨额数目）。Neill 饰演了一个性感且充满活力的巫师——这并不意外——尽管他也带来了惊人的戏剧分量。
在我看来，他最伟大的表演是在约翰·卡朋特（John Carpenter）那部长期被低估的洛夫克拉夫特式恐怖电影《疯狂山庄》（In the Mouth of Madness）中。他饰演一名愤世嫉俗的保险调查员，在寻找一名失踪的畅销书作者时，被引导至一座极其阴森的小镇，在那里，现实崩溃并陷入噩梦。Neill 在电影开头穿着一件束缚衣，尖叫着“我没疯！”，但看起来和听起来完全——嗯——疯了，眼神狂乱且充满躁动。
一个拥有男主角身姿的性格演员，在他那颠覆常规且多姿多彩的辉煌职业生涯中，贡献了一系列令人难忘的表演。
深受人们喜爱的演员山姆·尼尔（Sam Neill）于上周去世，享年 78, 岁。他在去世后仍将通过三部电影陪伴我们，这三部作品充分展现了他作为一名演员的特质。
这三部电影截然不同：一部是他为一只爱骂人的喜鹊配音的古怪澳大利亚喜剧（《狐狸》）；一部背景设定在菲律宾的浪漫喜剧（《最后的度假地》）；以及一部关于巨型变异奔腾怪兽的好莱坞大片系列续集（《哥斯拉 x 刚》：超新星）。
很少有演员能驾驭这种 11 级别的极致表演——在周围充斥着各种疯狂混乱的同时，依然能让电影在人性层面保持地气（若想寻找尼尔这种全情投入、毫无保留表演的另一个例子，请参考那部极其诡异的《占有》）。
作者：Luke Buckmaster
就在那部电影上映前一年，尼尔贡献了一场完全不同的表演，几乎所有看过电影的人都见过：他在《侏罗纪公园》中饰演古生物学家艾伦·格兰特博士。格兰特理智且务实，但同时带有一定的锋芒、坚毅和驱动力。他在《侏罗纪公园 3, 》中晋升为男主角，尽管那部电影并不算太出色，但尼尔从相对次要的角色到绝对主导的球员之间实现了无缝衔接。
这些差异充分说明了尼尔的戏路之宽，以及他无法被定型的特质。大多数演员都会拥有一种套路或招牌风格：也许他们是强悍的动作英雄，浪漫的情迷心窍之选，可靠的剧情片主角，或是夸张的反派。
尼尔既是这一切，又并非其中任何一种，他极其壮观地打破了标签和框架，留下了他勇于接受各类挑战的深刻印象。
这种精神同样体现在他电影业之外的生活中——包括创办了 Two Paddocks 酒庄，以及他长期作为环保主义者为包括海洋保护在内的事业而奋斗。
说他具有广泛的戏路和多面性简直是极大的保守说法：他既有支撑大片的魅力，也有在野蛮且诡异的制作中完全不按常理出牌的胆量。他留下了一系列极其多元的作品集。我们将深切地怀念他。
▲ 不被定型：山姆·尼尔极其壮观地打破了标签和框架
在另一个平行现实中，尼尔可能会被人们铭记为一名出色的性格演员。
LUKE BUCKMASTER 是《卫报》澳大利亚版的电影评论员及作者。
ROBERT MARQUARDT/ GETTY
银幕
十年前，菲比·沃勒-布里奇（Phoebe Waller-Bridge）盯着摄像机，问她的观众：“我的屁股是不是超级大？”这段关于一次出人意料地——且字面意义上地——走向糟糕的约炮独白，其出其不意的笑点宣布了沃勒-布里奇成为英国电视圈的一颗新星。这部半小时的喜剧剧集《Fleabag》（《嬉皮女》）打破了第四面墙，也刷爆了互联网。它的第二季规模更大，催生了无数讨论安德鲁·斯科特（Andrew Scott）饰演的“性感牧师”以及沃勒-布里奇所穿的那套抢购一空的 Topshop 连体裤的评论文章。
尽管《Fleabag》的崛起程度远超同类作品，但它也为来自不同阶层的女性创作更多剧集打开了大门。
另一个全球性的成功故事是米凯拉·科尔（Michaela Coel）的《I May Destroy You》（《我可能毁了你》），该剧将围绕性、性别和权力的复杂动态进行了戏剧化呈现。这部剧于 2020 年首播，给人的感觉清新且及时，在形式上也具有创新性，最后一集为女主角呈现了一个颠覆性的、由观众选择冒险方向的结局。作者阿拉贝拉（Arabella，科尔饰）在三个想象的场景中与她的强奸犯对峙，但没有一个场景能带来终结。与《Fleabag》一样，这是一部高度原创的剧集，在情感的沉重打击与喜剧时刻之间取得了平衡。悲伤、性侵犯和精神疾病等严肃主题在半小时的剧集中得以体现，但并没有以牺牲笑话为代价。
《Fleabag》和沃勒-布里奇都因开辟了一条道路而受到称赞，女性节目制片人和她们的女性主义创作随后便可沿着这条路大步前行。这为沃勒-布里奇赢得了一份与亚马逊（Amazon）签署的独家协议，据报道每年价值 $20m。这部剧的成功无疑改变了她的生活。但是，十年后，随着英国电视行业被流媒体的崛起、预算削减以及新人才机会的减少所重塑，它如何改变了电视产业？
由 HBO 共同制作的《I May Destroy You》在视觉上也极具野心。标准的英国半小时喜剧正在寻找一种新形式：一种由喜剧和正剧组成的混合、半严肃作品，并且越来越多地得到美国资金的支持。“我们试图让《Fleabag》看起来更像正剧而不是喜剧，并投入尽可能多的资金，赋予它一种你们不那么熟悉的审美，”该剧的开发者兼执行制片人哈里·威廉姆斯（Harry Williams）说道。
十年前，《Fleabag》，这部菲比·沃勒-布里奇的忏悔式喜剧，开启了女性主导电视剧的新时代。但这种成功可以复制吗？
在 2010 年代中期，流行女性主义无处不在。也就是说，除了在英国电视上之外。英国编剧工会的一份报告显示，从 2001 到 2016 年，黄金时段电视节目中仅有 14% 由女性编写，而在情景喜剧中，这一比例更是可怜地仅为 11%。 “我们甚至在制作《Fleabag》之前就意识到，性别平衡糟糕透顶，且一直希望能改变这一点，”曾协助该剧获得拍摄许可的前 BBC 喜剧委任官克里斯·萨斯曼（Chris Sussman）表示。
与 2000 年代喜剧相对简约的视觉风格不同，《Fleabag》和《I May Destroy You》相对较高的制作价值表明了一种更具全球视野的野心。这得益于共同制作资金的支持。随着内部预算停滞或缩减，国际流媒体平台与英国广播公司合作现已成为常态。Netflix、HBO、Hulu、Peacock、Disney+ 和 A24 已介入填补空白，资助由女性主导的新喜剧，包括 Channel 4 的《We Are Lady Parts》（Peacock 播出）和 BBC 的《Such Brave Girls》（A24 资助）。
作者：Simran Hans
事情已经开始发生了变化。在美国，莉娜·邓纳姆（Lena Dunham）的《女孩们》（Girls）于 2012 年首播，它是千禧一代的一种“令人不快”的《欲望都市》。它激发了人们对女性创作的喜剧的渴望——这种喜剧色情、尴尬、脆弱且怪诞。剧本作者同时也是主演，创作者与主角之间模糊的界限鼓励观众将这些角色视为从生活中截取且更具可信度的真实写照。随后的时期见证了由才华横溢的编剧兼演员创作的、频繁带有半自传色彩的半小时喜剧的大爆发，包括由莎伦·霍根（Sharon Horgan）共同创作的《灾难》（Catastrophe）、黛西·哈格德（Daisy Haggard）的《重获新生》（Back to Life）以及艾斯林·比（Aisling Bea）的《向上走》（This Way Up）。
如果说沃勒-布里奇（Waller-Bridge）成为了由女性创作的英国喜剧剧集一个不可否认的参照点，那么她在某种程度上也成了一个幽灵。《星struck》（Starstruck）的创作者罗斯·马塔费奥（Rose Matafeo）表示，她记得人们将她的剧集与《快手》（Fleabag）进行比较，这被视为“一种赞美，但有点偷懒”。“他们会说：‘看到这样一个千禧一代的失败者，一个完全像车祸现场一样、在生活中随波逐流的人，真是太不可思议了。能看到如此有缺陷的女性角色真是太棒了！’”她冷淡地说道，并指出她笔下的角色与她自己的性格非常接近。
CHANNEL 4; AVALON/ALAMY; TWO BROTHERS PICTURES; BBC; BOFFOLA PICTURES; HBO/AP
电视节目的委任以规避风险而著称，且倾向于复制已证明成功的案例。
全部变样了？（从左至右）：《灾难》中的莎伦·霍根；《星struck》中的罗斯·马塔费奥；《重获新生》中的黛西·哈格德；《如此勇敢的女孩》（Such Brave Girls）中的凯特·萨德勒（Kat Sadler）；《快手》中的菲比·沃勒-布里奇；《向上走》中的艾斯林·比；《我是否不合理？》（Am I Being Unreasonable?）中的黛西·梅·库珀（Daisy May Cooper）；以及《我可能会毁了你》（I May Destroy You）中的米凯拉·科尔（Michaela Coel）。
音乐
随着观众接触到更广泛的女性角色——她们幽默、充满情欲、自我毁灭却依然值得被爱——女性的故事已经进化，超越了由《快手》使其出名的“混乱千禧一代”这一陈词滥调。出现了像黛西·梅·库珀和塞林·希兹利（Selin Hizli）在《我是否不合理？》中塑造的那些尖刻且疲惫不堪的母亲形象。凯特·萨德勒的《如此勇敢的女孩》则以细微的触觉和敏锐的目光探讨了债务、堕胎和自杀倾向。
Jay-Z 纽约市洋基体育场
★★★★☆
几乎难以想象，30 年前，Jay-Z 还只是一个相对默默无闻的布鲁克林说唱歌手，记录着他作为一名江湖骗子（hustler）的生活。作为极有可能是史上最伟大的纯正 MC，Jay 将他的职业生涯建立在克制的、关于纯真梦想的讲述，以及关于金钱收益的夸张诗节之上。
《Fleabag》（《女人们》/《破产女孩》）起初是一部单人剧，随后作为 BBC 一项试点计划的一部分而开发。“资金很少，但压力也很小，”《Fleabag》的制片人之一 Lydia Hampson 说道。它的意外成功很难通过逆向工程来推导。随着公共服务广播机构在培养新兴人才上的投入减少，编剧们面临着更多地将自己塑造为现有模具的压力。“现在有这么多流媒体平台，他们提供了这么多高端的电视节目。但如果你一周吃 10 顿米其林星级大餐，你最后只想吃个汉堡，”Hampson 说。
Jay-Z 在一场视觉震撼的演出中演绎了他的 1996 年首张专辑《Reasonable Doubt》，这场演出在亲密连接与宏大奇观之间取得了平衡。有时，Jay 背后是一块宽阔的、电影般的屏幕，播放着总统的葬礼、迈克·泰森的片段，或者他的妻子碧昂丝 (Beyoncé) 为他理发的画面，这种对细节的关注确保了这座容量 50,000 人的场馆仍具有亲密感。演出以碧昂丝演唱 $\textit{Can’t Knock the Hustle}$ 开场，她替代了 Mary J Blige。Nas 加入演唱了由 $\textit{Dead Presidents}$、$\textit{The World Is Yours}$、$\textit{NY State of Mind}$ 和 $\textit{Where I’m From}$ 组成的组曲，人群沉浸在这些曾经的对手对彼此工艺的相互尊重之中。
★★★★★
Ana Mendieta 1948, 出生于古巴哈瓦那，12 岁时为了逃离革命被送到美国。在白人美国人之中，她觉得自己像个局外人，她用血液、羽毛、花朵和沙子以如此新鲜的方式创作艺术，让你觉得这些物质是全新的发明。Mendieta 在 1980. 年首次回到古巴。随后在 1981, 年，也就是她的父亲从当地政治监狱获释两年后，她在自然保护区的僻静角落雕刻了令人惊叹的石灰岩雕塑。她的黑白照片使这些“岩壁雕塑” (Rupestrian Sculptures) 看起来像是一个失落文明的神秘痕迹。曲线优美的丰腴女神从岩层中升起，成为人类文化中虽被侵蚀却持久的杰作。这是根植于有机物质的艺术，具有产生令人难忘意象的奔放能力。Mendieta 在 1985 年去世，享年 36, 岁，死因在极具争议的情况下发生。一个从未从公寓坠落的 Mendieta 将会处于本世纪艺术的前沿。但她同样会觉得自己在石器时代如鱼得水。—— Jonathan Jones 至 17 January 2027
“我认为在原创想法方面存在某种风险规避倾向，”她说。“在过去五年里，作为一名制片人，我感受到了这一点。那些大型流媒体平台就像是在说：‘如果我们能依靠 IP，那么我们就能依靠订阅用户数，进而依靠点击量，’”她说。“但如果有些东西能像 $\textit{Fleabag}$ 那样在不被察觉的情况下出现，那可能会让那些规避风险的钱袋子松开……”这就是 $\textit{Fleabag}$ 成功的奇妙讽刺之处：它为英国喜剧吸引的资金将后续作品的预期——以及财务风险——提高到了不切实际的高度。
这场演出并非没有笨拙之处：Blue Ivy Carter 在她父亲演唱删除了部分脏话的 $\textit{Feelin’ It}$ 版本之前演奏了钢琴。而 Alicia Keys 出来演唱 $\textit{Empire State of Mind}$ 的副歌部分，与像 $\textit{Regrets}$ 这样具有冲击力的歌曲相比显得格格不入。尽管如此，这是一次庆典，一个充满喜悦与情感的体育场，是对一张改变了一个男人的人生并为无声者发声的专辑在 30 年后的致敬。这场演出大胆地向你发问：如果没有肖恩·卡特 (Shawn Carter)，嘻哈音乐会变成什么样？—— Jayson Buford 将于 9 月和 10 月在伦敦、巴黎和洛杉矶演出。
这十年英国最成功的两部电视出口剧集都始于爱丁堡节日边缘剧场（Edinburgh festival fringe），这绝非巧合。对于制作了《嬉萌女》（Fleabag）和《驯鹿宝贝》（Baby Reindeer）剧场版的弗朗西斯卡·穆迪（Francesca Moody）来说，它们后来的成功直接得益于它们在实验性边缘剧场中的起点。“这里在历史上一直是艺术家们能够尝试想法、承担风险并以一种不拘形格的方式表达自我的空间，”她说道。
在《嬉萌女》之后，沃勒-布里奇（Waller-Bridge）的项目则较为低调。她创作了《杀死伊芙》（Killing Eve）的电视剧改编版并撰写了第一季。她的其他唯一资历是担任詹姆斯·邦德电影《无时间死去》（No Time to Die）的共同编剧，以及在最新的《印第安纳琼斯》续集中担任共同主演（尽管《古墓之盗》的电视剧改编版正在筹备中）。
每当我想到《嬉萌女》，我就会想起那张海报：沃勒-布里奇脸部的特写极具冲击力，睫毛膏顺着脸颊流下。尽管剧集播出后引起了巨大的轰动，但她并非什么“每个女人的缩影”；用她自己的话来说，她只是一个“贪婪、变态、自私、冷漠、愤世嫉俗、堕落且道德破产，甚至不能称自己为女权主义者的女人”。而现在，屏幕上这样的形象已不再是唯一。
本周播客：丹·塔伯斯基（Dan Taberski）的《宣言》（Manifesto）。著名播客主塔伯斯基在这个新系列中探讨理论。通过研究“占领”运动、路易吉·曼吉翁（Luigi Mangione）以及与大规模枪击手的关联，他希望挽回“宣言”这一概念，使其再次成为一种具有艺术感的集结号。尽管他的节目缺乏一个核心谜团，但却相当引人入胜。——汉娜·J·戴维斯（Hannah J Davies）
西姆兰·汉斯（SIMRAN HANS）是一名文化撰稿人
书籍
……关于人群的“类型”：雪花（snowflake）、喷子（troll）、取消文化战士、顽固偏见者（bigots）、哭诉霸凌者、非自愿独身者（incel）等等。真正驱动这些争论的是一套关于人格的隐含判断：什么样的人想要监管他人的言论？什么样的人不在意自己的话语对他人的影响？
这就是哲学家所说的“美德伦理学”（virtue ethics）领域。关于言论自由的争论，实际上是在争论一组美德——真诚、勇气、慷慨、关怀——以及拥护这些美德的人的人格。
在欧洲和美国，几乎每个人都认同言论自由大体上是一件好事。然而，我们发现人们在关于“一个自由发声者应该是什么样的（好）人”的不同愿景上陷入挣扎。其中三种愿景最为突出：第一种将自由发声者视为分享想法的理性公民，如文学小组的作家，或镇民会议上的公民。第二种中，自由发声者是一个热衷于打破规则和惯例的人——想想那些亵渎神明的艺术作品。第三种则将自由发声者视为一个勇敢且正直的、坚持真理的人——经典例子就是举报人（whistleblowers）。
插图由 ELIA BARBIERI 绘制
T H E BIG I D E A
2015年1月，两名基地组织成员枪杀了法国讽刺杂志《查理周刊》（Charlie Hebdo）的漫画家，以报复该刊发布的关于先知穆罕默德的漫画。在接下来的几周里，我的Facebook页面分裂成了两半。我的许多童年好友（我在法国长大，在巴黎附近上学）对他们熟悉了数十年的艺术家的去世表示悲痛，对宗教极端主义表示愤怒，并对言论自由的衰落感到担忧。
为什么关于言论自由的辩论会让我们如此愤怒？我们假设对方心怀不轨；但事实更为复杂。
与此同时，我的许多英国和美国学术同事在第一次接触《查理周刊》时，担心穆斯林会被污名化，并对最初发布这些图片的明智程度表示怀疑；其中一人转发了一篇博客，将那些漫画家描述为“种族主义混蛋”。
我很庆幸这两组朋友之间几乎没有交集。每一方都会认为对方表达的部分观点极其令人不快且在道德上不可接受。两组在之前一周还分享相同类型的迷因、被相似事物逗笑或激怒的人，竟然变成了两个价值观似乎完全不相容的截然不同的群体。我花了很长时间在各种朋友的贴文下写下痛苦的评论，试图阐明我对此的立场——然后又把它们删掉了。不久之后，我离开了Facebook。而且，因为我是一名人类学家，我启动了一个研究项目，以弄清楚到底发生了什么。
作者：马泰·坎德亚 (Matei Candea)
言论自由的辩论似乎是关于抽象原则和规则的：什么应该被允许？何时越界？我们需要更多还是更少的监管？这些分歧是真实的——但它们无法解释为什么我们会对言论自由产生如此深层的愤怒、沮丧和分裂。近年来的言论自由之战不仅仅关乎规则，更关乎如何成为一个好人。请注意，此类辩论中充斥着刻板印象。
有时，一个人可能同时扮演这三种角色。在其他语境中，这三种角色之间存在内在的紧张关系：在路障后不顾理性和分寸地慷慨激昂地呐喊的活动家；冷静地剖析活动家最珍视之信念的理智公民；以及通过揭露真相令体面公民感到震惊和不快且勇敢的真相讲述者。
一旦我们将言论自由的辩论视为关于伦理和人格的辩论，而非关于规则和原则的辩论，我们就能理解为什么人们前一分钟还在为言论自由而争论，后一分钟就谴责对手所说的话。我们的三种“类型”都在真诚地捍卫言论自由，但每一种有时也有充分的理由要求沉默。理智公民支持通过法律、版权或礼仪来限制言论；热情的活动家可能认为应该让权势者沉默，以便让弱者发声；而光荣的真相讲述者则要求对方尊重其价值观，并对其或其朋友受到的侮辱进行赔偿。
当然，这些典型的发言者是虚构的。但他们已经比我们最初面对的扁平化漫画（如“雪花”，troll等）更立体。这种人类学视角的目的并不是为了改变你对言论自由的看法或动摇你的信念——而是为了提供一种语言，通过它能更清晰地审视对方的信念，并识别出双方共有的前提。
进一步阅读：三本深入探讨此议题的书籍
我们需要一种不再那么绝对、因此更加稳健的对言论自由的承诺；一种为理性和逻辑、炽热的激情以及勇敢的正直留有空间的承诺。
MATEI CANDEA 是剑桥大学教授，且为《理智、狂欢与荣誉：言论自由的人类学》一书的作者
58 文化
书籍
脱欧确实是一次客观上的失败，这一点几乎无需否认。一项来自斯坦福大学的独立研究发现，到 2025 年，与原本可能的情况相比，脱欧使英国 GDP 降低了 6% 至 8%。投资萎缩了 12% 至 18%，而就业率和生产率则降低了 3% 至 4%。
……归因于缺乏任何试图以具体的政治和社会术语来定义那种“某种程度上”的实际尝试。
为此，人们必须转向由政治学家 Ailsa Henderson 和 Richard Wyn Jones 开展的持续进行的“英格兰的未来”调查。最近的一次调查发现，法拉奇的支持者将“成为英格兰人”排在“成为父母”之上，将其视为衡量自身身份的标志。
《离开欧盟的生活》系列论文探讨了脱欧的遗产，但忽略了房间里那头民族主义的大象
脱欧并未预示着一个被解放的统治阶级的重新出现，此前他们的才华被欧洲大陆的阴云所遮掩。有趣的是，支持脱欧的前保守党议员 Conor Burns 在他的文章中写道，由鲍里斯·约翰逊任命的内阁秘书 Simon Case 是个“轻量级”人物——“这就是他被任命的原因”。
对于那些将成为英格兰人视为身份核心的人来说，他们在 2016 年并不快乐，现在也不更快乐。Henderson 和 Wyn Jones 发现他们“深刻地意识到，在他们看来，过去的辉煌与如今的落魄之间存在着刺眼的对比；一个其同名国家群体似乎感到内外夹击的英格兰；一个为了缓解担忧而确保了重大变革（尤其是脱欧），但对结果仍深感不满的英格兰”。
作者：Fintan O’Toole
有声书
本周推荐：《悲伤是长着羽毛之物》，作者 Max Porter
本周之书：《脱欧效应，2016-2026》
有趣的是，Case 同样出现并分摊了责任：“一个摆脱布鲁塞尔官僚主义枷锁的国家愿景，迅速变成了思维混乱、谈判无果、议会泥潭和行政混乱的现实。”
编辑：Anthony Seldon
在妻子突然去世几天后，一名悲痛欲绝的男人打开前门，一只巨大的乌鸦将他卷入翅膀之中并告诉他：“在你不再需要我之前，我不会离开。”在震惊之中，这个男人面临着独自抚养两个幼子的前景。这部富有创意的短篇小说利用诗歌、对话和超自然元素，审视了一个在妻子和母亲离世后挣扎中的家庭。讲述者拉塞尔·托维（Russell Tovey）熟练地驾驭了书中多变的风格，带来了精彩绝伦的演绎。——菲奥娜·斯特吉斯（Fiona Sturges）
这本由 43 位不同作者撰写的庞大论文集（包括七位勋爵、四位男爵夫人、一位女爵以及三位王国骑士），可能是我们能接触到的最接近于对脱欧原因及其后果的半官方反思的作品。其编辑安东尼·塞尔登爵士（Sir Anthony Seldon）是唐宁街 10 号的荣誉历史学家，并针对 21 世纪以来历任英国政府撰写了权威著作。
资深反欧盟活动人士、前英国独立党（Ukip）议员道格拉斯·卡斯威尔（Douglas Carswell）忧郁地总结道：“‘投票脱欧’（Vote Leave）可能为我们赢得了自治。但我们尚未能很好地治理自己。”自 2016 年以来经历了七任首相，这让人怀疑脱欧后的英国是否根本无法治理。
脱欧是对“英国问题”（English question）的一次不诚实且自残的回应。但那些社会名流们似乎甚至不愿听闻此事，更不用说尝试提供一个更好的答案了。
芬坦·奥图尔（FINTAN O’TOOLE）是一位记者和作家
然而，“英国民族主义”这个短语在全书 600 页中仅出现了一次——在一次轻描淡写地提到《每日邮报》在 2016 年公投活动期间所采取的立场时。书中完全没有尝试对脱欧获胜的英国地区——非大都市地区的英格兰——内部的紧张、矛盾和焦虑提供哪怕一个概括性的概述。对于大多数政治和知识分子建制派来说，英格兰特性（Englishness）似乎仍然是一个不敢被提及的禁忌。
在脱欧支持者中，没有人真正反思过自己的失败。伯恩斯（Burns）将爱尔兰边境这一棘手问题称为“爱尔兰人制造的问题”，显然没意识到北爱尔兰当时投票支持留在欧盟，且爱尔兰政府显然并不希望脱欧发生。
小说 (FICTION)
《分离度》（Degrees of separation）一部关于婚姻以及争取摆脱关系之自由的杰出刻画。
曾承诺带来黄金时代的经济学家帕特里克·明福德（Patrick Minford）在与朱哲毅（Zheyi Zhu）合著的一篇论文中写道，虽然“短期内脱欧注定会造成混乱”，但其全部意义在于“提高长期表现”。我们或许可以借鉴约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）的观点，并思考在这个所谓的“长期”中，是否所有投脱欧票的人都会在看到这些收益之前就已死去。
这种缺失至关重要，不仅影响对近期过去的理解，更影响英国的近期未来。它避开了最紧迫的问题：为什么当许多投票支持脱欧的人现在都将其视为失败时，那个为促成脱欧做出最大贡献的人，竟然仍然是一个可能的下一任首相候选人？
戴西·希尔 yard (Daisy Hildyard) 著
《第一座房子》（The First House）阿夫尼·多希 (Avni Doshi) 著
然而，这本书中并没有充分证据表明，支持留在欧盟的人更擅长面对脱欧背后的身份危机。苏珊·格林菲尔德（Susan Greenfield）在她的论文中承认，“关于是否离开或留在欧盟这个至关重要的问题，在某种程度上与我们的身份绑定在一起”。但（对于一名神经科学家来说这很合理）她接着仅在认知层面思考身份问题。这本身虽然引人入胜，但在很大程度上起到了转移注意力的作用。
彼得·凯尔纳（Peter Kellner）在他的贡献中指出，现在有三分之一的脱欧投票者认为脱欧是一个失败；令人震惊的是，该群体中四分之一的人认为奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）应对他们的失望负有“很大”责任。认为法拉奇应负责的人数略多于认为欧盟本身应负责的人数。然而，法拉奇在英格兰（以及在某种程度上在威尔士）的政治中依然主导着议程。
vni Doshi 的第二部小说由一名未具名的女性讲述，她在听到丈夫宣布要离开她时感到震惊。她并不爱他，但将他们的婚姻视为她生存的结构。她曾是一名小说家，但自从有了孩子后，她的写作就陷入了停滞。她的丈夫掌控着他们的财务，并且不告诉她
59
N A T U R E（自然）
有些无害，有些致命，它们在等待毫无防备的温血生物。本书沿四个不同的写作轨道展开。第一条轨道是由一位热爱所见之物的敏锐观察者所写的抒情自然描写。这种抒情延伸到了恐怖的场景中：例如，一段精彩的散文描述了肯尼亚正午阳光下的一具腐烂的大象尸体，在大量蛆虫的啃食下缓慢溶解：“一锅沸腾的蛆虫炖汤在蒸汽波中起伏。”随后，语调转变为分类学风格，列举了涉及的各种小生物的属和目。马丁斯（Martins）对大自然的创造力感到惊叹，读者亦然。
为什么信用卡一直刷不通。她怀疑他一直在外面偷情。
在他离开后，她试图让自己孤立起来，不仅是远离前夫，还远离自己的家人，而家人那些出于好意的干涉变成了另一种形式的支配。她是一名执业占星师——书名中的“第一宫”（the first house）既指这对夫妇的家，也指占星学中影响身体、外貌和早年生活经历的天空划分：一个自我的基础。这个自我因被抛弃而暴露。 《第一宫》（The First House）讲述的是这种剥离的过程：一种对叙述者的个体身份和关系的严酷、偶尔带有苦涩幽默的否定。
由 Luca Turin 撰写 《隐藏的生物》（Hidden Creatures） 由 Dino Martins 撰写
她的父母欺负她。她的表亲试图为她介绍其他男人。她的女儿只想要一部手机。关系就像设备一样，承诺连接，交付的却是疏离。
接着是“指控书”。最令人恐惧的部分之一涉及眼虫的生命周期。它们生活在眼眶中——眼睑、结膜、泪腺。雌虫产卵，幼虫游入泪液中。被这种“虫之泪”吸引的苍蝇吸食幼虫；在苍蝇体内，幼虫从肠道钻入睾丸或卵泡，发育成熟，然后迁移到苍蝇的头部等待。当那只苍蝇在另一个动物的眼睛边饮水时，幼虫弹出，循环再次开始。
叙述者的父母来自印度。《第一座房子》（The First House）并没有将种族化置于前景，但它体现在误解之中。
他发现，一茶匙海水中平均含有 5000 万个病毒。不幸的是，大多数这些是感染海洋细菌且对人类不感兴趣的噬菌体，这一事实缓解了上述坏消息。
她的姐姐迪迪（Didi）选择了不同的人生。迪迪与父母同住，有工作，没有伴侣或孩子。她为自己买钻石，并做了面部美容。然而，随着姐妹俩相处的时间增加，叙述者看到了她们为自己构建的这种受保护的生活之间的相似之处。“无论付出什么代价，无论做出什么牺牲，我们都想要安全感。”
病毒是寄生虫，它们搭乘生物体的“顺风车”。多细胞生物存在的全部意义在于为细胞创造一个舒适的生存环境，而进化则发明了各种渴望这种舒适且设法登船的“偷渡者”，它们要么在细胞外部，要么在细胞内部。发展中国家的大多数疾病都与寄生虫感染有关。
在马丁斯的讲述中，寄生虫激起了一种人们通常对聪明罪犯才会产生的情绪：对骗局精妙之处的钦佩，以及对诈骗细节的厌恶。但最终，或许最持久的感受是对生物世界纯粹多样性和创造力的敬畏。
时间紧迫？ 20 本一天内可以读完的精彩书籍
《第一座房子》的核心体验——一个女人陷入将自己从妻子身份中剥离出来的痛苦过程——在其他几部小说和回忆录中也屡见不鲜。然而，多希（Doshi）的叙事脱颖而出。她的文字经过精雕细琢，浓密且敏锐。
迪诺·马丁斯（Dino Martins）的书是一本关于所有小生物的精彩指南，其中一些
卢卡·图林（LUCA TURIN）是一位生物物理学家和作家
汤姆·高尔德（TOM GAU LD）
叙述者痴迷于过去女性人物的毁灭性故事，尤其是邻居花园里的一尊狄安娜（Diana）女神像。神话与占星术一样，对她而言意义重大。相比之下，现实世界则是混乱的。每一次沟通的尝试在根本上都被误解了。
叙述者在给读者的信息中透露出一种紧迫感。“我确实渴望解脱，不是从生命、死亡或任何巨大的宇宙循环中解脱，而是从我自己的恐惧，以及其他人的压迫——他们的观点、攻击，甚至可能是他们的爱——中解脱。”她对关系的拒绝是对个人自由的追求。
黛西·希尔 yard（DAISY HILDYARD）是一位小说家和散文家
唯一奏效的改变 作者：安娜·马瑟尔（Anna Mathur）
当我思考自己在手机上花费了多少时间时，我感到羞愧。那个数字不仅仅是数据；它标志着我想成为的那个“随时在场的母亲”与我在那些时刻的真实状态之间的差距。
我曾经习以为常的低频过度刺激，结果证明让我付出了比预想中更多的代价。我的神经系统终于有了呼吸的空间。我变得不那么易怒，更加专注，而且这种状态不再需要刻意努力。
直到我开始留意，当其中一个孩子（分别为七岁、九岁和 11 岁）在我刷手机时打断我，我的身体发生了什么，情况才开始转变。我感到了瞬间激起的烦躁，听到了自己声音中的尖锐。我一直把这种没耐心地发火视为耐心问题和性格缺陷，但我意识到，在违背意愿的情况下频繁伸手拿手机并不是软弱——而是生物学反应。
当我在孩子面前拿起手机时，我会说：“我只是把香蕉加入购物清单。”这让我能够对自己负责，因为一旦说了这句话，我就只做这一件事然后放下手机。同时，这告诉我的孩子们，我并没有像以前那样“消失”。
▲ “我的孩子们看到我放松且在休息”…… 安娜·马瑟尔（Anna Mathur）
现在，当孩子们在晚上安静地坐在电视机前时，我也和他们一起懒散地待着，读一本书。在章节中间被人说话并不会像之前那样引发压力。没有算法或通知在争夺我的注意力。我已经忘记了无聊是什么感觉，而那正是休息所在、灵感浮现之地。
我曾经认为手机能帮我放松。但对使用时间设定严格限制后，我的心情和人际关系都得到了改善。
研究表明，对于我们这些患有 ADHD（注意力缺陷多动障碍），或因长期压力和睡眠不足而疲惫不堪的人来说，手机的吸引力非常强。冲动控制是额叶的功能，而当我们疲惫或不堪重负时，大脑的那个部分会变得虚弱。我当时正处于围绝经期，随着雌激素下降，大脑变得更倾向于寻求奖励，这使得情况更加困难。
我是一名心理治疗师，服务对象是那些精疲力竭、易怒的父母，我的日常工作就是写作，探讨我们为何在生活中挣扎。
这种改变改善了我与丈夫的关系。以前我们共度夜晚的大部分时间都是并排坐着玩手机。现在，我能投入更多时间在对方身上。我们聊得更多了，向对方倾诉一天的见闻。我们给予彼此更多专注的注意力，而这才是你能给予任何人最宝贵的东西。
以寻找平静。我以前每天也会拿起手机数百次，却没有意识到这让我变成了一个更易怒、更急躁、更不在状态的母亲。
每次检查手机时，总有需要处理的事情，有新消息的通知，有些东西在告诉我，我是有用且高效的，这给我带来了母职所无法提供的多巴胺快感。它已经成了我的应对机制。
我承诺限制使用，但每次都会打破自己的规定。于是，我不再依赖意志力，下载了一个名为 AppBlock 的应用程序。在孩子们在家期间，我无法访问社交媒体或电子邮件，而他们上床睡觉后，我只有 15 分钟的时间可以检查手机。如果我需要处理工作，我会去使用笔记本电脑，这让我觉得目的性更强。
我没想到自己会感到如此平静。
减少在手机上花费的时间深化了我最重要的关系，这绝非小事。孩子们看到我放松且在休息。他们向我讲述一天中细小的细节和担忧，他们依偎在我身边。这些时刻如此特别，而现在我能全身心地陪伴他们。
手机也是我用来减压的地方，让我拥有五分钟感觉属于自己的时间。但虽然社交媒体看起来是最能刺激感官的东西，但所谓的休息实际上是对我紧绷的精神的一种进一步索求。
我没想到自己会感到如此平静。
安娜·马瑟 (ANNA MATHUR) 是一位心理治疗师和作家
斯蒂芬·柯林斯 (S T E P H E N C O L L I N S)
厨房助手 (K I T C H E N A I D E)，安娜·贝里尔 (Anna Berrill) 撰写
每周食谱 (T H E W E E K L Y R E C I P E)，达拉·克莱恩 (Dara Klein) 撰写
Y
№ 375 特拉帕尼青酱 (Pesto trapanese)
e
我更倾向于用研钵来制作，以获得一种粗犷的酱料口感。你可以使用搅拌机，但操作要轻柔，以免最后变成过于细腻的糊状。你可以省去奶酪，制作一份无乳制品的青酱。
步骤：将烤箱预热至 180C（风扇烤箱 160C）/ 燃气档 4. 将杏仁铺在铺有烘焙纸的烤盘上，轻轻撒上海盐，烘烤 13 分钟。取出后完全晾凉。
配料
当你刮出种子后，香草荚还能用来做什么？它们太贵了。
“冷冻空荚，然后直接做一大批香草糖或香草盐，作为礼物送人。”
85g 烫过的杏仁 海盐和现磨黑胡椒 250g 番茄，切成小方丁
Jo，通过电子邮件询问
使用研钵和研杵，或搅拌机，将杏仁、番茄、油、大蒜和一大把盐搅拌至几乎顺滑，但保留少量块状以增加口感。加入罗勒和佩科里诺奶酪，脉冲搅拌直到叶片分解，然后试味，必要时添加更多盐。如果你不立即使用青酱，将其转移到玻璃罐中，在顶部倒入少许橄榄油以防止氧化，密封后放入冰箱冷藏，最多可保存三天。
如果开菲尔（kefir）是你早餐习惯的一部分，那么这也是利用空香草荚的一个好时机。“在发酵时将它们留在混合物中，就能赋予其温和的香草风味，”塞拉（Sellar）说道。在另一个极端，用过的香草荚也非常适合放入威士忌瓶中：“不过，别用太昂贵的酒，”布里斯托尔 Wilsons 公司的简·奥斯特尔（Jan Ostle）说。相反，你需要一些“平庸”的酒。“这样，当你准备圣诞饮品时，你就可以成为那种提前几个月就准备好的人，虽然这很招人烦。”此外，他说，将香草荚晾干，与橙皮和红茶混合，然后烧开水：“那将非常美妙。”
“我把它们放在内衣抽屉里，”利兹 Nova Bakehouse 的店主莎拉·莱曼斯基（Sarah Lemanski）说。“它们确实能散发出很好的香味。”在烹饪方面，莱曼斯基经常将它们用于制作香草糖浆：“将香草荚切得很碎，然后与部分用于糖浆的糖一起干炒——我使用 2:1 的糖水比——以增加质感。”Feast 的本杰明娜·埃布埃希（Benjamina Ebuehi）在冰箱里储备了上述香草糖浆，以满足她对抹茶的爱好：“我不能每天花 £6 买一杯。”（这在冰咖啡中也会很有效。）
75ml 特级初榨橄榄油，另加少量用于装饰
1 瓣大蒜，去皮，对半切开并去除胚芽 10g 罗勒，摘下叶片，另加少量用于装饰 45g 佩科里诺干酪（pecorino），研磨成末，另加少量用于装饰 320-400g 意面——busiate, penne, spaghetti, bucatini 或 fusilli 柠檬汁，用于装饰
按照包装说明烹煮所选意面，在煮好前一分钟将其从水中捞出。在煮面期间，用一小勺浓稠的煮面水稀释青酱，并在低火上加热；不要用大火猛加热，因为这会破坏风味。将火力调至中火，加入意面并用力地来回翻炒，根据需要再加入少量煮面水。
“即使你已经尽可能地刮净了香草荚，里面总还是会留下一些种子，”埃布埃希说。也许维持这种喜爱最简单的方法就是将用过的香草荚放入水果浓缩果酱（compote）中：“冷却后放入冰箱，但将香草荚留在里面，这样它就能继续渗出风味。”你也可以将类似的技巧应用于果酱。
褐变黄油可以提升所有美食的风味 ——曲奇、蛋糕、布朗尼——因此莱曼斯基也会在其中利用空香草荚。“我会用褐变黄油在布里欧修面包出炉时刷在表面，或者将其冷藏凝固，然后舀在煎饼或粥上。”莱曼斯基说，将香草放入优质橄榄油中也是一个不错的选择：“可以用它来点缀甜点，如巧克力慕斯，或者搭配覆盆子和蜂蜜的酸奶。”
翻炒意面直到酱汁浓稠且光亮。根据口味调味。我喜欢加入几滴柠檬汁——以平衡口感，但不要多到能被明显察觉。立即装盘，用额外的罗勒叶、一滴橄榄油和额外的佩科里诺干酪末装饰，然后上桌。
对于伦敦 Toklas Bakery 的执行烘焙师亚当·塞拉（Adam Sellar）来说，将香草荚晾干并与细砂糖一起搅碎是准则：“这样能制成非常优质的香草糖。”或者，将香草荚研磨并加入盐中：“搭配烟熏海盐效果尤其好，”莱曼斯基说。“记得你也可以”
额外的佩科里诺干酪末，h
ANNA BERRILL 是一位美食作家
有烹饪难题？请发送电子邮件至 feast@theguardian.com
LILIIA BILA/GETTY
Guar
《卫报》周刊
问题与查询 (Notes and Queries) 这一长跑专栏邀请读者就任何事情发送问题和答案
问 答
国家日记 Y N Y S EN LLI
托马斯·伊顿 (Thomas Eaton)
英国，威尔士，格温内兹 (Gwynedd, Wales, UK)
将这些人联系在一起的是什么：8Jonathan and Oscar Cainer; Debbie Frank; Sally Kirkman; Shelley von Strunckel? 9板球服装; Lucas and Polanski; Delta 音乐; 新西兰橄榄球？ 10Syra (I); Philometor Soteira (II and III); Tryphaena (V); Thea Philopator (VII)？ 11本杰明·富兰克林；
1938年，威尔士自然主义者罗纳德·洛克利（Ronald Lockley）将伊尼斯·恩利（Ynys Enlli，巴兹赛岛）描述为一座“粗糙地焊接在低地山谷上的山，整个岛屿被抛在汹涌的激流之中”。今天当我漫步其中时，这一生动画面依然属实。
毫无疑问，恩利岛有一种迷人的简约感，它像是一个沿着单一路线排列的线性定居点。由于只有两个行进方向，这条小路变成了一个移动的城镇广场，行路者必然在此相遇。
▲ 将关时蕴（Michelle Kwan）与本杰明·富兰克林、克莱尔·布斯·卢斯和雪莉·坦普联系在一起的是什么？
关时蕴；克莱尔·布斯·卢斯；雪莉·坦普？
关于恩利岛一个经常被提及的说法是，这里埋葬着 20,000 位圣徒，因为这里是中世纪重要的朝圣地。如果这看起来不太可能，那么想象一下，为了容纳如此密集的坟墓而必须采取的空间节约方案，也被应用到了纵横交错的低地田块之上的格子中。所有 183 块田地都有名字，有些甚至不止一个。
12阿拉伯语（罗马）；荷兰语（科泽科德）；葡萄牙语（秘鲁）；法语和土耳其语（印度）？
A24/ALLSTAR
谜题 (PU Z Z LES)
c) 罗马单柄水壶 d) 已灭绝的剑齿虎
太阳升起，风呈蓝色。R-M-R4
Chris Maslanka
.TROWELS, TWOFERS, TOOTERS
掉落者3.c 词池2
熊
.CARBOHYDRATES 乱码1
谜题：
火鸡这个词在各种语言中的说法。
2 词池 (Wordpool)：寻找正确的定义：URCEUS
3 掉落者 (Dropouts)：用字母替换每个星号以组成单词：TOE*S
在不同语言中被定义为火鸡的词源。
著名的其他领域人物：开国之父
和博学家；花样滑冰运动员；作家；
电影明星。
那些古老的威尔士田名讲述着早已离去的岛民——Bet, Cristin, Sionyn, Siôn, Siani。还有 pedol, had, weirglodd, sofl，它们讲述了钉铁蹄的小马、种子、干草草地以及收获后的茬地。Cae gwrachod 令人不安地指的不是一个女巫，而是许多个。
曾担任美国大使的 11 位女王。
埃及克娄帕特拉 10 位
白色；绿色；蓝色；（全）黑色。
颜色：9 媒体中的占星学家。 8
（全氟和多氟烷基物质）。
永久性化学物质 7 撤离)。
发电机行动（敦刻尔克 6
O.J. 辛普森审判。 5米里亚姆·马凯巴。 4
阿迪达斯（Adidas）和彪马（Puma）品牌。 3
杰克·凯鲁亚克的《在路上》。 2 帝汶）。
东帝汶（前称东 测验： 1
答案
© CMM2026
如今这里不再有收获，只有几百只羊，在古老的田名中也被称为 cae’r ŵyn（羊羔田）。它们是改变了的景观和农村经济下的幸存者，如今在雏菊中觅食，雏菊覆盖着生锈的犁和长满荨麻的旧猪圈。
国际象棋 (CH ESS)
法比亚诺·卡鲁阿纳（Fabiano Caruana）和 the world No 7, 卫斯理·索（Wesley So），以及世界排名 17 和 22 的莱尼尔·多明格斯（Leinier Domínguez）和莱翁·阿罗尼安（Levon Aronian）。只有世界排名 19 的汉斯·尼曼（Hans Niemann）可能会让阵容更强。
乌兹别克斯坦队将包括世界排名 4 和 6 的贾沃希尔·辛达罗夫（Javokhir Sindarov）和诺迪尔贝克·阿卜杜萨托罗夫（Nodirbek Abdusattorov）；世界排名 39 的诺迪尔贝克·雅库波耶夫（Nodirbek Yakubboev）；世界排名 62 的沙姆希丁·沃希多夫（Shamsiddin Vokhidov）；以及世界排名 132 的穆希丁·马达米诺夫（Mukhiddin Madaminov）。美国队的平均年龄为 38 岁，而他们的对手仅 21 岁。
Leonard Barden
美国和乌兹别克斯坦，以及印度和中国，目前拥有世界上最强的四支国际象棋队伍。因此，这两者将于 27-28 日在迈阿密进行一场全循环赛制的快棋和超快棋舍文宁根赛（Scheveningen format），这一消息无疑会引发人们的关注，因为这可以作为 9 月在乌兹别克斯坦撒马尔罕举行的 200 国经典奥林匹克比赛结果的预演。
一个名字可能是转瞬即逝的，随着老农和传统农业方法的消失而消逝。但对我而言，它们的价值显而易见——它们不仅是记忆，也不仅仅是失去的见证，它们帮助我们在一个变化的世界中寻找背景，是未来某天可能再次重现的种子。Eben Muse
4033 Mikhail Antipov 对阵 Jorden van Foreest，世界青少年锦标赛，汉特-曼西自治区 2015.。白方走子并获胜。
英格兰最顶尖的大师们对比起来如何？看来并不太好。今年 2 月，英格兰排名第 5 的 Luke McShane 与 Madaminov 进行了六盘比赛，结果以 1.5-4.5, 告负，且未赢一盘。
在迈阿密参赛的两支队伍都将几乎以全主力出战。美国队将派出世界排名第 2 和 3 的选手，
Rf8 将帅。4Rxe8+ Kf7 3
Qe8+! Rxe8 2Ng5! Bxg5 14033
插图：CLIFFORD HARPER
《卫报》周刊 224 July 2026uly 2 2
《卫报》周刊 2 uly 2 26
快速纵横字谜
No 17,531
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9
10
11
所有答案将于下周公布
12 13
14 15
20/25 国王对王位的要求——查理被困于混乱的蒸汽厕所 (5,4,3)
22 颠覆国际公认的行为准则？ (4)
24 一个微笑跟随教会的不满 (7)
25 见 20 Down
1 爱尔兰的口信隐藏着礼服 (4)
1 2 3 4 5 6
9 10 11
12 13 14
15 16 17
16
17
18
18 19
21 22 23
20 21
24 25
22 23
每周隐秘字谜 (The Weekly cryptic)
作者：Omnibus
7 蛋白质和脂肪滋养
No 30,058
胚胎鸟 (4) 10 强烈的
1 糊状物 (4) 3 不稳定性 (8)
兴奋水平 (5,5)
9 安静 (8)
12 有毒的 (8)
11 带有切换开关的装备 (6,4)
10 同意分开——良好离婚的基础？ (2,7)
14 跪下 (6)
15 上升的气球气体 (6) 17 贵族 (5,5)
18 考究的 (4)
街道？恰恰相反 (5)
23 测试（变位词）——校对员术语 (4) 纵向
16 欧洲 VAR 审查中的一人被驱逐 (2,6)
答案 17,525
21 笨拙地追踪 oche (4) 23 派对还是 6？ (4)
D O P P E L G A N G E R
S P H E G A A N I E C E S H O W B I Z O N W S N O Z O M I T N O T I O N A L Z N R N S E
E G G N O G M E T H O D B O A D A A U L T I M A T E Q U I Z
T H M O S L Z T E R R A I N C R A W L O O T A A G E N E W Z E A L A N D E R
12 出题者在激烈的抢球中寻求庇护 (5)
13 软弱，缺失脚后跟？ (8) 15 Mowgli——讲述者的反叛部分 (4) 16/12D/19 法国大灾难在
1 典型例子 (8)
诺言被背叛之后到来—— 8 不在乎？ (5,3,2,6)
数独 中等
答案 30,052
R T P F S U C D E L I C A T E P U N C H
请填充网格，使每一行、每一列以及每个 3x3 宫格都包含数字 1 到 9。
P M R A I H A F R E E D E T E N T I O N S O O H N G B A R R E N E M B O D I E D
C E R O E
O F F A N D O N P A D D L E I I G U E
上周答案
24 July 2026 《卫报》周刊
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Shifting tide Residents of Gaza City swim in the sea at dusk. It was revealed last week that the recovery plan being pursued by Donald Trump’s Board of Peace has shrunk dramatically from an ambitious blueprint for the reconstruction of the whole Gaza Strip to a small pilot project in the south of the territory.
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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 1919. We exist to hold power to account in the name of the public interest, to uphold liberal and progressive values, to fight for the common good, and to build hope. Our values, as laid out by editor CP Scott in 1921, are honesty, integrity, courage, fairness, and a sense of duty to the reader and the community. The Guardian is wholly owned by the Scott Trust, a body whose purpose is “to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity”. We have no proprietor or shareholders, and any profit made is re-invested in journalism.
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A week in the life of the world 24 JULY 2026
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FEATURES
Headlines from the last seven days
Long reads, interviews & essays The radical aristocrat who’s serious about rewilding By Patrick Barkham............. 34 Private lives: the true state of Italy’s beaches By Tobias Jones ...................40
United Kingdom ................... 8 Science & Environment ........ 9 The big story
Wildfires The firefighters faced with impossible choices .......10
OPINION
CULTURE
TV, film, music, theatre, art, architecture & more Music The epic return of soul-rockers Alabama Shakes ...................51 Screen Remembering the actor Sam Neill ............................ 54 Screen Why Fleabag is proving to be a tough act to follow ...............55 Books Brexit legacy, a portrait of marriage, and parasites....... 58
Jonathan Liew The World Cup exposed the fragility of nationhood........ 45
▼ Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett All-women holidays offer freedom and self-discovery..47 Polly Toynbee Burnham looks the part, but is that enough to be PM? ......... 48
SP OTLIGHT
In-depth reporting and analysis United States/Iran Why is Trump risking midterm disaster resuming the war? ... 15 Ukraine Dismissal of defence minister puts pressure on Zelenskyy...19 United Kingdom Can Andy Burnham keep pace with pledge to go ‘faster’?.....22 Laos The secret trade that’s putting pangolins in threat...............26 Science Is the world facing a male reproductive crisis?............. 30 United States Fatal ICE shootings rekindle anger over deportation push ..32
The girls’ trip has become a byword for emancipation and the deep need for women to have time away together
LIFESTYLE
The one change that worked I blocked social media apps.. 60 Kitchen aide Using up empty vanilla pods ..61 Recipe Pesto trapanese ...................61
On the cover As the climate crisis causes wildfires to burn hotter and simultaneously in more countries around the world, emergency crews are being forced into impossible choices about which fires to fight and which to leave. Can unprepared governments rise to the challenge – and what can be learned from nations like Australia that live with fire risk? Photograph: Samuel de Roman/Anadolu/Getty
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SPOT ILLUSTRATIONS: MATT BLEASE
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Chess queen declines offer of role as president
The chess legend Judit Polgár said she would not accept the nomination for president, only a day after the prime minister, Péter Magyar, proposed asking her to take up the largely ceremonial role.
Magyar had said he would meet Polgár on Monday to discuss the matter. Polgár, 49, said later in a Facebook post that she was grateful to be asked but added: “I do not feel enough strength within me to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation, so I am unable to accept the request.”
The latest developments come after a months-long standoff between the newly elected Magyar and Tamás Sulyok, the president appointed during Viktor Orbán’s time in power.
4 UKRAINE
Syrskyi expected to lose job after week of protests
Ukraine’s commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskyi was widely expected to lose his job this week amid signs that the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had bowed to pressure from protesters to reshuffle the army’s top leadership.
Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the presidential office in Kyiv, demanding Zelenskyy reinstate Mykhailo Fedorov, who was fired as defence minister last week after a clash with Syrskyi and the general staff.
Aged 35 and a moderniser, Fedorov is widely credited with improving the country’s position on the battlefield during the six months he was in the job. In a newspaper column published on Monday, Syrskyi said he was “surprised to learn the minister and I had a conflict”.
Zelenskyy said last week that Washington and Kyiv had reached a political agreement on licences to make Patriot interceptors. But mounting Russian attacks are heaping pressure on Kyiv’s foreign partners to accelerate supply of anti-ballistic defences. SpotlightPage 19
Headlines from the last seven days
SPAIN
1
Almost two million Spaniards, many still feeling a little delicate after the country’s historic World Cup victory against Argentina, descended on central Madrid on Monday night to welcome the triumphant national team home. La Roja, who beat Argentina 1-0 in the final in New Jersey on Sunday night, were afforded the first of many heroes’ welcomes when they touched down at Madrid’s Barajas airport at 2.30pm local time on Monday.
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Their first stop was an audience with King Felipe, Queen Letizia and their daughters, Princess Leonor and Princess Sofía, at the Zarzuela palace, north-west of Madrid, where the king paid tribute to their talent and determination.
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“It’s been an epic triumph,” he said. “It’s been a privilege and a joy for the four of us to see you play in the final and to be able to celebrate with you that moment of lifting the cup, with immense thanks from all of Spain.”
5 US/CANADA
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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will require its officers to record vehicle stops with at least one body camera, said Tom Homan, the Trump administration “border czar”, on Sunday. The action comes as the agency is under renewed scrutiny after ICE officers fatally shot two men earlier this month.
Donald Trump is imposing 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods in response to the country retaliating against previous US tariffs, the White House announced on Monday, declaring Canada has unfairly discriminated against American cars, alcohol and dairy products.
Felipe also praised their fortitude: “You’ve suffered, you’ve come home bruised and tired, you’ve endured some criticism, but what is all that compared with the joy of bringing the cup home?” Eyewitness Page 20
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The steep tariffs will probably unleash a new wave of economic chaos, with risks of higher inflation and further fraying of relations between the two nations.
“They exonerate more law enforcement than they convict ... I want the American people to see what the officers saw when they took that action,” Homan said on the Fox & Friends Weekend programme. SpotlightPage 32
The White House said the tariffs will go into effect in 30 days, leaving time for possible negotiations.
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9 NICARAGUA
The long-serving president, Daniel Ortega, said the country will hold no further elections to prevent the opposition from coming to power.
6 US/UK
The 80-year-old authoritarian leader also said he would work with the congress he controls to pass new laws that would “build a wall” against the opposition.
The controversial influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested in Miami as part of a UK police investigation into a number of alleged sexual offences.
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Ortega made the announcement on Sunday during the official ceremony marking the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, in which he helped overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. The decision “sealed the country’s transition to a full-fledged family dictatorship”, said Tiziano Breda, senior analyst at the NGO Armed Conflict Location and Event Data.
5
Andrew Tate, 39, is charged with seven further counts of rape, three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and 19 additional charges. Tristan Tate, 38, is charged with one further count of sexual assault, two counts of rape and three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation.
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Prosecuters said the charges relate to alleged offences between July 2010 and August 2017.
10 ITALY
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7 PERU
An open-air show by the Puerto Rican music star Bad Bunny was abandoned on Saturday night because of a violent hailstorm.
8 SPAIN/GIBRALTAR
Videos posted on social media showed large hailstones hitting people at the sold-out show, along with strong winds and driving rain, after the rapper began his set at Milan’s Snai La Maura Hippodrome.
Spain and Gibraltar celebrated the fall of the last frontier fence in western Europe after the signing of a post-Brexit deal that brings an end to border checks for residents, tourists and the thousands of Spanish workers who cross into the British overseas territory every day. The agreement marks the conclusion of more than four years of negotiations between the UK, Spain, Gibraltar and the EU after Britain’s departure from the bloc. It eliminates border controls and customs checks, and gives Spain responsibility for Schengen controls at Gibraltar’s airport and port. It has also led to the removal of the fence that has separated Spain from Gibraltar since 1908.
A 5.5-magnitude earthquake shook the Andes region of Peru, killing at least six people, authorities said last Sunday. More than 30 people were injured and 300 were displaced.
The show was interrupted “due to adverse weather conditions”, ticket operator Live Nation said, but the area was safely evacuated. All ticketholders would receive full refunds, it added.
The US Geological Survey reported that the quake struck on Saturday at 9.24pm, with its epicentre located 2km west-south-west of the city of Sicaya in Huancayo province. It was 10km deep.
Several buildings collapsed or suffered structural damage, including the local church and convent.
12 MIDDLE EAST
14 JAPAN
A Chinese missile destroyer fired live rounds for the first time inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone during a drill on Sunday, a day before Chinese and Philippine sailors clashed in the South China Sea. Three Chinese warships and a Russian frigate were spotted around 330km south-west of the Pacific island of Okinotori on Sunday morning.
Iran attacked a tanker in the strait of Hormuz early on Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the ship, as Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis said the Bab al-Mandeb strait in the Red Sea would be closed to the Saudis in response to the kingdom’s “unjust blockade on Yemenis for over 10 years”.
Japan’s top government spokesman, Minoru Kihara, criticised the drill and said: “We will continue to monitor with concern the behaviours by Chinese and Russian vessels in the waters around our country.”
15
A 10th consecutive night of US airstrikes had not compelled Tehran to loosen its grip on the strait of Hormuz. There were glimmers of hope, however, as the Iranian interior minister travelled to Pakistan for talks. SpotlightPage 15
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13 AFGHANISTAN
11 UGANDA
At least 20 people were killed and more than 80 injured in flooding that hit Nuristan province, the country’s disaster management agency said on Monday.
Uganda has started lobbying countries to lift Ebola-related travel restrictions after discharging its last confirmed Ebola patient from hospital.
20
In Parun, the provincial capital, a further 105 people including the mayor were missing, said Feraidon Samim, a spokesperson for the Nuristan governor.
The discharge of a Congolese national from the Mulago national referral hospital in Kampala last week triggered the start of a 42-day countdown required by the World Health Organization before Uganda can officially be declared Ebola-free, provided no new infections are detected.
Journalists familiar with the remote north-eastern area said a market, shops and other buildings were located near Parun’s riverside.
The outbreak in Uganda infected 20 people and claimed two lives. Fifteen countries continue to maintain either partial or full travel restrictions on Uganda after the outbreak.
Ashiqullah Safi, the head of an NGO based in the town, said the flood had “completely destroyed the municipality”, including hotels and dozens of shops.
The big story p10
Thousands defy police to call on minister to resign
Thousands of protesters defied police orders and descended on Delhi to demand the resignation of India’s education minister.
A huge crowd, largely made up of students and gen Z-ers, filled the streets from Monday morning.
Delhi police, under the control of the central government, had denied permission for the march and the internet was shut down in the city centre. Attempts by protesters to move towards the parliament building were met with force by police, including the use of batons and teargas.
However, protesters turned out in their thousands, many of whom were vocal in their anger at Narendra Modi’s government and his ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), accusing them of failing the country’s young people.
17 HONG KONG
19 JAPAN
Authorities raided two bookstores and arrested five people on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications.
Authorities were searching for a bear that sneaked into the home of an elderly couple and raided their fridge amid concerns it may be behind 14 break-ins across a town in recent weeks.
Garry Sobers West Indies cricketer widely regarded as the sport’s greatest all-rounder. He died on 17 July, aged 89.
Videos and photos showed police seizing boxes from the building that houses Have a Nice Stay, a bookshop founded by former journalists.
Last Monday evening, Mitsuo Matsubara, 87, was confronted by a large Asiatic black bear when he went to investigate a noise in his kitchen. His fridge was open, and food was strewn across the floor. His wife called the police.
A few streets away a similar scene played out, with boxes taken from the building housing the Greenfield Book Store.
Kevin Keegan Former England footballer and manager. He died on 20 July, aged 75.
Police said they arrested two men and three women on suspicion of displaying and offering for sale items with “seditious intention”, breaching the 2024 national security law, after raiding two stores in the Mong Kok district, without identifying the locations.
Break-ins were reported at five locations in the north-eastern town of Shizukuishi, leading officials to suspect one bear may be a repeat offender.
They set up box traps, installed electric fences around repeatedly targeted houses and deployed patrols to warn people about the bear.
Brenda Fricker Irish actor who won an Oscar for My Left Foot. She died on 16 July, aged 81.
It is the third round of arrests linked to independent bookstores after similar operations in March and June.
Guy Scott Zambian politician who briefly served as acting president to become Africa’s first white head of state in more than two decades. He died on 15 July, aged 82.
Hong Kong was once known for its freedom of publication and freedom of expression. At the time, some Chinese residents crossed the border to buy books deemed to be too politically sensitive on the mainland.
18 PHILIPPINES
20 AUSTRALIA
Ken Bates Former owner and chairman of Chelsea and Leeds United football clubs. He died on 11 July, aged 94.
More than 500 people were feared dead after reports of two large shipwrecks off Myanmar since late June, the United Nations said.
Manila strongly condemned staterun China Daily for releasing an AI-generated video that depicted Filipinos as monkeys, saying the “racist” imagery is “offensive, distressing and unacceptable”.
Nearly 2.2 million Australians aged 15 years and older are living below the wellbeing poverty line, with the share of people reporting very low life satisfaction doubling over the past decade.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration and its refugee agency UNHCR voiced alarm in a joint statement at reports “that two boats carrying more than 500 people may have capsized off the coast of Myanmar in recent days”.
Pat Oliphant Australianborn American Pulitzer prizewinning political cartoonist. He died on 13 July, aged 90.
The Philippines demanded that the video posted on China Daily’s Facebook account this month be taken down. The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2025, 9.7%, or about one in 10, Australians, rated their general satisfaction with life at four or below out of 10, according to Guardian Australia’s analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ general social survey.
Preliminary information indicated that the two vessels had left from war-torn Myanmar’s Rakhine state in late June, with mainly members of the country’s Rohingya minority onboard.
Gilberto Teodoro, the Philippine defence secretary, denounced the material as “contemptible propaganda” and “a disgrace to any state that claims to exercise responsible regional leadership”.
That compares with one in 20, or 4.8%, reporting very low overall life satisfaction in 2014. The soaring cost of living is a factor in the surge in dissatisfaction.
UK NEWS
NATURE
A 14-year-old boy has denied plotting a terror attack on two mosques in south London.
The Church of England has voted against plans to restore 30% of its land for nature. The C of E owns 42,500 hectares of land, making it one of England’s biggest landowners. Just 3.5% of its land is used for nature restoration.
The boy appeared in court last week charged with an offence linked to “extreme rightwing terrorism” after a police search uncovered an alleged plot to target the mosques in the Sutton area. Appearing at Westminster magistrates court, the boy pleaded not guilty to the preparation of terrorist acts and racially aggravated damage to property and was remanded to youth detention.
LABOUR
The church’s national assembly passed an amendment last Tuesday that does not include any measurable rewilding targets. FeaturePage 34
Andy Burnham said his arrival in power would be a “circuit breaker” moment for Britain, pledging that his government will restore hope to millions of people,
Acknowledging cost of living pressures across the country, he said he would announce measures this week to give people “some breathing space now”. His new cabinet took shape, with John Healey, the former defence secretary, appointed chancellor; Ed Miliband, the former energy secretary, named as foreign secretary; and Shabana Mahmood remaining as home secretary.
After his speech, Burnham told reporters he was looking
London’s Met police said the mosques had been contacted and were being supported by specialist officers, and that the force was not looking for any other suspects in connection to the alleged plot.
HEALTH
REFORM UK
High-caffeine energy drinks will be banned from sale to under-16s in England from April next year under new laws designed to improve health outcomes in young people.
Nigel Farage admitted his close friend the fraudster George Cottrell let him use one of his London homes and paid for social media filming before the last election but insisted it was “totally undeclarable in every single way”. The Reform UK leader spoke about his support from Cottrell and the £5m ($6.7m) gift from the Thailand-based businessman Christopher Harborne in an interview with the anti-woke Triggernometry podcast.
About 100,000 children across the country currently drink highcaffeine energy drinks daily, with those in more deprived areas and households more likely to consume them, according to the government. Their consumption is associated with physical and mental health effects as well as negative educational outcomes, ministers said.
He acknowledged the parliamentary standards system could find against him but claimed he had been advised the £5m did not need to be declared because it was unconditional. In relation to Cottrell, Farage said his friend had given him nothing since he was elected in July 2024 and financial support before then was unrelated to politics. Farage’s support in kind from Cottrell and Harborne’s £5m gift are being investigated over whether they should have been publicly registered.
The multiple by which FTSE 100 chief executives’ median pay exceeds that of the average full-time UK worker – up from 124 times in the 2024-25 financial year, according to the High Pay Centre. It is the biggest gap since the ratio hit 137 in 2018
The ban will apply in shops, vending machines and online.
Burnham becomes the seventh UK prime minister since 2016, a speed of turnover that he acknowledged had resulted in many people becoming “fed up” with politics. SpotlightPage 22
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Reader’s eyewitness Sign language ‘I was watching England play Argentina in the pub and I needed the loo at half-time. Jogging home to avoid the queues in the pub, I spotted this scene in the town square. I think maybe it was a bad omen that it wasn’t actually coming home.’ By Cherry Butler-Bowdon, Woodstock, England
SCI ENCE A N D EN V I RON M EN T
his wheelchair when he agreed to trial the technology in 2021, but after surgery to implant electrodes in his brain and many months of training, he was able to move the limbs again.
SPACE
EXTR EME W E AT HER
Researchers have discovered an atmosphere around an Earth-like planet 49 light years away that could have liquid water on its surface.
Researchers at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research fitted Thomas with a brain-computer interface that not only helped him move his arms and hands, but also sent signals back to his brain to recreate the sensation of touch.
Rains that caused the floods that struck the coasts of west Africa last month were supercharged by climate breakdown, scientists have concluded. Global heating, they say, turned what should have been a routine weather event into a climate catastrophe.
“This is the first actually observationally confirmed atmosphere on a rocky planet in the habitable zone outside of our solar system,” said Dr Collin Cherubim, the first author of the study, formerly of Harvard University.
W I LDLIFE
Writing in the journal Science, he added that the findings also marked the first direct identification of an atmospheric species for any rocky exoplanet.
They also warn that the countries affected must adapt to anew reality. “The climate is changing faster than most nations can adapt,” said Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London. Over 72 hours, intense rainfall drenched coastal regions of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Nigeria. More than 140mm of rain fell in some cities in less than a day. Otto and the World Weather Attribution team said such a deluge was five times more likely in today’s climate.
Food supplements for honeybees could help the insects better withstand temperature stresses linked to a changing climate, early research suggests.
N EU ROSCI ENCE
Scientists, led by Dr Najmeh Sahebzadeh of the University of Zabol, Iran, found that worker bees fed a mixture of probiotics and inulin, a plant-derived prebiotic, survived prolonged cold exposure better than bees given an ordinary sugar diet. But in laboratory tests at 40C, all the bees died within days, regardless of diet, though some of those receiving higher supplement doses survived slightly longer.
The proportion of games at this year’s World Cup that were played in unsafe levels of heat and humidity, according to analysis by the Guardian
A man who was paralysed from the chest down in a swimming accident six years ago has been able to feed himself and drink from a cup thanks to a brain implant that bypasses his spinal cord injury.
“Adapting to these events is critical,” said Otto, “but so is reducing emissions much further and faster.”
Keith Thomas of Massapequa, New York, could not lift his arms off
The big story Wildfires
As the climate crisis pushesintense blazes to new parts of the world,firefighters are forced to ration resources and choose which to fight
Fire, fire everywhere
By Ajit Niranjan and Caroline Davies
Flames and smoke rise from a deadly wildfire tearing through Almería in Spain
PABLO BLÁZQUEZ DOMÍNGUEZ/GETTY
Bush telegraph How Australians live with fire risk Page 13
ÉSAR ALCARAZ HAD ONLY JUST BECOME A FIREFIGHTER in the late 1990s when he found himself ambushed by a fast-moving blaze.
now fragmented by farmland. But where fires burn, they are often hotter, less predictable, and greater in number. Carbon pollution has raised global temperatures, and with more heat to dry out plants, small fires can more easily escalate into hellish infer-
Barely able to breathe and with no water left in his truck, he and his colleagues fled an inferno ravaging Spain’s Montgó mountain region, wishing their bosses had sent more support.
But nearly three decades on, as an officer with Alicante’s provincial firefighters, Alcaraz has more sympathy for the agonising choices that commanders have to make. When wildfires overwhelm an area, his job resembles that of a doctor in an emergency room with too few ventilators.
In France, such extreme scenarios are forcing authorities to divide scarce resources. Firefighters in France battled 250-300 fires simultaneously over the past three weeks, saidJulien Marion, the head of the civil protection agency, during a visit to the smouldering Fontainebleau forestlast Thursday.
▲ A huge cloud of smoke engulfs the Pyrenees in southern France
Walthamstow ineast London earlier in July drew 125 firefighters to put out a blaze. Strong wind and dry vegetation helped it spread fast.
It is a dilemma growing more onerous as wildfires worsen across the Mediterranean – and is beginning to confront countries as cold as the UK, where wildfires are invading cities, homes and gardens.
“One of the alarming things I was seeing over the weekend was large parts of the country where the probability of sustained ignition was 100%,” saidThomas Smith, a wildfire scientist at the London School of Economics. “Especially for grass fuels, which dry out very quickly, it only requires two to three weeks of dry weather to reach those thresholds.”
JC MILHET/AFP/GETTY
In Spain, firefighters used to dealing with a couple of blazes at a time say they struggle with an increase in number and strength. The situation has been worsened bywet winters and springs that allow vegetation to flourish – leaving more surplus fuel when it inevitably dries in summer – as well as the abandonment of farmland that once broke up flammable countryside.
▼ Firefighters tend to a wildfire blaze in the Aragon region of northern Spain
“It’s not just about having more fires to fight, it’s the risk of operational collapse,” said Alcaraz, who sits in the command centre and sees concurrent blazes occurring more often and earlier in the year. “When two or three fires break out simultaneously, we are forced to make immediate triage decisions.”
SPANISH MILITARY EMERGENCY UNIT/ REUTERS
“The climate of the 20th century is now gone,” UK scientists warned last Wednesday in a report that found 2025 was the country’s hottest on record. Average temperatures virtually unknown in the 1980s now cover almost a fifth of the land, the scientists said, as fire services fought to put out blazes from Durham innorth-east England to Devon in the south-west. The next day, a wildfire burned300 hectares in Scotland’s Cairngorms national park.
“In the end, the response capacity is limited,” said Juan Caamaño, the head of training at the Pau Costa Foundation, a nonprofit that is helping Northern Ireland and other cold regions in northern Europe prepare for worsening wildfires. “When we face these huge fires, these extreme events, it’s like trying to put firefighters on a beach to stop a tsunami.”
Deadly wildfires have engulfed western Europe this month – the grim consequence of a trio of heatwaves that have turned lush vegetation into dry tinder – while separate blazes suffocate North America with cloying smoke. France, Portugal and Spain have each been torched by a record-breaking number of wildfires for this time of year, leaving an unprecedented area of France in flames and
Where fires burn, they are often hotter, less predictable and greater in number
In the UK, where the threat of fires is more present in grass than in forests, blazes have broken out from cities to national parks this month after a scorchingly hot start to summer. A wildfire that ripped through
“Simultaneous wildfires place enormous pressure on emergency services,” said Maria Barbosa, a wildfire scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. “Fire agencies depend on their ability to move personnel, equipment and aircraft between regions as conditions change. But when multiple large fires occur at the same time, that flexibility is greatly reduced.”
Across the Atlantic, smoke from100 fires burning northern Ontario made Toronto the most polluted city in the worldlast Wednesday before it crossed the US border to choke New York. Farreaching fumes from Canadian wildfires are so strong they caused 80,000 early deaths in 2023, a study found last year, including 33,000 in the US and 22,000 in Europe.
The shift from fighting all fires to picking battles is “a very new thing for northern European countries”, said Smith, though not for the Mediterranean. “They’re having to change tactics when they fight fires, while we’re really struggling with strategic decisions.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the global trend in wildfire size has been toward fewer hectares of burnt land, largely becausehuge tracts of African savannah that were susceptible to fires are
Fresh in the memories of London’s firefighters is the wildfire that destroyed 18 houses in Wennington village during a ferocious
heatwave in July 2022, in the worst day for the London fire brigade since the second world war. The service has since bought four all-terrain support vehicles that are agile enough to reach places that fire engines cannot. Able to “pump and drive”, the firefighting 4x4s have been mobilised 34 times this year, including for regular fires.
The London fire brigade has also encouraged local authorities and private landowners to introduce natural fire breaks by cutting down grass near homes and businesses, ploughing land to remove flammable materials, and clearing dead leaves from gutters – the types of strategy Australians know well – to stop fires from spreading.
Such advice has grown more pertinent as the number of firefighters has fallen. Steve Wright, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said crews had been stretched by staffing cuts – with 12,000 fewer firefighters in the UK today than in 2010 – that delayed them from getting to incidents, resulting in more fires that grow out of control. “This is only going to get worse, and the government has to get a handle on it,” he said. “This is not moorland, not heathland. It’s happening in towns, cities and villages across the UK.”
HE STRAINS THAT LOCAL SERVICES FEEL are being echoed at a global level, too. Fire seasons in North Amer-
Are governments taking the threat seriously? “The climate emergency kills,” said Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, during a visitto the advanced command post in Almería from which firefighters quelled one of the country’s deadliest blazes on record. “As a result, all levels of government and society as a whole must rise to the challenge before us.”
prescribed burning, manual brush clearing and more diverse landscapes. Its civil protection mechanism, which allows embattled member states to request firefighting support from neighbours, was boosted this year by pre-emptive deployments of firefighters from other regions. In 2025, record-breaking wildfires that charred a million hectares led to more requests for help than ever before.
ica and Australia are getting longer and increasingly coincide, hamperingarrangements to share aircraft and firefighters between the US, Canada and Australia. The overlap between the regions is expected to increase to betweenfour and 29 dayseach year by 2050, a study found last year.
Number of early deaths attributed to farreaching fumes from Canadian wildfires in 2023, including 33,000 in the US and 22,000 in Europe
And yet policies to cut carbon pollution in rich countries fall far short of what would be needed to stop the planet from heating 1.5C by the end of the century. Meanwhile, efforts to use fire to manage the land – for instance with controlled burns that prevent the overgrowth that fuels mega-fires – are still considered novel in thesame countries. The exceptions are Canada and Australia, which have made efforts to incorporate Indigenous fire strategies instead of relying on suppression.
While climate breakdown is the main driver of increasingly “synchronous” global fire seasons,according to research published in February, natural variation often makes it worse. The return of El Niño, the cyclical weather pattern that supercharges weather extremes, has alarmed Australia and Indonesia because of the greater risk of fires that it brings. Australia’sBureau of Meteorology has warned that the emerging El Niñocould be the strongest on record, and may be joined by a positive IndianOcean dipole, a related weather pattern that,with El Niño, has led to some of Australia’s hottest and driest years. Swathes of south-east Asia and Oceania may soon be in flames.
But, while the mechanism itself was “working perfectly”, firefighting teams were being deployed in extreme situations the likes of which they had never seen, said Caamaño. He was speaking from Indonesia, where he was preparing firefighting teams for the “wild burn” that south-east Asia would soon face.
Number of firefighter positions that have been cut from the UK’s fire brigades since 2010, leaving stations understaffed
“I have the feeling that we’re always behind the emergency,” he said. “And it is the emergency that governs us, rather than us governing the emergency.”
In Europe, the cultural shift among firefighters has begun to trickle up into policy. Inlate June, EU member states approved a non-binding strategy to manage wildfire risk that encourages
AJIT NIRANJAN IS THE GUARDIAN’S EUROPE ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT; CAROLINE DAVIES IS A WRITER FOR THE GUARDIAN
▼ Jan Harris’s home in Reedy Swamp, New South Wales, burned down in March 2018
AUST R A LI A
and Canada and, like in Europe, they coincide with extreme heatwaves. It’s a picture becoming all too familiar as the climate crisis extends and worsens fire seasons around the planet.
Harris can recall tiny details from Sunday 18 March 2018: how the clock on the TV news showed 12.34pm, the “unbelievable winds” and how her husband, John, said “we’re getting in the car … we just have to go, babe” as a wall of flames and smoke charged towards their house. It was 38C that day.
The Harrises’ home wasn’t assessed for its ability to withstand fire, but they had done the usual things toprepare. Gutters were cleared of debris so flying embers were less likely to start fires on the roof; firefighting hoses were checked and working; an extra water tank was full and ready. But the speed of the fire’s approach dismissed any thoughts of defending their home. “It went from just a whiff of smoke to a wall in less than two minutes,” she said.
later, while living in a rental property nearby, the Harrises evacuated twice during what became known as the black summer fires that claimed 33 lives, more than 3,000 homes and burned an area almost twice the size of England.
Bushfires have always been a part of the Australian landscape. Aboriginal Australians used fire for thousands of years to manage the landscape. Living with the threat of wildfires is routine, especially for people in rural areas. Permanent road signs show that day’s fire risk, households have “bushfire survival plans” and public radio broadcasts alerts.
In hindsight, she said she should have had all of life’s important documents – birth and marriage certificates and passports – in one place. After deciding to leave, Harris only dashed into one room of the house, the kitchen, and only to get her diabetic son Evan’s insulin supply.
In the months before fire seasons, there are reminders to clear gutters of debris, prune overhanging branches, clear the space around
By Graham Readfearn
▲ A swimmer in Lake Ontario takes in the view of the Toronto skyline, shrouded in smoke from forest fires
he violent hot red flames of deadly wildfires across the UK and Europe and scenes of panicked communities
Jan, John and Evan drove to the safety of a pub in town.
Road signs show that day’s bushf ire risk and households have ‘survival plans’
“We could see this chimney of black smoke. That was our house,” she said. The house, and everything in it, was lost, as were 64 other homes and buildings later that day.Two years
fleeing homes could not, at least geographically, be further away for Jan Harris. But sitting in her new home at Reedy Swamp in rural New South Wales in Australia, the 67-year-old has found herself in tears.
STEVE RUSSELL/GETTY
“It is so heartbreaking for people,” she said. “They have such a hard road in front of them.” For someone who lost her home to a wildfire, she knows this as well as anyone.
In the UK, experts last week described the worst outbreak of wildfires ever recorded in the country. In north Wales, residents had to be evacuated from their homes. Elsewhere in Europe, wildfires have swept through parts of Spain, Portugal and France.
Firefighters extinguish remaining hotspots after a bushfire in Victoria, Australia, in January this year
About 65km outside Paris, hundreds of homes were evacuated as firefighters battled a huge blaze in a Unesco-listed forest. Arson was suspected. In Spain’s Andalucía fires, 13 people died.
MICHAEL CURRIE/ AAP/REUTERS
Major fires are burning in the US
Routines and conventions learned over a century or more in Australia are being tested by hotter and more frequent fires.Climate change has lengthened Australia’s fire season and has already seen an increase in the number of days where the risk of fire is high. It’s a familiar narrative around the world.
be followed by almost 70 personnel this week.
A helicopter drops fire retardant to protect a property in Balmoral, New South Wales, in 2019
“Around the world we are seeing conditions we haven’t seen before,” said Shepherd. “The more we all learn from each other, the better it is for us all around the globe.”
Greg Mullins has been a firefighter for almost 40 years and spent 14 years as the commissioner of Fire and Rescue New South Wales.
Dr Grant Williamson, a wildfire expert at the University of Tasmania, said there is “strong evidence that fire weather is increasing, globally, under human-driven climate change”.
PETER PARKS/ AFP/GETTY
He has been speaking on and off to European fire chiefs for more than two decades about the rising risk of wildfires and is “not surprised” at the scenes from the UK and Europe.
“Fires are and will continue to burn hotter and this effect is particularly pronounced in temperate and Mediterranean climate zones,” he said.
‘The more we all learn from each other, the better it is for us all around the globe’
the home of anything flammable and to check there’s a reliable water supply if the home has to be defended.
In 2004, he spoke to a fire science conference in Dublin about the need “for fire services in Europe to gear up for bushfires because of the impacts of climate change”.
“Australia has some of the most bushfire-prone land in the world,” said Ben Shepherd, a superintendent
“In terms of disastrous wildfires, fire disaster risk is greatest in affluent, heavily populated areas that include the western US, Australia and Mediterranean Europe, with a particularly sharp increase in the occurrence and impact of disasters after 2015 – 43% of the 200 most damaging wildfires occurred in the last decade.”
“I was a bit of a lone voice at the time,” he said. “But everything was drying out. This is what has been predicted for decades. Heatwaves are priming the landscape for fire.
“Where they were used to seeing fires on the heathlands, they were starting to get forest fires. But all the equipment was aimed at fighting fires in structures.”
ack in Reedy Swamp, the Harrises rebuilt on their plot of land with their insurance money. Unlike their last
Daily bushfire warnings range from “no rating” to “catastrophic” – on those days, fire services say people should leave the area, preferably the night before.
home, this one is bushfire rated. There is 50 metres of cleared area all around; there’s an extra water tank; no wood on the exterior of the home; gutters with guards to stop debris buildup; a firefighting pump and a wide passing area on their 500-metre drive.
Fighting a fire in a forest or on hills is different to fighting a fire in an urban setting. A fire in a building will typically have a road for the fire truck and “there will be ready access to water”, Mullins said. “On the moors and in a forest, that’s not the case. In a town, you know where the fire is – it’s at number 16 – but it can take hours to find a fire in a forest and by then it can be out of control.”
Australia’s expertise andexperience in bushfires has meant its fire services have in recent years regularly shared personnel and equipment with the US and Canada, andvice versa. One of Australia’s large air tankers has been on the US west coast helping fight fires in recent weeks, and was to
“I would just leave though,” said Harris. “If we’d stayed another 10 minutes last time, we wouldn’t be alive.”
Harris has her own advice for people being threatened, perhaps for the first time, by wildfires.
A fire burning at Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, Scotland, last Sunday
“We often don’t spend enough time just sitting with what’s happened,” she said. “It’s frightening and it’s heartbreaking. Yes it was financially difficult for us but we could navigate through that, but at huge emotional cost. If there’s psychological help, I would say take it. People say what you have lost are just things and that’s true – but they were my things.
NEIL POORAN/PA
“When an authority asks you to evacuate then, if we choose not to, are we then asking them to come and save us? That’s a really big ask.
“As much as I am mournful for what we have lost, I am pretty happy to be here.”
GRAHAM READFEARN IS GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA’S ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT
In-depth reporting and analysis
2026 WORLD CUP
The shots that shaped the tournament
Page 20
or half a century, Donald Trump has performed ahighwire act based on high-stakes risks and shattering time-
resumption of strikes against Iran after concluding that the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on 17 June was dead in the water.
▲ A billboard depicting Donald Trump drowning in a ‘red sea of revenge’ on a building in Tehran
honoured norms to get what he wants. The approach has helped him survive bankruptcies to reach billionaire status and numerous legal and political scandals to be elected US president twice.
Less than four months before November’s midterm elections, Trump appears to be flirting with electoral disaster in restoking a war that is already unpopular with voters – not least for its inflationary impact on fuel and living costs.
MAJID ASGARIPOUR/ REUTERS
Now,he may be about to takea huge gamble by restarting a war with Iran less than a month after agreeing to a ceasefire that he hailed as necessary to stop an economic crisis on a par with the Great Depression.
“There’s basically no timeline in which this makes any sense for preserving [Republicans’] midterm performance,” said Curt Mills, executive
Continued
By Robert Tait WASHINGTON editor of the American Conservative,
Last week, Trump ordered a
Middle East
‘It’s a total loser … He’s like Icarus with the sun with this stuff’
a magazine promoting isolationist foreign policy goals favoured by Trump’s “American first” supporters.
the way for a 60-day ceasefire during which negotiations would take place on Iran’s nuclear programme.
collapse was a consequence of US and Iranian miscalculation.
“I don’t think there was a misunderstanding. I think this is exactly what Trump intended,” he said.
“I think it’s a total loser. It’s evidence that Trump doesn’t really care about the midterms. He’s like Icarus with the sun with this stuff – it seems to be a personal vendetta with the Iranians.”
At the same time, Iran would reopen the strait – having closed it in response to the US and Israeli attacks, causing global oil prices to soar – in exchange for significant sanctions relief, including the right to sell its oil in international markets and the unfreezing of billions of dollars of assets.
“The MoU was mainly a breather for Trump to try to get what he wants, which is to get control of the strait or take it away from Iran,” Nasr said. “Trump is trying to take it away from
Experts warn that escalation could lead inexorably to a land invasion of Iranian territory – a decisionthat could in turn bring on the sort of long-term “forever wars” he previously forswore and condemned past presidents for.
“Iran also made a gamble that it could basically use the 60 days in order to get some economic relief by bringing imports into the country, while making its position stronger. The bottom line is that there may have been a miscalculation. But there is no misunderstanding.”
T
he potential for miscalculation is heightened by the absence of Iran specialists in Trump’s administration.
Swanson blamed the deficiency on Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, whom he said had “physically removed” key personnel.
“I’m struck by some of the leaks that have come out about decision-making in this war, where Rubio is reportedly sceptical about the regime change aims that the Israelis propose to Trump, but
Problems emerged within days. Iran fired on commercial vessels belonging to neighbouring Gulf kingdoms after they used, with US naval protection, a shipping lane close to the shores of neutral Oman rather than previously used routes off the Iranian coast, where Tehran’s officials could control passage and charge“service” fees that Washington DC and its allies say are tantamount to illegal tolls.
“My initial assessment was that this would just be another blip, some cyclical violence, and then we go back [to the ceasefire and negotiations],” said Nate Swanson, a former state department and White House adviser on Iran.“I see this as an effort to re-establish leverage and try to renegotiate the MoU,but it is highly risky with potentially devastating consequences– and, in my view, likely to be a failure.”
Some analysts have blamed the flare-up on poor US negotiating, supposedly leading to misunderstandings and ambiguities in the MoU, which makes no mention of shipping lanes. But Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns HopkinsSchool ofAdvancedInternational Studies, argued that the MoU’s
At the heart of the renewed violence is control over the strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterwaythat was a conduit for 20% of the world’s energy exports before the war started on 28 February andthat has now emerged as Tehran’s biggest bargaining chip, as it seeks to resist pressure to make concessions on issues such as its nuclear programme and support for proxies such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group.
▼ An airstrike on Iran in a video released by US Central Command
Proportion of the world’s energy exports that passed through the strait of Hormuz before 28 February
The MoU was intended to pave
REUTERS
Instead of seasoned Iran specialists, Trump has relied on his tried-andtrusted negotiating team – namely Steve Witkoff, his chief envoy; Jared Kushner, his son-in-law; and latterly, JD Vance, , the US vice-president, who opposed the initial decision to go to war and was a key figure in negotiating the MoU.
“That is how he fundamentally misunderstood his adversary,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC. “Expertise would have come handy for the president, to actually listen to folks who’ve watched this Iranian system, and would have told him: ‘They’re not businessmen from New York. They’re made of a different type of DNA.’
“Trump now has an adversary that is willing to suffer a lot more than he thought. They are willing to risk on playing the strait of Hormuz card because it puts them in charge of so much of the global energy supply and turns some of the wealthiest countries in the Gulf into their hostages.”
A NA LYSIS IR A N
the US reimposed its own blockade in the Gulf of Oman, the number of daily transits through Hormuz dropped to three by last Thursday, the fewest since May, and the price of Brent crude oil rose to $82.
Armed response Tehran can still inflict serious damage despite US attacks
A frustrated US is exploring how to bend Iran to its will, though it is not obvious how that can be done without a substantial ground campaign, which the US is not prepared for and does not have the appetite for. The 2,200 marines in the USS Boxer amphibious group are also involved in enforcing the US blockade.
Military escalation was considered at a White House Situation Room meeting, followed by leaks that the options considered included a seizure of Kharg Island, through which 90% of Iran’s oil exports would flow if there was no US blockade.
By Dan Sabbagh
Iran’s readiness to gamble could drive Trump to further raise the stakes, making further escalation– including a ground invasion – more likely.
▲ JD Vance in Pakistan with Jared Kushner, left, and Steve Witkoff
Iran and the US have been trading blows again and there is no shortage of signs that the renewed
Regime change – a goal sought at the start of the war with the assassination of theAyatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, followed by other key figures – seems off the table for now.
JACQUELYN MARTIN/ GETTY
fighting will worsen further. Tehran and Washington remain far apart diplomatically, and though the US retains a significant military overmatch, Iran has more than enough capability to inflict damage.
It is possible for the US to capture Kharg, but the challenge would be holding on, as it would inevitably be targeted by Iranian missiles and drones. Meanwhile, continued US bombing will further reduce stockpiles of air defence interceptors, depleted by a half, and expensive missiles, down by a quarter to a third, based on estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank.
The week-long funeral accorded to Khamenei, whose body passed through vast crowds in several Iranian cities before being buried in the shrine city of Mashhad, is widely viewed as an effort by the regime to re-establish popular unity and legitimacy in the face of external threats to its existence.
The US had claimed that its 38day bombing campaign with Israel had destroyed or decimated Iran’s military. Last week, Donald Trump told Fox News that Iran’s “weapons are down 91%”, but leaked US intelligence assessments concluded in May that Iran had regained access to 30 out of 33 missile launch sites along the strait of Hormuz and perhaps 70% of its overall prewar missile stockpile and launchers.
With Iran willing to retaliate against US Gulf allies such as the UAE, Qatar and even Oman – countries that the regime paints as “collaborators” with Washington – Vatanka warned of a possible five- or 10-year conflict.
Trump has also threatened to bomb “all their power plants”. Such a degree of escalation would invite international condemnation as it would be widely considered a war crime – as well as risk dangerous Iranian retaliation in the Gulf.
“You can imagine the United States bombarding Iran repeatedly over the course of many weeks and months,” he said. “I don’t know how Trump’s going to defeat the regime militarily, unless he wants to occupy the place.”
Two oil tankers that were sailing along the southern route of the strait of Hormuz, near Oman, were struck by missiles last week, according to the UK’s Maritime Trade Organisation, killing one sailor and wounding eight. A third tanker was struck further east, in the Gulf of Oman, 70km north-west of Qalhat, illustrating the range of Iranian air power against tankers.
c
Iran’s regime has shown it can endure. Its coherence was underlined by the organisation of the week-long funeral of Ali Khamenei, points out Roxane Farmanfarmaian, a lecturer at Cambridge University. She fears a sharp military escalation, though “my feeling is it will be shorter” than in the spring, because both sides are depleted, resulting in a not dissimilar outcome to now.
One option short of that could be an invasion of Kharg Island, the hub of Iran’s crude oil export business.
But such a move would be of limited usefulness, argued Joseph Votel, a retired US general and former head of US Central Command during Trump’s first presidency, who said an effective strategy must involve diplomacy.
it a U fi
The results were predictable:
It is a reminder that it is easier to start wars with unrealistic goals than to end them. “Neither can deliver a knockout blow at an acceptable price,” said Farmanfarmaian.
“We’re seeing a sustained tit-for-tat over military operations. We strike, they strike,” said Votel. “That leads me to conclude that this is going to take probably weeks to months. A lot of strategic patience is required – and there is a lot of risk involved.”
It is possible for the US to capture Kharg Island, but the challenge would be holding on
DAN SABBAGH IS THE GUARDIAN’S DEFENCE AND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT
ROBERT TAIT IS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT FOR GUARDIAN US
R C
Caribbean
CU BA
the University of Texas. “And they’re old, broken and tired.”
In May, a Florida court charged Raúl Castro, now 95, with murder, 30 years after the shooting down of small planes out of Miami dropping leaflets on Havana, and opening the possibility of a Venezuela-style extraction.
Another ‘Delcy’ Early in the crisis, the US made clear it had been looking for another “Delcy”, the equivalent of Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez, who took Nicolás Maduro’s position
With summer temperatures now in the mid-30Cs and humidity at 80%, tempers have begun to break. For many, the nationwide collapses mesh seamlessly with already withering local blackouts. Where once salsa filled the streets, now the drumming of pots and pans has become the country’s soundtrack – cacerolazos that represent the shared misery of no sleep and ruined food.
Even before the US cranked up the pressure, the Cuban state was weak. Now, services are faltering. Crime is spreading with fights on the streets, cars and houses being broken into, and muggings. Police, once ubiquitous, are hard to find.
Electricity returns onlysporadically. “An hour isn’t enough time to run the pump to get water or to charge phones,” one man yelled through a cacophony of pans in Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood last week. “People want the government to act right now.”
The Cuban government’s determination to appear unitedappears to be under strain. For months, the US has been leaking its discussions on a possible deal over political and economic reforms, negotiations channelled through Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of Ra l Castro.
By Ruaridh Nicoll HAVANA
The government says it has few options. “We’ve said it before, there is a total absence of fuel,” said Vicente de la O Levy, the minister of energy.
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hen Cuba’s national grid collapses, as it did for the third time in 10 days last Tuesday, a col-
Last week, Rodríguez Castro, 42, gave an interview to USA Today, inviting reporters to one of his grandfather’s old offices in Havana. He was wearing Hermès sneakers and a Rolex watch and carrying official documents in a Salvatore Ferragamo bag. “It pains me that many people can’t live the way I do,” he told them, adding that while he had no interest in politics, “if at some point the revolution needs me to step up, I will do it”.
as A
s
Ever since 3 January, when the US abducted President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Donald Trump has promised Cuba will fall. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it,” he told reporters in March.
H a
lective groan spreads across its cities and people wonder, again, whether the island’s antiquated electricity system may soon become unrecoverable.
cu
. “ iv
The1,250km long Caribbean island of 9.5 million people has been sweltering under a six-month-long oil blockade imposed by the US, part of a campaign to bring down its communist government. But the parlous state of Cuba’s infrastructure goes far further back.
ng in p
In its efforts to achieve this, Washington has used sanctions to destroy Cuba’s industries. Foreign firms doing business on the island – from hotel operators and airlines to shipping companies – have been driven out. “We have seven containers in Kingston and another 40 in China, but we have no idea when, or if, they will arrive,” said an electric car importer.
some point the revo
▼ People use the torches of their phones to play dominoes amid power cuts in Havana
The result was uproar from Cubans outraged by such a display from someone who is, in the words of theacademic Julio César Guanche, “without recognised institutional public functions”.
“The backbone of the system is still the big power plants,” said Jorge Piñon, a senior energy researcher at
Having gone into a lull during the World Cup, war drums are once again beating in the US. In the unlikely surrounds of the Biltmore hotel in Coral Gables, Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, stood next to an Iranian Shahed drone amid (unconfirmed) reports that Cuba has bought 300 drones.He said Iranhadbeen working with Cuba. In the White House, Trump followed up, saying: “We’re not going to allow that to happen.”
RAMON ESPINOSA/AP
Meanwhile, Cuban government efforts to show willing by opening up the economy, announcing 176 measures expanding the private sector and inviting in investment, were dismissed by the US state department as “superficial smoke signals”.
The grid was reconnected at 7am last Wednesday, with people cheering if their block received electricity. But everyone knew it was only temporary.
RUARIDH NICOLL IS A JOURNALIST BASED IN HAVANA
Europe
Zelenskyy confirmed last week that the relationship between Fedorov and Syrskyi had broken down.
Amid mass public protests in Kyiv, it was rumoured that Zelenskyy would this week bow to pressure and dismiss Syrskyi. Ukraine’s general staff on Monday said Syrskyi and his deputy, Andriy Hnatov, continued to carry out their duties.
While it is clear a toxic dynamic had emerged at the top, Zelenskyy’s initial parsing of the situation last Thursday was unconvincing. He appeared to complain that he was being asked “to choose between sides [when honestly] what I want most is unity”. It has led to suggestions that Zelenskyy and his circle – not for the first time – had sidelined someone seen as popular and a potential future political rival.
Smoke billows after a Ukrainian drone attack near Podolsk in Russia’s Moscow region
REUTERS
A NA LYSIS U K R A IN E
admirers for grasping several issues that have plagued Ukraine’s armed forces, streamlining military procurement and challenging systems prone to corruption, introducing competitive tendering, and seeking solutions to the army’s recruitment and training crisis.
A leader in the Kyiv Independent said: “Forced to choose between the man who was turning the war of attrition around with technology and intelligent strategy on one hand, and the man who was sabotaging it with micromanagement and Soviet thinking on the other, Zelenskyy … chose the latter.”
In defence? Attention turns to Zelenskyy after minister’s rapid sacking
Fedorov was also seen as one of the key drivers of Ukraine’s highly effective drone programme.
The question now is what lasting impact it will have if a fifth defence minister is appointed in as many years. For Zelenskyy it underlines that he has struggled to assemble and retain a cohesive team of senior officials. His move to appoint Yevhen Khmara as interim defence minister suggests that the emphasis on technology and longand medium-range drone strikes is likely to persist. Khmara is a former head of the state security service’s Alpha unit, which has been heavily involved in drone strike operations.
A former marketing executive close to Zelenskyy, who has never served in the army, he grated with senior officers thanks to his casual style, freewheeling speeches and insistence on a data-driven approach to Kyiv’s war efforts.
By Peter Beaumont
“We will take all the data and see what works,” Fedorov said after his appointment. “Everything that works well will proceed.” That included a killing-for-points scheme designed to reward the most effective army units, which some in the military dismissed. Fedorov was also credited with persuading Elon Musk to turn off unauthorised Russian Starlink access on the battlefield earlier this year.
There are suggestions Zelenskyy sidelined someone seen as a potential future rival
Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s abrupt dismissal of Ukraine’s innovative defence minister,
Mykhailo Fedorov, at the moment Kyiv appeared to be gaining advantages in several spheres of its war with Russia has exposed a troubling flaw in the president’s leadership, and not for the first time. The move, which startled senior European officials and led to demonstrations in Ukraine, is all the more shocking given Fedorov’s role in pushing a clear strategy to prosecute the war, leveraging Ukraine’s rapidly developing technological advances in drone and missile technology.
Zelenskyy has indicated he also wants Khmara to push forward with a number of Fedorov’s key reform programmes. But the question is whether anyone can be empowered to be effective in the role.
Born in the year of Ukraine’s independence from Moscow, Fedorov was seen as part of a generation unencumbered by the experience of Soviet bureaucracy, in contrast to his arch-rival, the country’s 60-year-old military chief of staff Oleksandr Syrskyi, a graduate of Moscow higher combined arms command school, who began his career as an artillery officer.
It was unclear if Fedorov would be reinstated – a key demand from demonstrators – or brought back into government in another role. If not, demonstrators promised a “general indefinite protest” in towns and cities across the country.
PETER BEAUMONT IS THE GUARDIAN’S SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
Aged 35 and appointed in January, Fedorov was feted by
Eyewitness 2026 World Cup
What makes a great World Cup photograph? Composition, newsworthiness, emotional resonance, expert timing and luck can all contribute to varying degrees. But one thing they all share is the power to capture attention.
The Guardian sport picture desk received more than 500,000 World Cup photographs over the six weeks of the tournament, with so many classics among them. Here Jonny Weeks, the Guardian’s picture editor for sport, chooses his favourite images of the 2026 World Cup.
▲▲ At the ripe age of 40, the Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha became a breakout star at the tournament
BRETT DAVIS/REUTERS
▲ Folarin Balogun’s mistimed challenge received a red card, but his one-game ban was suspended after lobbying from Donald Trump
MICHAEL STEELE/GETTY
▲ The mass rowing performed by Norway’s fans this summer has been a viral sensation
Manuel Akanji of Switzerland’s penalty miss looks as if the ball could escape the stadium
ANADOLU/GETTY
AGUSTIN MARCARIAN/REUTERS
The Kansas City Stadium sweeps around a small corner of grass on which the world’s most famous footballer walks alone. You can’t really see it’s Lionel Messi, but somehow you can tell it’s him
JULIAN FINNEY/FIFA/GETTY
You don’t see many players with braces, but Spain’s Lamine Yamal, who only turned 19 this month, wears his with pride
KARL BRIDGEMAN/GETTY
A perfect reminder of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham’s England heroics at the tournament
IAN MACNICOL/GETTY
Andy Burnham outside 10 Downing Street after taking office on Monday
ISABEL INFANTES/REUTERS
U N I T ED K I NGDOM
The huge question for Britain’s new prime minister when it comes to big policy changes will be whether he knows where he wants to go
By Tom Clark
ighteen months into the 24 it turned out he would last in No 10, Keir Starmer was a man in a hurry. The biggest
frustration with the job, he told MPs, concerned “speed and the ability to get things done”. The underlying problem, he thought, was that every time somethinghad gone wrong in the past, “successive governments have put in place another procedure or another body or another consultation to try to stop ourselves ever making a mistake again”.
In airing his impatience, if little else, Starmer is in tune with the country he has become too unpopular to lead.Julian Gallie, a pollster at Merlin Strategy, says voters have been “crying out for change for a decade”, even if they have sent inconsistent signs about what sort of change it should be. The Brexit vote, the Corbyn surge of 2017, the Johnson majority of 2019 and the Tory rout of 2024 can all be seen as “a desperate roll of the dice against a status quo”.
obviously have – an emergency. The classic case is Franklin Roosevelt’s first 100 days. It wasn’t just eloquence but the ubiquitous bankruptcies, redundancies and collapsing banks of America in 1933 that enabled him to bulldoze 15 major laws through a rancorous Congress.
dithering over little Northern Rock suddenly summoned the resolve to nationalise half the banking system. In the pandemic, a blitzkrieg of new laws locked citizens in their homes while slumbering bureaucracies awoke and improvised ways to pay for people to stay off work. Previously unbendable protocols about everything from data governance to public procurement were summarily swept aside.
Has the British machinery of state simply got too gummed up to move?
The British war cabinet’s sudden embrace of full political union with France in June 1940 is less remembered, only because the speed of the emergency overtook that plan. When faced in 2008 with the cashpoints running dry within hours, a UK government that had just spent months
Without the threat of mass death or ruin, has the British machinery of state – as Starmer implied – simply got too gummed up to move? The outgoing prime minister’s colleagues are
History suggests the single most useful tool in shaking off stupor is something Andy Burnham doesn’t
hoping that the real reasonLabour has so often seemed marooned in power is more personal than institutional. Lisa Nandy is one voice around the top table predicting that Andy Burnham’s administration will immediately be “faster and bolder”.
to match his proven talent for making friends with a willingness to risk making enemies in raising cash. An early tax-raising budget could be a signal that there is a plan with momentum.
Keir Starmer hugs his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, after his farewell speech
Burnham needs to take special care to avoid being caught in the snares of high office when it comes to the cost of living. Cheaper essentials would transform everything – if the reductions could be made to stick. But the fact that the one prime minister who moved most decisively to cap fuel bills was Liz Truss underscores the tension between quicksilver ambitions and stubborn fiscal realities.
ANDY RAIN/EPA
It’s not a daft hope. Starmer is, despite his protestations, the embodiment of whatFrancis Fukuyama calls the politics of “procedural fetishism”, someone whom the American sage recently told me seemed as if he “just didn’t want to take any of the risks” that effective leaders instinctively grip. Sometimes, they may do so by hamming up routine dilemmas into a crisis. In 2010, George Osborne talked up the possibility of Britain going down the path of stricken Greece. Meanwhile, he sharpened the steel for deep cuts in public expenditure, which he started imposing just 46 days after arriving in No 11.
renters. Jacobs is undeterred. He thinks the state could respond by snapping up such homes for the social stock.
The political economist Michael Jacobs, a longstanding member of Burnham’s informal brains trust, thinks he can spy a winning way through nonetheless. Rather than capping all household energy, like Truss, he suggests Burnham subsidises unit prices only up to a certain level of use, well below the average. This would roughly halve the cost.
While the row with the buy-to-let brigade plays out, he envisages the state getting cracking with mass council house building. Nationwide development corporations could organise the logistics.
It’s not only big-spending leftists who can spy rapid ways of making life cheaper. Tim Leunig is a resolutely pro-competition economist who has just been announced as Lib Dem peer, and also a man who knows how to do things fast. He was the brains behind the pandemic furlough and advised the then-chancellor Rishi Sunak on how to get it up and running in weeks.
tarmer, by contrast, is acareful former lawyer, who set missions, milestones and “first steps”, but never quite direc-
Where Truss rashly borrowed for her fuel subsidy scheme as well as her pet tax cuts, Jacobs wants Burnham to fund his by jacking up the charge on capital gains to match income tax. Policy purists would worry about the failure to target support on the poorest and the draughtiest homes. But this straightforward transfer to just about everybody could be done quickly, and – in a funny way – the louder the howls of anguish from the capital-holders paying the bill, the more unmissable “change” would be.
tion. Notoriously, he battedaway any question about Israeli war crimes in Gaza by pointing to glacial international proceedings. He shunted responsibility for the stricken state of social care to an independent commission, asked to report back only in 2028. Its chair, Louise Casey, talks pointedly – and with what sounds like pre-emptive frustration – about having “had a really good look at the 22 previous commissions, reviews, green papers and white papers”.
Today he offers a long list of cheap, easy wins: supporting leaseholders by immediatelyabolishing ground rents; giving customers access to insurance algorithms; givingVirgin Media’s rivals access to its cable network; allowing manufacturers of cheap generic drugs to emblazon their equivalence to Nurofen or Clarityn on the packet. All of these would require an early row with a vested interest. But the effect each time would be one that cosy corporatism rarely achieves: making something specific cheaper.
Another proposal from Jacobs combines tangible support for some with a noisy argument with others: a temporary rent freeze. Again, policy purists will fret. Some landlords may prefer to sell properties than accept lower returns, leaving fewer options for
▼ Keir Starmer offers his resignation to King Charles on Monday
Having agitated for acomprehensive care service since his days as health secretary, Burnham now sounds like exactly the leader Casey is yearning for, vowing to expend “political capital” on a solution. But every meaningful proposal for reform – cost caps, cost sharing, entitlement guarantees, workforce upgrades – involves spending more. Is Burnham, a leader who has got to the top by showering empathy in all directions,reallygoing to be able to requisition the resources needed at speed?
AARON CHOWN/PA
Any caricature of the Starmer government as uniformly sluggish isn’t fair. Despite the grumbles of the man at the top, nothing stopped it from proving quite dynamic on renters’ rights, employment rights and net zero. What distinguished these areas from all others was that the government had figured out exactly what it wanted to do. The huge question for Burnham will be whether he knows where he wants to go. Once he’s mastered the steering wheel, pressing the accelerator is much less of a problem.
The former Greater Manchester mayor recently voiced concerns about the employers and the pensioners hit by Rachel Reeves’s two big tax rises, and hinted at easing off a bit. Care is only one example of the pressing priorities that need public funds fast. The new PM will immediately need
TOM CLARK IS A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR AT PROSPECT MAGAZINE
U N I T ED K I NGDOM
indication of the prime minister’s thinking in certain key areas, not least defence spending. His resignation as defence secretary last month, in protest at the proposed defence investment plan, was a critical moment in the downfall of Keir Starmer.
or weeks, as ministersjostled, lobbied and positioned themselves for big jobs in an Andy Burnham government, the
incoming prime minister remained sphinxlike. He told an intervieweron Monday that he had a black box containing his ministerial picks and major policy announcements, adding that even as he prepared to enter Downing Street: “The black box is still sealed.”
Some Starmer allies believe that resignation sapped the former prime minister of his will to fight Burnham for the premiership. Some even think Healey did a deal to become Burnham’s chancellor, before announcing his resignation from Starmer’s government.
And so, when John Healey was appointed chancellor after intense briefing from allies of Ed Miliband, Shabana Mahmood and Rachel Reeves, it blindsided even those at the top of the Labour party. “We did not see this coming,” said one Labour MP. “But that is probably a sign that it is a good decision.”
Healey will almost certainly use his new position to increase defence spending. One way to do so might be to issue “defence bonds” – new borrowing allocated only for the military – which Healey advocated in government and now has a chance to enact.
Officials said the prime minister had chosen the former defence secretary because the two agreed on a series of policy issues, including sticking to borrowing rules, reindustrialisation, devolution and intervention to help with the cost of living. Healey also has Treasury credentials, having been a junior minister in the department for five years under Gordon Brown.
By Kiran Stacey
While the chancellor’s allies have been pushing his case, they have done so less vociferously than others.
Weeks before Burnham was elected as MP for Makerfield, some in the Labour party thought Reeves was positioning herself to stay in post as chancellor. Her proposal to freeze private sector rents – not previously mentioned as a government policy and quickly slapped down by Starmer and other senior ministers – was seen as a deliberate signal to the more interventionist Burnham.
Shabana Mahmood Homesecretary
Healey’s appointment gives an
John Healey Chancellor
Meanwhile Katie Martin, one of her most senior advisers, was calling business lobbyists and executives asking them to press Reeves’s case, either publicly or privately. Supportive MPs also rallied round but in the end none of this pressure was enough. Reeves resigned from the government on Monday having turned down the offer of another big appointment – reported to be that of defence secretary.
ANDY RAIN/EPA; VICTORIA JONES, JAMES VEYSEY/SHUTTERSTOCK; YUI MOK/PA
Meanwhile, Miliband’s allies were pressing his case. Friends responded angrily to suggestions that he would not be business-friendly, arguing that his efforts to increase funding for green infrastructure had been progrowth and pro-industrialisation.
Several union leaders gave him their public endorsement – an unprecedented move for a potential cabinet pick. Many of those closest to
‘We did not see this coming. But that’s probably a sign that it was a good decision’
Ed Miliband Foreign secretary
Rachel Reeves
Departing chancellor
EXPL A IN ER By Peter Walker ▼ Andy Burnham
speaks outside No 10 on Monday
Burnham also indicated they thought he should be the pick. But heavy lobbying from senior figures in business and the markets against Miliband’s candidacy seemed to count against him, and with the Iran war threatening another bout of inflation, even his former supporters expressed doubt.
who enters No 10 as perhaps more of a political blank slate than any PM in recent history. There was no contest or scrutiny beyond the Makerfield byelection. He has not been in parliament for nearly a decade, or in government for 16 years.
“It might just be time for a fiscal hawk,” said one MP.
It was against this rancorous backdrop that those close to Mahmood thought she might have a chance to take over the Treasury. The former home secretary told friends she wanted to remain in post to oversee the contentious changes to the asylum and immigration system, which she launched this year. But as the Labour party became more divided over who should be chancellor, her allies began mentioning her as a possible pick, despite having said little about economic policy in the past.
t clocked in at just over five minutes, and contained several themes and
is the message. Equally obvious is the fact that delivering national change is easier to say than do. Labour MPs already know this is their final throw of the dice to ward off a possible Nigel Farage government.
‘I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction
‘I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I do … Let us make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again, the moment we bring back hope’ Burnham has always
phrases familiar to Andy Burnham watchers. Yet there was quite a lot to the new prime minister’s first speech in Downing Street.
‘I am acutely conscious that I am the sixth person in the last 10 years to walk up this street’ Burnham began by voicing what many voters will have been thinking: what, this again? However, he also faces an initial challenge of convincing people there was a good reason to depose Keir Starmer just two years after a big election win.
‘In the 1980s, Britain took some wrong turns … We will change politics to make it more collaborative, more about problem solving than point scoring’ If some parts of Burnham’s speech felt familiar, that’s because he said parts of it before, almost word for word, most recently in his speech last Friday to the Labour faithful as he became the party leader.
In the end, she will be allowed to continue at the Home Office, as she always said she wanted, in a clear sign there will be no major watering down of her proposals.
It was not just the Treasury that became the subject of heavy lobbying from cabinet ministers uncertain of their fate. Steve Reed, the outgoing housing and communities secretary, gave interviews and speeches in his final weeks in office stressing his commitment to devolution – one of Burnham’s main policy priorities.
Burnham framed this largely as a mass political mea culpa. UK politicians must “raise our game and rise to the new challenge” and finally bring stability, he said. He went on: “I know people at home are fed up with politics. I hear you and I want to be honest with you: we have not been good enough and we need to be better.” An acceptance of fault can be a powerful tool, as with Starmer’s cathartic acceptance of Labour’s failings when he took over as party leader.
This is not a fault. Burnham has some key, if broad, policy mantras – trying to reverse the worst impacts of Thatcher-era deindustrialisation; less factionalism; devolving power – and Monday’s speech will reach as wide an audience as he will get.
Reed’s allies expressed frustration that he was not getting credit for what the government had already done to push power out of Whitehall – but in the end it was not enough to save his job.
Several other ministers were also privately candid about what jobs they would ideally like to do. More than one talked about their expertise in the technology sector – though in vain, given Burnham is likely to scrap the technology department altogether.
Burnham has a credo, a relatively coherent if occasionally woolly set of core beliefs, knocked into shape during his time as Greater Manchester mayor. Allies believe this could be crucial.
With much talk of fiscal black holes and tough choices, “Things can only get worse (until, maybe, if we’re lucky, they get slightly better)” had some use in the immediately post-Conservative world, shifting blame and buying some time.
Some in international roles were keen to stress their domestic policy credentials, given that is likely to be where the prime minister puts much of his focus. However, those close to Burnham say the lobbying campaigns waged by ministers’ proxies may have backfired.
‘We will make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last 40 years’ This is perhaps the obvious follow-on to the concession of failure. Things are now different,
‘Later this year, I will bring forward a new plan for Britain, a 10-year plan’ Talk of multi-year plans can prompt a shudder from MPs, not to mention voters. This is, nonetheless, of vast importance to Burnham,
“Andy hates people briefing themselves into jobs,” said one aide. “Anyone doing so is just as likely to find themselves out of government.”
Two years on from 2024, Burnham doesn’t have that luxury.
PETER WALKER IS SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT FOR THE GUARDIAN
KIRAN STACEY IS THE GUARDIAN’S POLICY EDITOR
Asia
eating pangolin meat. At least 1 million pangolins have been poached in the past decade – more than rhinos, elephants and tigers combined. This is largely for their scales, which are prized in TCM, and for their meat, which is eaten as a status symbol.
These unique creatures, anteaters native to parts of Asia and Africa, are the only mammals to be exclusively covered in keratin scales. They have no teeth and, when threatened, curl into a ball to protect against predators, making them easy for humans to capture. Conservationists estimate one is poached every three minutes, leading to some pangolin species being critically endangered.
Meanwhile, though their numbers are dwindling in the wild, Jeremy Phan, the director of the Lao Conservation Trust for Wildlife, a rescue centre, said pangolins are popping up in the middle of Vientiane, the capital city,a long distance from their natural habitat.
His team rescued a three-week-old pangolin that had been for sale in a restaurant in Vientiane. Its mother was almost certainly killed in the illegal wildlife trade. The team rescued the infant on the way home from another rescue, and only hours after two pangolins were picked up elsewhere.
L AOS
Upstairs,glass cases filla largeroom and, inside there are products banned in every country in the world.
▲ Pangolins are easily captured by hunters as their defence is to curl up into a ball
Some are instantly recognisable, such as the bracelets and chopsticks made from shiny creamy-white ivory, and a small, complete crocodile hide hanging from the wall. Others are less easy to discern: large bones, powdered items and a glass tank of liquid
HUGH KINSELLA CUNNINGHAM/EPA
It is one of the signs many organisations are seeing of an increase in the illegal trade, brought on by a boom in Chinese tourists heading to Laos.
Perhaps the most egregious products here are the bowls filled with something resembling leaves or shells. These are pangolin scales – a product driving the world’s most-trafficked mammal to the edge of extinction.
These trips are being facilitated by China’s belt and road initiative, an enormous infrastructure investment designed to connect the country with others around the world, through rail, highways, ports, power plants and pipelines. The Laos-China railway, completed in 2021, stretches more than 965km from Kunming, China, throughto Vientiane. The trains have
▼ A customs officer in Bangkok holds up pangolin scales destined for Laos
This shop is only one of the businesses the Guardian gained access to while investigating the illegal wildlife trade in Laos. In another, which appeared to be a cigarette shop, the Guardian found a large section of a pangolin tail sitting on a shelf alongside jars of snakes suspended in fluid.
By Robyn Vinter and Frances Rankin
REUTERS
he shop is dark and deserted. Though the door is open, there is clearly no expectation of any customers walk-
Many of them were traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) shops, selling a mixture of legal and illegal products, while others were disguised as cultural centres for Chinese tourists, often heavily guarded, with sturdy electric gates and CCTV.
ing in off the street. Visits are likely by appointment andfrom a specific clientele. This shop is part of an organised crime network. What is being sold is highly illegal and incredibly unethical.
Anyone wandering in would see large bags of specialist tea, local coffee, trinkets and cigarettes on the shelves. But the photographs of wild animals adorning the wallsoffer a clue towhat is truly for sale here.
Videos on Chinese social media sites, which have been popping up more frequently in recent years, show tourists showing off their purchases of illegal products in Laos and even
The age of extinction Scan the code for more stories from our series reporting on catastrophic species loss and ways to tackle the crisis
made it possible to travel quickly and cheaply between the two countries, leading to an up surge in these lowbudget tour groups propping up the illegal trade.
the world’s second largest economy. A growing number of recent graduates in China with humanities, arts and languages degrees are finding there is little demand for their skills. Meanwhile,Chinese universities, rapidly overhauling their curriculums in response to the country’s race to become a global leader in a slew ofhitech industries, are culling“obsolete” degrees en masse.
Brother Nut, a Chinese activist and performance artist who went undercover on one of the tours, shared footage with the Guardian that he gathered while being taken to a shop that appeared to sell rice noodles.
“In reality, it was selling all kinds of parts from endangered animals, such
China’s youth employment has been apersistent issue since 2020.The trend was initially fuelled by China’s move towards a “productivity- and manufacturing-driven growth model” of high-value industries such as electric vehicles, batteries, semiconductors and robotics, an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) researcher said.
CH I NA ▲ A graduation ceremony at Nanjing Agricultural University
His footage, filmed with a hidden camera, shows stalls featuring whole dead pangolins and many bowls of scales, with the salespeople claiming medicinal benefits such as curing cancer and reducing inflammation. There is no scientific evidence pangolin helps in the treatment of any medical condition.
“As the economy shifted, a mismatch emerged between the skills being supplied by graduates and those demanded by the labour market,” the researcher said.
CHINA NEWS SERVICE/ GETTY
Also being sold were tiger bones, banned globally under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), the same agreement that prohibits the sale of pangolin body parts anywhere in the world.
While the move towards AI- and tech-focused degrees is a universal trend, the speed at whichit is unfolding in China’s universities is unique, according to Charles Jeffery Sun, the founder ofthe consultancy China Education International.
By Alastair McCready
Brother Nut described how tourists, many of them older, were in some cases coerced and pressured into buying illegal products, after paying as little as 100 yuan ($15) for a four-night trip. His suspicion is that tour operators are able to price the trips so low because they are expecting to profit in other ways – for example, from spending in shops and “cultural centres” that are fronts for the illegal wildlife trade.
his time of year is graduation season in China: traditionally a bittersweet period of goodbyes andcelebrations as
“China’s higher education is centrally governed. When Beijing sets a strategic direction, implementation across hundreds of universities happens rapidly,” he said.
The recordbreaking number, in millions, of students who graduated in China this summer
students transition from campus life into adulthood.Now it also represents trepidation about the future.
In response to directives from Beijing for degrees to better match labour demands, Chinese universities culled 12,200 undergraduate programmes, mostly in the arts and humanities, between 2021 and 2025, while introducing 10,200 in emerging fields.
Each year, millions more graduates are thrust into China’s saturated jobs market. The situation for this year’s cohort, flooding into an increasingly crowded pool of applicants fighting for an insufficient number ofpositions, is arguably the bleakest yet.
Undercover footage Brother Nut gathered shows tour leaders telling visitors that these products are legal in Laos – which is untrue – and that it is their responsibility to buy products to help the struggling Laos economy.
Graduate unemployment appears to be a top concern for authorities, who have pushed several initiatives urging increased hiring. In March, authorities also signalled plans to harness AI to add 12 million urban jobs in 2026, including rolling out large-scale training programmes and internships in high-growth emerging sectors.
Jasmine, a 22-year-old who studied accounting in Shanghai, is among this year’s record 12.7 milliongraduates – a 480,000 increase on 2025. Shehas sent outabout 150CVs over the past month without success.
The number of undergraduate programmes universities culled between 2021 and 2025 to better match labour demands
“Actually, none of the money went to local Lao people,”Brother Nutsaid. “All the payments were made through WeChat Pay or Alipay, and the money ended up in the hands of the people running the scam.”
“The lack of vacancies is one issue, and the competition is also intense, especially for jobs that offer weekends off and proper social insurance,” she said.
But time is of the essence for millions of young Chinese. Fan, a 22-yearold who graduated from Sichuan University last month,said hecannot see any “particularly good solution” to China’s youth unemployment problem, but maintains hope the “future environment will be better”.
Meanwhile, although Phan has been able to release one of the rescued pangolins back into the wild, both humans and animals continue to be targeted by criminal networks profiting from pushing vulnerable species to the brink of extinction.
While thejobless rate among 16- to 24-year-olds is 15.6% in China, comparabletothe16.2% in the UK and the 15.1% in the EU, the country’semployment market is especially unforgiving for graduates grappling with the break-neck change taking place in
ALASTAIR MCCREADY IS A JOURNALIST COVERING SOUTH-EAST ASIA
ROBYN VINTER IS A GUARDIAN NORTH OF ENGLAND CORRESPONDENT; FRANCES RANKIN IS A VIDEO PRODUCER
Additional reporting by Yu-chen Li
Europe
she travelled to the Baltic Sea to help the whale with an Aboriginal chant that would “plug energetic holes”.
“Timmy brought out the best in people,” wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung after the premiere of the play. “But also the worst.”
As well as triggering a reported boom in whale and sealife-themed book sales, the Timmy saga inspired several songs. At the end of the Hamburg premiere, the rock band Tulpe performed their hit Sprengt den Wal! (“Blow up the whale!”), with its chorus of “Let it rain whale salami and cutlets”.
Timmy: Hope Dies Last premiered in Hamburg this month
An AI-generated song that went viral on social media at the height of Timmy mania – performed by the actors as a rock number in the play – mixes in populist resentment against cruel-hearted “experts”.
GEORG WENDT/DPA
GER M A N Y
“In his immeasurable kindness he became a vehicle to us” is a line from the actor Noah Tomiak in the play, dressed in liturgical robes andstanding behind an altar laden with a blow-up replica of thecreature. “And we placed everything inside: our fears, our guilt, our desires, our loneliness. And while we said: ‘We have to save him,’ it was maybe already the other way around: maybe he came to save us,” he said.
“While he is still breathing,” itsaid, “they are already talking of what happens afterwards / of tests and numbers / as if he was only an empty body without a heart.”
Eventually, a complex and risky attempt to transport the whale back to the open sea on a water-filled barge was privately funded by two millionaires and cleared by authorities, against the advice of experts who said the animal was hurt and unlikely to survive.
The elevation of Timmy into a Jesus figure has drawn criticism from Catholic theologians, but found praise on the pages of the news weekly Der Spiegel. The play, it wrote, revealed “how willing a secularised public seeks refuge in quasi-religious structure as a vehicle for hope”.
The play restages a press conference at which biologists who proposed leaving the whale to die in peace were criticised by some hangers-on as wanting to “murder” the animal. For the whale to die in a bay rather than out on the open sea, said one woman, was “undignified”.
By Philip Oltermann
The humpback whale was first spotted in German waters in March, stranded at the Timmendorfer resort – inspiring the nickname that, it would later turn out, misgendered an animal that was in fact female. An earlier nickname, Hope, better conveyed the emotional pull of the whale’s tragic fate on the national consciousness.
hen people in Germany organised arescue mission for a humpback whale stranded on the
In the end, far from healing the political fractures running through Germany, the effort to save Timmy seemed in part to be driven by populist resentment against “elites” that is driving the rise of the nationalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). As an actor in a wetsuit rails against officials for letting Timmy die andcalls for ordinary people to “wake up”, a large German flag is raised behind her back.
Baltic coast in April, it briefly looked like a country stricken with political division and economic anxiety was rallying around a common cause.
Throughout the play, its director, Alexander Klessinger, plays audio snippets from interviews with people who descended on Timmendorfer to seek a connection with the ailing mammal. Raw and unfiltered, these confessionals show the extent that people believed the whale was speaking directly to them. “I felt like he was waiting for me, I can’t explain it but he wanted me,” said one woman.
A new satirical play inspired by the episode, however, suggests the spectators, social media influencers, politicians and millionaires who flocked to the seaside in support never just wanted to rescue the cetacean that came to be nicknamed Timmy, but for Timmy to rescue them.
‘Timmy brought out the best in people. But also the worst’
Nearly two weeks after Timmy’s release, on 14 May, the whale was found dead near the small island of Anholt in the Kattegat, a broad strait between Denmark and Sweden. The fallout over the cost of the rescue mission – estimated to be about €2m ($2.3m) – continues to this day.
Timmy: Hope Dies Last, which premiered at Hamburg’s Ernst Deutsch theatre this month, reimagines the media spectacle as a passion play in which the leviathan is worshipped, crucified and eventually cut up into sacramental blubber bites.
Over the course of the one-hour show, the adoration of the whale takes on a cultish fervour, as actors declare their love via songs and placards. In one recording, a woman explained why
Süddeutsche Zeitung
PHILIP OLTERMANN IS THE GUARDIAN’S EUROPEAN CULTURE EDITOR
Spotlight 29 Africa
GH A NA
▼ Robert Kofi helped to found the Deadly Prey Gallery
painted posters in the early part of the 21st century, but demand has risen, driven by online marketing and a receptive customer base in the west.
day, Kofi, speaking in Ga, a primary language of Ghana, told Stogertwo of the cats were not aggressive enough and the food was too clean. “I want uglier cat scenes,” he later explained. “The spaghetti has to be dirtier.”
The Deadly Prey Gallery has been working with artists to preserve the culture of making hand-painted film posters, while helping to meet the increased demand.
CARLOS MUREITHI
Stoger, born Benjamin Amartey, was a sculptor before developing an interest in films and becoming aposter painter in 1992. “I use my imagination to make scenes that will attract people so they’ll love the poster,” he said.
Deadly Prey has worked with 15 artists, including Heavy J, who has been painting posters for four decades, connecting them toonline customers and shipping the artwork on completion.
The emphasis on exaggeration comes from an African tradition of “visualising the invisible”, saidJoseph Oduro-Frimpong, the director of the Centre of African Popular Culture at Ashesi University.
Most orders come from the US, Kofi said. Old action, science fiction and horror films have the highest demand. Popular titles include The Exorcist and the Star Wars and Terminator franchises. Prices for commissioned pieces start at $600.
“The posters’ audiences have not seen the film, so it’s impossible for them to know [whether they are accurate]. Therefore, the artists tap into what they call imaginative painting,” he said. “They will highlight these thingsandin doing so they incorporate things that are not in there. There is a kind of sensationalism to it.”
By Carlos Mureithi GREATER ACCRA All action Named after an action film,the Deadly Prey Gallery was co-founded in 2012 byRobert Kofi,who, as a child,worked as a “hype man” for video centres inthe town of Winneba. He started collecting and selling posters, thenset up the business with Brian Chankin, a video rental store owner in Chicago, after selling him some works.
itting on his porch in Teshie, near Accra, Heavy J dipped a brush into red oil paint and dabbed it carefully on to his
Robert Kofi, who is based in Accra, is part manager and part editor. He identifies the artists most suited for each work, shares his vision of the posters with them and makes regular visits to their workspaces to review works in progress.
canvas – a flour sack – adding blood to a knife being wielded by a man. Higher on the canvas, he had started on an outline of a skull.
At the Centre for National Culture in Accra, dozens of posters from the Deadly Prey Gallery are pinned on wooden walls. They include Jennifer Lopez launching an arrow at a snake in Anaconda, and a mouse coming out of the character Laurie Strode’s mouth in Halloween.
In a studio in Ashaiman, 17km from Heavy J’s house, another artist called Stoger was working on two commissions: one for the horror film Poltergeist, and another for the 1997 experimental drama Gummo, which contained multiple acts of violence against cats and a scene in which a character eats spaghetti in a bath tub.
Heavy J was creating a poster, but not, as you might have expected, for a horror film. Instead, it was for the animated fairytale The LittleMermaid. The man with the knife wasn’t a killer but the film’s kind-hearted prince, Eric. The skull was also unrelated to the story. “We add more to make people interested,” said Heavy J, whose real name is Jeaurs Affutu.
“We are preserving a tradition,” Kofi said of the craft. “We are preserving a history.”
The poster showed three cats and a man in a bath with a plate of spaghetti in front of him. In his feedback that
CARLOS MUREITHI IS THE GUARDIAN’S EAST AFRICA CORRESPONDENT
Hand-painted film posters by local artists were a hallmark of Ghanaian film culture from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, used to advertise screenings forneighbourhoodvenues known as video clubsafter organisers realised that the original posters were not attracting audiences.
Plot lines were regarded as little more than jump-off points for humorous and surreal flights of fancy. Artists working for different video clubs competed to make the best “forgery” as they described their interpretations.
The practice began to wane at the turn of the centuryas more Ghanaians gained access to electricity and their own TV sets and video players. Many video clubs went out of business and painters pivoted toother work.But by then the posters had attained global interest, popularised in books and foreign exhibitions, and old and rare paintings became prized collectibles.
There was a lull in interest in newly
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that supports our viewpoint,” said Pacey. “For those who think the world is going to hell in a handcart and we’re all doomed, testosterone and sperm count decline make sense.”
he world is unwittingly walking into a male reproductive crisis, scientists warned this month as they presented
he world is u ing into am crisis, scien month as
In a more recent analysis of sperm count trajectories, using arguably more consistent measurement techniques, Pacey’s group found no evidence of a substantial decline (though sperm quality did appear to be deteriorating). Other attempts to replicate the findings have produced mixed results.
data that revealed an of average male tes over the past 50 year
data that revealed an apparenthalving of average male testosterone levels over the past 50 years.
“It is mind-blowing that testosterone has declined by 50%,” Prof Hagai Levine, who led the work, told the uardian. “This is a lot. Wake up people. Wake up.”
“It is mind-blow
terone has decline Hagai Levine, who l the Guardian. “This people. Wake up.”
“Do I think there’s an issue with male infertility? Yes,” said Pacey. “But sperm count decline isn’t one that I worry about.”
The finding is the latest in a series of recent results that suggest male fertility is in crisis. Levine’s team has previously documented an apparent drastic decline in global sperm counts, in what has come to be known as the “spermageddon” paper.
The finding is the of recent results th fertility is in crisis. L previously documen drastic decline in glob in what has come to “spermageddon” pa
A less contentious starting point is that male reproductive health is a reflection of men’s overall health. And the latest findings on testosterone are, scientists agree, likely to be in part explained by the steep increase in rates of obesity and diabetes.
The US health secretary, Robert F
The US health sec
ennedy Jr, has called declining sperm counts an “existential crisis” and Levine’s work has been seized on in the “manosphere” as proof modern society is emasculating men. The findings have also galvanised concerns about the hazardous impact of endocrinedisrupting chemicals, air pollution and global heating on human health.
ennedy Jr, has calle counts an “existentia ine’s work has been “manosphere” as pr ety is emasculating m have also galvanised the hazardous impa disrupting chemica and global heating o
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“There’s been a profound shift in overall metabolic health,” said Prof Channa Jayasena, of Imperial College London and a consultant in reproductive endocrinology.
Excess body fat accelerates the conversion of testosterone to oestrogen and also disrupts the brain’s hormone signalling. Estimates vary, but in one studyevery one-point increase in BMI was associated with a 2% decrease in testosterone, which might be expected to lower sperm production. Being overweight can increase scrotal temperature, which ideally needs to be several degrees below core body temperature to produce healthy sperm. Diabetes is linked to lower testosterone, sperm DNA damage and erectile dysfunction.
Among scientists, though, the trend is disputed. While Levine and colleagues have embraced the doomsday narrative – his American co-author, Prof Shanna Swan, has suggested that sperm counts could hit zero by 2045 – others aresceptical.Prof Allan Pacey, a professor of andrology at the University of Manchester, is among them.
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“Obesity could easily account for all of the decline,” Jayasena said, of the reported 50-year fall in testosterone levels, a trend he finds convincing. “There’s a questionover whether pollution and environmental factors could be contributing as well.”
more men to use testosterone gels or injections, which can, counterintuitively, halt sperm production because it causes the body to reduce its own hormone production.
and obesity, he argues, and, given the stakes, the precautionary principle should apply.
“You don’t need 90% proof,” said Levine. “Let’s say that there is a 1% chance that something we are doing now would make reproduction extremely rare in 100 years’ time. Should we do something about it? I think yes.”
The percentage by which average male testosterone levels have declined over the past 50 years, according to recent research
“You need very high levels of testosterone in the testes in order to make sperm,” said Jayasena. “What we really don’t need is a self-inflicted problem of indiscriminate testosterone use. We’re unfortunately seeing a real increase across the UK, which is mirrored in other countries … where men are buying testosterone online or being prescribed it outside of the medical indication.”
Microplastics have been found in seminal fluid and exposureof pregnant rats to Pfas resulted in male offspring with abnormal sperm. AnItalian study suggested pollution could be leading to smaller penises, while another, from the US, found the average erect penis length had increased by 24% over the past 29 years; both sets of authors speculated that endocrinedisrupting chemicals could be altering male development.
Levine sees the issue through a global public health lens. But for individual men, the issue is brought into focus by the time- and finance-limited window available for improving their odds of having a baby. Navigating the competing claims and uncertain evidence can be “a nightmare”, said Prof Christopher Barratt, an expert in reproductive medicine at the University of Dundee.
The figure that sperm counts could hit by 2045, according to a co-author of recent findings, although that is disputed by other scientists
However, there is also a sense of optimism that decades of research into male fertility is about to pay dividends in the clinic. Among the most promising techniques on the horizon are the use of microfluidics systems, which “race” sperm through microscopic mazes, obstacles and channels to select the fittest individual cell.
ome studies, includingone this month linking air pollution exposure to subtle changes in sperm DNA, are regarded as
For the increasing proportion of couples who undergo IVF treatment, a common theme is ofmale infertility being treated as a secondary concern. Some men describe waiting months, or years, to have treatable issues diagnosed while their female partner is given successive scans and blood tests.
high quality. But as public interest in microplastics has intensified, a “race to publish” has been under way that has seen basic contamination controls overlooked and bold claims made on the back of weak evidence.
There is also significant interest in sperm DNA fragmentation, which increases with age. Current tests typically provide a readout of the percentage of sperm affected by problematic DNA damage, but cannot yet reliably select the healthiest individual sperm.
“It sounds incredibly simple – and quite boring – but we need to get the basics right,” said Barratt. “The man has to have a physical examination, a history taken and a semen analysis.”
“There are studies demonstrating the presence of microplastics in the testicles and the extrapolation is that this must be really bad,” saidProf Rod Mitchell, a paediatric endocrinologist
Given that an average ejaculation releases between 40 million and 300 million sperm cells, Barratt said improved sperm selection is the perfect problem for AI to solve. “You’ve got such a large number of cells, they [look] different from each other,” he said.
There has also been no realchange in sperm analysis since the 1950s, when sperm count and motility testing became more widely available.
Mitchell has carried out some of the most highly controlled experiments to date, using a system involvinghuman foetal testes tissue incubated in the body of a mouse. Previously he had discovered negative effects of certain environmental toxins in the development of rat reproductive systems.
“It can tell you really blunt stuff,” said Pacey. “No sperm: we’ve got a problem. Motility problems: you need IVF or ICSI [intracytoplasmic sperm injection].”
Silicon Valley investors have given hefty backing to startups targeting lab-grown eggs and sperm. One company, Paterna, recently claimed to have successfully grown functional human sperm in a lab from spermmaking stem cells, and used the cells to create healthy-looking embryos, an approach the company says could in future help men who have no sperm.
When low-quality sperm is identified as an issue, it is typically centrifuged to broadly separate out the healthier, denser sperm.
“We started with plasticisers, phthalates, BPA – the ones that are always in the news as being potentially harmful,” he said. “We thought they were the likely candidates, but we got no change in testosterone levels, no change in the development of the testes. The animal studies are misleading.” Mitchell is “somewhere in the middle” on whether environmental factors are driving fertility decline.
Into this void, there has been a recent expansion of social media marketing of male fertility tests and supplements and “add-ons” being offered by clinics, very few of which get the “green light” of endorsement in the traffic light system used by the UK fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
a a d
Male infertility is an issue, but I don’t worry about the sperm count’
‘Male f ilit
In the meantime, the quest to understand male fertility continues, but many are keen to avoid panic in the face of uncertainty.
ILLUSTRATION: GUARDIAN DESIGN; PRILL/GETTY
“I’m not worried that we’re going to die out imminently,” said Mitchell. “Some of the predictions that male sperm counts will be down to zero within 20 to 30 years – I don’t buy that. The problem, in terms of our future, might be more down to other issues about the world we’re living in.”
Of particular concern is a narrative, widely pushed by men’s health influencers and online prescribing companies, that men should be treating “low T”, or even “T-maxxing”, with testosterone replacement therapy. Pacey and others fear that publicity around the latest findings could drive
Despite making confident claims that environmental factors are to blame, Levine acknowledges there is a large degree of uncertainty about the precise biological mechanisms involved. But there are broader health benefits in addressing air pollution
Allan Pacey Professor of andrology
or of ogy
HANNAH DEVLIN IS A GUARDIAN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
HA SCIE
North America
U N I T ED STAT ES
their streets. To deliver on Trump’s promise of mass arrests and deportations, ICE officers armed with military gear have been violently detaining people across the US – at traffic stops and outside department stores, at bus stops, warehouses, farms and schools.
he Funding boost The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement apparatus is now the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the US. Last month, the president signed a bill securing $70bnin funding for ICE and US Customs and Border Protection, with $38bn for ICE to expand arrests, detention and deportation operations.
The shootings have galvanised thousands of protesters, and led to calls from local leaders and civil rights groups for independent investigations. In Houston, thousands of protesters marched to demand that ICE leave the city entirely and for the Houston police department to end all cooperation with the agency.
Salgado Araujo and Durán Guerrero were the 29th and 30th people that ICE officers have opened fire on since Trump took office last year, according to the Trace, a media outlet that is tracking such shootings in its Gun Violence Data Hub. Officers killed eight of those people, among them Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
Increasingly, advocates are grappling with a bigger question: what happens when ICE violates people’s rights with apparent impunity? Jasmine Khadem Gonzalez, an immigrant rights organiser with the Houston Democratic Socialists of America, said her training now included instructions for documenting agents in public – noting badge numbers, licence plates and timestamps, and filming agents – all to create a record of violations.
Neither victim in the two latest shootings, it turned out, had been the target of the ICE officers’ operation. Salgado Araujo was from Mexico but had lived and worked in the US for 35 years. He was a husband and the father of three US citizen children. Durán Guerrero, from Colombia, had been working several jobs to support his wife and daughter.
By Maanvi Singh SAN FRANCISCO and Fabiola Cineas HOUSTON
In recent months, the administration has recruited thousands of immigration agents, many without proper vetting.
In the wake of public outrage over Good and Pretti’s killings, and massive nationwide protests, Trump signalled a shift in tactics. He demoted Gregory Bovino – the bombastic border patrol official who led armed and masked bands of agents through cities with a film crew in tow – and fired his homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem. Tricia McLaughlin, the top DHS spokesperson who had become notorious for her blatantly false press statements, also left.
orenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was driving to work with his brother and two other passengers in Houston, Texas, when
immigration agents began tailing his car. They pulled him over and fired a fatal shot through the open window.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – which oversees ICE and the US Border Patrol – quickly followed up each shooting with statements, but no evidence, that the victims were to blame. Salgado Araujo “weaponised his vehicle” against officers, the DHS said – echoing the language used after officers killed Good.
Six days later in Biddeford, Maine, Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 26, was drivingwhen agents stopped him at an intersection and shot him dead.
The two killings unleashed waves of grief and outrage. Demonstrators gatheredtodemand that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency tasked with carrying out Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation scheme, remove its agents from
The arrests are happening routinely – in many cases before neighbours realise what is going on. “It’s just happening so quickly. So people can’t get there to observe, record and report what they saw,” said Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project. “And often all that’s left is an empty car sitting there.”
▼ A protest in Houston against the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
The DHS said the officers who fired at Durán Guerrero did so while “fearing for public safety”. But witness videos of each incident have already cast doubt on these official statements.
MARK FELIX/AFP/GETTY
Immigration attorneys and advocates are bracing for even more arrests. A recent supreme court ruling allowing the administration to revoke a designation known as temporary protected status from Haitian and Syrian immigrants will strip legal status from about 1.3 million people. Those unable to find a legal pathway to residency could be arrested and deported.
In Houston, residents said they would continue to push back.
“We have to stop mincing words … ICE is a domestic terrorist organisation,” said Khadem Gonzalez. “They are killing our fathers on the streets in cold blood all across this country.”
MAANVI SINGH IS AN IMMIGRATION REPORTER FOR GUARDIAN US; FABIOLA CINEAS IS A MOVEMENT BUILDING REPORTER FOR GUARDIAN US
North America
the dissenting view concluded “we have no information suggesting China tried to interfere with election processes”.
The White House released a tranche of formerly classified materials last week attempting to try to undercut that conclusion. But the documents were heavily redacted, making it hard to assess what exactly they said. At least some of the documents also appeared to undercut the idea that China intended to interfere in the 2020 election. Reviewing the documents, CNN concluded there wasn’t much new in them. Instead of offering smoking-gun evidence, the release seemed to be a return to a classic Trump strategy of flooding the zone with information in an attempt to muddy the waters and make uncertain what was true.
The US constitution gives Donald Trump no power over elections
JEFF KOWALSKY/ AFP/GETTY
A NA LYSIS U N I T ED STAT ES
the means by which the country acquired the data). He claimed that China interfered in other ways to undermine his 2020 campaign and that the information had been suppressed by intelligence officials.
Trump also claimed that FBI officials had investigated a votercanvassing operation in Muskegon, Michigan, in which canvassers admitted they had submitted voterregistration applications with fake names. While it’s not known why the FBI did not file charges, the incident did not result in illegitimate ballots being cast and was caught by the local clerk. The incident has been trumpeted by Michigan Republicans and the far-right website the Gateway Pundit for years.
Blame game Why is Trump casting doubt over the 2020 election?
With his Republican allies at risk of losing control of the House of Representatives, Trump’s speech rehashing allegations about the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden raised fears he was looking for ways to ensure November’s results are in his favour.
Trump’s claims about election vulnerabilities were already investigated by intelligence officials, who concluded with high confidence in 2021 that China “did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US presidential election”.
Trump said the Department of Homeland Security had identified more than 270,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls in four states (there are more than 211 million people registered to vote in the US), without saying anything about how the agency went about identifying the noncitizens.
By Sam Levine NEW YORK
Donald Trump used the imprimatur of the presidency and United States intelligence
The number of noncitizens, in thousands, that Donald Trump said had been identified on voter rolls in four states by the Department of Homeland Security
agencies to try to undermine confidence in US elections in a presidential address last week that seemed aimed at laying the groundwork for further destabilising the electoral system before November’s midterm elections.
A minority view included in that public report by the national intelligence officer for cyber argued: “China took at least some steps to undermine … Trump’s re-election chances, primarily through social media and official public statements and media.” But even
The US constitution gives Trump no power over elections, instead giving it to the states. But perhaps the most sinister line of his speech was when he said his administration would try to take more control over elections. The Department of Homeland Security, he said, was holding a briefing the next day to discuss vulnerabilities in state voting systems and would order states to remove noncitizens from the rolls.
Trump attempted to give the impression that his administration had uncovered new bombshell findings about vulnerabilities in the US’s election system. China, he claimed, had illicitly acquired voter information on 220 million Americans (many states allow anyone to buy voter roll information; Trump did not say
The release seemed to be a return to a classic Trump strategy of flooding the zone
SAM LEVINE IS A VOTING RIGHTS REPORTER FOR GUARDIAN US
Chris Stein also contributed to this report
N THE SILENT COUNTRYSIDE south of Grantham, in eastern England, three vast steel barns rattled in the breeze. Gathered in a loose circle beside them were 15 landowners, land agents and a couple of young investors; all expensively dressed men, many with a sceptical mien. It was June 2022, and Sir Charles Raymond Burrell, 10th Baronet, was explaining how the purchase of 617 bleak hectares of prairie fields of wheat and beans could revolutionise farming and nature conservation, not just insouth Lincolnshire but across Britain and beyond.
had, until recently, operated on this site was more typical of today’s “hard-arsed” farming, as Burrell put it.Boothby Lodge Farm had been a business owned by an absentee landlord. No one lived off the land, or on it. Tenants rented the farmhouse and worked elsewhere. More than 92% of the land was ploughed field. A contract farmer simply drove in with big machines several days each year to produce wheat and beans in relatively poor clay soils. Pheasants were released on the 3% of the farm that was woodland. For a few days each winter, men would pay to shoot them.
Boothby Lodge Farm made £250,000 ($335,000) profit each year but half of this came through the “basic payment”, a simple and generous subsidy for land owned that the government planned to halt by 2027. Beyond that date, thanks to reforms introduced by Michael Gove during his stint as environment secretary, farmers would only receive “public money for public goods” – that is, if their land provided clean water, or healthy soils, or wildlife-rich hedgerows, none of which Boothby appeared to be doing.
Burrell, known by everyone as Charlie, led the group on a walk from the barns beside the unlovable modern farmhouse, a red-brick behemoth with small windows like piggy eyes. We began by crossing a field of broad beans. Less than a century ago, it had been a patchwork of10 fields. As we walked over the hard, cracked ground, we encountered not a single insect.As for humans, we didn’t meet a single other person in our two-and-a-half-hour stroll across a range of footpaths and field edges. “This is a ruined landscape,” said one of the guests, the architectural historian Matthew Rice. “Not because of the soils. Because there are no people here. I’m sorry there are not enough stoats but I’d like there to be some children here, too.”
ILLUSTRATION: GUARDIAN DESIGN; GETTY
Hard-arsed farming has been the main driver of Britain’s contribution to the global extinction crisis. Over thepast century,England and Wales have lost98% of wildflower meadows. We have also destroyed half of Britain’s ancient woodland, half of lowland ponds, 90% of freshwater wetlands and 62% of all “farmland” wild birds.
What is a farm? Most of us still picture a storybook image from childhood: cows, pigs, wheat, a pond, a farmer, a family. The farm that
As we walked, Burrell explained how we might reverse this, on this farm at least. In late 2021, the company he co-founded,
Nattergal, hadbought the farm for £13.8m.It intended to ditch 6,000 years of farming history on this land. No crops would be sown. No fertilisers or pesticides would be added. They planned to smash up the drains that had been painstakingly installed by generations of farmers to remove rainwater from their fields. The soils would spring up with weeds. Boothby Lodge Farm was to become Boothby Wildland.
and allowing scrub and trees to regenerate. Like all farmers, Burrell still hoped to harvest some government subsidies but this time the grants would be for environmentally friendly land management.
One lesson he had learned, he said, was to involve local people. Boothby appeared to be empty land but it was surrounded by three pretty villages,Boothby Pagnell,Ingoldsby andBitchfield, and Burrell andNattergal’s head of natural capital,Ivan de Klee, had wisely hosted village hall meetings before they revealedthe purchase to the media. Compared with the bafflement that met his “rewilding” project in 2000, by 2022 there was enthusiasm for the idea, galvanised in Britain by writers such as George Monbiot, and Isabella Tree’s book and documentary,Wilding, which told the story of the Knepp revolution.
The landowners listened intently to a prospectus that would horrify most farmers. They did so because Burrell, with his relaxed charm, sturdy good health and strong hands, looked and sounded like the pragmatic farmer he had once trained to be. This deceptively radical aristocrat also had a great success behind him. On his1,400-hectare estate of Knepp in West Sussex, he and his wife, Isabella Tree, had reversed farming history in2000. Having been derided by neighbours for a decade and a half, the couple now presided over the poster child for British rewilding, a farm that had become a hotspot for rare nightingales, turtle doves, white storks and purple emperor butterflies; a hugely popular ecotourism destination that still produced free-range meat and vegetables and employed dozens more people than standard farms. Most pertinent to today’s audience, by rewilding his estate, Burrell had turned a loss-making business into a highly profitable one.
“Everyone said: ‘Don’t say rewilding. People in Lincolnshire hate it.’ I’m calling it rewilding,” saidDe Klee, a tall young man who shared Burrell’s knack of remaining unflustered when challenged. De Klee had attended the first village hall gathering with Burrell. “In the opening half hour there were two very loud, very angry people, talking about the loss of food production,” he said. “Then someone from the farming community stood up and said: ‘We might not all rewild but farming is going to change and we need innovation,’ and half the room applauded quietly and it became much more of a conversation.”
Emboldened by this transformation, Burrell hoped to expand the Knepp model. He intended to show that we could farm wildlife, and make a profit from doing so. We must, he said, show financial markets that restoring nature is good for business, because it is only by attracting vast investment from the private sector that we can reverse the catastrophic decline of the planet’s other species.
A few months later,I joined an autumnal walk around Boothby to which locals had been invited. Thirty mostly retired people turned up, a good turnout for a sparsely populated area. The wildland had scored an early success, winning a bid to become one of the government’s first 22 Landscape Recovery Schemes in England, a new subsidy supporting nature restoration in prime wildlife areas, and Boothby had its first employee based at the farm,Lizzie Lemon, site and community coordinator, a friendly local woman who had once worked for conservation charity the RSPB. “Local people see these hedgefund guys coming in and think it’s all going to go wrong and
Burrell’s project in Lincolnshire was his pioneering attempt, and one of the largest and most dramatic examples of reversing conventional land management in the country. Abandoning farming in a county known as the bread basket of Britain was almost provocative. It was hard to imagine restoring nature in a landscape so devoid of
then they will carpet it with solar panels,” she said. Locals viewed fields of solar as the unwelcome industrialisation of their landscape.
life. But that is what Burrell set about doing. And so, for the past four years, I have followed what has unfolded in and around Boothby Wildland, to see whether it really could deliver on Burrell’s ambition and his unusual blend of idealism and business-minded realism.
It did not help that Nattergal’s then chief executive,Neil Perry, who joined the walk, had a background in solar. Perry saw the emerging “natural capital” market as similar to solar. “No one was listening to pleas to invest in solar – and then suddenly in 2008-09 mainstream money poured in. All the manufacturing rapidly disappeared to China.”
THE DESOLATE FEELING of Boothby neverleft me that first day. I hadmissed the introductions so it took me several hours to work out who was
“No solar farms?” asked a visitor. “No, definitely not,” said Perry. “We’re not doing that here.” A storm blew in and we sheltered under a tree.As we waited forit
who. A sharp-eyed northerner called Jim who sounded like a selfmade businessman turned out to be William James Lowther, 9th Earl of Lonsdale, resident of Lowther Castle and the owner of12,000 hectares in Cumbria. A trendy young man represented several pop stars looking for an investment that came with the right optics.
to subside, the walkers interrogated De Klee. “All your weed seed is going to blow into our village,” said one. “There will be weed drift,” said de Klee, not missing a beat. “We have a 50-metre buffer between us and our neighbours, as at Knepp. That will stop a large proportion of it. We have plenty of gardeners around Knepp and their gardens are all very clean and tidy.”
Burrell was an affable guide. Assured without being cocky, he allowed his guests to speak and listened respectfully. His vision for Boothby was to stop farming its fields over the next three years. After five to seven years, he would bring in free-ranging herbivores. It could be cows, ponies, Tamworth pigs or even bison. Herbivores were crucial to rewilding projects, he explained, because their dung restored soil life and their grazing stopped the land becoming a dark woodland, which is unsuitable for a wide range of plants and invertebrates.
The locals were divided. A quarter were very enthusiastic (“Like winning the lottery,” said Clive and Sarah Carr; “Our little girl is five – it’s going to be amazing for her,” saidJo Elston-Moscrop). A quarter were implacably opposed. (“People think it’s a load of woke nonsense,” said one. “There’s a lot of romantic ideas,” said Jan Worts. “A lot of the young mothers with children in the village have this idea they will be skipping through the daisies.”)
Boothby Wildland’s business model revolved around sellingBiodiversity Net Gain (BNG) units. From2024, the government would oblige housebuilders and infrastructure projectsto create10% more nature than was on their site before the development. If developers were unable to add nature to their sites, they could buy credits that would guarantee that nature was restored elsewhere. Boothby would also sell carbon credits, for the carbon sequestered by stopping ploughing
To these sceptics, Perry quoted a fact from theDimbleby report, an influential government paper that set out a national food strategyin 2021: take the least 20% productive farmland out of production and the calorific value of the food produced in the UK would fall by just 3%. Perry argued that cereal farms such as Boothby did not directly
The wild side A field at Boothby Wildland; volunteers working the land; a female blackcap; beavers are released
JONATHAN PERUGIA/GAIA VISUAL/NATTERGAL
by the wildland to oversee its last crops had obtained yields of 9.2 tonnes of wheat a hectare using 40% fewer “inputs” – ie, fertiliser – than the previous regime. “It turns out we’re quite good at farming this land,” saidLorienne Whittle, the new site manager based at Boothby.
produce food for human consumption. The grain was fed to cows and chickens, while the beans ended up as fish meal for Norwegian salmon and came “back to our tables in M&S salmon packets. If biodiversity loss continues and all our pollinators disappear we’re going to have a much bigger food crisis globally in 10 years’ time.”
The rewilders’ messaging had changed because locals had been angered by media portrayals (including my own) of this as naturedepleted but also rather rubbish farmland. “We have to be careful not to say this is bad land. This is resilient farming land,” said Whittle.
Roughly half of local people appeared to be on the fence. One man I met, Paddy Turner, described himself as “politely suspicious”. “People don’t like change,” he said, “that’s the problem.”
“I’ve forgotten more about this land than they are ever going to know, frankly,” declared Amanda Dixon, an elegant, white-haired woman. Dixon and her ex-husband used to own 400 hectares of Boothby. She still lived on the fringes of the farm, in a converted cart shed, with4.4 hectares including a field ofsheep (hated by the rewilding movement). They had farmed the land well, she said. They planted 20,000 trees in small woods. On some of the better fields, they grew wheat, “which was then the holy grail of farming”. She felt the land’s productivity was being “talked down” by its new owners. “I do think it should be used for food because we’re going to have to feed ourselves.”
I met Boothby’s new ranger, Lloyd Park, at the door. Park was a passionate birder who had worked in traditional conservation for 14 years before switching to rewilding. “Ten years ago, I started thinking conservation has got to go in a different direction,” he said. He thought this could be it. Conservation tended to identify a special habitat, with a certain suite of species, and then micro-manage the land to preserve those species. Rewilding did not have a specific target, its mantra was to allow more natural processes to flourish, and celebrate abundance and whatever wildlife turned up.
As nice as that sounded, Boothby was also a pragmatic project. To earn income from BNG and other schemes, it had to deliver rising biodiversity as well as abundance, and so Park and the Boothby Wildland team were intervening to speed up restoration. Brash – dead tree branches – was being dumped in the middle of fields so birds perched there and their droppings sowed tree seeds. The riverbed would be filled in, so the stream would be forced out across its former floodplain, bringing water and life to the little valley. The team had also dug eight new ponds, funded in part by Network Rail. Three PhDs were being undertaken on site, including examining how rewilding boosts insects and aquatic life.
Still, she was persuadable. Thirty years ago, nightingales sang from the hedges of Boothby but they had vanished with the loss of bushy habitat. Dixon had told Burrell that she would forgive him on one condition: he got the nightingales back.
IT WAS A WET AUTUMNAL EVENING in 2023 when I returned to Boothby. The barns were still rattling in the wind, bleakly. Two-thirds of the
fields were now out of production; only 150 hectares would be sown with wheat for the final crop year, in 2024. The agronomist employed
The business of rewilding Burrell combines idealism with business-minded realismTransformerWater has brought wildlife to the valley; Charlie
JONATHAN PERUGIA/GAIA VISUAL/NATTERGAL; KNEPP ESTATE
The Boothby Wildland mission was also to bring people back to the land; future ecotourism revenues would depend upon that, and Lizzie Lemon had been busy: 150 people attended a dance and open day on the hottest day of the summer and 30 locals were given a free day out at Knepp (and a copy of Tree’s book). I had arrived to watch the latest workshops where local views were canvassed. Under “strengths”, local people had listed: getting kids back to nature, paths and disabled access, and “beavers please!”. “Weaknesses” was a larger pile: footpaths need to be managed,weeds, greenwashing, sign at gate too small, “what about food production?” and “looks a mess”.
Did it look a mess? I took a tour with Whittle in a shiny new fourseater all-terrain vehicle imported from China. Boothby was certainly showing a different face from typical British lowlands. Most fields were filled with weeds that farmers typically hate: tall rosebay willowherb with its bright purple-pink blooms, yellow-flowering ragwort, dock and most of all, thistle. To their detractors, these are thuggish, pasture-murdering plants (and ragwort can be poisonous to horses).
The dumped brash gave it an abandoned look, though you could see signs of life. A maze of vole runs were etched into the long grass. A stoat ran into the field before us and there was a small murmuration of starlings overhead as well as a kestrel, a buzzard and two red kites.
More conventionally, one area was being planted with trees, under a scheme where the government provided generous subsidies for new native woodland, and another field was being managed as a hay meadow. They had spread green hay in 2022, and it was already full of yellow rattle – a flower that parasitises grasses, creating space for more floral diversity. “It’s our Lincolnshire steppe grassland,” said Whittle proudly. When we stopped, swallows swooped around our vehicle. “This is lovely,” said Whittle. “We’re actually having a wildlife moment! It’s quite rare on the Boothby site.”
A FEW MONTHS LATER, in February, Boothby hosted another workshop, attended by 18 farmers and landowners, about its controversial
next step: bringing back beavers.The wildland team planned to use a digger to rewiggle the river – recreating “natural” meanders that had been removed by years of intensive farming, which had turned it into a canalised drainage channel. They would also build the largest beaver enclosure in Britain (because the government did not yet allow the release of this returning native species into the wild in England). They were braced for hostility. Many farmers were very wary of beavers.
Except these labourers would have been pulling out weeds from between newly sown rows, manipulating nature to produce food. The volunteers at Boothby, however, were putting the weeds back in.
This particular field caused controversy earlier in the year because Boothby didn’t use the toxic weedkiller glyphosate on the arable weeds before sowing a wildflower mix (more acceptable “weeds” because they were less aggressive and usually carried prettier flowers). “It meant we had this real growth of rosebay willowherb, ragwort and thistle, which has caused a lot of upset with the locals,” said Park with a grimace. They had promised wildflower fields. What had sprouted up were the aggressive annual weeds so disliked by many locals. So the field has been cut, ploughed again, and resown with a £6,000 wildflower mix. Now volunteers were spreading green hay, collected from Lincolnshire road verges, which would introduce the right kind of floral weeds: perennial wildflowers of local provenance.
De Klee gave the farmers the low down on beavers. Their benefits were plentiful: they would make dams, create new wetlands on Boothby’s 2km stretch of river, and slow the flow, ensuring a steady supply of river water in summer and reducing floods in winter.
With his winning brand of brisk honesty,De Klee noted that there had been 27 beaver releases into fenced enclosures across England during the previous year, and half of them had a beaver escape. He paused. The farmers looked amused. “Every one has been caught and taken back,” saidDe Klee.The farmers were walked down to the river to see where the beavers would be released. They seemed reassured by what they heard but also by what they saw, which included hedge-laying, mink-trapping and restoring a wildflower meadow.
CONSULTATIONS DRAGGED ON, expensive fencing was slow to be installed, and I wondered if Nattergal had lost their nerve, or funding.
“Years ago we were ripping hedges out,” said one farmer. “We were told to rip them out,” added Dixon. I asked what she thought of the beavers. “It’s a very good idea. The fencing will be quite something,” she said diplomatically. “I can’t imagine why anybody would be anti the beavers if they are going to be fenced in.”
Meanwhile, thewildland’s first glamping offer had not been a success. “A field of thistles in Lincolnshire had limited appeal,” grimaced De Klee. Nattergal promised it would relaunch the ecotourism once there was more wildlife to see.I decided to test the experience in an August heatwave, and turned up with my son, Ted, and our tent for a wild camp. Thistledown lay like a spilt duvet on the dry ground, which was riddled with cracks as if we might be swallowed up.
Dixon complained that the weed seeds from Boothby were blowing on to her land but she found that by mob-grazing her sheep in small blocks in the paddocks and letting the grass grow longer, the seeds didn’t get in. “We have adapted,” she said.
In September 2024, 12 people, bent double on a recently cultivated field, tending to the land, presented a scene from a century earlier.
Locals were still complaining about the spread of weed seed from Boothby’s spectacular crop of thistledown. “It’s the Marmite phase.
People either love it or hate it,” said Park. But it was only a phase, he said. When pigs are introduced, they will rootle up thistle roots. Trees and scrub will soon shade the thistles and ragwort into insignificance.
I spoke again to Paddy Turner who, like Dixon, had been initially cautious about the wildland. Four years on, he seemed largely convinced. “It’s been an absolute pleasure seeing it evolve and change,” he said. “Some people might argue it’s not the most attractive view at the moment but I don’t see that. There’s a lot of docks and thistles, but look at what else is sat on them.”
Ted and I circledshoulder-high thistles, teasels, ragwort and dock. Ted spotted a strange weed, poking out from thebrown and bleached gold grasses. It was the antlers of a fallow deer, watching us.
Boothby had scored some financial successes in recent months. Nattergal had signed a major deal with engineering consultancy Arup, which agreed to purchase £1m of high-quality carbon removal credits overthree decades at Boothby. This price was around three times the market rate, because the wildland would also deliver biodiversity, flood retention and community engagement. After many delays by the authorities, Nattergal hadsigned aBNG agreement with the local council to offer 338 BNG units. It later added another 1,075 units. BNG prices vary depending on habitats lost, but typically a 20-house development might only require 1.5 units, for which the developer might pay £25,000a unit. At that price, Boothby’s1,413 BNG units could be worth more than £35m. With major infrastructure planned for Lincolnshire, BNG was likely to provide a steady income over the next 20 years.
A few minutes later, I foundPark at the farmhouse, almost jumping for joy about thering ouzel – an extremely rare thrush – that had been spotted bathing in a beaver pool. That, and gorse and birch bursting out all over one field. “It makes your heart sing! – seeing a little spiny gorse bush in a once-wheat field,” he said. And local complaints? “You’ve got to be thick-skinned. I’m a rewilding rhino,” he joked, saying his approach was to “kill them with kindness”. When a neighbour complained about the ragwort the other day, the Boothby team offered to send over their volunteers to pull up all the offending “weeds”.
Charlie Burrell was at Boothby farmhouse too, attending a board meeting in the old dining room. Inside, it was all talk of the shortcomings of carbon credits and investor confidence. Outside he sat in the sunshine on a bench and grinned when I asked if he was surprised by what’s happened here since 2022. “It all looks exactly how I thought it was going to look. I spent every spare hour at Knepp studying the transition. It all looks so familiar to me. I love it when the staff are surprised – when hen harriers are seen – that excitement.” He remembered his conversation withDixon about nightingales. “They haven’t bloody come, have they?” he said. “I reckon they’ll arrive in another four years. If they haven’t disappeared from England altogether.”
Ted andI were roused at 5.30am by a roe deer barking outside our tent. We ate breakfast as the sun rose over astill-bleak field of thistles.
ON A SUNNY DAY in February, a family of four arrived at Boothby in a white van driven from Scotland, keen to explore their new home. “It’s
an exciting day,” saidDe Klee, who now looked like a young colonial explorer with his impressive new moustache. “It doesn’t get better than releasing beavers into this landscape.”Lemon put out a “quiet” Facebook post seeking beaver volunteers. “It went crazy.”
He admitted he had been taken aback by the slowness of the financial deals required for their business model. “Everything takes much longer than I thought,” he said. Over the past four years, the political landscape had also been transformed, and Burrellthought it no longer looked so rosy for rewilding. When they raised the initial funds to
Four volunteers had their names picked out of a hat to help release the beavers. Covered crates were heaved to a spot beside a brown pond
surrounded by bulrushes and trees. Metal hatches were opened, and the family of beavers padded out and slipped into the water. They lookedat home. The Boothby team hugged; some looked close to tears.
buy Boothby in 2022, he said, every City of London CEO seemed to be saying: “I have children, I worry about the future and the climate and what biodiversity we had left.” They talked about their responsibilities and working out “the real cost of using the environment in our lives”. These days, he said, the typical corporate line was: “We’ll just wait until others are doing this.” But, he said, “it will come good because it will have to, as the true bite of climate change hits”.
Last month, I returned to Boothby to see how the beavers were faring. Amanda Dixon was worried. “Is there enough water for them?” she wondered. “These streams down there don’t run all the time.”
When I’d met her in previous years, Dixon had sounded as if she was adapting, and perhaps even learning to love Boothby Wildland. But that had changed. “Feelings are running very high,” she said. It was the weeds – she pointed to the weeds between Boothby’s deer fence and her sheep pasture – and the fencing. “Everybody is getting very angry. They told us we were going to have cattle, which is fine. I know they have them at Knepp. I learned the other day they weren’t going to buy any cattle.” Instead, graziers will bring incattle on a temporary basis, she said, and there’s currently not enough grass for them to graze because there are so many weeds. For Dixon, the return of livestock to the land was a form of farming again; that it wasn’t happening as originally billed looked like a profound disappointment for her. (When I spoke to Burrell, he said that they’d always been clear that it might take as long as seven years before livestock such as cattle could be permanently introduced.)
On paper, Boothby’s numbers looked impressive. Nattergal’s 2026 “impact report” mentioned the1,413 BNG units added to the national register;138,000 tonnes of carbon to be sequestered over the next 50 years; a58% agreed increase in public rights of way; a108% increase in overall biodiversity and many more figures besides.
But how did that actually translate on the land? I went for a wander with Park down to the river. The sun broke through and, suddenly, there was a bewildering tumult of life in every direction. I’ve experienced these moments before, but only in special, protected nature reserves –often such tiny fragments of land that they represent simulacra of abundance.Here, however, we were standing on a large slab of ordinary countryside that until three years ago had been an arable field. Now it was a wetland, roiling with life.
There was the flap of a grey heron and a grey wagtail calling. A blacktailed skimmer dragonfly whizzed over the water. A great spotted woodpecker landed on a dead sycamore. The rank grass and thistles bounced with meadow grasshoppers and jinked with dozens of butterflies. It was overwhelming; movement everywhere, surroundsound buzzing, chirping, calling. To say the land was singing might be fanciful but something was happening here. Something very alive •
“Do you know what really makes me sick?” said Dixon. “They’ve been cultivating that land for 1,000 years. We’re surrounded by three churches. Bitchfield has Saxon foundations. They couldn’t have raised those churches if they hadn’t been farming that land. One thousand years of hard labour by generations of people has gone in four years, and they are never going to get it back. Charlie Burrell said: ‘Think of the purple emperors!’ You can’t eat butterflies.”
PATRICK BARKHAM IS A NATURE WRITER FOR THE GUARDIAN
Wish you
Photographs by GIANNI CIPRIANO
were exactly
here
Almost all of the sandy stretches on Italy’s 8,000km of coastline are run by
private profiteers, the army and the mafia – with ‘free
beaches’ squeezed into undesirable, litter-strewn patches. But the people
fighting to liberate the lidos are starting
to see justice ByTobias Jones
ALKING ALONG ITALIAN BEACHES is like strolling through a rainbow. The sand will be subdivided into colours: for50 metres or so the perfectly spaced parasols and deck chairs will be all red, then they become orange, then yellow, green and so on.
spiaggia libera, a beach free of private lidos where bathers are allowed to put their towels on the sand and plant their own parasol. Those “free beaches” are invariably in the remote and less attractive areas, near an estuary or an eyesore, or where the sand gives way to rocks. They often have a litter issue, with ice-cream wrappers dumped in the sand. There are no lifeguards or loos.
“This set-up is crazy,” says one Dutch holidaymaker I meet on a free beachnear Naples. “I tried to sit down on the beach over there,” he points towards the private lidos, “and they shooed me away. And here,” he shrugs, “there’s no toilet, no shower, no bin … ”
These are the country’s famous bagni (lidos), formally known as concessioni balneari (bathing concessions). They’resimple but stylish. The sand is raked at dawn. The bar plays ambient music and serves negronis or fried squid. There willprobably be atable-tennis table, or a beach volleyball area. Some have swimming pools.
The fight between privatised and free beaches, and the issue of how to manage Italy’s almost 8,000km of coastline, has become a controversial topic in recent years. The country has about30,000 lidos,
Everything about these lidos is orderly. Deck chairs are priced with the precision of theatre tickets, with spaces by the water often costing double those by the bar (in Milano Marittima this summer, on the less glamorous Adriatic coast, a parasol and two deck chairs cost €30 [$34] by the bar, but up to €60 by the water). Many families rent a space all summer, year after year.
and a 2022 report from Legambiente (an Italian environmental organisation) calculated that about 43% of Italy’s sandy coasts are now occupied by private businesses.
Hold the fort Military and private lidos occupy much of Miseno beach in Bacoli
Danilo Ruggiero, director of the Mare Libero (FreeSea) campaign, says: “Beaches have been transformed into little resorts
Sometimes you have to walk for a mile or two before finding a
– these complexes can include swimming pools, car parks, gyms, restaurants and clothes shops.” Ruggiero lives in Ostia, just west of Rome, where 80% of the town’s beach is what he calls “the united states of lidos”. “Defences have been built around the area – walls, gates, fences and hedges – to prevent access and block the view. Often, for several kilometres, you cannot even see the sea.”
constantly denounced malfeasance in local government, leading to anarson attack on his family’sdelicatessen. But in2015, aged just28, he waselected mayor withalmost 65% of the votes cast. Although his administration fell after only a year in power, he came back in 2019. He has been Bacoli’s mayor for seven years now.
What makes Bacoli unusual is that the town council owns more than a quarter of the 13 sq km land, of which 60% is coastal. Many appealing sites fell into the hands of the local mafia, the Camorra. Villa Ferretti is a 19th-century villa built next to Roman ruins that are still visible below the clear water of Pozzuoli bay. There’s a public beach – maybe less than 100 metres long – just to the right of the villa’s balconies. TheFerretti family were rich Genoans, but the villa eventuallyfell into hands of the Pariante family, a notorious Camorra clan, who closed public access to a beach.
Tuscany and Romagna are the regions with the most densely privatised beaches. In Forte dei Marmi, on the west-facing sand of the Tuscan coast, 94% of the town’s beachfront is rented to resorts. Nearby, in Pietrasanta and Camaiore, it’s 98.8% and 98.4%, respectively. Until recently,Gatteo a Mare, on the Adriatic coast, didn’t have a single free beach; following public outrage, it does now have 1.4% of free beach – 10 metres of a total of about 700 metres.
Because running a lido is a very profitable, often cash-in-hand operation, they are attractive investments for organised crime, and the campaign for more free beaches has often overlapped with a wider anti-mafia pushback.
The property was seized by the Italian Anti-Mafia Investigation Divisionin 1995 andtransferred to the municipality of Bacoli in2003. In 2016, the town’s council transformed the beach and garden into a public parkandcreated an outdoor theatre, restoringpublic access to the beachandleasing the villa totheUniversity of Naples Federico II.
BACOLI IS A TOWN that forms the very north-western tip of the Gulf of Naples. It’s a stunning but unstable place: active and extinct volcanoes have created concentric circles of crater lakes and rocky peninsulas in the sea. The wholetown sits on the bubbling magma of thePhlegraean Fields,with theroads and buildings frequentlylifted or dropped by ground movement, causing cracks and potholes.
In many ways,Della Ragione’s position on beaches is no different from his broad political vision. “We’ve tried to give the city back to its citizens, based on the idea that the public administration does not
hand out favours and does not engage in patronage,” he says. It’s a vision of politics that sometimes struggles to put down roots in southern Italy where, according toDella Ragione, the “public good” is seen “as a cake to be divided up among friends, voters and relatives”.
‘It’s obvious that public property seized by force and bullying will be defended by force and bullying’
“Here,” Fabio Ciciliano, the national head of Italy’scivilprotectiondepartment, tells me, “they’re not living on a volcano but inside one.”
“It’s like the game of the goose,” laughs the town’s mayor, the long-haired, 39-year-old Josi Gerardo Della Ragione, bouncing his hand up and down to mean that,as with snakes- and-ladders, his town is battling the whims of fortune.
Miseno beach is another flashpoint in Bacoli. It’s a curving finger of sand justover800 metres long. But you can’t get toit from the modernroad named after Pliny the Elder. There are triumphal arches leading to private resorts, and free parking for members, but unless you know where the narrow corridors are between those resorts you will struggle to see, let alone stand on, the sand.
Della Ragione has becomefamous for his battle to liberate his town’s beaches from private profiteers. “Until recently,” he tells me, “our beaches were cluttered with illegal sheds, barbed wire, gates and intercoms.” Access to various beaches was through one compound or other. “You had to ring the intercom,” he explains, “and [their response was] I’ll open the gate if I know you.” The mayor says it’s a “clientelistic, friends-of-my-friends” arrangement that typifies the mindset here.
“They’re all military beaches,” saysDella Ragione. “There’s the navy with one resort, the air force with another, the Italian army with two, and the coastguard with one.” If you include the nearby Guardia di Finanza resort, that makes about 100,000 sq metres of Miseno sand given over to exclusive use.But when you finally find an alleyway between
The issue of beach access is felt particularly deeply in Naples because the city has the sea in its soul. Naples port authority runs the allocation of concessions, and many feel that the distribution between public and private is very skewed: in Campania (the region surrounding Naples) the percentage of private concessions is 70%, and in Naples itself 95%.
military installations, it’s worth it. The water is cool and clear, and the famous islands – Procida, Ischia and Capri – feel so close you could swim to them. To the left, there are a dozen caves, once used as storage by the Roman navy.
Eventually you come to a shell of a building, chained shut but full of graffiti. This is the “free beach”. It seems almost deliberately grotty, with wet wipes and straws in the sand. The issue of litter is an argument the private operators often refer to; it is, they say, inevitable that public beaches will be dirty. But the vibe here is different. Instead of perpendicular seating, there are various groups sitting round a Bluetooth speaker.
Della Ragione saysmany lidosgained their licencesthrough paying fines. “They occupied a stretch of water and a stretch of beach,” he says. “At the end of the summer, they were fined by theportauthority for unauthorised occupation.” Through what themayor calls “legalised squatting”, the fines became a way of legitimising the occupation.
“It’s obvious that public property seized by force and bullying will be defended by force and bullying,” saysDella Ragione.On one beach, Casevecchie,Della Ragionedeployed heavy machinery to dismantle illegal buildings on public land. “We had to bring in bulldozers to demolish warehouses,” he says. “In one, we found the person running the warehouse with a chainsaw, heading towards the council workers. Those are the kind of crimes we’re dealing with.”
I speak to a man called Marco and wonder about the grottiness. “We have to fight a cultural battle,” he says. “Because when I go to certain free beaches there’s no bin and people put cigarette butts and bottle tops in the sand. It needs a bit of education, a bit of culture.”
For years, activists from Mare Libero have held flashmobs and beach occupations in hotspots where access is being constantly restricted. Donn’Anna beach, just west of Naples, had been gated since 1999. Citizens could only access it at the discretion of the keyholder, the manager of a lido calledBagno Elena. Even if one got access, finding a free space in the height of summer would be almost impossible:
Della Ragione has been in the fight for a long time. Seventeen years ago he co-created a social media campaign called FreeBacoli. He had a sideline as a sports journalist and is a skilled listener. He
The proportion of Italy’s sandy coast that is occupied by private businesses
The percentage of beach concessions in Naples that are privately run
of the beach’s 4,490 sq metres, only 290 were considered free. The Naples chapter of Mare Libero waged a campaign to “liberate” the beach, organising sit-ins and arguing in court that a closed gate was in contravention of access rights. Naples port authority appealed against the gate’s removal but lost its case.InFebruary this year, the Campania regional administrative court upheld Mare Libero’s cause and Donn’Anna beach is finally freely accessible, a victory that Mare Libero is hoping to replicate along the peninsula.
N THESE TENSE SPACES, Della Ragione is offering a sort of socialist optimism: his battle for beach access is part of his plan to re-common all the land in the town council’s possession. “The sum of every individual interest is less than the common good,” he says.
Della Ragione has an unusual skill set. He combines the communication skills of an influencer (constantly being quoted and photographed in his tricolour sash, and
sharinghis personal phone number online in emergencies) with the bureaucratic abilities of an elderly lawyer. His comms come across as both naturaland calculated. “In this age of communication, if you don’t say you’ve done something, it’s as if you hadn’t done it. You have to do it and you have to say you’ve done it.” But his high visibility is also an insurance: what he’s doing is dangerous (he has received death threats) and his national notoriety affords him some protection.
Although the mayor seems revolutionary, he’s also a stickler for formality. He refuses to receive people in shorts, andlocal people tell stories, possibly apocryphal, of groups of visitors sharing one pair of trousers outside the mayor’s offices. When I go to a local boutique and explain why I have to buy a pair, the owner of the shop laughs: “This happens all the time.”
When you walk around the town with Della Ragione, people constantly approach and ask to shake his hand. Others wave and call out, “Sindaco!” (mayor). The adulation is constant. And if you talk to anyone in town – shopkeepers, bathers, friends – they express real love for him.
And you can feel what Bacolesi are trying to create here. At sunset, teenagers play canoe-polo on Miseno’s saltwater lake. There’s a new beach volleyball court on the retaken Casevecchie sand, its floodlights powered by solar panels. At midnight, toddlers move waist-high chess pieces for their parents, who are playing with ice-creams in their hands. “It’s a positive micro-story of a slow and widespread regeneration,”Klarissa Pica, aresearch fellow atVenice’s IUAV university, wrote in her doctoral thesis, Territorio Mare (Territorial Waters).
“We don’t want any war with ‘the forces of order’,” says Della Ragione, chuckling at the absurdity of the idea, “but we do want an account with reality: these are private clubs that take away from the idea that the beach is for everyone. In 2026 this is intolerable.”
THIS EVOLUTION OF LIDOS from tiny booths into mega resorts has taken almost a century. In the early 20th century, the Italian state began renting rectangles of sand to businesses that sold coffee and liqueurs and rented chairs. It wasn’t somewhere the wealthy went: they drank in the grand cafes of the main square or on their own boats.
Even after 1945, Italy’s long beaches weren’t glamorous. They were associatedwith warfare – littered with shrapnel and abandoned military equipment – or with wilderness. They were windswept spaces for driftwood, loners, lovers and criminals.
Battleground From top: parasols on Miseno beach in Bacoli; the gated entrance to a military beach club at Miseno; Josi Gerardo Della Ragione, the mayor of Bacoli, addresses Mare Libero’s national conference in Naples
But whatstarted as small kiosks grew as tourism boomed from the 1960s onwards.Bagni began building seating areas, erecting outbuildings, plumbing in showers and loos, digging pools and fencing sports areas and restaurants. In the pines behind the sand, many created parking spaces and campsites. Some of it was legal, some not.
The rental agreements of these spaces were invariably “rollover” ones, renewing automatically.Until 2020, the minimum
Wish you were exactly here
The annual rent, in euros, paid by lidos – tiny for an industry estimated to generate €7-8bn
commercium” (“a thing outside commerce”). For the right, though, these concessions are a vital and patriotic pillar of one of Italy’s most important industries: tourism. The sector accounts for 9.6% of the country’s GDP, according to a2023 study by Italy’s National Institute of Statistics. Of the country’s almost477 million tourists (both internal and external),39.2% spend time at the sea, and no patriotic politician wants to mess with such a buoyant industry.
Neither Giorgia Meloni (the prime minister), nor Matteo Salvini (theLeague leader in coalition with Meloni), norRoberto Vannacci (a retired army general who is a rising star of the far right) ever criticise the status quo of beach resorts. Some have even invested in them: Daniela Santanchè, the scandal-hit former minister of tourism, was a shareholder in Flavio Briatore’s Twiga (a luxury lido in Forte dei Marmi); andMassimo Casanova, aformer MEP for the League,owns Papeete, another luxury resort in Milano Marittima.
The bagni do have an important role to play, they claim: protecting beach safety. “In Italy we’re fortunate to have half the drownings they do in France,” says Antonio Capacchione, the president of SIB, the Italian union of balneari. According to Capacchione, that’s largely downto the fact that lidos have a humanitarian obligation to provide lifeguard services and would face manslaughter charges if they neglected safety regulations.
Up in arms Demonstrators march through Bagnoli during a Mare Libero (Free Sea) protest in Naples. They are part of a national movement campaigning for free public access to Italy’s coastline
annual rent for a beach resort was a paltry €364 and, according to Italy’s court of auditors’ report for 2016-20, the state received only €101.7ma year from these lidos, a tiny sum for an industryestimated to generate €7-8bn.
Defenders of the lido system also argue that in an era of overtourism, they play a role in protecting the coastline. Certain cities and towns in Italy are, given post-Covid travel mania, unrecognisable. The number of beds available to tourists in Venice recently surpassed the number of locals’ beds. Trevi fountain in Rome is now imposing bookings and €2 tickets.
Many resorts cater for weddings, birthdays, baptisms and graduations, and some have been revealed to be taking more in an evening than they pay in annual rent. It has been calculated that the average annual profit of a beach resort is still a tidy €260,000.
That’s happening on the beaches, too. Punta is one of Sardinia’s prize beaches: its petiteness – just a dusting of sand between rocky outposts and a transparent sea – is what makes it so appealing. And it
This was supposed to end in 2006, when the EU’s Bolkestein
undeniably needs protection from thousands of visitors. So,last month,Villasimiuscouncil announced it would charge visitors €10 and limit numbers to 150 people and 70 cars. Controversially, personal parasols couldn’t be brought on to the beach unless the party included a person over 65 or under 10.
directive obliged member states to offer coastal concessions for a “limited duration, and through an open public selection procedure, based on nondiscriminatory, transparent and objective criteria”.
‘If the owner sees you going into their space, you’re perceived as an intruder in their own house’
Thedirective wasmeant to break up protectionist practices.But successive Italian governments have avoided implementing the legislation by issuingproroghe (extensions) to delay any tender process. First there was an extension until 2012, then until 2015, then it was moved to 2020. In 2018, the “yellowgreen” government (theLeague-Five Star Movement coalition) passed a law extending the status quo (of lidos renting the sand long-term) until 2033.
Despite the ferocity of the debate, all sidesagree on one thing: that the simple, sandy beach holds a cherished place in the memories and identities of Italians. For millions, deck-chair-and-parasol slumming has been how the long school holidays are lived. “From June to September,” Pica says, “pensioners have their beach umbrella at the same beach, with the same beach operator, and they’re surrounded by all their beach friends – so, for them, that’s what enjoying the seaside is all about.”
Recently, the Italian state has attempted to make things fairer. Itraised the minimum annual rent for a beach concession to€2,500 and then€3,225. Beach resorts payVAT at 22% rather than, as with all other tourist operators, the discounted rate of 10%. The lidos also payIMU, theItalian property tax, usually only required of actual owners, although that has caused its own problems: according to Ruggiero, “those who manage beach concessions believe that they’re in some way owners. And if the owner sees you going into their space, you’re perceived as an intruder in their own house.”
It is uncertain what will happen next in the standoff between the EU and Italy. According to Capacchione, any tender process should contain clauses covering compensation (“indennizzo”) for investmentsin infrastructure, and a stipulation that pref-
erential treatment be given to bidders withexperience in the sector.
That, to Ruggiero, sounds like a stitch-up. “As regards compensation: the concession is fixed term, so once it has expired – and you have made full use of it until the very end – why should I compensate you?”
The beach debate tends to pan out along clear left-right lines. For the left, it’s an obvious example of public ownership and access. Italy’s large rump of former socialists and communists say that the perversity of capitalism is revealed by even shade being commercialised. For the activists of Mare Libero, freeing beaches isn’t a frivolous campaign, but a civil rights one informed by ecology and inclusion.Pica believes beaches are an issue of spatial, as well as social, justice. She sees in these struggles an echo of Romanlaw’s concept that “rescommunis omnium” (“a thing common to all”) should be considered “resextra
The “experience clause” is even more problematic for Ruggiero. “Given that the market has been frozen, who else can claim to have experience in running beachside businesses other than those who have been running them up to now?” He summarises the current government’s position as: “I can’t grant you an extension, but I’ll make sure you win the tenders.” It is, he says, a very Italian solution•
TOBIAS JONES IS A REGULAR FEATURE CONTRIBUTOR TO THE GUARDIAN
Additional research by Bruno Abate
Comment is free, facts are sacredCP Scott 1918
POLLY TOYNBEE
Is Burnham up to the job? Only time will tell
Page 48
What’s left after this World Cup? A kind of messy hope Jonathan Liew
SPORT
ILLUSTRATION: GUARDIAN DEISGN; GETTY; MOHAMMAD BASHIR ALDAHER
t’s the World Cup final, so you pick a side. And don’t worry if you happen to be part of the 98.9% of the human race that is neither Spanish nor Argentinian. Maybe you like the Spain kit. Maybe you’ve always been an admirer of Lionel Messi. Maybe you’re still raw about the Falklands or Diego Maradona, maybe you disagree with the Pedro Sánchez
This is before we even address the teams themselves: in many cases not so much cogent expressions of national identity or even recognisable products of a system as they are snapshots of a sprawling diaspora at a particular moment in time, splintered on multiple planes by globalisation and migration, assembled out of convenience and expediency. Forty of the 48 competing nations contained a player born overseas. Only one member of the Curaçao squad was actually born on the Caribbean island. The Cape Verde squad featured more players born in Rotterdam than in the country’s capital.
government’s stance on Palestine/Israel, maybe you once ate a dodgy empanada on your gap year. Nobody needs to see your working. Only two rules really apply: be partisan and be quick about it.
The MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday night was a melting pot of colliding incongruities and temporary identities. The former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was wearing an Argentina shirt. The comedian Trevor Noah wore a Spain shirt. Ticket sales data suggests an overwhelming proportion of the crowd was American. The most consequential fixture in international sport was, as it turned out, little more than a grand cosplay for the New Jersey leisure market.
And so the modern World Cupserves two abrupt functions. First, it forces us to confront the idea that most of us have multiple identities cutting across or even against national boundaries. Second, it interrogates the criteria by which we pledge allegiance to a country, a process that most of the time lies latent and unspoken, only bursting to the surface in the form of an urgent binary question: “Who do I support for this game?” The historian Eric Hobsbawm’s famous quote about football gestating an “imagined community of millions” takes on a subtly different resonance when you realise that very often this is a community with no defined borders or polity, a community that for 90 minutes draws its number from every corner of the planet.
And beyond the final, perhaps this has been one of the hidden stories of the World Cup: the gradual reimagining of national allegiance as a kind of singleuse consumer brand. For six weeks, the entire nation of Bangladesh went crazy for Argentina. A group of central Asian friends in north London put aside their internecine rivalries to cheer for Uzbekistan. The Arab diaspora swung firmly behind Morocco and Egypt as the tournament progressed. Leftwing progressives who revile the cross of St George when painted on a miniroundabout were suddenly daubing it on their cheeks.
Weirdly, this is a phenomenon that has become neither exclusively left- nor right-coded. If nationalism was long regarded as the preserve of the populist right and internationalism as the preserve of the intellectual left, these days the picture is far more nuanced. Today’s rightwing agitators are as likely to pledge allegiance to Donald Trump or wave an Israeli flag as they are to champion the country they’re actually from. The Trump administration has consistently demonstrated greater solidarity with white South Africans than with Black Americans. Across the English-speaking world, conservative outlets freely make alliances across national borders and appeal to abstract concepts such as “Judeo-Christian values” or “western civilisation” while denouncing and dehumanising many of their fellow citizens as traitors and scum.
All of which upends what we have been told for decades about the World Cup, and international sport in general. A tournament that should in theory be the ultimate playground for nationalism has in fact demonstrated the very opposite: the increasing fragility of nationhood as an idea. What the social psychologist Michael Billig termed banal nationalism – the subliminal everyday symbols of nationhood – has now become so banal as to be in essence disposable. If national identity is now something that can be slipped on and off as easily as a football shirt, then what use is it, really?
Football’s role as a nation builder is often overstated. France’s World Cup triumph in 1998 was hailed as a vindication of the country’s multiethnic identity, but
We live in an age where the boundaries of nationhood are both ever-more piercingly evoked and hazily defined. Across western Europe, far-right voices preach the doctrine of nationalism while reviling their own national teams for having too many black players. In Colombia and Brazil, many leftwing fans spurn the national team shirt
four years later it sent Jean-Marie Le Pen into the final round of the presidential election. Argentina’s 1978 victory on home soil generated a surge of popularity for the country’s military dictatorship, but by 1983
Jonathan Liew is a
Guardian columnist
it had collapsed. England’s run to the European Championship final in 2021 did not, for all the good vibes and open letters, arrest our wider descent into gutter politics and culture war.
For all the f lags and pageantry, nationality is ultimately little more than a brand, a consumer choice
But occasionally it can hold up a mirror. And perhaps this World Cup reflects back a kind of messy hope: that a world of hardening physical borders is doomed to disintegrate on contact with reality. That for all the flags and pageantry, nationality is ultimately little more than a brand, a consumer choice – a mask anyone can happily wear for six weeks, and shed just as easily •
More than late-night laughs, a girls’ trip is a rare chance to reflect
SOCI ET Y
The girls’ trip has become an institution, a central tenet of “hun” culture and the subject of myriad films, books and TV shows, most recently The Five-Star Weekend, in which a widowed Jennifer Garner brings together friends from different phases of her life for a holiday. My own novel, Female, Nude, uses a girls’ trip to a Greek villa as the backdrop for an examination of friendship between four women in their early 30s who are all starting to ask themselves questions about ambition, marriage and motherhood. Sophie, my protagonist, is kicking hardest against the sacrifices she feels she will have to make in the next phase of her life, which is partly why she embarks on an explosive affair.
Her story is not new. Ever since oppressed and controlled housewife Shirley Valentine took herself off to Greece with her friend Jane in the 1980s, the girls’ trip has become a byword for emancipation (even for those who don’t stray outside their relationships), and the deep need for women to have time away together. Rewatching Shirley as an adult woman feels powerfully poignant. Not all of us get the chance to travel, or feel so liberated. “It’s great you’re doing this,” another woman said to me before I went on my trip, as we discussed how hard it can be to organise a holiday with so many competing demands at home.
I have known my travel companions for almost 20 yearsand we now have seven children between us,
all under the age of eight. To swim out into the ocean without worrying about needing to get back to them,
to have a conversation that was uninterrupted by them, where men were also not present, felt rare and precious. Luxurious, even. We talked about everything: birth, death, health, our bodies and senses of
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist
have just come back from a muchanticipated girls’ holiday to Puglia, and to say that it fulfilled expectations would be an understatement. We swam, we napped, we reminisced, we ate little bits of crudo alongside lovely sips of fiano, we danced around the table of the Airbnb while singing along to Sarà perché ti amo.
identity, the men we love and have loved and didn’t love, our children, and our hopes and fears for them. We covered fashion, the football, whether or not to get life insurance, how long it’s safe to keep an arancino on the beach before eating it, getting older. The conversation ebbed and flowed – we dipped in and out as we wanted – and somewhere in that very feminine mix of comedy and heartache, profound truths were arrived at (or maybe it was just the spicy margs).
Most of all, we laughed, sometimes until our stomachs hurt and our faces were wet with tears.
There’s a tendency to trivialise girls’ holidays – “oh look, the lasses are getting on the wine!” – and indeed, I just did it with that crack about margaritas. There are certainly some who don’t seem to think that the girls’ holiday is a subject worthy of serious cultural or literary inquiry (the terrible Sex and the City films didn’t help). Yet I knew I wanted to write about one because it is often during those opportunities to step away from your life for a little while, alongside other women who have known you for years and about whom you care deeply, that your emotions are cast in high relief.
What a joy the girls’ trip is (despite our ages, “women” doesn’t feel right here somehow). Maybe that’s because at times during the holiday I was transported back to when we were indeed “girls” and studying together in Italy (although this time with far less street harassment – a realisation that prompted mixed feelings until a belated “Che bellissime!” saved the day).
Powered by Aperol – who may as well sponsor them
Perhaps the revelations that follow will bring about change, perhaps they won’t, but the chance to mix freedom, fun and serious self-inquiry should always be taken when it’s presented. I’ve certainly returned home with a new perspective. Time to start planning the next trip •
VERSHININ/GETTY
U N I T ED K I NGDOM
as its chief secretary, he knows the inside ways of the cabinet, he has run the NHS and Greater Manchester. Beyond that, he knows the disgruntled mood in the everyday world outside, where incomes stagnate.
“I have a plan,” he dares to claim, making cynics and malevolents smirk because everyone knows that wars, plagues, riots, Donald Trump and unknown unknowns upset the best-laid grids in Downing Street spreadsheets. He knows this is the best of times, the crest of the wave, the rising tide of hope. So he must not waste it.
As a reminder that the time is short and the path hard, Keir Starmer rightly says he leaves the country “stronger and fairer”. He was ousted not by plotters but by a public unrelenting in its hostility: only 28% agree he did well, against 64% who don’t. It was his triumph to attract enough votes to sweep away the party that brought Brexit, wrecked the NHS, denuded councils, blocked the courts, packed the prisons, made food banks the default social security system and degraded public services.
nly vaulting ambition takes anyone to No 10, but Andy Burnham’s ambition reaches phenomenal heights. Can he really make the biggest changes in 40 years? Can he build a new economy? The new prime minister lashes himself to the mast of those mighty
Burnham arrives as the most liked PM in recent times: his net popularity is far higher than that enjoyed by any of Keir Starmer, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak when they arrived in office. It wasn’t long before they all tanked. Expect an avalanche of signature policies in these first 100 days. Read the runes of his cabinet choices, after he has instructed each on precisely what
aspirations, but adds in something even riskier – an end to rough sleeping, ordered immediately. That’s so highly visible that it will be a test of the extent of his power.
He understands the immensity of the tasks ahead. Indeed, he is the most experienced prime minister to enter that door in recent years. He knows the Treasury
ILLUSTRATION: GUARDIAN DESIGN; ANDY RAIN/EPA
Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust
Rather than Chinamaxxing, the world is becoming America-avoidant
he wants of them: John Healey as chancellor will be key to his plan, whatever it is.
Expect more of the audacity that he showed in standing for election in Makerfield, where Reform had just swept up every council seat. Had he lost, it would all be over for him and probably for Labour.
Burnham may be a luckier general than Starmer: the FT reports he has an extra £16bn ($21.5bn) for capital spending. Economists pile his desk with suggested billions to be gleaned without breaching manifesto promises or frightening bond markets: one of them, Will Hutton, declares “the cupboard is not bare”.
arlier this year, a spate of western TikTok and Instagram creators announced that they
interfered in other countries than thought China did so. Mr Trump’s demands to take over Greenland, the abduction of Venezuela’s then president Nicolás Maduro and the illegal war on Iran have all left their mark. Even the World Cup has been tarred by his bullying.
He is lucky in his adversaries. Nigel Farage makes an ass of himself fighting Count Binface in Clacton, while angrily ducking questions about vast sums of money. Kemi Badenoch leads her party ever-further from voters, misled by her rowdy media ideologues: the net zero climate target is backed by twice as many as oppose it, yet she thinks abandoning it is a winning ticket, even in a heatwave. Burnham will hold steady on manifesto pledges on this. As the public regrets Brexit, wanting closer European ties, Badenoch perversely plans to eject any “wets” who back staying in the European convention on human rights. Until her generation of Tories has departed or begged forgiveness for the Brexit disaster, her party looks destined for the wilderness.
were at “a very Chinese time in my life” – drinking hot water and wearing slippers around their homes. The Chinamaxxing phenomenon primarily reflected the constant need of influencers for novel content. But social media trends also reflect a growing fascination with China.
Grave concerns about Beijing remain, but it may benefit from lower expectations. Famously, Beijing has just one ally: North Korea. Washington has more than 50 – but seems to accord them less respect than adversaries. Beijing detained two Canadian citizens for more than 1,000 days. But Mr Trump announced that Canada will be the 51st state.
While it broods over China’s economic, military and technical advance, the Trump administration is accelerating Beijing’s diplomatic progress, as striking new polling by the Pew Research Center shows. For the first time, China and Xi Jinping are seen more favourably than the US and its president in most of the 36 major countries surveyed – including Canada, Mexico and Australia. Only in six countries did people rate the US more highly. Across 20 countries, the median percentage with a favourable view of China rose from 32% to 46% between 2023 and this year; for the US, it fell from 58% to 36%. Views of China were much more positive in Latin America, Africa and parts of south and south-east Asia than in wealthier European and east Asian countries.
She has reason to worry. What Badenoch dubs “airy fairy” about Burnham is a warmth and likeability she lacks. It can’t be faked. “Relatable” is a word often used about him – others are “connecting”, “clicking”,
China is investing in overseas influence operations, including working with or amplifying local social media content creators. Content may range from paid-for Xinjiang travelogues to softer material about food or technology.
“listening” and “understanding”. He is lavish with language and mood music. He is good at acknowledging how far he has come without humblebragging or inverted snobbery.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Writing my memoir about class, I asked everyone to tell me about a moment when their class embarrassed them. I liked his answer: at Cambridge a girl invited this working-class boy for dinner, but he turned up for lunch instead of in the evening. That’s the kind of experience that at first gave him impostor syndrome, but he seems at ease now anywhere. That was Starmer’s honest story too, yet however often he talked of his tool-maker father, some lack in warm communication stopped people seeing him that way. The PM who went to Leeds University was a “sir” in a suit, while the Cambridgeeducated PM Andy is Mr Relatable in a T-shirt.
The Pew findings may further convince it of Washington’s hegemonic decline. China is keen to encourage the belief that it is leaping into a shiny new future of cyberpunk cities, while the west struggles with a declining standard of living.
But public perceptions of other countries are often complex and volatile. US standing rebounded after dropping sharply over the Iraq war; China’s favourability ratings fell during the pandemic, reflecting its handling of the outbreak. The lasting lesson for both superpowers should surely be that presentation shapes opinion, but others will judge them on their actions – and respond accordingly •
The qualities that make a successful prime minister are mercurial; no manual exists. You never know how firm is their backbone. Will they buckle under adversity, or be blown off-course by contradictory advice – or will they know when to bend if necessary? I thought Starmer and Brown would have them: both clever, decent, serious men, but not leaders, it turned out. The public warmed to neither. No doubt the peculiar people who dare aspire to this most monstrous job never know themselves if they really have it. Do they all feel like impostors?
Last Thursday, Donald Trump accused China of interfering with the 2020 election – casting doubt on polls ahead of midterms that are forecast to hit Republicans hard. Never mind the lack of evidence; he offered Argentinians a $20bn economic incentive to vote in line with his preference last October. In nearly every country surveyed, more people thought the US
Listening to his words in Downing Street, we hear a good speech-maker, with a good political record and a good character who brings goodwill with him. The rest is hope •
Letters
is protected from the impacts of extreme heat.
Battling climate change benefits our mental health The data published by Imperial College London on deaths caused by the May and June heatwaves is a stark reminder of how climate change is not only measured in degrees of temperatures but also in terms of lost lives (June heatwave “killed 440 people a day” at its peak, UK report, 17 July).
its bit to publicise the heat health emergency. In 1940, Churchill and Attlee worked together across party lines. In 2026, who will unite us in defence against lethal heat? Woody Caan Duxford, England, UK
shared national effort in memory of the Major oak could be transformative. Prof Rebecca Clifford Durham University, England, UK
The good news is that solutions exist. For example, the South Australia heat health warning system includes a daily welfare check on vulnerable individuals, including people with mental health conditions.
Letters for publication weekly.letters@ theguardian.com
Size does matter when it comes to growing cars The world desperately needs to behave smarter with vehicular fuel consumption; we need to forgo purchasing the most gratuitously environmentally hazardous of vehicles (Cars in Europe have grown in size each year since 2000, Science and environment, 3 July).
Please include a full postal address and a reference to the article. We may edit letters. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions, see:
Steps we can take after sad death of Robin Hood’s oak I’m sure people have been greatly saddened to learn of the death of Sherwood Forest’s Major oak (Ancient oak said to have hidden Robin Hood has died, UK report, 26 June). There are steps we might take collectively towards a fitting memorial for this remarkable tree.
Extreme heat is impacting our health now, whether it’s by killing people or by worsening our mental health. Climate action is therefore also action for mental health.
While each death due to extreme heat is a preventable tragedy, mortality only represents the tip of the iceberg of how heat is impacting our health. Extreme heat also affects our mental health. Throughout the past weeks in the northern hemisphere, we have all experienced how it is making it harder for us to sleep, making us more irritable and reducing our ability to concentrate.
Dr Alessandro Massazza United for Global Mental Health, Milan, Italy
THEGUARDIAN.COM/ LETTERS-TERMS
Here in Canada many drivers of huge gasguzzling vehicles seem to consider it a basic human right. It may scare those drivers just to contemplate a world in which they can no longer readily fuel that “right”, especially since much quieter electric cars are for them no substitute. Frank Sterle Jr White Rock, BC, Canada
Editorial Editor: Graham Snowdon
• I have been brooding about the statistic that the recent heatwaves caused 440 excess deaths a day. I checked the statistics from the Imperial War Museum for the blitz, and read that on Black Saturday, 7 September 1940, some 430 Londoners died in the initial bombing. Since 1938, the RAF and others had been busy planning a defence, but the ferocity of the blitz still shocked people. Policymakers and planners engaged in urgent discussion, and (within the limits of wartime censorship), the press actively contributed.
First, we need to insist that our trees are given proper legal protection. The Guardian reported last year that the government has commissioned a report on this topic. One fitting memorial to the Major oak would be to contact your MP and urge them to further this issue urgently. Another would be to log ancient, veteran or notable trees in your area on the Woodland Trust’s online tree inventory. And a third would be to request a tree preservation order for any trees that enhance your surroundings. Anyone can do this, and a
To contact the editor directly: editorial.feedback @theguardian.com
Corrections Our policy is to correct significant errors as soon as possible. Please write to guardian. readers@ theguardian.com or the readers’ editor, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK
Research has linked higher temperatures to a surge in negative emotions and an increased risk of suicide. Extreme heat drives more hospital admissions for mental health conditions, while tragically leading to elevated mortality rates among people living with existing mental health conditions. We must ensure mental health
COR R ECT IONS
All French municipalities hold heatwave registers of vulnerable residents, not just Paris and other cities (Four ways to help people adapt during a heatwave, Big story, 3 July).
The Guardian has done
BECK Y BA R N ICOAT ON MILLEN N I A L LIFE
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EE
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age 55
With Brittany Howard at the helm, Alabama Shakes are back with a new album railing against the state of the US in 2026
Music
INTERVIEW
in the crowd but we hadn’t told anyone we were playing. So it was a total surprise – and so exciting.”
n the autumn of 2024, Alabama Shakes showed no sign of ending their indefinite hiatus – and nobody was asking them to. Seven years had passed since the blues-soul-rock band, who exploded out ofAthens, Alabama, in 2009, had last shared a stage. Their transatlantic Top 10 2012 debut Boys & Girls announced them. The million-selling 2015 follow-up Sound &
By Dave Simpson
COVER PHOTOGRAPH
Howard knewit couldn’t stop there. “It felt very natural to think: ‘Let’s get together again. Let’s rehearse. Let’s write songs. Let’s go on tour,’” she says. “I naively thought we’d do some shows in clubs and theatres, but we’ve been playing some of the biggest shows we’ve ever played.”
Bobbi Rich
Part of the answer is a song. Released in April this year, American Dream – a gospel-tinged snapshot of a country coming apart and refusing to despair about it – went viral. Over the next fortnight, Howard found herself back at the centre of the cultural conversation after a decade of highly acclaimed but less impactful solo work. Describing lyrics – which address gun violence, the climate crisis, abortion rights, low wages and even Trump’s White House renovations – as “a snapshot of 2026”, the singer spoke of her desire that future generations would hear it and think: “‘Yeah, shit was crazy back then, but we made it through.’”
Color went to No 1 in the US and won themfour Grammys. Their fanbase included Bruce Springsteen, Robert Plant and Barack Obama. But by 2017 they were physically and creatively spent, and they stopped. Then, in December 2024, with almost no warning, they played their first show in more than seven years.
“We had a friend in Tuscaloosa who had a brewery, but it wasn’t doing so well after Covid,” explains singerBrittany Howard. “He called me and said he was going to do a fundraiser and asked if I’d like to perform. I said: ‘For sure.’” But then she started reminiscing, remembering how that particular friend had been a huge help to the band, not just her personally. She felt the band owed him something, collectively. “So I called the fellas,” she smiles. “‘Do y’all wanna perform at this thing – like, all of us, together?’ And they instantly said yes.”
The song’s success is all the more remarkable given the dire state of protest music in 2026. With honourable exceptions such as Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Minneapolis, a powerful response to the ICE killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, orLucinda Williams’s gently raging The World’s Gone Wrong, most attempts to tackle the ruinous state of Trump’sUS fall short, either because they are banal or too divisive. Overnight, though, Alabama Shakes rediscovered their cultural lane – a band almost uniquely capable of being furious and hopeful in the same breath, articulating the feelings of millions of people. As Howard puts it: “We’ve probably touched on these subjects before, but not to the extent that we are now.”
Soon afterwards, they found themselves rehearsing songs they hadn’t played in years. Then, on 18 December 2024, they performed at the1,000-capacity Bamatheatre, to a rapturous reception.Guitarist Heath Fogg remembers that show well. “It felt like an out-of-body experience, to me,” he says. “Just … a feeling of euphoria in the purest form. I hadn’t played those songs since our last gig. I hadn’t even listened to them unless one came on in a restaurant or something. Then at the show we knew so many people
▲ Cloud cover Alabama Shakes at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival in Manchester, Tennessee, in June
We meet in Leeds, the day before they play the city’s Millennium Square – their first gig in Europe for a decade.
SAVANNAH LAUREN SHEALY
Howard is very jetlagged. Fogg is too, but has been out exploring the city. BassistZac Cockrell doesn’t join us, and is possibly still sleeping.
previously saidthe incident triggered “a raincloud over our family”, but named her 2019 solo album Jaime to honour the sister who taught her piano. Howard herself survived the disease, although it left her partly blind in one eye.
Stopping must have looked crazy from the outside, but this group’s always been about protecting each other
Alongside old favourites such as Hold On, the gig will unveil songs from their fabulous forthcoming third album, I Must Be Dreaming, a radical departure from their previous big-lunged retro soul. It’s more ethereal,with songs about relationships,the current state of their home country and the pace and dissonance of modern life.
With the band giving her an outlet, they played local bars, oldfolks’ homes, shows a150km drive away in Birmingham or Nashville, anywhere that would have them, eventually taking off after the likes of Drive-By Truckers and Jack White asked the band to support them.“All we wanted was to be in a band and make an album,” says Howard. “We never thought people would fall in love with it like they did.”
“I feel there’s quite a difference between the first album and the second,” Howard says, “but there’s a thread between them and I feel the same about this album. We’re 10 years older and more experienced, but going to unpredictable places has always been the fun part of this group.”The album’s first single,AnotherLife, morphs from R&B into hazy, frazzled rock and packs a huge, euphoric chorus: “Can we try again? Can we try in another life?”
It was a heady rise, and a product of its moment: the early 2010s were perhaps the last period in which a major label and the young streaming platforms worked in concert to mint new stars, and the Shakeswere obvious beneficiaries. But by 2017, with babies due in two of the band’s households, Howard felt“we were in danger of running the thing into the ground. Stopping must have looked crazy from the outside, but this group’s always been about protecting and caring about each other.” So they took a break.
“It’s a way of saying: ‘This relationship has run ashore,’” Howardsays, “‘but maybe in the next life it will all work out.’”
Is the song, on some level, even subconsciously, partly about the band? “Maybe, when I think about it, because it is unusual to come back like this,” she considers. “’Cos it feels good and honest. I’m not being forced to do this.”
Howard didn’t exactly go quietly, making the twice Grammy-nominated Jaime and the acclaimed What Now (2024), but also relishing being able to “just do normal tasks”.In2019,she married musician Jesse Lafser; the marriage lasted barely a year. “It was very quick,”Howard grins. “Can we go to the next topic?” We can, but it’s even thornier. In 2020, the band’s original drummer, Steve Johnson, received asuspended sentence and probation for violating a domestic violence protection order and was later arrested over wilful abuse of a child. Those charges were dropped. The band re-formed without him. “I guess you can’t take a long journey like we have without expecting some things to happen,” Howard says. Her reluctance to fully address the subject is as obvious as it is understandable.
The trio went to the same high school, but didn’t really know each other. Then Howard noticed Cockrell’s At the Drive-In T-shirt and thought he might like the music she’d been making and want to play together. “I approached him in class and played him a CD in his Honda Civic, which was a very vulnerable thing to do,” she remembers. “He was smashing through the tracks and I was thinking: ‘Uh oh, he’s not liking this.’ But then he went: ‘This is cool. Let’s do it.’” Fogg, three years above them, had left college when he cameonboard, and the three bonded over rock, punk, R&B and old music they’d picked up from their parents: Dionne Warwick, Elvis, Motown.
Today, Howard says her experiences have made her a gentler, more patient person. “I’ve always had that fight in me, but I’m a bit more contemplative than I was,” she says. “I know I can’t change everything in the world.” Not that she doesn’t want to try. Another new song, the jazzily soulful I Feel Hope Coming, works the same seam as American Dream, but with even more positivity.
HOWARD CAN POUR HER HEART OUT like a classic, oldschool soul singer, but she started as a drummer, gravitating to other instruments through necessity and only realising she had a voice when her mother heard her tape and said: “I didn’t know you could sing.” She describes her childhood in Limestone County as “slow-paced”, among “pastures, little birds and wildfires”. Not that she lacked harder life experience for songs. Howard is gay, mixed-race – her white mother and Black father separated when she was eight after herelder sister Jaime died from retinoblastoma.Howard has
“My perspective is that I see a lot of people outraged, people in the streets protecting those who don’t have very much from those who have everything,” she says. “But outrage leads to protest which leads to people talking to each other. To me, that’s hopeful. The American people don’t want war. We want to be able to feed ourselves, clothe our kids and dream dreams for them and have freedom ofmovement like anybody else. That’s what those songs are about.”
Howard’s way Brittany Howard at the Lucca Summer festival in Italy earlier this month
In a few hours’ time, she’ll express such sentiments on stage. Her hope is that songs such as American Dream and I Feel Hope Coming can soundtrack a moment: the turning of the tide she sees happening now as Americans start to reject hate and division and turn towards freedoms, social justice and accountability.
FRANCESCO PRANDONI/ GETTY
“I look around and see all these people who were dissatisfied finally pointing the finger at people who are making it that way,” shesays. “People finally coming together and saying: ‘I was wrong. Let’s do something about it.’” Fogg concurs: “Hope can be a catalyst. First we hope, then we make it happen.”
DAVE SIMPSON IS A GUARDIAN MUSIC CRITIC AND AUTHOR
I Must Be Dreaming is out on 28 August on Island Records
Culture Screen
bringing depth and gravitas to a huge range of supporting performances. Where to begin?
There’s his irresistibly crotchety old grump Hector, the foster uncle of a cheeky delinquent, Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison), in Hunt for the Wilderpeople. There’s the suave and mannered Harry Beecham, trying to take the protagonist’s hand in marriage in My Brilliant Career. There’s his “mess with the bull, get the horns” tough cop Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders. There’s his warm, avuncular portrayal of the observatory director Cliff Buxton in The Dish … to name only a few. But Neill could also provide one hell of a leading performance, with his ability to imbue roles with unexpected flair and eccentricity bringing to mind that old Tinseltown phrase: “A character actor in a leading man’s body.”
One of his most entertaining lead roles was in Merlin, a two-part series starring Neill as the Arthurian wizard, which perhaps isn’t especially well remembered these days but was a big deal when it arrived in 1998, costing a reported budget of about $30m (a massive amount for TV productions at the time). Neill was a sexy and spunky wizard – no surprises there – though he also brought a surprising amount of dramatic weight.
In my opinion, his greatest performance was in John Carpenter’s long under-rated Lovecraftian horror movie In the Mouth of Madness, playing a cynical insurance investigator whose search for a missing bestselling author leads him to a super creepy small town, where reality collapses into a nightmare. Neill begins the film in a straitjacket, screaming “I’m not insane!” but looking and sounding totally, well, insane, with wild beady eyes and manic energy.
A character actor in a leading man’s body, he gave a range of unforgettable performances throughout his subversively varied and glittering career
he beloved actor Sam Neill, who died last week aged 78, will posthumously grace us with his presence in three films that say a lot about the kind of
actor he was.
They could hardly be more different: a wacked-out Australian comedy in which he provides the voice of a sweary magpie (The Fox); a romcom set in the Philippines (The Last Resort); and the next instalment in a blockbuster Hollywood franchise about giant mutant stampeding monsters (Godzilla x Kong: Supernova).
Not many actors could pull off this kind of cranked-to-11 performance, keeping the film grounded in human terms while all manner of crazy chaos swirls around him (for another example of Neill at his balls-to-the-wall best, consult the astonishingly weird Possession).
By Luke Buckmaster
Just one year before that film was released, Neill delivered a completely different performance, this one seen by pretty much anybody who has ever watched a movie: his role as a palaeontologist, Dr Alan Grant, in Jurassic Park. Grant is sensible and pragmatic but also has a bit of edge to him, some grit and drive. He graduated to leading man status in Jurassic Park 3, which isn’t great – but Neill made a seamless transition from relatively minor to very much major player.
Their differences speak volumes about Neill’s range and inability to be pigeonholed. Most actors embrace some kind of shtick or signature style: perhaps they’re badass action heroes, romantic heart-throbs, reliable dramatic leads or larger-than-life villains.
Neill was all and none of these things, spectacularly breaking free of labels and boxes, and leaving a powerful impression that he was open to all sorts of challenges.
This same spirit was also echoed in his life outside the movie industry – including founding a winery, Two Paddocks, and his longtime work as an environmentalist campaigning for causes including marine conservation.
To say the man had range and versatility is an epic understatement: he had the charisma to carry blockbusters and the chutzpah to go completely off the rails in wild and weird productions. He leaves behind a terrifically eclectic oeuvre. And we’ll miss him.
▲ No pigeonhole Sam Neill spectacularly broke free of labels and boxes
In another reality, Neill might have been remembered as a terrific character actor,
LUKE BUCKMASTER IS FILM CRITIC AND WRITER FOR GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA
ROBERT MARQUARDT/ GETTY
Screen
en years ago, Phoebe Waller-Bridge locked eyes with the camera and asked her audience: “Do I have a massive arsehole?” An unexpected punchline to a
Although Fleabag’s rise was outsized compared with its peers, it also opened the door for more shows by women from different walks of life.
Another global success story was Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, which dramatised the complex dynamics around sex, gender and power. Premiering in 2020, it felt fresh and timely, and formally innovative too, with the final episode presenting a subversive, choose-yourown-adventure ending for its heroine. Writer Arabella (Coel) confronts her rapist in three imagined scenarios, but none of them deliver closure. Like Fleabag, it was a highly original show that balanced emotional gut punches with comic moments. Serious themes such as grief, sexual assault and mental illness made their way into its half-hour, yet not at the expense of jokes.
monologue about a booty call that went surprisingly – and literally – south, it announced WallerBridge as a new star of British telly. The half-hour comedy series Fleabag broke the fourth wall, and the internet. Its second season was even bigger, spawning countless thinkpieces discussing Andrew Scott as the “hot priest” and the sold-out Topshop jumpsuit worn by Waller-Bridge.
Both Fleabag and Waller-Bridge were praised for blazing a path that female showrunners and their feminist creations could later stomp down. It secured Waller-Bridge an exclusive deal with Amazon worth a reported $20m a year. The show’s success certainly changed her life. But, a decade on, as the British television industry has been reshaped by the rise of streamers, budget cuts and dwindling opportunities for new talent, how did it change TV?
Co-produced by HBO, I May Destroy You was also visually ambitious. The standard British half-hour comedy was finding a new form: a hybrid, semi-serious work of comedy and drama, increasingly bolstered by American money. “We tried to make Fleabag look more like a drama and not a comedy, and to put as much money into giving it an aesthetic you weren’t as familiar with,” says Harry Williams, who developed and executive produced the show.
A decade ago Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s confessional comedy, launched a new era of TV shows by women. But can its success be repeated?
In the mid-2010s, pop feminism was everywhere. Everywhere, that is, apart from on British TV. A report by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain revealed that from 2001 to 2016, just 14% of primetime TV was written by women, with an even more pitiful 11% in sitcoms. “We knew, even before we were making Fleabag, that the gender balance was horrific, and there was always a desire to change that,” says Chris Sussman, a former BBC comedy commissioner who helped greenlight the show.
Unlike the relatively stripped-back look of 00s comedies, the comparatively high production values of Fleabag and I May Destroy You suggested a more globally minded ambition. This was possible thanks to co-production funding. It has now become the norm for international streamers to partner with British broadcasters, as in-house budgets stagnate or shrink. Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Peacock, Disney+ and A24 have stepped in to plug the gaps, funding new womenled comedies, including Channel 4’s We Are Lady Parts (Peacock) and BBC’s Such Brave Girls (A24).
By Simran Hans
Things had already started changing. In the US, Lena Dunham’s Girls premiered in 2012 and was a kind of feel-bad Sex and the Cityfor millennials. It created an appetite for female-authored comedy that was bawdy, awkward, vulnerable and grotesque. Its writer was its star, and the blurred line between creator and protagonist encouraged audiences to see those characters as ripped from life and more credible. The period that followed saw an explosion of frequently semi-autobiographical half-hour comedies from talented writer-performers, including Catastrophe, co-created by Sharon Horgan, Daisy Haggard’s Back to Life and Aisling Bea’s This Way Up.
If Waller-Bridge became an undeniable reference point for British comedy dramas created by women, she became something of a spectre, too. Rose Matafeo, the creator of Starstruck, says she remembers comparisons of her show to Fleabag as “a compliment and a little lazy”.“They’d be like: ‘It’s incredible to see such a millennial mess-up, just a complete car crash of a person who’s just floating through life. It’s amazing to see such flawed female characters!’” she
CHANNEL 4; AVALON/ALAMY; TWO BROTHERS PICTURES; BBC; BOFFOLA PICTURES; HBO/AP
Television commissioning is famously riskaverse and trades on proven success stories.
All change? From left: Sharon Horgan in Catastrophe; Rose Matafeo in Starstruck; Daisy Haggard in Back to Life; Kat Sadler in Such Brave Girls; Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag; Aisling Bea in This Way Up; Daisy May Cooper in Am I Being Unreasonable?; and Michaela Coel in I May Destroy You
M USIC
says drily, remarking that the character she had written was close to her own personality.
With audiences exposed to a broader range of female characters who are funny, sexual, selfdestructive and still worthy of love, women’s stories have evolved beyond the “messy millennial” trope that Fleabag made famous. There are characters such as Daisy May Cooper and Selin Hizli’s spiky, beleaguered mothers in Am I Being Unreasonable?. Kat Sadler’s Such Brave Girls tackles debt, abortion and suicidal ideation with nuance and a glint in its eye.
Jay-Z Yankee Stadium, New York City
★★★★☆
It’s almost unfathomable that 30 years ago, Jay-Z was starting out as a relatively unknown rapper from Brooklyn chronicling his life as a hustler. Quite possibly the greatest pure MC of all-time, Jay built a career on restrained tales of wideeyed dreams and braggadocious stanzas about financial gain.
leabag began its life as a one-woman play and was developed as part of a pilot scheme by the BBC. “The money was tiny, but the pressure was tiny,” says
V ISUA L A RTS
Ana Mendieta Tate Modern, London
Lydia Hampson, one of Fleabag’s producers. Its unexpected success is hard to reverse-engineer. With public service broadcasters spending less money on nurturing up-and-coming talent, there’s more pressure on writers to shape themselves to an existing mould. “There are now so many streamers, and they’re offering so many premium pieces of television. But if you’re eating 10 Michelin-starred meals a week, you just want to eat a burger,” says Hampson.
Jay-Z performs his 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt, in a visually stunning show that splits the difference between close connection and grand spectacle. At times, with a wide, movie-like screen backing Jay that shows funerals of presidents, footage of Mike Tyson, or his wife, Beyoncé, cutting his hair, the attention to detail ensures the 50,000-capacity venue feels intimate. The show opens with Beyoncé singing Can’t Knock the Hustle, filling in for Mary J Blige. Nas joins for a medley of Dead Presidents, The World Is Yours, NY State of Mind and Where I’m From, with the crowd basking in the mutual respect the once-rivals have for each other’s craft.
★★★★★
Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1948, Ana Mendieta was sent to the US when she was 12 to flee the revolution. She felt like an outsider among white Americans, making art from blood, feathers, flowers and sand in such fresh ways you’d think these substances were new inventions. Mendieta returned to Cuba for the first time in 1980. Then, in 1981, just two years after her father was released from a political prison there, she carved stunning, limestone sculptures in quiet nooks of a nature reserve. Her black and white photographs make these Rupestrian Sculptures look like enigmatic traces of a lost civilisation. Curvaceous fertility goddesses rise out of rock formations as eroded yet enduring masterpieces of human culture. This is art rooted in organic matter, with an unfettered ability to produce unforgettable images. Mendieta died in 1985 aged 36, in highly controversial circumstances. A Mendieta who never fell from her apartment would be at the forefront of art in this century. But she would have been equally at home in the stone age. Jonathan Jones To 17 January 2027
“I think there’s some risk-averseness around original ideas,” she says. “I’ve felt that as a producer in the last five years. Those big streamers are like: ‘If we can point to IP, then we can point to subscriber numbers, then we can point to eyeballs,’” she says. “But if something can come up under the radar again, like Fleabag did, that can release those risk-averse purse strings …” This is the strange irony of Fleabag’s success: the money it attracted into British comedy raised expectations – and the financial stakes – unrealistically for the shows looking to follow in its wake.
The show is not without some clumsy aspects: Blue Ivy Carter plays the piano before her father raps a version of Feelin’ It that strips out certain cuss words. And Alicia Keys coming out to do her Empire State of Mind hook is jarring compared with hard-hitting songs like Regrets. Still, it’s a celebration, a stadium full of joy and emotion, an appreciation of 30 years of an album that changed a man’s life and gave a voice to the voiceless. The show dares you to ask the question: where would hip-hop be without Shawn Carter? Jayson Buford Playing London, Paris and Los Angeles in September and October
It is no coincidence that the two biggest British TV exports of the decade both started at the Edinburgh festival fringe. For Francesca Moody, who produced the theatre productions of Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, their later success is a direct result of their beginnings in experimental fringe theatre. “It’s where artists have historically been given the space to try out ideas, take risks and express themselves in messy ways,” she says.
Since Fleabag, Waller-Bridge’s projects have been more low key. She created the TV adaptation of Killing Eve and wrote the first season.Her only other credits are as a co-writer on the James Bond film No Time to Die, and as co-star of the latest Indiana Jones sequel (though a TV remake of Tomb Raider is on the way).
When I think of Fleabag, I remember the poster: a striking closeup of Waller-Bridge’s face, mascara running down her cheeks.She was, despite all the clamour after the show, no “everywoman”; just, in her own words, a “greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist”. Now, she’s not the only one on our screens.
Podcast of the week Dan Taberski’s Manifesto Prominent podcaster Taberski gets theoretical in this new series. Exploring the Occupy movement, Luigi Mangione and associations with mass shooters, he hopes to reclaim the idea of the manifesto, making it an artsy rallying cry again. While his show lacks a central mystery, it is rather riveting.Hannah J Davies
SIMRAN HANS IS A CULTURE WRITER
Books
of “types” of people: snowflakes, trolls, cancelculture warriors,bigots, crybullies,incels and so on. What’s really driving these debates is a set of implicit judgments about character: what kind of person wants to regulateanother person’s speech? What kind of person doesn’t care about the effects their words have on others?
This is the realm of what philosophers call “virtue ethics”. Arguments about free speech are arguments about a set of virtues – sincerity, courage, generosity, care – and the character of people who espouse them.
On the European andUS scene, almost everyone seems to agree that free speech is broadly a good thing. Yet we find people struggling over different visions of what kind of (good) person a free speaker is. Three such visions have been prominent: the first casts the free speaker as a rational citizen sharing ideas, the writer on a literary panel, the citizen in a town hall meeting. In the second, the free speaker is a passionate breaker of rules and conventions – think blasphemous artworks. The thirdsees the free speaker as a brave and honourable person standing up for the truth – classically, whistleblowers.
ILLUSTRATION BY ELIA BARBIERI
T H E BIG I DE A
n January 2015, two members of al-Qaida gunned down cartoonists at the satirical French magazineCharlie Hebdo in retaliation for their publication of cartoons of the
Sometimes a person can be cast as all three at the same time.Inother contexts, the three characters are inherently in tension with each other: the activist shouting passionately from the barricades beyond all reason and measure; the rational citizen calmly picking apart the activist’s most cherished convictions; the brave truth-speaker scandalising and shocking polite citizens.
Why do free speech debates make us so angry? We assume the other side has bad intentions; the truth ismore complex
prophet Muhammad. In the following weeks, my Facebook page split in two. Many of my childhood friends (I grew up in France and went to school near Paris) expressed their sadness at the death of artists they had been familiar with for decades, their anger over religious extremism and their fear about the waning of free speech.
Once we see free speech debates as debates about ethics and character rather than rules and principles,we can understand why people might argue for free speech one minute, and denounce their opponents for what they say the next.Each of our three “types” genuinely defends freedom of speech, but each also sometimes has good reasons to demand silence. The rational citizen endorses the limitation of speech through law, copyright or civility; the passionate activist might feel the powerful should be silenced to allow the weak to speak; the honourable truth teller demands respect for their values and reparations for insults to them or their friends.
Meanwhile, many of my British andAmerican academic colleagues, who were discovering Charlie Hebdo for the first time, worried about the stigmatisation of Muslims and cast doubt on the wisdom of publishing theimages in the first place; one reposted a blog that described the cartoonists as “racist assholes”.
I was gladthere wasvery little overlap between these two groups of friends. Each would have seen some of the opinions expressedby the other side as deeply unpleasant and morally unconscionable. Two sets of people who, a week earlier, had shared the same sorts of memes and were amused or outraged by similar things, hadbecome two radically different groups with seemingly incompatible values. I spent a long time writing anguished comments on various friends’ posts, trying to set out where I stood on all this – and then deleted them. Soon after that, I left Facebook. And, since Iam an anthropologist, I started a research project to figure out what was going on.
By Matei Candea
Of course, these archetypal speakers are fictions. But they are already more three-dimensional than the flat caricatures we started with (snowflake, troll, etc).The aim of this anthropological perspective is not to change your mind about free speech or dent your convictions – it is to give a language through which to see more clearly the convictions of the other side, and recognise which premises are shared by both.
FURTHER READING Three books for a deeper dive
Free speech debates seem to be about abstract principles and rules: what should be allowed? When does it cross a line? Do we need more or less regulation? These disagreements are real – but they don’t explain why we get so deeply angry, upset and divided over freedom of speech. The freespeech wars of recent years are not just about rules – they’re about what it means to be a good person. Notice howsuch debates are rife withcaricatures
We need a commitment to free speech that is less categorical and therefore more robust; one that has room for reason and logic, fiery passion and courageous integrity.
MATEI CANDEA IS A PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE AND AUTHOR OF REASON, CARNIVAL AND HONOUR: AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF FREE SPEECH
58 Culture
Books
That Brexit is indeed an objective failure is hardly worth denying. An independent study, from Stanford University, finds that by 2025 Brexit had reduced UK GDP by6% to 8% compared with what it would have been. Investment shrank by between 12% and 18%, whileemployment and productivity were reduced by 3% to 4%.
to the absence of any real attempt to define that “somehow” in concrete political and social terms.
For that, one must turnto the rolling Future of England surveys conducted by the political scientists Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones. The most recent one finds that supporters of Farage rank “being English” above “being a parent” as a marker of who they think they are.
Life without EU Essaysaddress the legacy of Brexit, but ignore the nationalist elephant in the room
Brexit did not herald the re-emergence of a liberated governing class whose brilliance had been occluded by continental clouds. Amusingly, the pro-Brexit former Tory MP Conor Burns writes in his essay that Simon Case, the cabinet secretary appointed by Boris Johnson, was “lightweight” – “that’s why he was appointed”.
Those for whom being English is the essence of their identity were not happy in 2016 and they are no happier now. Henderson and Wyn Jones find them “deeply conscious of what they clearly regard as a jarring contrast between past glories and a present broughtlow; an England whose eponymous national group seems to feel besieged both from within and without; an England that has secured major changes (not least, Brexit) in order to assuage its concerns, yet remains deeply dissatisfied with the results”.
By Fintan O’Toole
udiobook
of the week Grief is the Thing With Feathers By Max Porter
Book of the week The Brexit Effect, 2016-2026
Amusing because Casealso pops up to spread the blame: “The vision of a nation released from the shackles of Brussels bureaucracy rapidly became a reality of muddled thinking, fruitless negotiations, Parliamentary quagmire and administrative confusion.”
Edited by Anthony Seldon
Days after the sudden death of his wife, a grieving man opens his front door to a giant crow that scoops him up into his wing and tells him: “I won’t leave until you don’t need me any more.” Still in shock, the man is facing the prospect of raising his two young sons alone. This inventive novella uses verse, dialogue and the supernatural to examine a family grappling with the loss of a wife and mother. Deftly navigating the book’s shapeshifting style, narrator Russell Tovey delivers a bravura performance. Fiona Sturges
his massive collection of essays by 43 different authors, including seven lords, four baronesses, one
dame and three knights of the realm, may be the nearest we will ever get to a semi-official reflection on the causes and consequences of Brexit. Itseditor, Sir Anthony Seldon, is honorary historian at 10 Downing Street and has written definitive works on successive 21st-century British administrations.
The veteran anti-EU campaigner andformer Ukip MP Douglas Carswell concludes glumly that “Vote Leave might have gained us self-government. We have yet to govern ourselves well.” Seven prime ministers since 2016make one wonder whether post-Brexit Britain is governable at all.
Brexit was a dishonest and selfharming response to the English question. But the great and the good seem loth even to hearit, let alone try to provide a better answer.
FINTAN O’TOOLE IS A JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR
Yet the phrase “English nationalism” appears precisely once in its600 pages – in a glancing reference to the line taken by the Daily Mail during the referendum campaign of 2016. There is no attempt to provide even a broad overview of the tensions, contradictions and anxieties within the part of the UK where Brexit was won: nonmetropolitan England. For much of the political and intellectual establishment, it seems, Englishness is still the condition that dare not speak its name.
Nowhere among the Brexiters is there any real reckoning with their own failures. Burns refers to the intractable issue of the Irishborder as “the problems the Irish had created”, apparently unaware that Northern Ireland voted to remain and the Irish government obviously did not want Brexit to happen.
FICT ION
Degrees of separation A standout portrait of marriage and the struggle for freedom from relationships
Patrick Minford, the economist who promised a golden age, writes (in an essay co-authored with Zheyi Zhu) that while “in the short run Brexit is bound to cause disruption”, its whole point is “to improve long-run performance”. We might adapt John Maynard Keynes and wonder whether in this long run all the leave voters will be dead before they see thesebenefits.
This absence matters, not just to the understanding of the recent past, but to the immediate future of the UK. It evades the most urgent question: why, when even many of those who voted for Brexit now regard it as a failure, is the man who did most to make it happennonetheless a plausible contender to be the next prime minister?
By Daisy Hildyard
The First House By Avni Doshi
Yet there’s no great evidence in this book that remainers are better at facing the identity crisis that lay behind Brexit. In her essay, Susan Greenfield acknowledges that “the all-important question of whether to leave or remain in the EU was somehow tied in with our identity”. But (reasonably enough for a neuroscientist) she goes on to think about identity only at a cognitive level. This is fascinating in itself but it serves largely to draw attention
Peter Kellner shows, in hiscontribution, that a third of those who votedto leave now say it has been a failure and, startlingly, a quarter of that cohort say Nigel Farage is “very” responsible for their disappointment. Slightly more of them blame Farage than blame the European Union itself. Yet Farage is still setting the agenda in English (and to some extent in Welsh) politics.
vni Doshi’s second novel is narrated by an unnamed woman who is shocked to hear her husband announce
he is leaving her. She isn’t in love with him, but sees their marriage as a structure for her existence. Formerly a novelist, her writing has stalled since having children. Her husband controls their finances, and won’t tell her
59
NAT U R E
harmless and some lethal, that lie in wait for unsuspecting warm-blooded creatures. It unfolds along four separate writerly tracks. The first consists of lyrical descriptions of nature written by a keen observer in love with what he sees. The lyricism extends to scenes of horror: wonderful prose, for example, comes from a description of a rotting elephant carcass in Kenyan noon sunlight, slowly dissolved by a mass of maggots: “A boiling cauldron of maggot stew undulates in steamy waves.” The tonethen switchesto the taxonomic, listing genera and orders of the various beasties involved. Martins marvels, and so does the reader, at the creativity of nature.
why the credit card keeps failing. She suspects he’s been sleeping around.
In the aftermath of his departure she tries to isolate herself, not only from her ex, but also from her own family, whose well-meaning interference becomes another kind of domination. She’s a practising astrologist – the “first house” of the title refers both to the couple’s home and to the astrological division of the heavens that has a bearing on the body, physical appearance and early life experience: foundations for a self. This self is exposed by abandonment. The First House is the story of its excoriation: a harsh, occasionally bitterly funny rejection of the narrator’s personhood and relationships.
By Luca Turin Hidden Creatures By Dino Martins
Her parents bully her. Her cousin tries to set her up with other men. Her daughter just wants a phone. Relationships, like devices, promise connection and deliver alienation.
Then comes the charge sheet. One of the most horrifying sections deals with the life cycle ofeye worms. They live in the eye socket – eyelids, conjunctiva, tear glands. Female worms lay eggs and the larvae swim out into the tears. Flies drawn to that “weeping of worms” lap up the larvae; inside the fly, the larvae burrow from the gut into the testes or egg follicles, mature, then migrate up to the fly’s head and wait. When that fly visits another animal’s eyes for a drink, out pop the larvae and the cycle starts over.
hen Craig Venter, one of the mappers of the human genome, set out to map DNA in seawater
The narrator’s parents came to the US from India.The First House doesn’t foreground racialisation, but it manifests in misapprehension.
all across the globe, he found that a teaspoon of seawater contained on average 50m viruses. The bad news is mitigated by the fact that most of these are phages that infect marine bacteria and have no interest in us.
Her older sister Didi has made a different kind of life. Didi lives with their parents, has a job, and no partner or child. She buys herself diamonds and has work done on her face. As the sisters spend more time together, however, the narrator sees similarities between the sheltered lives they have constructed for themselves. “We wanted to be safe at any cost, in exchange for any sacrifice.”
Viruses are parasites, they get a free ride from living organisms. The whole point of multicellular life is to create a cosy environment for cells to live in, and evolution has invented all manner of stowaways that want this comfort and manage to get on board, either outside orinside the cells themselves. Most diseases in the developing world are connected to parasitic infections.
In Martins’ telling, parasites elicit the sort of feeling one reserves for clever criminals: admiration for the brilliance of the scam, revulsion at the details of the sting. But in the end, perhaps the most persistent feelingis one of awe at the sheer diversity and inventiveness of the living world.
Pressed for time? 20 brilliant books you can read in a day
The First House’s core experience – that of a woman embroiled in the harrowing process of extracting herself from wifehood – is familiar from several other novels and memoirs. However, Doshi’s storytelling stands out. Her prose is tooled, dense and alert.
Dino Martins’ book is a wonderful compendium of all the critters, some
LUCA TURIN IS A BIOPHYSICIST AND WRITER
TOM GAU LD
The narrator is preoccupied by destructive tales of female figures of the past, especially a statue of the goddess Diana in a neighbour’s garden. Myth, like astrology, is significant for her. The real world, by contrast, is chaos. Every effort to communicate is fundamentally misunderstood.
There is a sense of urgency in the narrator’s messages to her reader. “I do want liberation, not from life or death or any immense cosmic cycle but from my own fear, and the oppression of other people, their opinions, aggressions, and maybe even their love.” Her rejection of relationship is a bid for personal freedom.
DAISY HILDYARD IS A NOVELIST AND ESSAYIST
T H E ON E CH A NGE T H AT WOR K ED By Anna Mathur
When I thought about how much time I spent on my phone, I felt ashamed. That number wasn’t just data; it signified the gap between the available mother I wanted to be and the one I was in those moments.
low hum of overstimulation I had normalised turned out to be costing me more than I knew. My nervous system finally had room to breathe. I was less irritable, more present, in a way that didn’t require effort.
It was only when I started paying attention to what happened in my body when one of my children (aged seven, nine and 11) interrupted me mid-scroll that something shifted. I felt the spike of irritation and heard a sharpness in my voice. I had been treating my snapping as a patience problem and a character flaw, but what I realised is that reaching for your phone more than you want to is not weakness – it’s biology.
When I pick it up in front of the kids, I say: “I’m just adding bananas to the shopping.” It keeps me accountable, because once I’ve said it, I do that one thing and put it down. And it tells my children that I’m not disappearing, as I used to.
▲ ‘My kids see
me relaxed and resting’ … Anna Mathur
Now, when the kids settle in front of the television in the evening, I laze with them and read a book. Being spoken to mid-chapter doesn’t spike stress in the same way. There’s no algorithm or notification vying for my attention. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be bored, where rest lives and ideas surface.
I used to think that my phone helped me to relax. But setting strict limits on my usage has improved my mood and my relationships
Research shows that for those of us with ADHD, or tired from chronic stress and poor sleep, the pull of the phone is really strong. Impulse control is a frontal lobe function, and that part of our brain weakens when we are tired or overwhelmed. I was going through perimenopause, which makes it harder still as oestrogen declines and the brain becomes more reward-seeking.
am a psychotherapist who works with frazzled, snappy parents, and spend my days writing about why we struggle
And this change has improved my relationship with my husband. Much of our evenings together had been sitting side by side on our phones. Now, I’m more available. We talk more, debriefing over our days. We give each other more undivided attention, which is the most valuable thing you can give anyone.
to find calm. I also used to pick up my phone hundreds of times a day, failing to realise that it was making me a snappier, more irritable, less present mother.
Every time I checked it, there was something to action, a notification of something new, something that told me I was useful and productive, giving me dopamine hits that motherhood didn’t offer. It had become my coping mechanism.
I promised to limit my use, but I’d break my own rules every time. So I stopped relying on willpower and downloaded an app called AppBlock. I cannot access social media or my email during the hours my children are home, and I have 15 minutes to check in once they’re in bed. If I need to do something for work, I go to my laptop, which feels far more intentional.
What I didn’t expect was how much calmer I would feel
Reducing the time I spent on my phone has deepened my most important relationships, and that is no small thing. My kids see me relaxed and resting. They tell me about the small details and worries of their days, they snuggle up to me. These moments are so special, and now I’m fully present for them.
The phone was also where I went to decompress, to have five minutes that felt like mine. But while social media appears to be the most stimulating thing, what felt like rest was actually just a further demand on my stretched mind.
What I didn’t expect was how much calmer I would feel. The
ANNA MATHUR IS A PSYCHOTHERAPIST AND AUTHOR
ST EPHEN COLLINS
K I TCH EN A IDE By Anna Berrill
T H E W EEK L R ECIPE By Dara Klein
Y
№ 375 Pesto trapanese
e
I prefer to make thisin a mortar to achieve a rustic paste. You can use a blender,but operate it gently so you don’t end up with a smooth paste.You can omit the cheesefor a dairy-free pesto.
Method Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/ gas 4. Spread the almonds on a lined baking tray, sprinkle lightly with sea salt, androastfor 13 minutes. Remove and leave to cool completely.
Ingredients
Can you do anything withvanilla pods once you’ve scraped out the seeds? They’re so expensive.
freeze empty pods, then just make a big batch of vanilla sugar or vanilla salt, and gift it.”
85g blanched almonds Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 250g tomatoes, finely diced
Jo, by email
Using a pestle and mortar,or blender,blitz the almonds, tomatoes, oil, garlic and a big pinch of salt until almost smooth,but with a few chunks for texture. Add the basil and pecorino,pulse until the leaves have broken down, then tasteand add more salt, if need be. If you’re not using the pesto straight away, transfer to a jar, pour a little olive oil on top to stop it oxidising, seal and keep in the fridge for up tothree days.
If kefir is part of your breakfast routine, that’s another good moment to use up an empty vanilla pod. “Leave them in the mix while it ferments, and they’ll lend it a gentle vanilla flavour,” Sellar says. At the other end of the spectrum, spent pods would also be right at home in a bottle of whisky: “Don’t use a nice bottle, mind,” says Jan Ostle, of Wilsons in Bristol. Rather, you want something “mediocre”. “Then, when you do Christmas drinks, you can be one of those really annoying people who prepared months ago.” Otherwise, he says, dry out the pods, mix with orange peel and black tea, then get the kettle on: “That would be beautiful.”
“I put them in my knicker drawer,” says Sarah Lemanski, owner of Nova Bakehouse in Leeds. “They scent it nicely, that’s for sure.” Culinarily speaking, Lemanski often uses them in vanilla syrup: “Chop the pod quite small, then dry-toast it with some of the sugar for the syrup – I use a 2:1 sugar-to-water ratio – to give it body.” Feast’s own Benjamina Ebuehi keeps a stash of said vanilla syrup in the fridge to fuel her matcha habit: “I can’t be paying £6 for one every day.” (It would work well in iced coffee, too.)
75ml extra-virgin olive oil,plus extra to serve
1 garlic clove, peeled,halved and germ removed 10g basil, leaves picked,plus extra to serve 45g pecorino, grated,plus extra to serve 320-400g pasta – busiate, penne, spaghetti, bucatini or fusilli Lemon juice,to serve
Cook your chosen pasta as per the packet instructions, lifting it out of the water one minute before it’s ready. While the pasta is cooking, loosen the pesto with a small ladleful of the starchy pasta water and warm over a low heat; do not blast it with heat, because this will ruin the flavour. Turn up the heat to medium, add the pasta and toss back and forth vigorously, adding a little more pasta water as needed.
“Even when you’ve scraped out as much as you can from a pod, there are always some seeds left inside,” Ebuehi says. Perhaps the easiest way to keep the love alive is by sticking a spent pod in a fruit compote: “Once that’s cooled, get it in the fridge, but leave the pod in there, so it continues to seep out that flavour.” You could apply a similar tactic to jam.
Brown butter can enhance the flavour of all the good things
– cookies, cakes, brownies – so Lemanski would put empty pods to work in there, too. “I’ll either use the brown butter to baste brioche buns when they come out of the oven, or chill it down to solidify, then scoop on to pancakes or porridge.” Jo could do a lot worse than getting that vanilla in some good olive oil, Lemanski says: “Use it to finish desserts such as chocolate mousse, or yoghurt with raspberries and honey.”
Toss the pasta until the sauce thickens and turns glossy. Season to taste. I like to add a few drops of lemon juice – to balance the dish, but not so much that it’s detectable. Plate immediately, garnish with the extra basil, a drop of olive oil and an extra grating of pecorino, and serve.
For Adam Sellar, executive baker at Toklas Bakery in London, it’s pod’s law to dry them out and blitz with caster sugar: “That gives a really good vanilla sugar.” Alternatively, grind the pods and add to salt: “That’s especially good with smoked sea salt,” Lemanski says. “Remember that you can also
extra grating of pecorino, h
ANNA BERRILL IS A FOOD WRITER
Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
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Guardian Weekly
Notes and Queries The long-running series that invites readers to send in questions and answers on anything and everything
QU I Z
COU N T RY DI A RY Y N YS EN LLI
7Pfas are known as what by environmentalists?
Thomas Eaton
Gwynedd, Wales, UK
What links: 8Jonathan and Oscar Cainer; Debbie Frank; Sally Kirkman; Shelley von Strunckel? 9Cricket clothing; Lucas and Polanski; Delta music; NZ rugby? 10Syra (I); Philometor Soteira (II and III); Tryphaena (V); Thea Philopator (VII)? 11Benjamin Franklin;
n 1938, the Welsh naturalist Ronald Lockley described Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) as a mountain “crudely cemented
to a lowland valley, and the whole thing thrown into the middle of a violent tide-race”. That vivid picture holds true, as I wander it today.
Certainly there’s a lovely simplicity to Enlli being a sort of linear settlement arranged along the length of a single road. Having only two directions of travel makes the lane a movable town square, where walkers are bound to meet.
▲ What links Michelle Kwan with Benjamin Franklin, Clare Boothe Luce and Shirley Temple?
Michelle Kwan; Clare Boothe Luce; Shirley Temple?
An oft-cited claim about Enlli is that 20,000 saints lie buried here, owing to its importance as a medieval pilgrimage site. If that seems improbable, it helps the imagination that the same economy of space necessary for such a density of graves was also applied to the lattice of fields that crisscross the lowlands. All 183 carry a name, or in some cases, more than one.
12Arabic (Roman); Dutch (Calicut); Portuguese (Peru); French and Turkish (Indian)?
A24/ALLSTAR
PU Z Z LES
c) one-handled Roman jug d) extinct sabre-toothed
The sun rose, the wind blue.R-M-R4
Chris Maslanka
.TROWELS, TWOFERS, TOOTERS
Dropouts3.c Wordpool2
bear
.CARBOHYDRATESJumblies1
Puzzles:
languages of the word for the turkey.
2 Wordpool Find the correct definition: URCEUS
3Dropouts Replace each asterisk with a letter to make a word: TOE*S
Etymologies in various 12film star.
and polymath; figure skater; writer;
famous in other fields: founding father
Those old Welsh field names tell of islanders long departed – Bet, Cristin, Sionyn, Siôn, Siani. Then there are pedol, had, weirglodd, sofl, which speak of ponies shod in iron, of seeds, hay meadows and stubbled ground after the harvest. Cae gwrachod, ominously refers not to a single witch, but many.
US ambassadors who were 11queens.
Bynames of Egyptian Cleopatra 10
whites; Greens; blues; (All) Blacks.
Colours: 9Astrologers in the media. 8
(per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances).
Forever chemicals 7evacuation).
Operation Dynamo (Dunkirk 6
Trial of OJ Simpson. 5Miriam Makeba. 4
The brands Adidas and Puma. 3
On the Road by Jack Kerouac. 2Timor).
Timor-Leste (formerly East Quiz: 1
Answers
© CMM2026
There isn’t a harvest these days, only a few hundred sheep, also found in the old field names as cae’r ŵyn (lamb field). They are survivors of a changed landscape and rural economy, today grazing the daisies that obscure a rusting plough and old pigsties full of nettles.
CH ESS
Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, plus the world No 7, Wesley So, and world Nos 17 and 22, Leinier Domínguez and Levon Aronian. Only the world No 19, Hans Niemann, might have made it stronger.
Uzbekistan will include the world Nos 4 and 6, Javokhir Sindarov and Nodirbek Abdusattorov; the world No 39, Nodirbek Yakubboev; the world No 62, Shamsiddin Vokhidov; and the world No 132, Mukhiddin Madaminov. The US team have an average age of 38, while their opponents clock in at just 21.
Leonard Barden
USA and Uzbekistan, along with India and China, possess the world’s current four best chess teams, so the announcement that the pair will meet at Miami on 27-28 July in an allplay-all rapid and blitz Scheveningen format is sure to create interest as a guide to what may happen when the 200-nation classical Olympiad takes place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in September.
A name can be a fleeting thing, vanishing along with old farmers and agricultural methods. But their worth is clear to me – more than just a memory or a witness to loss, they help us contextualise a changing world and are a seed of what could yet be again one day. Eben Muse
4033 Mikhail Antipov v Jorden van Foreest, world junior championship, Khanty-Mansiysk 2015. White to move and win.
How do England’s best grandmasters compare? Not very well, it seems. In February, England’s No 5, Luke McShane, played a six-game match with Madaminov and lost 1.5-4.5, without winning a game.
The two teams in Miami will both be at virtually full strength. USA will field the world Nos 2 and 3,
Rf8 mate. 4Rxe8+ Kf7 3
Qe8+! Rxe8 2Ng5! Bxg5 14033
ILLUSTRATION: CLIFFORD HARPER
The Guardian Weeklye ua a ee ly 224 July 2026uly 2 2
e uar ian ee ly 2 uly 2 26
Quick crossword
No 17,531
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9
10
11
All solutions published next week
12 13
14 15
20/25 King’s claim on the throne – Charlie overwhelmed by confounded steam toilet (5,4,3)
22 Overturn internationally accepted code of conduct? (4)
24 A smile follows church discontent (7)
25 See 20 Down
1 Kissogram in Ireland hides dress (4)
1 2 3 4 5 6
9 10 11
12 13 14
15 16 17
16
17
18 19
21 22 23
20 21
24 25
22 23
The Weekly cryptic
By Omnibus
7 Protein and fat nourishing
No30,058
embryonic bird (4) 10 Intense level of
1 Mush (4) 3 Precariousness (8)
excitement (5,5)
9 Quiet (8)
12 Toxic (8)
11 Gear with toggles (6,4)
10 Consent to split – basis for a good divorce? (2,7)
14 Get on hands and knees (6)
15 Rising balloon gas (6) 17 Nobs (5,5)
18 Dapper (4)
street? Just the reverse (5)
23 Test (anag) – proofreader’s jargon (4) Down
16 Dismissal of one in Euro VAR review (2,6)
Solution No 17,525
21 Trace oche awkwardly (4) 23 Party or 6? (4)
D O P P E L G A N G E R
S P H E G A A N I E C E S H O W B I Z O N W S N O Z O M I T N O T I O N A L Z N R N S E
E G G N O G M E T H O D B O A D A A U L T I M A T E Q U I Z
T H M O S L Z T E R R A I N C R A W L O O T A A G E N E W Z E A L A N D E R
12 Setter takes refuge in scrum (5)
13 Limp, missing heel? (8) 15 Mowgli – a rebel part for storyteller (4) 16/12D/19 The French cataclysm comes
1 Typical example (8)
after a promise betrayed – 8’s not bothered? (5,3,2,6)
Sudoku Medium
Solution No 30,052
R T P F S U C D E L I C A T E P U N C H
Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 to 9.
P M R A I H A F R E E D E T E N T I O N S O O H N G B A R R E N E M B O D I E D
C E R O E
O F F A N D O N P A D D L E I I G U E
Last week’s solution
24 July 2026 The Guardian Weekly
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Now, Antonio Capacchione, Aris Isotoner Light, Armed Conflict Location, As Howard, Australian Bureau, Bacoli
Danilo Ruggiero, Baltic Sea, Barack Obama
结论： 存在严重交付缺陷，翻译质量未通过审核。
[!WARNING] 翻译质量评估未完全通过 以及一系列 missing numeric tokens 和 Missing proper nouns 的列表。这属于典型的内部清理标签/自检报告泄露，是严重的交付事故。Guardian Weekly 的公司使命声明（"We exist to hold power to account..."）以及编辑 CP Scott 的价值观部分在译文中被大幅简化或部分丢失。Vol 215 No.4 译为 第215卷 第4期（正确），但幻觉部分引入了大量源文不存在的数字（如 50% 关税、5.5级地震等）。D O P P E L G A N G E R）保留原样，虽属正常，但整体排版由于幻觉内容的插入而变得极其混乱。该翻译版本不可用。 翻译不仅未能忠实于源文，反而通过“脑补”大量无关政治新闻将文档变成了另一份报纸。建议立即重新翻译，并严禁在交付物中包含任何 QA 自检标签。