© Eric Lee for The New York Times
It started as a group of activists on a budget – now it could be banned under terrorism laws. But were lobbyists behind the proposed ban?
If this interview had taken place in a week’s time, Huda Ammori might have been arrested. If this interview had been published in a week’s time, the Guardian might also have been breaking the law.
Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, said she was finding it “very hard to absorb the reality of what’s happening here”. She said: “I don’t have a single conviction but if this goes through I would have co-founded what will be a terrorist organisation.”
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© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
This scandalous story gives lie to the claim that the biggest threat to country life comes from city dwellers
Power hides by setting us against each other. This is never more true than in the countryside, where the impacts of an extreme concentration of ownership and control are blamed on those who have nothing to do with it. Rural people are endlessly instructed that they’re oppressed not by the lords of the land, but by vicious and ignorant townies – the “urban jackboot” as the Countryside Alliance used to call it – stamping on their traditions.
Near Bridport in Dorset right now, an entire village is facing eviction, following the sale of the Bridehead Estate for about £30m. The official new owner, Bridehead Estate Ltd, is registered to the same address, with the same officers, as a company called Belport. The Telegraph reports that the estate “was bought by Belport, a private equity firm, on behalf of a wealthy client last autumn”, but no one knows who the client is. So far I’ve received no response to the questions I sent to Belport.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
On Tuesday 16 September, join George Monbiot, Mikaela Loach and other special guests discussing the forces driving climate denialism, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally. Book tickets here or at Guardian.Live
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© Composite: Getty Images / Jim Wileman / Guardian Design
© Composite: Getty Images / Jim Wileman / Guardian Design
Rice noodles topped with a rubble of tempeh and walnuts and tossed in garlic oil and a sweet, salty and tangy hot sauce
Up until now, I was sceptical about viral recipes. Is anyone still making the baked feta pasta from 2021? Has the “marry me chicken” resulted in an uptick in matrimonies? But the tossed noodles (guay tiew klook) currently doing the rounds on Thai social media platforms really whet my appetite. In short, they’re noodles tossed with mince, garlic oil and a dark, sweet, salty and tangy hot sauce, and they just make so much sense that they really couldn’t not be great. I love them, so I’m passing on the baton to you using a combination of crumbly tempeh and walnuts instead of the mince.
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© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Lola Salome Smadja.
© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Lola Salome Smadja.
Next week, a UN summit in Seville will discuss the future of financing the world’s poorer nations. It should first concede that the old methods have failed
It is 2025, and the architecture of economic power remains grossly tilted against the nations of the global south. Nowhere is this imbalance more acute – and more enduring – than in the debilitating impact of sovereign debt.
From the vast countries of Africa to the scattered but strategically vital small island developing states (Sids) of the Caribbean and the Pacific, debt has become a modern form of bondage – the chains that restrict growth, sovereignty and the basic human dignity of nations struggling to define their own path to development.
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© Photograph: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
© Photograph: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days
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© Composite: Guardian Design; Publicity image / Alamy
© Composite: Guardian Design; Publicity image / Alamy
I’m slightly alarmed that my wife, who is driving, has mistaken the mist on her glasses for actual mist
It is early in the morning, and my wife and I are setting off on a long car journey. My wife is driving; I am looking at my phone. It is my plan to look at my phone for at least the first hour, even though it is unlikely my wife will allow this.
“Bit hazy,” she says.
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© Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian
© Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian
Breasts have always been political – and right now they’re front and centre again. Is it yet another way in which Trump’s worldview is reshaping the culture?
It was, almost, a proud feminist moment. On inauguration day in January, the unthinkable happened. President Trump, the biggest ego on the planet, was upstaged by a woman in a white trouser suit – the proud uniform of Washington feminists, worn by Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in solidarity with the traditional colour of the suffragettes. In the event, the white trouser suit barely got a mention. The show was stolen by what was underneath: Lauren Sánchez’s cleavage, cantilevered under a wisp of white lace. The breasts of the soon-to-be Mrs Jeff Bezos were the ceremony’s breakout stars. The only talking point that came close was Mark Zuckerberg’s inability to keep his eyes off them.
Call it a curtain raiser for a year in which breasts have been – how to put this? – in your face. Sydney Sweeney’s pair have upstaged her acting career to the point that she wears a sweatshirt that says “Sorry for Having Great Tits and Correct Opinions”. Bullet bras are making a sudden comeback, in sugar-pink silk on Dua Lipa on the cover of British Vogue and nosing keen as shark fins under fine cashmere sweaters at the Miu Miu show at Paris fashion week. Perhaps most tellingly, Kim Kardashian, whose body is her business empire, has made a 180-degree pivot from monetising her famous backside to selling, in her Skims lingerie brand, push-up bras featuring a pert latex nipple – with or without a fake piercing – that make an unmissable point under your T-shirt. Not since Eva Herzigova was in her Wonderbra in 1994 – Hello Boys – have boobs been so, well, big.
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© Photograph: Dan Matthews/The Guardian
© Photograph: Dan Matthews/The Guardian
Tope, 27, a doctor, meets Eden, 28, a software engineer
What were you hoping for?
A lot of good food and for the evening not to turn into an edition of Dining Across the Divide.
First impressions?
Blond! Blue eyes!
What did you talk about?
The Bible. Judith Butler. Susan Sontag. Patti LuPone. Poetry. Squash. Musicals. Deciding whether or not to name our Pokémon (I’m pro). The cookbook club I’m in. The scavenger hunt I went on before our date. The Manosphere.
Most awkward moment?
When we exchanged numbers, I glimpsed his contact list. The moniker that was above my name is not suitable for publication. (We laughed about it!)
Good table manners?
Faultless. We ordered lots and shared everything.
Best thing about Eden?
He has a poet’s soul.
Would you introduce Eden to your friends?
Happily.
Describe Eden in three words
Cool, calm and collected.
What do you think Eden made of you?
Probably that I’m excitable and garrulous. He said I was “erudite”.
© Composite: Jill Mead
© Composite: Jill Mead
Pyramid stage
Perhaps joking, or perhaps not, Matty Healy pronounces himself ‘the greatest songwriter of my generation’ – and that’s only a slightly ridiculous statement
The 1975’s first Glastonbury headlining slot arrives preceded by some intriguing rumours about what’s going to happen. Some fairly eye-popping figures are being bandied about regarding the cost of their set’s staging – which allegedly vastly outweighs the fee the band are being paid – while one dubious online source insists Healy has shaved his head for the occasion. He hasn’t (he appears onstage tonsorially intact), but clearly large sums of money have been spent somewhere along the way.
What ensues isn’t quite as complex as their last tour, which featured lead singer Matty Healy eating raw steak, doing push ups, climbing through a television and Prince Andrew’s face appearing on a bank of television screens accompanied by the strains of Mahler’s 5th Symphony. Nevertheless, there are huge video screens everywhere: not just behind the band, but above them and at either side of the stage, and indeed below the actual video screens that Glastonbury traditionally provides. The treadmill that ran across the front of the stage during their 2018 tour – there for Healy to glide around on, something he does with admirable insouciance – makes a reappearance, while, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the rear half of a car makes an appearance stage right at one point. Healy sings from within it.
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© Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The Guardian
© Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The Guardian
The global order is being dismantled by a generation that will not live to see the wreckage they leave behind
Let’s attempt something delicate: talking about age without slipping into ageism. Never before in modern history have those with the fate of the world in their hands been so old. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are both 72. Narendra Modi is 74, Benjamin Netanyahu 75, Donald Trump 79, and Ali Khamenei is 86.
Thanks to advances in medical science, people are able to lead longer, more active lives – but we are now also witnessing a frightening number of political leaders tightening their grip on power as they get older, often at the expense of their younger colleagues.
David Van Reybrouck is philosopher laureate for the Netherlands and Flanders. His books include Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World and Congo: The Epic History of a People
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© Photograph: Dmitri Lovetsky/AP
© Photograph: Dmitri Lovetsky/AP
Long-awaited ILC report examines what should happen to vulnerable countries as sea levels rise
States should be able to continue politically even if their land disappears underwater, legal experts have said.
The conclusions come from a long-awaited report by the International Law Commission that examined what existing law means for continued statehood and access to key resources if sea levels continue to rise due to climate breakdown.
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© Photograph: Tala Simeti/The Guardian
© Photograph: Tala Simeti/The Guardian
Record numbers expected at march despite Hungary’s leader saying those attending will face ‘legal consequences’
Record numbers of people are expected to take part in Budapest Pride on Saturday, with Hungarians joining forces with campaigners and politicians from across Europe in a march that has become a potent symbol of pushback against the Hungarian government’s steady rollback of rights.
“This weekend, all eyes are on Budapest,” Hadja Lahbib, the European commissioner for equality, told reporters in the Hungarian capital on Friday. “This is bigger than one Pride celebration, one Pride march. It is about the right to be who you are, to love who you want, whether it is in Budapest, in Brussels or anywhere else.”
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© Photograph: Bernadett Szabó/Reuters
© Photograph: Bernadett Szabó/Reuters
Prosecutors allege more than a million Medicare recipients had their information stolen and used by the defendants for fraudulent claims
US federal prosecutors charged 11 people on Friday in a Russia-based scheme to bilk Medicare – the American health insurance program for the elderly and disabled – out of $10.6bn through fraudulent billing for expensive medical equipment.
The “transnational criminal organization” orchestrated a “multi-billion-dollar health care fraud and money laundering scheme” that included purchasing dozens of medical equipment companies from prior legitimate owners to perpetrate the fraud, according to the indictment dated 18 June.
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© Photograph: Andriy Popov/Alamy
© Photograph: Andriy Popov/Alamy
Ukrainian military claims strike on four Su-34 bombers at Marinovka base about 900km from border; Russian attack on Samar wounds 25. What we know on day 1,221
Ukraine’s military has said it struck four warplanes at an airbase in central Russia’s Volgograd region as part of a drive to hit Russian war assets. It said on Telegram it had hit four Su-34 aircraft at the Marinovka base outside the city of Volgograd, about 900km (550 miles) from the Ukrainian border. The post on Friday said the operation was conducted by the military’s special operations branch, together with the SBU security service and other services of the military. “According to preliminary information, four aircraft were hit, specifically SU-34 planes, as well as technical-operational facilities where different warplanes are serviced and repaired,” the statement said. There was no immediate comment from the Russian military.
Ukraine’s military said the damage to Marinovka was being assessed and described the Su-34 as Russia’s main aircraft used in bombing raids on Ukrainian territory. Volgograd governor Andrei Bocharov on Friday listed the region’s Kalanchyovsky district where Marinovka is located among three areas targeted by Ukrainian drones and said traffic on the bridge over the Don River in the district was temporarily restricted.
A Russian missile attack killed at least five people and wounded 25 in the industrial city of Samar in Ukraine’s south-east on Friday, officials said – the second strike on the city in three days. At least four of the wounded were in severe condition and taken to hospital, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram. Officials gave no immediate details on damage in the city, where an attack on an infrastructure facility on Tuesday killed two people.
In the Kherson region to the south, authorities urged residents on Friday to prepare for extended periods without power after a Russian attack hit a key energy facility. Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said the attack caused power cuts in some settlements in the region, which is close to the front lines with Russian forces.
Russia said its troops had captured the village of Nova Kruhlyakivka in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region. The report on Friday from Russian state news agency Tass, citing the defence ministry, could not be independently verified.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said Russia and Ukraine’s demands for peace were “absolutely contradictory”, after two rounds of talks have failed to bring a ceasefire. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators exchanged memorandums on how to end the war at talks in Istanbul this month and the Russian president said in Minsk on Friday: “As for the memorandums, as expected, nothing surprising happened ... these are two absolutely contradictory memorandums.”
At the press conference in Minsk after a meeting with allies in Belarus, Putin also denounced what he called an “aggressive” pledge by Nato members to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP. US president Donald Trump called Nato’s decision a “big win” for western civilisation. Putin also said on Friday that Russia was ready to hold a new round of peace talks with Ukraine, potentially in Istanbul, although the time and venue had yet to be agreed.
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© Photograph: Russian Defence Ministry/EPA
© Photograph: Russian Defence Ministry/EPA
© Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times
© Siyi Zhao/The New York Times
© Marton Monus/Reuters
Iranians had discovered the hotel where Pompeo was staying when they reportedly tried to carry out the hit, according to a new book
© AFP via Getty Images
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