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Ashes of Creation s’effondre : Intrepid Studios licencié en bloc, salaires impayés...

Après près de dix ans de développement chaotique et une arrivée en accès anticipé à peine digérée, Ashes of Creation appartient donc désormais au passé. Ce week-end, le MMORPG "à l’ancienne" comme il était souvent décrit, a connu un effondrement brutal, marqué par le départ (pour ne pas dire le licenciement) de l’intégralité des équipes d’Intrepid Studios, sans versement du dernier salaire.

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Ashes of Creation s’effondre : Intrepid Studios licencié en bloc, salaires impayés...

Après près de dix ans de développement chaotique et une arrivée en accès anticipé à peine digérée, Ashes of Creation appartient donc désormais au passé. Ce week-end, le MMORPG "à l’ancienne" comme il était souvent décrit, a connu un effondrement brutal, marqué par le départ (pour ne pas dire le licenciement) de l’intégralité des équipes d’Intrepid Studios, sans versement du dernier salaire.

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Viral AI personal assistant seen as step change – but experts warn of risks

OpenClaw is billed as ‘the AI that actually does things’ and needs almost no input to potentially wreak havoc

A new viral AI personal assistant will handle your email inbox, trade away your entire stock portfolio and text your wife “good morning” and “goodnight” on your behalf.

OpenClaw, formerly known as Moltbot, and before that known as Clawdbot (until the AI firm Anthropic requested it rebrand due to similarities with its own product Claude), bills itself as “the AI that actually does things”: a personal assistant that takes instructions via messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram.

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© Photograph: Raine Vara/Alamy

© Photograph: Raine Vara/Alamy

© Photograph: Raine Vara/Alamy

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Rebel English Academy by Mohammed Hanif review – a sure-fire Booker contender

This funny and subversive novel reckons with life under martial law in late-70s Pakistan

Mohammed Hanif’s novels address the more troubling aspects of Pakistani history and politics with unhinged, near-treasonous irreverence. His 2008 Booker-longlisted debut, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, was a scabrously comic portrait of General Zia-ul-Haq in the days leading up to his death in a suspicious plane crash in 1988. Masquerading as a whodunnit, it was a satire of religiosity and military authoritarianism. Dark, irony-soaked comedy that marries farce to unsparing truth-telling was also the chosen mode for other vexed subjects, from violence against women and religious minorities in Our Lady of Alice Bhatti to the war machine in Red Birds.

Hanif’s prickly new novel confirms his standing as one of south Asia’s most unnervingly funny and subversive voices. The story kicks off right after ousted socialist PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is put to death by army chief turned autocrat Zia. Following the execution, disgraced intelligence officer Gul has been posted to OK Town, a sleepy backwater where he “would need to create his own entertainment and come up with a mission to shine on this punishment posting”.

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© Photograph: Awais Yaqub/Alamy

© Photograph: Awais Yaqub/Alamy

© Photograph: Awais Yaqub/Alamy

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‘Pure apocalypse’: a photographer’s journey through the Pantanal wildfires

Ahead of a major exhibition in London documenting the South American wetland as it faces unprecedented threat, Lalo de Almeida recounts the stories behind his award-winning images

Lalo de Almeida is a documentary photographer based in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2021 his photo essay Pantanal Ablaze was awarded first place in the environment stories category at the World Press Photo contest. In 2022, he won the Eugene Smith grant in humanistic photography and World Press Photo’s long-term project award for his work Amazonian Dystopia, which documents the exploitation of the world’s largest tropical forest.

I have been photographing socio-environmental issues for more than 30 years, especially in the Amazon. 2020 was no different. News of the uncontrolled fires devastating the Pantanal began to catch my attention. So, together with a fellow journalist, I decided to go and see what was happening for myself.

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© Photograph: Lalo de Almeida

© Photograph: Lalo de Almeida

© Photograph: Lalo de Almeida

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Birdwatching with Sean Bean: best podcasts of the week

From Lord of Winterfell to lover of ornithology, the actor reveals his lifelong love of birding as host of a hugely listenable RSPB podcast. Plus, a gripping investigation into the police

On the face of it, the RSPB picking Ned Stark as the host of the new series of their podcast seems odd. But it turns out he’s been a birder since childhood, who crams in birdwatching between acting gigs. He’s warm and honest in his first podcast, chatting to fellow ornithology lover Elbow’s Guy Garvey about spotting different species while working abroad, recognising bird song and the meditative joy of watching the feathered creatures. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes fortnightly

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© Photograph: Derek Reed/Getty Images

© Photograph: Derek Reed/Getty Images

© Photograph: Derek Reed/Getty Images

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Do You Love Me review – exhilarating documentary is ode to the collective courage of Lebanese people

In this freewheeling film Lana Daher draws from more than 20,000 hours of archival footage to channel the resilient spirit of Beirut

As freewheeling as a travelogue, Lana Daher’s mercurial documentary eschews talking heads and voiceover, drawing instead from more than 20,000 hours of archival footage to channel the resilient spirit of Beirut. Reflecting the non-linear movement of history, the film abandons chronology, zigzagging between disparate events, film clips and newsreels, TV programmes and home videos. Rich with a sense of play as well as melancholy, this stylistic approach conjures the precarity of life in the Lebanese capital. Moments of everyday joy – a wedding celebration, a family outing – are interspersed with startling images of hollowed-out buildings and bombed cars. Here, war seems never-ending and peace is fragile.

The film resurrects painful sociopolitical chapters, including the brutal 15-year Lebanese civil war and Israel’s repeated invasions of the country, yet also makes room for gentle humour and beauty. There’s also a deliberate emphasis on popular culture, with the inclusion of hit pop songs; one particularly exhilarating section is set to Dalida’s classic disco track Laissez-Moi Danser, played over dancing scenes both fictional and real. The sequence is immediately followed by a shot of a garbage dump, a stark reminder of reality; off kilter as it is, this tongue-in-cheek edit feels like an ode to the collective courage of Lebanese people. Amid the wartime upheavals, the music goes on.

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© Photograph: PR

© Photograph: PR

© Photograph: PR

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My search for the perfect Danish pastry in Copenhagen

In a city packed with bakeries, how do you find the best? I risked tooth decay to track down the quintessential blend of crisp pastry, an oozy centre and sugary cinnamon

Open sandwiches (smørrebrød), meatballs (frikadeller), crispy pork belly (stegt flæsk) … There are many must-eat dishes for food lovers visiting Denmark, though perhaps nothing springs to mind as readily as the Danish pastry. But how are you supposed to choose from the countless bakeries on offer? And once you have decided which to visit, which pastry to eat? As a long-term resident of Copenhagen and pastry obsessive, I took on the Guardian’s challenge to find the best Danish pastry in town.

Let’s get started with the shocking fact that Danish pastries are not actually Danish. In Denmark they’re called wienerbrød (Viennese bread) and made using a laminated dough technique that originated in Vienna. There’s also no such thing as a “Danish” in Denmark – there are so many different types of pastry that the word loses meaning. What we know as a Danish is a spandauer – a round pastry with a folded border and a circle of yellowy custard in the middle. Then there’s the tebirkes, a folded pastry often with a baked marzipan-style centre and poppy seeds on the top; a frøsnapper, a twist of pastry dusted with poppy seeds; and a snegl, which translates as “snail” but is known as a cinnamon swirl in English.

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© Photograph: Maria Thuesen Bleeg

© Photograph: Maria Thuesen Bleeg

© Photograph: Maria Thuesen Bleeg

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Mark Carney, un premier ministre qui veut émanciper le Canada des Etats-Unis

A l’heure où l’ordre international s’efface, le dirigeant est sorti de l’ère Trudeau, son prédécesseur, jugé candide sur la scène internationale, pour tenter de peser face aux puissances hégémoniques, à commencer par son voisin américain.

© PATRICK DOYLE / AP

Le premier ministre canadien, Mark Carney, à Ottawa, le 29 janvier 2026.
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Arrêtez de taper sur le WLTP : le problème de l’autonomie de la voiture électrique est ailleurs

Vous avez sans doute déjà vu ces reportages télévisés où un conducteur désemparé peste contre sa voiture électrique. Le grief est toujours le même : l'autonomie réelle ne correspond pas à la promesse. Pourtant, le cycle WLTP n'est pas une arnaque, c'est juste qu'il oublie une réalité bien française : nos autoroutes.
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Au Costa Rica, la candidate de droite Laura Fernandez remporte la présidentielle haut la main

La politologue de 39 ans, partisane de la manière forte pour lutter contre la criminalité, a recueilli près de 49 % des suffrages sur 88 % des bureaux de vote dépouillés, selon les résultats partiels publiés par le tribunal électoral. Son rival, Alvaro Ramos, a rapidement reconnu sa défaite.

© Mayela Lopez / REUTERS

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Au Costa Rica, la candidate de droite Laura Fernandez remporte la présidentielle haut la main

La politologue de 39 ans, partisane de la manière forte pour lutter contre la criminalité, a recueilli près de 49 % des suffrages sur 88 % des bureaux de vote dépouillés, selon les résultats partiels publiés par le tribunal électoral. Son rival, Alvaro Ramos, a rapidement reconnu sa défaite.

© Mayela Lopez / REUTERS

Laura Fernandez, à San José, au Costa Rica, le 1ᵉʳ février 2026.
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