Guardian Weekly

Not long ago, Ecuador was chiefly known for its volcanoes, wildlife and eco-tourism. That image may now need some rehabilitation after chaos and bloodshed sparked by the prison escape of Adolfo Macías, the country’s most notorious gang leader and dru

The Iran-backed Houthi militia group has continued to attack commercial shipping, hitting an American-owned cargo ship with a ballistic missile in defiance of a wave of US and UK strikes on Yemen. The strike hit the cargo hold of the ship, and while

Plans to overhaul the growing “cottage industry” of private prosecutions are being urgently examined by ministers in the wake of the Post Office scandal, including measures that could see untrustworthy bodies barred from pursuing them. Labour was und

Luis Chonillo was on his way to be sworn in as the mayor of Ecuador’s most murderous city when the gunmen came to murder him. “I’ve got two minutes left to live,” the 39-year-old politician remembers thinking as he cowered in a bathroom after sprinti

Who did this, and why? The immediate spark for last week’s chaos was the escape on Sunday 7 January of Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, from his cell in a prison complex in Guayaquil, the country’s largest city and its chief port. Macías is the leader of L

Political upheaval and street protests, gun battles and floods. José Luis Calderón has seen it all in 23 years as one of Guayaquil’s top television journalists. Never had the Ecuadorian reporter been the story himself. That changed just after lunch l

Global leaders have congratulated Lai Ching-te for winning Taiwan’s presidential election, praising the high turnout and democratic process – and drawing ire from Beijing, which had hoped to see the ruling party ousted. Lai won an unprecedented third

Israelis last weekend marked 100 days of war with a 100-minute pause in the working day and rallies to call for the return of hostages held in Gaza, but little relief from the anxiety that has gripped the country since Hamas launched its 7 October at

Last summer, as Washington tried to coax Saudi Arabia towards the grand bargain of normalisation of its relations with Israel, diplomats in Riyadh were much more focused on securing a different peace deal on its southern borders with one of the most

It has been more than a year since the daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was seen in public for the first time, accompanying her father at a missile launch in Pyongyang. Official photos showed a girl, aged around nine, holding Kim’s hand as

Serhii Dovbysh was defending his home in Chernihiv when something inside him snapped. The Russians were a few kilometres away. Enemy planes bombed the city. Shells landed among its gold-domed cathedrals. And young soldiers under his command were dyin

When the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, appeared on the balcony of Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen last Sunday to announce the new monarch, she was met by a sea of cheering faces. Tens of thousands of people gathered on the streets of

An aerial view from last Sunday shows flowing lava close to a road leading to the south-western town of Grindavík, where houses caught fire after a volcano erupted for the second time in less than a month. Two fissures formed after an increase in sei

‘A sinking ship” was how Antonia, an administrator from Middleton, described Britain at the start of 2024. That assessment, while damning, isn’t unusual, with “broken”, “mess” and “struggling” the top words used to describe the UK today. But Antonia,

When King Frederik X took the throne last Sunday, the Danish crown passed from his mother, Queen Margrethe II, a monarch who has cast doubt on the fact that human pollution is heating the planet, to one who feels bound by duty to call for stronger ac

The first place that Max Schranz moved into after leaving his family home is the kind that many young professionals dream of inhabiting at the peak of their career. At only 26, he lives in a bright fifth-floor apartment with high ceilings overlooking

He is a former general who was dismissed from the military amid allegations he was involved in kidnapping and torture. But today, Prabowo Subianto, frontrunner in Indonesia’s looming election, projects a very different image: a grandpa with awkward d

After giving birth, Vanessa Chisakula started writing poetry as a way of processing the changes and struggles she was experiencing as a new mother. “I was in my early 20s. I had just become a mum and didn’t understand it,” she says. “I had all these

If you thought that we were about to finally get the truth about UFOs, think again. At the end of last year, a US government bill that would have mandated the controlled release of all classified documents and artefacts relating to UFOs was significa

Aviation is an abundant source of metaphors, but not always as self-generating as the terrifying Alaska Airlines incident that has once again brought Boeing low: a hole blown in the side of an ascending plane, a gap that was not properly plugged, pas

There is a familiar scene in many a film where the protagonist jolts awake from a terrible nightmare, only to realise that he or she didn’t wake up at all: the nightmare continues. For the millions of Americans who abhor Donald Trump, there was a sim

IN A HOTEL CONFERENCE ROOM IN SHROPSHIRE LAST WINTER, a group of people clustered by the coffee machine. Others were just coming in, undoing scarves and coats, most in branded sweatshirts or fleece gilets. Families scattered and bunched, finding othe

RECENTLY MY MOTHER WAS GATHERING UP THE LAST OF MY CHILDHOOD TOYS in a bin bag, for me to either pass on to my own kids or dispense with. It happened to be just at that moment in the summer when Barbie was making a fortune at the box office. Greta Ge

ANDREW RAWNSLEY The Post Office and a wicked abuse of power Page 48 → There was so much history and so much tragedy in that room. For two days, ending last Friday, the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague witnessed a clash between two na

To the widely voiced reasons to admire Alan Bates, the heroically dogged leader of the campaign to achieve justice for the victims of the Post Office scandal, let me add another. The man is the master of under statement. When the government was final

When my daughter went overseas on her gap-year adventure, my son and I found ourselves alone at home with the cat. Except for the odd Sunday morning at a local junk market and dinners with friends, we spent much of our time in separate rooms, coming

AUDIENCES How to be the perfect crowd at gigs, films, plays, exhibitions… Page 54 → WHAT DOES THE WORD EXPAT MEAN? Its traditional association is with wealthy outsiders lounging around pools in exotic locations, while being waited on hand and foot by

Don’t talk during the opening credits Not talking during the film should be a given. It is OK to talk (quietly) during the ads and it is similarly OK to talk (even more quietly) during the trailers. But the microsecond the film starts then you shut u

No one could accuse Kali Uchis of wasting time. The tour to promote her third album, Red Moon in Venus, ended a matter of weeks ago and yet here is its follow-up Orquídeas is the second predominantly Spanish-language album released by Uchis, who spen

In an era of rising global tension, there are a few status symbols the self-respecting global superpower can’t do without. Nuclear weapons? Sure. A space programme? Natch. But the latest geopolitical must-have is superficially more niche: a supersoni

You might think, with the completion of the Human Genome Project more than 20 years ago, and the discovery of the double helix enjoying its 70th birthday last year, that we actually know how life works. In physics, the quest for a so-called Grand Uni

‘When you travel as a girl, you don’t learn anything about the world. All you learn is that there’s a way of looking at the world that doesn’t belong to you,” says Sofie Lakmaker, who shares a surname and major biographical details with her author. S

Can you make good ramen at home, and is it worth the effort? Maria, Salford Yes, and yes, according to Tim Anderson, author of Ramen Forever. “It’s straightforward to make a really good version at home, and you can surpass the quality of most ramen a

Prep 35 min Cook 2 hr Serves 6 • VEGAN • GLUTEN FREE 3 onions (600g), peeled and thinly sliced6 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced250ml olive oil2 tbsp hawaij spice, or other spice mix such as garam masala or baharatFine sea salt1kg baby aubergines, sl

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