CATEGORIES

Beam me down

Space solar power is a potentially limitless energy source for Earth, but was deemed too expensive to set up. Is that about to change?

Cuts and strikes No respite for Truss as a perfect storm of crises builds

Liz Truss is hoping her conference speech on growth, growth, growth” last week will have set a new agenda for her party, drawing a line under the disastrous week of her U-turn over the 45p tax rate and 10 days of market turmoil after the mini-budget. However, there are multiple potential crises on the horizon. Here are some of the most difficult and intractable problems.

‘Climate justice’ PM demands rich nations pay up

Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, has said Pakistan should not be forced to go out with a begging bowl” to rich polluting nations after the floods that have devastated the country and said he would be seeking climate justice” from the international community.

Putin’s revenge Missile strikes give temporary cheer to Russia hardliners

The victims were ordinary Ukrainians: those who died at the busy intersection of Volodymyrska and Shevchenko streets in Kyiv, at a downtown playground, or the hundreds of thousands now in homes without light, water and heat in cities across the country due to a barrage of Russian cruise missiles.

Defiance as Russian strikes bring war back to the capital

Shevchenko Parkin central Kyiv is a tranquil public garden, where the trees are turning golden against the city’s blue, autumnal skies. Presiding over the park is a statue of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s national poet, persecuted by the Russians in the 19th century for writing in Ukrainian.

‘Get lost' Schoolgirls vow to take their country back from the mullahs

Last Monday night, 16-year-old Elnaz sat at home in the Iranian city of Karaj and wept with shock and rage as she scrolled through social media posts about the death of NikaShakarami.

'Women, life and freedom'

The scale of the uprising over the death of Mahsa Amini is unprecedented, but will it lead to the end of the Iranian regime?

PAYBACK TIME

Ransomware hackers are on the rise, encrypting our computer data and demanding huge sums for its release. But a network of self-taught tech geniuses is leading the digital resistance.

We are waking up to the truth: Brexit left us poorer and adrift

Last week, having whiled away two joyous days at the Tories' conference in Birmingham, I spent a long afternoon an hour's drive away, in the cathedral city of Worcester.

King Charles can go greener now, even if his government sees red

So King Charles won’t be going to Cop27, by order of Liz Truss; an inauspicious start fora monarch with pretensions to remain an influencer and be known as the first green” king.

This uprising could fail like others did - but something feels different

In Hong Kong in 2019-20, millions took to the streets to oppose the repressive actions of an authoritarian regime. But ultimately their voices were silenced, their leaders jailed and China stripped away their democratic rights as hand-wringing western leaders looked on.

'The Scale Is Chilling' Floods Offer A Devastating Glimpse Into Earth's Future

Ali Baksh stood on the embankment and pointed across the flooded landscape to the spot where his fields used to be. The 45-year-old farmer is sheltering in a makeshift camp only accessible by boat in the Sindh province of Pakistan along with more than 2,000 others forced to flee their homes as the floods hit.

Head of the family

She was tired of fame at 10. Now, as her fifth album is released, the daughter of Will and Jada is still learning to live in the spotlight

A distressing search for answers amid Izium's mass graves

The men digging in the dusty ground looked visibly sickened by the gruesome task they had been given. The rotted bodies were mangled and the smell poisoned the fresh forest air. One corpse had a rope around the neck.

A very modern pilgrimage: in the queue with Waitrose bags, pizza and tired legs

Following the death of George VI in 1952, the Guardian's reports of his lying in state, witnessed by nearly 300,000 people over three days, were lively with detail. Other newspapers carried similar details. What marked out the Guardian was its wryness, its refusal to get carried away. It was a Manchester paper, after all.

The kingdom to come

Queen Elizabeth II was a political and diplomatic asset who spoke with the moral weight of the wartime generation. How will Britain face her loss?

Rack to the future: robot labs are here

At high-end labs in the US and UK, anybody, anywhere, can conduct experiments by remote control cheaply and efficiently. Is the rise of the robot researcher now inevitable?

Realms of possibility

Can King Charles III hold the Commonwealth together? | King Charles III's accession to the throne has reignited debate over the British royal family's role in the 21st century-and no more so than in the Commonwealth, where the monarch remains head of state in 15 of its 56 members. Now its devoted former figurehead Queen Elizabeth II is gone, and in the light of its roots in empire and slavery, will the 'family of nations' rethink its links with the crown? Our correspondents assess the mood in six key member states

Truss is preaching the discredited and toxic gospel of neoliberalism

Soon, the focus will return, and the collapse of many people's economic prospects will dominate once more. As winter approaches, it will become clear that our politics is spectacularly lacking in answers.

The west needs to take on Putin at his own information game

The Ukrainians have (again) done what nobody believed they could. They have (again) defeated the supposedly mighty Russia on the battlefield, and shown up the underlying incompetence and moral rot of the Putin system.

Double vision

In the early days, much of the children's material available on YouTube was broadly educational. But before long, some seriously strange stuff started to appear

Britain Needs Liz Truss To Echo The Monarch's Flexible Diplomacy Simon Tisdall

What will other leaders and nations make of Liz Truss in Britain’s hour of trial? This untested prime minister must now lead the country through a crisis of unity and confidence that may be triggered by the death of her infinitely better-known namesake, Elizabeth II.

In The Dark? Truss's Energy Price Plan Has One Problem – How To Fund It

No handouts? Forget the promise of the Conservative leadership race ; three days into her term as prime minister Liz Truss unveiled one of the biggest single packages of financial support for households in recent decades.

Moscow’s narrative on its ‘special operation’ starts to fray

It was not the ideal moment for a party. Last Saturday even-ing, as Russian troops speedily retreated from numerous towns in the Kharkiv region, and the Ukrainian army triumphantly raised its yellow and blue flag, spectacular fireworks crackled across Moscow.

The constant monarch

The Queen was not born to rule, but she devoted her life to the role, maintaining a political neutrality, even in stormy times

Will he or won’t he? Trump keeps his election foes guessing

In Tennessee in June, he asked a crowd: “Would anybody like me to run for president?” Then in Nevada in July, he remarked: “We have a president who ran twice, won twice and may have to do it a third time. Can you believe it?”

Kharkiv life precarious despite victories

Water and energy supplies are disrupted as liberating troops find bodies of civilians showing signs of torture

Politics needs to play its part as a divided Britain faces upheaval Martin Kettle

The death of a monarch is an entirely foreseeable event, the solemn formalities hardwired into the rituals of dynastic succession. But it is also an event that is difficult, partly for the simple reason of good manners, to anticipate with any accuracy at any particular time.

The Queen cherished the Commonwealth – but change lies ahead David Olusoga

Our ancestors were better prepared for moments like this. The corollary of having witnessed the longest reign in British history is that only a tiny fraction of us have any memory of a monarch’s passing – and such memories that do exist are faded, unreliable recollections.

As women broke new ground, having a queen was wonderful Rachel Cooke

The past is sometimes less of a foreign country than you might imagine. Last Friday morning, when my husband wondered aloud if we should get a new television “for the funeral” (ours is comically small), my mind turned to the coronation, the generations connected, even now, by the allure of an outside broadcast.