Tag Archives: Ukraine

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – JANUARY 9, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘The Donroe Doctrine’ – Donald Trump stakes his claim to the Western Hemisphere.

Donald Trump consigned the remnants of the rules-based international order to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea as US forces extracted Nicolás Maduro to face trial in the US. With allies and adversaries of Washington still adjusting to last weekend’s audacious assault on Caracas, Trump and his inner circle are thinking about their next steps to secure US interests in what they regard as “our hemisphere”.


Our reporting team, led by Latin American correspondent Tom Phillips, gauges the reaction to Maduro’s abduction on the ground in Caracas and among Venezuela’s closest neighbours, while Dan Sabbagh explains how the US military had planned and executed the operation.

Since the start of the US military buildup and blockade of Venezuela, Trump had claimed that Maduro needed to be “brought to justice” for his alleged role in drug trafficking, which Trump claimed had caused thousands of deaths in the US. But, as international commentators Julian Borger and Nesrine Malik explain, that has proved the thinnest of justifications and already by last Saturday it was clear that Venezuela’s huge oil reserves were uppermost on his mind.

Spotlight | Iran in turmoil
An ailing economy and plummeting exchange rate have prompted the biggest street protests in many years, report Deepa Parent and William Christou

Science | Is de-extinction really possible?
Bringing woolly mammoths and dire wolves back to life captured the public’s imagination last year but, Patrick Greenfield reports, there are questions around what can actually be achieved

Feature | The power and purpose of guilt
Psychologist Chris Moore saw first-hand how powerful and complex an emotion it is, as he explains to Emine Saner

Opinion | Adieu to the French art of lunch
Paul Taylor mourns the demise of a convivial lunch at a bistro serving freshly prepared food and the end of an unpretentious part of working culture

Culture | Is the crisis in masculinty just a joke?
It’s a ridiculous time to be male – and that’s good news for a new genre of social media comedy poking fun at the manosphere, finds Matthew Cantor

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – JANUARY 2, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘Payback Time’ – Europe’s very big, very expensive problem with state pensions.

As populations age, the number of younger people entering the workforce is shrinking – and that’s a big problem for “pay as you go” state pension schemes where employees fund the pensions of an expanding cohort of retired people.

Confusingly, a new poll of six European nations reveals how most voters can see this problem and realise their state pensions will soon become unaffordable. But at the same time, they also believe state pensions are too low, and are unwilling to support reforms to them.

Where do governments under increasing pressure from populists go from here? For our first big story of 2026, the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, reports on a ticking timebomb for the continent’s social contract.

Spotlight | The prospects for peace in Ukraine in 2026
As Russia inches forward on the battlefield and – despite Donald Trump’s optimism – peace talks remain deadlocked, Kyiv’s best hopes of progress may be on the economic and political fronts, writes Dan Sabbagh

Science | How great a threat is AI to the climate?
The datacentres behind artificial intelligence are polluting the natural world – and some experts fear the exponential rise in demand could derail the shift to a clean economy. Ajit Niranjan reports

Feature | Returning to the West Bank after two decades
The former Guardian correspondent Ewen MacAskill used to report frequently from the Palestinian Territory. Twenty years after his last visit, he went back – and was shocked by how much worse it is today

Opinion | Need cheering up after a terrible year? I have just the story for you
A single act of kindness reminded columnist Martin Kettle that, despite so much evidence to the contrary, the better angels of our nature are not necessarily doomed

Culture | The Brit boom
Whether it’s Charli xcx or chicken shops, UK culture is having a moment. Can it be future-proofed from the diluting forces of globalisation? Rachel Aroesti investigates

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – JANUARY 3, 2026 PREVIEW

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue features The angst over affordability


The truth about affordability

Voters in rich countries are angry about prices. Politicians could make things worse

OpenAI’s cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

There is a dark side to the model-maker’s stunning growth

Cruise-ship catering

How to spend $1.5m on ingredients

Jane Austen, economist

It depends how you count their wealth

The sultans of slang

What street talk reveals about Anglophone civilisation

The origin of dogs

The strange symbiosis between two hyper-predators: humans and hounds

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 20, 2025 PREVIEW

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Holiday double issue’

China proved its strengths in 2025—and Donald Trump helped

It was a good year for Xi Jinping

Two months in, the Gaza ceasefire is floundering

The consequences will ripple beyond the Middle East

The Economist’s country of the year for 2025

Which country improved the most this year?

What Novo Nordisk, OpenAI and Pop Mart have in common

All three have suffered the curse of overnight success

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 13, 2025 PREVIEW

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Europe’s populist right’

Can anyone stop Europe’s populist right?

Apocalyptic warnings by mainstream politicians are doomed to fail

More reasons for America’s friends to plan for the worst

A strategy that scorns Europe, bullies Latin America and is vague on Asia

Don’t fear China’s trillion-dollar trade surplus

It is a problem not for the rest of the world, but for China

America’s Supreme Court should strike down Donald Trump’s tariffs

The judges’ credibility is at stake

The battle for Warner Bros is a prelude to the real streaming war

Professionally made shows face tough competition from independent makers

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – DECEMBER 12, 2025 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘Blocked!’ – Why Australia banned kids from social media (and what they think of it)

Millions of teenagers in Australia woke up on Wednesday to find themselves locked out of social media accounts after the government introduced a ban for under-16s – the first of its kind – on the platforms.

Far from being a kneejerk response to a moral panic, it’s a move backed up by detailed investigation into the effects of unfettered online access on children – and one that several other countries are poised to follow. Australian eSafety research found seven in 10 children aged 10 to 15 had encountered content associated with harm online. Three-quarters of those had most recently encountered that – including misogyny, violence, disordered eating and suicide – on a social media platform.

“We are seeking to create some friction [in the] system to protect children where previously there has been close to none … We are treating big tech like the extractive industry it has become,” Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, told an audience earlier this year.

Spotlight | Syria, one year after Assad
While country’s return to global stage has filled many Syrians with pride, domestically old grievances threaten efforts to rebuild the state. William Christou reports from Damascus

Feature | The inside story of the race to create the ultimate AI
In Silicon Valley, rival companies are spending trillions of dollars to reach a goal that could change humanity – or potentially destroy it. Robert Booth reports

Feature | On the trail of London’s snail farming don
Terry Ball – renowned shoe salesman, friend to former mafiosi – has vowed to spend his remaining years finding ways to cheat authorities he feels have cheated him. His greatest ruse? A tax-dodging snail empire. Jim Waterson caught up with him

Opinion | What words are left to describe Trump’s global rampage?
Deadly US boat strikes in the Caribbean are the latest example of a president corrupting both the law and morality, argues Jonathan Freedland

Culture | The best books of 2025
From fiction to food, people to poetry, science to sport: Guardian critics round up the year’s essential reads

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 6, 2025 PREVIEW

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘How AI is rewiring childhood

How AI is rewiring childhood

The technology presents dazzling opportunities—and ominous risks

Enough dithering. Europe must pay to save Ukraine

America will not. Europe’s security depends on agreeing how to

Syria’s transition has gone better than expected

The president has been a deft diplomat, but must do more reassure Syrians

Chris Waller, not Kevin Hassett, should lead the Federal Reserve

President Trump should choose the technocrat over the partisan

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – DECEMBER 5, 2025 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘After The Inferno’ – Anger and questions in the wake of the Hong Kong fires…

Watching with horror from London last week as flames ripped through seven adjacent apartment blocks in Hong Kong, it was impossible not to think back to the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017, which exposed major systemic failures around UK social housing and eventually led to law changes around safety and accountability for high-rise buildings.

The comparisons with Hong Kong were not just visually obvious but also because the semi-autonomous city’s worst fire in decades appears to have followed months of complaints from residents about shoddy materials used in building works.

Hong Kong is of course a very different place to London, with politicians facing less public accountability in a political climate that makes it much harder for citizens to express dissent. But, as anger rises, hard questions are nevertheless being asked of authorities amid accusations of negligence and corruption.

Five essential reads in this week’s edition

The big story | Can Europe unite to tame Russia – without the US?
Washington’s Putin-appeasing plan for peace in Ukraine has failed, but many heard the death knell sound for European reliance on US protection, writes Patrick Wintour

Spotlight | If Rachel Reeves goes, will Keir Starmer fall with her?
British prime ministers rarely sack their chancellors – and when they do it almost inevitably leads to their own downfall. After last week’s budget, Starmer knows the same is true of him and Reeves, says Jessica Elgot

Feature | The dangerous rise of extremist Buddhism
Buddhism is still largely viewed as a peaceful philosophy – but across much of south-east Asia, the religion has been weaponised to serve nationalist goals. Sonia Faleiro investigates

Opinion | From the West Bank to Syria and Lebanon, Israel’s onslaught continues
Broken ceasefires, bombing, ground incursions and mounting deaths: Israeli imperialism is now expanding across the region, says Nesrine Malik

Culture | Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater: two men on the moon
As their 11th movie together, Blue Moon, is released, the actor and director tell Xan Brooks about musicals, the legacy of Philip Seymour Hoffman and what being bald and short does to your flirting skills

Reviews: Best Books On Foreign Affairs Of 2025

Foreign Affairs Magazine: The very best of the hundreds of books on international politics, economics, and history that were featured in the magazine this year, selected by Foreign Affairs’ editors and book reviewers.

The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping

by Joseph Torigian

In this prodigiously researched epic, Torigian details the life of Xi Zhongxun—the father of China’s current leader, Xi Jinping—to explain the history of the Chinese Communist Party. Along the way, readers gain a sense of how the younger Xi became the man he is today.

Read the review 

Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Great Power Prophet

by Edward Luce

Luce, a gifted storyteller, chronicles the personal life and intellectual journey of former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who played a significant but underappreciated role in opening the ​United States to China, bringing the Cold War to an end, and shaping the world that came after. In writing this gem of a book, Luce has rendered a genuine service to history.

Read the review 

Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation

by Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov

Soldatov and Borogon, two Russian journalists, tell the story of their one-time group of friends and colleagues—young Russians who, over the course of the Putin years, steadily drift toward nationalist and illiberal ideas and end up as supporters of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Read the review 

The West: The History of an Idea

by George Varouxakis

In this masterful study, Varouxakis tracks the meanings of “the West” from the late eighteenth century to the present—and argues that the modern notion of the term emerged in the 1830s as a way to distinguish western Europe from Russia. Today, for beleaguered countries such as Ukraine, “the West” is still a powerful idea.

Read the review 

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – NOVEMBER 29, 2025 PREVIEW

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘What China will dominate next’

What China will dominate next

The country’s high-speed innovation holds lessons for the world

This bodge-it budget does not give Britain what it needs

Without ambitious reform, the country will not thrive

How to avoid an unjust peace in Ukraine

If Ukraine and Europe want to control their destiny they must seize the initiative

Japan’s big-spending Takaichinomics is ten years out of date

In a time of higher inflation, a falling yen and rising bond yields make a noxious blend

Iran’s reformists extend a hand

The West should heed Iran’s call to restart nuclear talks