Why There’s No Battlefield Solution to India’s Perpetual Pakistan Problem
© Atul Loke for The New York Times
© Atul Loke for The New York Times
I was riding high as a music journalist with a new book in the shops when I had what I thought was a migraine. In fact, it was a burst aneurysm and I needed emergency surgery. Two years into my recovery, can I learn how to find joy again?
I am a dancer. The dark is usually a friend to me, allowing me to stretch and move my limbs into unfashionable positions as music washes over me. My music journalism career means I have spent more than two decades at gigs and in clubs, falling in love with music, contorting my body, two‑stepping, making any space into a dancefloor, then going home and writing about it.
Two years ago, when I was 36, I was riding high at the launch party for my first book, about housing, home and music, and I danced as R, my husband, DJ’d Tems, Asake and Burna Boy. The publishers had put up a billboard about the book; I remember walking to the petrol station to buy the papers and read the reviews, and feeling relieved that they were good. I began preparing for a summer of talks – oversized suits and heels at the ready. My next event was at a bookshop in Bristol to talk about the idea of home. But my body, unbeknown to me, was feeling very not at home.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Kate Peters/The Guardian
© Photograph: Kate Peters/The Guardian
‘Perfect’ weather conditions produce berries that growers say are between 10% and 20% bigger than usual
The UK’s sunny spring weather has provided “perfect” conditions to produce strawberries so big you “cannot fit them in your mouth”, UK growers have said.
With nearly 20 years’ experience, Bartosz Pinkosz, the operations director at the Summer Berry Company, has “never seen anything like it”. The strawberries being harvested this month by the leading grower are whoppers thanks to the combination of lots of sunshine and cool nights.
Continue reading...© Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
© Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
There are genuine concerns about young people using social media, but the main thing is that you talk to your parents about it
• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a problem sent in by a reader
My mum has always been protective, and I fear it is destroying my social life because I haven’t grown up with much access to social media. I don’t mean to say it’s OK to be exposed to social media at a young age, but it needs to be controlled in a certain way.
Because I had a flip phone until the middle of secondary school, I haven’t had a TikTok or Snapchat streak with anyone because I never learned how it works. I know this might sound like me complaining over nothing, but it sometimes feels like my mum is purposely doing this to damage me.
Continue reading...© Illustration: Guardian Design
© Illustration: Guardian Design
The US, UK and others routinely flout international law. That’s why there’s scant hope for a new tribunal on crimes against Ukraine
It’s tempting to hope the establishment last week of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, to give its full name, will lead to the speedy trial and indefinite incarceration of Vladimir Putin and senior Russian leaders. After all, the new court is backed by about 40 countries, including the UK, plus the EU and Council of Europe. And only fools like Donald Trump are confused about who the aggressor is in this conflict.
Sadly, this appealing notion has scant basis in reality. Ducking peace talks and dodging responsibility for the war he started, a smirking Putin manspreads smugly in the safety of the Kremlin. He also hides behind the outdated convention that serving heads of state enjoy legal immunity. The bottom line is unchanging: Russia will ignore the new tribunal, just as it ignores arrest warrants for Putin over alleged war crimes brought by the international criminal court (ICC).
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
Continue reading...© Photograph: Pavel Bednyakov/AP
© Photograph: Pavel Bednyakov/AP
A far-right win is real possibility in eastern European state on same day as votes in Poland and Portugal
Romanians have started voting in a pivotal presidential run-off that could radically alter their country’s strategic alignment and economic prospects, as voters in Poland and Portugal also prepare to cast their ballots in a European electoral “super Sunday”.
The Romanian contest, the most consequential of the three, pits a brash, EU-critical, Trump-admiring populist against a centrist independent in a knife-edge vote that analysts have called most important in the country’s post-communist history.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters
© Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters
World leaders to attend papal mass in Rome as first US pontiff receives fisher’s ring and wool pallium
An estimated 250,000 pilgrims and a host of world leaders and royals, including the US vice-president, JD Vance, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy; Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, and Britain’s Prince Edward, are expected to attend St Peter’s Square for the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XIV.
The service, which begins on Sunday at 10am local time, marks the official start of the papacy of the first US pontiff in the history of the Roman Catholic church.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP
© Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP
Residents of India-administered Kashmir worry root cause of conflict remains and return of violence is inevitable
A week after fleeing artillery fire from across the border, Rina Begum returned to find her home in Kashmir devastated. The walls were cracked, the roof crumbling, windows blown inward, and glass shards scattered across the floor, mingling with the ashes of her daughter’s books.
The 45-year-old gazed out through a fractured window frame at the looming mountains. “Hell has been raining down from there,” she said.
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© Photograph: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images
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Incident occurred at around 9 p.m. leaving 19 injured as all three masts of sail ship snapped bringing down rigging
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