© Jens Schlueter/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
© Doug Mills/The New York Times
It is hoped the institution can help foster new bonds in a fractured nation, but such optimism will be a stretch for some
It was a night at the museum like no other. As the staccato sound of firecrackers and explosions rang out across Martyr’s Square in the heart of Tripoli, for once it was not Libya’s militias battling it out for a larger stake in the country’s oil economy, but a huge firework display celebrating the reopening of one of the finest museums in the Mediterranean.
The National Museum of Libya – housing Africa’s greatest collection of classical antiquities in Tripoli’s historic Red Castle complex – had been closed for nearly 14 years due to the civil war that followed the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall. Its ceremonial reopening came at the climax of a lavish show compressing Libya’s rich history and attended by diplomats and Arab celebrities, with a full-size Italian orchestra, acrobats, dancers, arches of fire and lights projected on to the fort. It did not lack for circus drama or cost, peaking with a billowing Ottoman sailing ship arriving high above the port on wires to be greeted by an angelic-appearing Libyan woman.
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© Photograph: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
Ten years after I first followed the proposed route, I retraced my steps to see what life was like along the world’s most expensive, heavily delayed railway line
Ten years ago, I walked the route of HS2, the 140-mile railway proposed to run from London to Birmingham, to discover what lay in its path. Nothing had actually been constructed of this, supposedly the first phase of a high-speed line going north. The only trace was the furtive ecological consultants mapping newts and bats and the train’s looming presence in the minds of those who lived along the route. For many, it was a Westminster vanity project, symbolising a country run against the interests of the many to line the pockets of the few. People whose homes were under threat of demolition were petitioning parliament, campaigning for more tunnels or hoping the project would collapse before their farms, paddocks and ancient woodlands were wiped out.
The line, we were told a decade ago, would be completed by 2026. Like many of the early claims about the longest railway to be built in Britain since the Victorian era, that fact no longer stands. The fast train is running – very – late. The official finish date of 2033 was recently revised upwards. “The best guess is that it will begin with a ‘4’ when you can catch a train,” one well-informed observer told me. There’s similar uncertainty about its cost, but one thing is sure: it is catastrophically over budget. When complete, HS2 will almost certainly be the most expensive railway in the world. Nearly 20 years ago, HS1, the line from the Channel tunnel to St Pancras, was completed on time and on budget for £51m per mile (£87m in today’s prices). It was criticised for being twice as expensive as a high-speed route constructed in France. HS2 may cost almost £1bn per mile.
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© Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian
© Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian
© Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian
First new treatments for sexually transmitted disease in decades approved by US Food and Drug Administration as number of cases worldwide surge to 82m
The first new treatments for gonorrhoea in decades could be a “huge turning point” in efforts to combat the rise of superbug strains of the bacteria, researchers have said.
Gonorrhoea is on the rise around the world, with more than 82m infections globally each year and particularly high rates in Africa and countries in the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific region, which reaches from Mongolia and China to New Zealand. Cases in England are at a record high, and rates in Europe were three times higher in 2023 than in 2014.
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© Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy
© Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy
© Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy
Our cultural aversion to superficial answers leaves ‘Wie geht’s?’ sounding like a trick question. Perhaps it is time to let our guard down
In the early autumn, over pizza and wine, I had a conversation with a dear friend. He’s Turkish. We were in Ayvalık, a small town on Turkey’s Aegean coast, talking about cultural imprints, when he suddenly paused and looked at me. “You know what?” he said. “Whenever I ask you how you are, you never really answer. You go into a meta space immediately – talking about politics or about bigger things that worry you – but you never say how you actually are.”
I’ve been thinking about his observation ever since, debating in my mind whether it was true – and I’ve recently reached the conclusion that, unfortunately, he was right.
Carolin Würfel is a writer, screenwriter and journalist who lives in Berlin and Istanbul. She is the author of Three Women Dreamed of Socialism
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© Photograph: Alamy
© Photograph: Alamy
© Photograph: Alamy
A game of solitaire accompanied by a nasty note, dog food for someone who just lost a puppy … Secret Santa is supposed to be fun, but when it’s not, it can lead to all kinds of trouble
Susanna Beves was a young teacher working at an international school in Germany when she opened a gift that would put her off Secret Santas for ever. The present itself, a solitaire game, “would have been quite nice in the normal circumstances,” she says. But it was accompanied by a note: “It told me that it had been chosen for me because I was single and lonely and likely to remain so, as I had no friends.”
“It was the most awful thing,” Beves, now 57, remembers. When she opened the gift, in a room full of 60 staff members, “I just wanted to cry,” she says. “Everybody was there and everybody was opening their gifts. So I knew that the person who’d written that note was in the room with me.”
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© Composite: Guardian Design; Viorika; siklosi; David Arky
© Composite: Guardian Design; Viorika; siklosi; David Arky
© Composite: Guardian Design; Viorika; siklosi; David Arky
Police investigating claims Sajid and Naveed Akram received ‘training’ overseas before Sunday’s attack
The father and son duo allegedly behind the Bondi attacked appear to have been inspired by Islamic State, the Australian prime minister says, as police confirmed they were investigating why the pair travelled to the Philippines last month.
The New South Wales police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, on Tuesday alleged Naveed Akram, 24, and his 50-year-old father, Sajid, had recently travelled to the Philippines.
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© Photograph: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/15/a-visual-guide-to-the-bondi-beach-terror-attack
© Photograph: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/15/a-visual-guide-to-the-bondi-beach-terror-attack
© Photograph: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/15/a-visual-guide-to-the-bondi-beach-terror-attack
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