UN GEO report says ending this harm key to global transformation required ‘before collapse becomes inevitable’
The unsustainable production of food and fossil fuels causes $5bn (£3.8bn) of environmental damage per hour, according to a major UN report.
Ending this harm was a key part of the global transformation of governance, economics and finance required “before collapse becomes inevitable”, the experts said.
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© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
The unlikely story of an English girl catapulted to French fame – and a relationship with Serge Gainsbourg that resembled a piece of deranged performance art
Boarding a flight in 1983, Jane Birkin found herself wrestling with the open straw basket into which she habitually crammed everything from playscripts to nappies. As she reached for the overhead locker the basket overturned, spilling the contents on her neighbour. He turned out to be the chief executive of Hermès, the French luxury goods company, and immediately offered to make her a bag with internal pockets and a secure closure. Birkin sketched what she wanted on a sick bag and “The Birkin” was born: a slouchy trapezoid in finest leather complete with its own little padlock. These days a Birkin bag starts at around £10,000 while the original, made for Birkin herself, was auctioned this summer for £7.4m.
It is a tale that gets endlessly repeated thanks to its neat compression of the main beats of the Jane Birkin story. First, there’s the insouciance, the fact that the Anglo-French singer and actor never seemed to go after anything; rather, it came to her. Then there’s her lack of mortification at having her whole life upended on a strange man’s lap, nappies and all. Finally, there’s her refusal to feel overawed by her bounty. Birkin famously did not treat her Hermès bag with especial reverence, enthusiastically festooning it with charms, beads, stickers and ribbons. The trend for personalising your handbag with bits of tat was ubiquitous this summer, part of a wider revival of the Birkin aesthetic, comprising flared mid-wash jeans, peasanty cheesecloth blouses and ballet flats. You couldn’t avoid it if you tried.
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© Photograph: Shutterstock
© Photograph: Shutterstock
© Photograph: Shutterstock
Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some brilliant new paperbacks, from a festive mystery to a kaleidoscopic ode to the animal kingdom
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© Composite: PR Handout/Guardian Design Team
© Composite: PR Handout/Guardian Design Team
© Composite: PR Handout/Guardian Design Team
A gripping film captures the fraught contests, lonely outposts and human toll of the Philippines’ struggle to assert sovereignty against China
Director Baby Ruth Villarama and her crew board an assortment of maritime vessels to record the ongoing strife and its consequences between the Philippines and China over control of what has recently been named the West Philippine Sea (WPS), formerly part of the South China Sea. This area, which is seen by just about everyone (apart from the People’s Republic of China) as part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, has been increasingly infiltrated by Chinese boats, some of them fishing vessels but mostly Chinese coast guard vessels that have harassed, rammed and attempted to board Filipino boats as part of the dispute over sovereignty in the area. Some of the footage seen here is pretty tense, although mostly it’s a game of bluster at sea, with officers on different vessels exchanging puffed-chest speeches peppered with legalese over short-wave radios, a kind of airwave diplomacy.
The film’s title refers to the ongoing efforts by the Filipino army to deliver foodstuffs to some of the tiny islands in the WPS where soldiers hold the line, literally, for long lonely stretches. And when we say “islands”, we’re talking about dollops of sand in shallow waters no bigger than a football pitch, accessible only by inflatable motorboats travelling at frightening speeds. They are certainly scary for the poor baby goats, loaded along with canned food and other supplies that we see scrambling for better footholds as the boats go zooming across the waves. Elsewhere, we follow fishers living in the more populated Scarborough Shoal who complain they are catching less due to Chinese fishing boats in the area.
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© Photograph: Voyage Studios
© Photograph: Voyage Studios
© Photograph: Voyage Studios
Labour and the country have reached a historic inflection point. For all the talk of Brexit ‘benefits’, the anti-EU ideologues know the tide has turned
All the old gang were there: a reunion of the Brexit triumphalists. I was one of the guests in the stately drawing room of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Georgian townhouse in Westminster last week, as the Bruges Group met to cheer the launch of the new book 75 Brexit Benefits: Tangible Benefits from the UK Having Left the European Union. Tory Brexiteers Iain Duncan Smith, Bill Cash and John Redwood were all there, a gathering of the kind of Eurosceptics John Major once called the “bastards”.
Our host, Rees-Mogg, was in jubilant form, celebrating Keir Starmer’s recent speeches that named the economic damage done by Brexit. In Labour’s new willingness to touch the Brexit live rail, the Bruges Group members welcomed the revival of the grand old conflict as their way back to referendum glory days. Rees-Mogg chortled: “Starmer’s view that re-entering the European Union is the answer to our economy is as true as everything else he says.” Much mirth, as he departed early for his State of the Nation slot on GB News.
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© Photograph: Richard Gardner/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Richard Gardner/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Richard Gardner/Shutterstock
The former England striker on stepping up to tackle racism, protecting his sons and Liverpool’s woes
Emile Heskey was about 14 years old when he was chased from Leicester City’s old Filbert Street stadium all the way into town by a man shouting racist abuse. He was a Leicester fan who had no idea he was abusing a player who would go on to help his club win promotion to the Premier League and two League Cups before a move to Liverpool for what, at the time, was the club’s record transfer fee.
“Fast forward three years that same guy would’ve been chanting my name in the stadium,” Heskey says now. “This is our reality.”
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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
This year’s London Marathon winner deserves credit for offering more than enough proof he is clean while setting a new standard for other athletes to follow
Last week the world’s best marathon runner, Sabastian Sawe, looked me straight in the eye and told me “doping is a cancer”. Then he insisted he was clean. You hear such oaths and affirmations all the time. But, uniquely, Sawe recently backed up those words by asking the Athletics Integrity Unit to test him as much as possible.
You see, Sawe believed he could break the world record in Berlin in September. And he also understood that Kenya’s abysmal doping record meant that success would be met with more raised eyebrows than a plastic surgeon’s clinic in Hollywood. So the call went into the AIU. Test me. Repeatedly. Throw everything at it. My sponsors, Adidas, will pick up the bill.
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© Photograph: Marvin Ibo Guengoer/GES Sportfoto/Getty Images
© Photograph: Marvin Ibo Guengoer/GES Sportfoto/Getty Images
© Photograph: Marvin Ibo Guengoer/GES Sportfoto/Getty Images
English manager says ‘it’s not the time to panic’ but Alsace club want a return on their €100m+ summer investment
As one of the few areas of France which celebrate Saint Nicholas Day, Alsace had festive processions and performances taking place across the region last Saturday. The travelling Strasbourg fans, though, were in no mood for a party on their way back from Toulouse after a third consecutive defeat.
“It’s not the time to panic,” Liam Rosenior insisted after his Strasbourg team failed to find a response to Emersonn’s early opener for Les Violets. “We have to stay consistent and keep working hard. I won’t change our style of play, because it’s brought us success.”
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© Photograph: Nathan Barange/DPPI/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Nathan Barange/DPPI/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Nathan Barange/DPPI/Shutterstock
Despite the challenges of working in a healthcare system in crisis, Kudzai Kanyepi has resisted the temptation to move abroad
When Dr Kudzai Kanyepi qualified as Zimbabwe’s first female cardiothoracic surgeon four years ago, she was filled with pride and anticipation after succeeding in an area long dominated by men. She was only the 12th woman in Africa to qualify in the field – four more have joined her since.
Even now, with 100 operations under her belt, the reality of working in a role in which she confronts misogyny and discrimination daily has not dented Kanyepi’s love of the surgical theatre.
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© Photograph: Cynthia R Matonhodze/Cynthia R Matonhodze for The Guardian UK
© Photograph: Cynthia R Matonhodze/Cynthia R Matonhodze for The Guardian UK
© Photograph: Cynthia R Matonhodze/Cynthia R Matonhodze for The Guardian UK
McLaren were the obvious choice for team of the year but Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari were a big disappointment while Williams exceeded expectations
Lando Norris had gone into the season as favourite and he emerged on top after a gruelling contest. Securing his maiden world drivers’ title was no easy feat given how hard he had been pushed by his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Closing it out was testament to a driver who maintained his nerve and confidence even as at times it seemed the title had slipped from his reach.
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© Composite: Guardian Pictures; NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Reuters
© Composite: Guardian Pictures; NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Reuters
© Composite: Guardian Pictures; NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Reuters
Consumers spent £1.7bn on festive lighting last year and much of it is treated as disposable
UK households have thrown away an estimated 168m light-up Christmas items and other “fast-tech” gifts over the past year, a study suggests.
The research by the non-profit group Material Focus found about £1.7bn was spent last year on Christmas lighting, including 39m sets of fairy lights.
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© Photograph: Rex Features
© Photograph: Rex Features
© Photograph: Rex Features
Ahead of James Cameron’s latest Avatar sequel hitting the big screen, we look at how studios aim for ‘theatricality’ to get streaming film fans from sofa to cinema
If anyone still knows how to fill a movie theatre, it’s James Cameron. Having broken the all-time worldwide box office record in 1997 with Titanic and again 12 years later with Avatar, his work is the acme of big-screen spectacle.
His latest offering, Avatar: Fire and Ash, arrives in radically different circumstances. With several years now between us and the pandemic, it is clear that theatrical box office is likely not coming back to what it was: US total box office for 2025 currently stands at $7.6bn (down from $11.3bn in 2019); the worldwide haul is expected to be around $34.1bn, a 13% drop from pre-Covid times. All the more onus on Cameron’s hypertrophic Smurfs to bring in the box office cavalry at year’s end. And hopefully supply some further indications about the magic elixir needed to break the Netflix’n’chill stranglehold and get boots back in cinemas.
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© Photograph: Capital Pictures/Alamy
© Photograph: Capital Pictures/Alamy
© Photograph: Capital Pictures/Alamy
You don’t have to be a child to enjoy Seiffen, the magical ‘home of Christmas’ where they’ve been making traditional wooden toys for hundreds of years
I feel terrible … I’ve left the children at home and Seiffen, nicknamed Spielzeugdorf (The Toy Village), is literally a Christmas wonderland. Every street is alive with sparkling fairy lights and soft candlelight. There are thousands of tiny wooden figurines, train sets and toy animals displayed in shop windows, wooden pyramids taller than doorframes and colourful nutcracker characters. Forget elves in the north pole, this is the real Santa’s workshop. For hundreds of years, here in the village of Seiffen, wood turners and carvers have created classic wooden Christmas toys and sold them around the world.
Near the border of the Czech Republic, Seiffen may be well known in the German-speaking world as the “home of Christmas”, but so far it has been largely missed by English-speaking seasonal tourists. Tucked away in the Ore Mountains, about an hour and a half south of Dresden, it is not the easiest place to get to by public transport – the nearest train station is in Olbernhau, nearly 7 miles (11km) away. Buses are available, but we opt for a hire car and make our way into the hills, arriving the day after the first snowfall of the year. The roads are cleared quickly, but snow clings to the branches of the spruce trees. We half expect to see the Gruffalo’s child, but only spot a rust-coloured fox making its way through a fresh field of snow.
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© Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy
© Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy
© Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy
Over 120 years ago, a monumental work recording more than 500 species of tree in Britain and Ireland was published. A new version focuses on the pioneering images it contained
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© Photograph: RRB Books
© Photograph: RRB Books
© Photograph: RRB Books
The hypnotic third novel in the hit Danish series grapples with the philosophical realities of being stuck on repeat in 18 November
The time loop story, in which characters repeatedly relive the same span of time, has become synonymous with the 1993 film Groundhog Day, but the idea has much older roots. In PD Ouspensky’s 1915 novel Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, the feckless Osokin is given the chance to live his life over again, only to find himself making all the same mistakes. Like Groundhog Day’s insufferable Phil Connors, Osokin can change nothing without changing himself.
Solvej Balle’s much-lauded series On the Calculation of Volume takes a very different approach. She first began working on the idea decades ago, several years before Groundhog Day was released. The film, she says, “helped me with research by trying out some of the roads I did not want to take”. The books, five so far with two more planned, have proved a literary sensation in her native Denmark, with the first three volumes together scooping the 2022 Nordic Council Literature prize, the highest literary honour in Scandinavia. This is the third to be published in English this year; the first was shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker prize.
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© Photograph: Bernhard Lang/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bernhard Lang/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bernhard Lang/Getty Images
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