The film the BBC refused to air shows the targeting, detainment and torture of medics in Gaza. Its relentless timeline of horrors will never leave you
The biggest, and possibly only, failure of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack is that the circumstances of its broadcast threaten to overshadow its content.
A brief recap: this film was first commissioned by the BBC, only to be dropped when another documentary – Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone – sparked a furore over impartiality.
Continue reading...Purists’ attempts to police our global languages are doomed – there’s joy and inspiration in new expressions from all over the world
Even your own language can have the capacity to surprise you. I recently joined a panel at a journalism conference with a reporter and a lawyer, both from Colombia. I found myself captivated by some of the words they used that aren’t – or rather weren’t – so common in Spain. The investigative journalist Diana Salinas referred to her craft as la filigrana, the filigree. I wouldn’t have used the term in that context, and yet it struck me as perfect to describe the intricate, careful work that investigative reporting requires.
Filigrana is not even considered a Latin-Americanism – it comes from Italian – but it has somehow been forgotten in everyday speech in Spain. As is often the case with Spanish in Latin America, usage and context enriches the word.
María Ramírez is a journalist and the deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain
Continue reading...Alberto Varela claimed he wanted to use sacred plant medicine to free people’s minds. But as the organisation grew, his followers discovered a darker reality
The first time Dalia* took ayahuasca nothing happened. The second time it changed her life. It was 2017, and she had joined a dozen strangers in a chalet outside Barcelona. Everyone was searching for something. For many it was a way out of misery: an escape from years of addiction, or a last-ditch attempt to survive crippling depression. Dalia, a therapist in her early 30s, hoped ayahuasca would help her process the recent death of her mother. “I felt completely alone at that time,” she said. “And I think in some form that’s how everyone there felt.”
The retreat, run by a wellness company called Inner Mastery, began with the two dozen participants talking about their expectations, before imbibing ayahuasca. The Amazonian plant brew, which contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a powerful naturally occurring psychoactive, induces an altered sense of self and reality. Users often report revisiting past trauma or repressed experiences.
Continue reading...Last year, a single female was recorded returning to one tributary of a river usually celebrated for its fish. Now a plan is in place to change things – but it’s proving controversial
On an unusually hot May day in Aberdeenshire, Edwin Third stands on the bank of the River Muick, a tributary of the UK’s highest river, the Dee, talking us through the rising threats to one of Scotland’s most celebrated species, the Atlantic salmon. Against the hills of the Cairngorms national park, a herd of stags on the moorland bask in the sun.
It is a spectacular landscape, attracting hikers, mountain-bikers and salmon fishers, the latter contributing an estimated £15m to Aberdeenshire’s economy.
Continue reading...The return of the mopey goth hero sees him stroppily shuffle through what could be fantastic adventures as if they are tedious obligations. And some of the dialogue: oof!
Morpheus, AKA Dream, AKA the Sandman (Tom Sturridge) might be the immortal overlord of a magical netherworld and the director of all our subconscious visions, but he is not immune to relationship problems. “Ten thousand years ago, I condemned you to hell,” he says to his other half, having sensed that she is annoyed about something. “I think perhaps I should apologise.”
Damn right! We’re back in the chilly, clammy grasp of The Sandman, the show that looks at the fantasy genre and says: what if we got rid of nearly all the lush landscapes, epic struggles, pointed political allegories and delicious, disgusting monsters, and replaced them with a moody bloke in a long black coat who goes around annoying everyone in a self-pitying monotone? Season two, part one – the saga concludes with another handful of episodes later this month – sees Dream attempt to grow and atone, questing first to rescue his beloved queen Nada (Deborah Oyelade), who is miffed about the whole 10-millennia-in-hades cock-up.
The Sandman is on Netflix now.
Continue reading...The number of women choosing to freeze their eggs has increased sharply, according to figures from the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The number deciding to embark on the process abroad also appears to be rising. Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian journalist Lucy Hough, who recently travelled to Brussels to freeze her eggs. She explains what prompted her decision and how she feels now that the procedure is over. Madeleine also hears from Joyce Harper, a professor of reproductive science at University College London, about what the freezing of eggs involves and why the small odds of success could be driving women to travel to do it
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Continue reading...Prime minister unveils 10-year health plan to ‘put care on people’s doorsteps’ and prevent illness in first place
The NHS will shift a huge amount of care from hospitals into new community health centres to bring treatment closer to people’s homes and cut waiting times, Keir Starmer will pledge on Thursday.
The prime minister will outline radical plans to give patients in England much easier access to GPs, scans and mental health support in facilities that are open 12 hours a day, six days a week.
Continue reading...PM says Rachel Reeves will be chancellor ‘for very long time to come’ amid speculation about her job in wake of tearful Commons appearance
Keir Starmer has been forced to defend his chancellor after a day in which the bitter recriminations over Labour’s welfare bill fiasco appeared to leave Rachel Reeves in tears and the markets in turmoil.
Ministers said there would be long-lasting implications for the government’s spending priorities after it was forced to abandon the central plank of its welfare changes to prevent a damaging defeat by rebel MPs.
Continue reading...FoI requests also reveal that since 2019 less than 3% of those held under law in London were prosecuted
Police in London have been accused of abusing their powers to curb protest after research found that less than 3% of arrests for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance in the past five years resulted in a prosecution.
The research also found an almost tenfold rise in the number of arrests in the capital for the offence, most commonly used to target activists, since 2019 when Extinction Rebellion set off a wave of climate activism.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Experts say use of heavy munition in Monday’s strike that killed dozens may constitute a war crime
The Israeli military used a 500lb (230kg) bomb – a powerful and indiscriminate weapon that generates a massive blast wave and scatters shrapnel over a wide area – when it attacked a target in a crowded beachfront cafe in Gaza on Monday, evidence seen by the Guardian has revealed.
Experts in international law said the use of such a munition despite the known presence of many unprotected civilians, including children, women and elderly people, was almost certainly unlawful and may constitute a war crime.
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