11 h. ago The Guardian view on global aid cuts: a malaria resurgence could be the canary in the coalmine | Editorial

The consequences of Donald Trump’s decision to scrap USAID, and other countries’ decisions to reduce funding, are playing out in deadly fashionMalaria is a pandemic disease that hits the voiceless hardest: most of those who fall ill and die are small children and pregnant women in Africa. It is the leading infectious killer of the continent, responsible for nearly 600,000 deaths a year. Cases are rising and there is an urgent need for more funding, yet western donor countries are instead cutting back on aid. We still hear brave talk about eliminating malaria. But an expert report now warns of a potential resurgence that could add almost a million more deaths to the annual toll by the end of the decade.Most of the money to fight the mosquito-borne disease – 59% – comes through the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Its executive director, Peter Sands, said last week at the World Health Summit in Berlin that of the three killers, the one that kept him awake...

Politics

25 h. ago ‘Not a luxury, a necessity‘: how aid cuts to birth control harm Senegal’s women

‘The women here are warriors,’ says a midwife in Joal, and contraception is key to their health and life chances. But now UK and US aid cuts threaten to undo years of progressThe fishing quay on the beach at Joal is usually so crowded with women dealing with the day’s catch that you can barely glimpse the sea. But today it is quiet, just an expanse of broken shells and plastic bags that leads down to the water’s edge.Last night, as is increasingly common here on Senegal’s coast, there was a storm and heavy rain so the men could not go to sea safely in their open wooden fishing boats, known as pirogues. Many houses were flooded, so women stayed at home for the day, baling out bedrooms and dealing with the aftermath. Times are tough. Continue reading...

Politics

36 h. ago The Guardian view on electronic implants: a new way of seeing, not of being | Editorial

Electronic implants are helping people to see again. Their promise is profound, but so are the risks. Progress must be guided by ethics and accessibilityIn medical terms, the eye is not the window to the soul, but to the mind. The retina and the optic nerve are outgrowths of neural tissue, and the remarkable success of electronic implants in restoring sight shows how far brain-computer interfaces have come. These have not delivered a sci-fi vision of augmented humans with incredible new powers but, perhaps more happily, significant progress has been made, restoring ability and agency to those who have suffered injury or disease.People with age-related macular degeneration face a fading world. The disease, affecting about 600,000 people in the UK, causes progressive loss of central vision. There is no cure, but new trials offer something else: a new way of seeing. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago The Guardian view on a bumper crop of horror: scary times call for even scarier films | Editorial

A new wave of socially engaged movies is storming the box office and changing how we think about the genreIt should surprise no one to learn that 2025 is being hailed as a golden year for horror films. All horror movies are a reflection of their time, and ours are pretty scary.Tech dystopianism means that Frankenstein’s monster has become a byword for AI, while Bram Stoker’s Dracula has always drawn on a dark strain of English xenophobia. So it is no coincidence that these 19th-century gothic villains, stars of the earliest horror films in the 1920s and 30s, are back in cinemas with new adaptations from directors Guillermo del Toro and Luc Besson. Maggie Gyllenhaal is bringing out another Frankenstein, The Bride!, next year.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Events

4 d. ago The Guardian view on Conservative immigration policy: the threat of mass expulsions is abhorrent | Editorial

Tory plans to revoke indefinite leave to remain in pursuit of greater ‘cultural coherence’ resemble the most extreme ambitions of far-right fringe partiesIt is too early to declare Sir Keir Starmer’s “one in, one out” migration deal with France a failure, but nor can the government claim that it is working as intended. This week, the Guardian revealed that one of the first people deported under the treaty had found his way back to the UK via a small boat. On the same day, Home Office data revealed that the number of people who had made the journey so far this year – 36,886 – had surpassed the total for 2024. The usual partisan recriminations followed. Opposition parties accuse Labour of failing to grip the problem; ministers say they are burdened by a long legacy of Conservative mismanagement. Both things can be true.For all its deficiencies, Sir Keir’s deal with France recognises two facts that his Tory and Reform UK opponents cannot accept. First, engagement with EU states is...

Events

5 d. ago The Guardian view on the cloud crash: an outage that showed who really runs the internet | Editorial

A failure at Amazon’s server centre paralysed global services for 15 hours. It was not just a glitch but a stark reminder of our digital dependency and fragilityAn outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday disrupted apps and websites around the world, affecting more than 2,000 companies and leaving millions of users unable to access services like Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, Duolingo and even Amazon’s own operations. Removing the tech from our tech-dependent existence led to workers being sent home and exams delayed. The crash, which lasted 15 hours, underlined how deeply our digital lives depend on a small number of cloud providers – and how vulnerable many everyday systems are to a single failure.If data is the new oil, then cloud computing is the pipeline, the refinery, the tanker fleet and, increasingly, the pump too. The big three – AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud – account for 60% of global cloud computing. They own the networks and cables that move data across the worl...

Events

6 d. ago The Guardian view on Sarkozy’s first day in prison: no citizen is above the law | Editorial

Attempts by the former French president and his supporters to discredit the legal process by which he was sentenced have been irresponsible and unjustifiedAs he was transported to La Santé prison in Paris on Tuesday, Nicolas Sarkozy posted a message brimming with defiance on X, writing “It’s not a former president of the republic who is being jailed this morning, it’s an innocent man”. A court of appeal will eventually give its view on the veracity of the second clause of that statement. But unfortunately for Mr Sarkozy, the drama and significance of his fall cannot simply be wished away.President of France between 2007 and 2012, Mr Sarkozy was found guilty of criminal conspiracy to obtain illicit campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. Handed a five‑year sentence, he has become the first former leader of an EU country to go behind bars, and the first French leader since the disgraced head of Vichy France, Philippe Pétain...

Events

7 d. ago Cuts to world’s biggest malaria fund risk a million more deaths – including 750,000 children

The Global Fund pays for more than half of the world’s malaria treatment and prevention

Events

7 d. ago The Guardian view on the price of a prince: what Virginia Giuffre’s story says about palace accountability | Editorial

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal has exposed a constitutional blind spot: royal privilege remains beyond democratic scrutiny. MPs must be able to question powerThe tragic story of Virginia Giuffre raises the question of who governs when royal privilege and public outrage collide. As a vulnerable teenager she was drawn into a world of sexual exploitation by the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Ms Giuffre alleged that Epstein trafficked her and that she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions, including when she was 17. He has denied all the claims. Despite previously insisting he had no memory of meeting her, the prince reportedly paid £12m to settle her civil case in 2022. The money was said to have come from his mother, the late queen – who, just six weeks later, was photographed walking beside him at her husband’s memorial service.With a posthumous memoir, Ms Giuffre has brought the issue back into the spotlight. In his calamitous 2019 Newsnight interview,...

Politics

7 d. ago The Guardian view on Ukraine peace talks: Europe must ensure Zelenskyy can resist Trump’s bullying | Editorial

The US president’s attempts to broker a deal fail to distinguish between the aggressor and the victim. No just agreement is possible on that basisIt wasn’t quite the calamity of February, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy was publicly humiliated in the Oval Office by Donald Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance. But the Ukrainian president’s latest visit to the White House on Friday was, by all accounts, a disquieting experience. Mr Trump’s public musings before the meeting suggested that his stance had hardened towards Vladimir Putin, to the strategically significant extent of being willing to sell long-range Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv. But by the time Mr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington, the US president had changed his mind, instead lecturing his guest on the need to make territorial concessions to Russia.So far, so familiar. Since being re-elected, Mr Trump has repeatedly resiled from following up tough talk on Russia with meaningful action. Faux deadlines for Mr Putin to make substa...

Politics

7 d. ago Stark plea for UK not to cut aid funding to fight biggest killer infections

Polling finds two-thirds of Brits believe the UK should increase or maintain its support for the Global Fund in battle against HIV, TB and Malaria

Events

8 d. ago UNAids is set to close in 2026 – four years early. Are experts right to be alarmed?

The move to shut the agency comes as aid budgets are being slashed, leading to fears that global progress on HIV may be reversedAs executive director of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association, Ganna Dovbakh was among the many public health officials and NGO leaders shocked by the UN secretary-general’s proposal to “sunset UNAids by the end of 2026”.In the eastern European and central Asian (EECA) countries where Dovbakh works, research indicates that the epidemic is on the rise. Over the past decade, there has been a 48% increase in new infections, and a 32% rise in Aids-related deaths, predominantly among marginalised and criminalised populations such as sex workers, men who have sex with men, and people who inject drugs. Continue reading...

Events

8 d. ago Keir Starmer pressed not to slash UK contribution to global aid fund

Polling finds majority consider £1bn funding for Aids, TB and malaria vaccines a UK success storyPressure is mounting on Keir Starmer not to cut the UK’s contribution to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria after polling found 62% of Britons believe the government should maintain or increase its support.The prime minister must decide this year whether to maintain the UK contribution at £1bn or implement a cut in line with recent reductions to the aid budget. A cut of 20% has been rumoured. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago The Guardian view on hybrid cars: profitable for carmakers but not very green | Editorial

Plug-in hybrids pollute more than their manufacturers claim – and delay the real shift to electric and shared mobility“Why the future is hybrid,” chirruped the Economist in 2004. While electric vehicles (EVs) looked like science fiction, that prediction looked prescient. Fast‑forward 20 years and battery technology has improved dramatically; EVs are affordable. Last week it emerged that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) aren’t very green. The sales pitch had been that motorists could use “clean” battery power for city jaunts and dirty petrol for longer trips. This promised sustainable travel without the anxiety of a limited range. But real‑world tests, by the European non-profit Transport and Environment, show that PHEVs emit just 19% less carbon dioxide than petrol and diesel cars – far short of the 75% claimed in the lab.Hybrid vehicles are, however, very profitable. Carmakers can charge top dollar for what are essentially re-engineered petrol cars with a battery ...

Politics

8 d. ago The Guardian view on childbirth and medical negligence: rising payouts highlight the urgency of maternity improvements

Grave shortcomings in the care offered to mothers and babies are well documented. But it is not clear that the right lessons have been learnedThe startling rise in the cost to the NHS in England of medical negligence cases, and a sharp increase in birth injuries to mothers, are the latest warning signs of deeply troubling failures in maternity services. The £60bn estimate of negligence liabilities, from the National Audit Office, represents a quadrupling in less than 20 years. While some medical specialties have seen falling payouts, those in obstetrics rose. The reason why payments in such negligence cases are so high is that when babies are injured, awards must cover lifetime care needs.Grave shortcomings in maternity care are widely recognised, along with unjust disparities in outcomes for women from different socioeconomic and racial groups. Preventable deaths and injuries at units in Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford, and East Kent, have been among the most shocki...

Politics

8 d. ago How the west can stop the global south being strangled by debt | Heather Stewart

Labour would do well to remember its manifesto promise to revive Britain’s global leadership on developmentWith borrowing costs rising and western governments including the UK cutting their aid budgets, unsustainable debts are driving a development crisis across the global south.In the latest evidence, Ethiopia last week faced the threat of being sued by its creditors in the English courts, after long-running negotiations about restructuring $1bn (£740m) of its debt collapsed. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Scotland’s aid commitment is an act of global solidarity in an ever more fragmented world 

Charity and solidarity are two sides of the same coin

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on Trump and the law: a restraint on the executive is morphing into its weapon | Editorial

The indictment of critics including John Bolton rings alarm bells as the US president expands his power and seeks to use the justice system to exact revenge“He who saves his country does not violate any law,” Donald Trump posted after beginning his second term – emboldened, perhaps, by the supreme court’s bombshell ruling on presidential immunity last year, which many say gave the office-holder the powers of a monarch.Millions of Americans are expected to push back against the president’s growing power at No Kings protests across the US on Saturday. The demonstrations come as former intelligence and national security officials warn that the country is sliding towards “competitive authoritarianism”, in which elections and courts survive but are systematically manipulated by the executive. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on Austen and Brontë adaptations: purists may reel, but reinvention keeps classic novels alive | Editorial

The appetite for onscreen versions of much-loved literature is endless, but dogged faithfulness to a text is not the only way to stay true to authors’ spiritIt is a truth universally acknowledged that every classic novel must be in want of a sexed-up adaptation. Ever since Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy waded out of the lake in a wet shirt in the BBC’s 1995 Pride and Prejudice adapted by Andrew Davies, we have expected the undercurrents of novels to be writ large on screen: the novel is dripping in sexual tension – who knew? No one objects when Jane Austen’s couples kiss on TV, although it never happens on the page. But we are reluctant to imagine more troubling historical realities, such as maternal mortality, or where the fortunes behind the big houses came from.As part of the 250th celebrations of Austen’s birth, Davies shocked audiences at the Cliveden literary festival last week with revelations that he is working on versions of Emma and Mansfield Park that will include death...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on the US and Venezuela: Trump’s ‘war on drugs’ ramps up military threats to Maduro | Editorial

Hawks want regime change. Democrats and others are right to warn against illegal and unauthorised use of forceThe drumbeat is growing louder. Covert operations are supposed to remain just that, but on Wednesday Donald Trump confirmed that he had approved secret CIA actions in Venezuela and suggested that he was considering strikes on its territory. These comments follow the administration’s extrajudicial killings at sea: attacks on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean that have left at least 27 dead – a frightening new precedent denounced by UN experts as illegal. The US has already built up forces in the region, with about 6,500 troops now stationed there. “No to war in the Caribbean No to regime change No to coups d’état orchestrated by the CIA,” railed Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator, after Mr Trump’s remarks.The US president’s repeated claim that each boat strike saves 25,000 American lives is even more preposterous than it first sounds. The fentanyl that killed 48,000 peopl...

Events