The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world Continue reading…
Porcelain seized by Nazis goes up for auction in New York
Prized collection smuggled out of Vienna by Jewish couple in 1930s expected to fetch more than $2mA collection of prized Meissen porcelain smuggled out of Vienna after its Jewish owners were forced to flee the Nazis and later procured for Hitler before…
Fears grow for Afghan refugees stuck in ‘Kafkaesque’ Poland-Belarus standoff
Lukashenko accused of encouraging refugees to come to Belarus in retaliation for Brussels sanctionsAfghanistan – live updatesFears are growing for a group of Afghan refugees who fled their country last month and made their way to Europe, only to find …
‘I was on a list to be terminated’ – Sue Dobson, the spy who helped to end apartheid
She risked arrest, torture and jail to fight racism in 1980s South Africa, and her story is being made into a filmAs a white South African, Sue Dobson risked arrest, torture and imprisonment spying for the black nationalist cause during the latter days…
Is deep-sea mining a cure for the climate crisis or a curse?
Trillions of metallic nodules on the sea floor could help stop global heating, but mining them may damage ocean ecologyIn a display cabinet in the recently opened Our Broken Planet exhibition in London’s Natural History Museum, curators have placed a s…
I watched the bombs fall to unleash the 9/11 wars. Two decades later, they grind on | Jason Burke
Listening to Joe Biden’s words as the US left Afghanistan was to hear echoes of George W Bush from 2001. Is this a crisis destined to repeat itself?Many who heard President Biden’s pledge to exact revenge for the killing of 13 US Marines in an Islamic …
The Observer view on the resurgence of the Taliban | Observer editorial
Afghanistan has humbled the US and empowered its enemies. Now the west must engage with its new rulers to avert an even bigger threatAfghanistan is a tragedy, a parable and a cautionary tale for our age. As the last, desperate evacuees scramble aboard …
After Afghanistan, whither Britain? | Letters
With our international reputation in tatters, we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves and our place in the world“ ‘Very well, alone’ did good service for Winston Churchill as a wartime rallying cry in 1940,” says Andrew Rawnsley (“Boris Johnson’…
Election victory, death or prison: Bolsonaro names his three alternatives for 2022
Brazilian president’s remark to evangelical leaders came as he questioned country’s voting systemBrazilian president Jair Bolsonaro says he sees three options for his future: winning the 2022 presidential election, death or prison.“I have three alterna…
Chinese university appears to ask for lists of LGBTQ+ students for ‘investigation’
Survey by Shanghai University that asked colleges to research the political stance and ‘state of mind’ of members of LGBTQ+ communities has sparked alarmA well-known Chinese university appears to have asked its colleges to make lists of their LGBTQ+ st…