Last Friday, in the biggest climate protest in history, millions of people took to the streets across the world to demand urgent action against global heating. The demonstrations, which came as the UN met in New York this week, were again dominated by young people following the movement started by the Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg just over 12 months ago. From the Pacific islands, through Australia, across south-east Asia and Africa into Europe and onwards to the Americas, a darkening mood was evident at politicians’ failure to adequately address the climate crisis. Global environment editor Jonathan Watts looks at the global climate issues troubling young people and hears why they are standing up in ever-growing numbers.
As we went to press, Britain’s supreme court ruled that prime minister Boris Johnson had acted unlawfully in suspending parliament for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis – we’ll have more on the ramifications of this next week. It came as timely news for the Labour party, which had been struggling to contain its bitter divisions at the party’s conference, not least over a botched attempt to unseat deputy leader Tom Watson. Heather Stewart and Rowena Mason look back on a tumultuous week in which Labour almost tore itself apart.
From quartz to angeline to epidote, healing stones have become a part of many people’s everyday lives. They seem to be available on every street corner – but how much do we know about the billion-dollar industry from which these shiny nuggets of supposedly positive energy emerge? Very little, suggests Tess McClure, as she charts a murky path leading to the unregulated and treacherous mines of one of the world’s poorest countries.
Elsewhere there’s an interview with Jonathan Van Ness, the fabulous star of TV’s Queer Eye, who opens up about his difficult childhood and the effects of living with HIV.
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