There are some weeks when it feels like there is enough going on to fill the Guardian Weekly twice over, and the latest edition is bursting at the seams. As ever, we’ve collated the best news, comment, features and analysis for you, the subscriber.
The cover story comes from Gaza and the Great March of Return, a planned six-week protest culminating every Friday, and calling for refugees and their descendants to be allowed back to their family homes in Israel. The original idea for an unarmed protest – with a conscious nod to Gandhi and Martin Luther King – has deteriorated into violent clashes between Arab youths and Israeli soldiers. Donald Macintyre reports from Gaza City on another chapter in the troubled history of the region.
Inside the paper, leaders old and new take centre stage. We report from Hungary, where prime minister Viktor Orbán secured a third consecutive term in office last Sunday. There were tales of reversals of fortune elsewhere: in Brazil, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vowed to prove his innocence shortly before commencing a 12-year prison sentence for corruption. In South Africa, former president Jacob Zuma appeared in court for a preliminary hearing of his own corruption charges. Meanwhile in South Korea, former president Park Geun-hye received a 24-year prison sentence for abuse of power and corruption.
In the Weekly Review, Susan McKay reports on some old ghosts that have been stirred by Britain’s plans to leave the EU. As negotiators struggle to reconcile competing demands for the UK to leave the customs union while keeping an open border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, the Irish border question looms ever larger, stirring fears that the Troubles have not yet been consigned to the past. Also in this section, Gary Younge marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King with a frank assessment of his revolutionary legacy.
Discovery explores how a switch to soya crops in Argentina has affected the landscape. We also crack open the story of how young birds hatch. Brains are at the forefront of our authors’ minds in Books, as we review authors exploring the working of our grey matter. And in case that cerebral subject whets your appetite, you can always move on to our regular set of puzzles.
While we’re on the subject of brains, feel free to email your thoughts on the edition here. I hope you enjoy it.
