Several lovely items of new clothing were exchanged in the Snowdon household over Christmas, including sweaters, trousers, trainers, assorted gloves and woolly hats (the latter particularly coveted by one nameless middle-aged male individual who is sadly lacking in the follicular department).
I must be honest and say that, as we opened our gifts, I didn’t give much thought to the plight of the Bangladeshi workers who produce so many of the high street clothes we buy in the west. Had I done so, I’d probably have noticed that over Christmas that those same workers were demonstrating on the streets of Dhaka in vast numbers, shutting down garment factories to protest against continuing low wages and putting already meagre livelihoods at risk in doing so. (Thousands were summarily dismissed from their factory jobs for their impudence.)
With the globalised economy coming under intense political and popular scrutiny, our cover story takes our South Asia correspondent Michael Safi to Bangladesh, where a generation of economic growth off the back of the clothing industry has failed to improve the lives and working conditions of society’s lowest-paid.
Momentous days lie ahead for the United States – not to mention the world – as Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration nears later this month. As Barack Obama’s time in the White House draws to a close, Guardian writers weigh up his political legacy over eight eventful years and ask which of his initiatives could survive the changing of the guard.
Elsewhere we report on another busy week in Trumpland – last week dominated by US intelligence claims over Russian hacking. In Mexico, riots over rising fuel prices have accompanied anxieties over Trump’s consequences for the car manufacturing industry. In Brazil, a wave of brutal prison killings has shocked the nation. In France, the Front National leader Marine Le Pen is dropping her surname from election campaign material in a bid to detract from the family’s racist image.
There’s a great long read in the Weekly Review section, where the Indian author and political writer Pankaj Mishra offers a detailed critique of the age of anger, calling for an intellectual discourse beyond liberal rationalism that can confront the challenges of the day.
Discovery takes a look at robotic submersibles and the breakthroughs in the search for underwater treasures. Books considers a history of Native American political struggles, and Culture takes in a thrilling retrospective of the artist Robert Rauschenberg at London’s Tate Modern gallery.
There’s an interview with Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, one the world’s most famous and highly paid movie stars. And talking of high earners, the Sport pages go behind the scenes of the booming Chinese Super League, where the country’s football clubs have been forking out astronomical sums of money to import some of the world’s leading players.
Rounding things off, the historian Frank Trentmann considers the cycle of selfish western consumption and asks how close we really are to breaking it. Those Bangladeshi garment workers, one suspects, would have a pretty short answer to that.
Thanks for reading, and please let us know your views on the edition.
Would you like to change your delivery address? Your email address? Suspend delivery? You can manage your account online here. Are you a subscriber looking for our digital edition? Click here.
