The latest Guardian Weekly cover story takes us to Raqqa. For more than three years, the Syrian town was the political capital of Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate. Last week, the final strongholds fell to Kurdish fighters.
However, writer Jason Burke cautions against any talk of victory. A foreign correspondent with extensive experience covering Islamic extremism, Burke reminds us that Raqqa is likely to be a turning point for Isis and its opponents, but not an endgame.
Further on in the paper, elections and referendums dot the news pages. In Spain, we keep tabs on the political to and fro over the question of Catalan independence. Meanwhile, in Japan, prime minister Shinzo Abe’s gamble to call an election a year ahead of schedule has paid off. Voters backed his uncompromising stance on North Korea and returned his Liberal Democratic party with its two-thirds “supermajority” in Japan’s lower house intact.
In New Zealand, Labour prime minister-elect Jacinda Ardern and New Zealand First’s Winston Peters, who will serve as deputy PM, signed a coalition deal that leaves incumbent PM Bill English’s National party out in the cold. In the Czech Republic, however, it seems tycoon turned populist politician Andrej Babiš, who led his new ANO party to election victory, will have a tougher time attracting coalition partners.
The world diary examines the events surrounding the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed last week after 30 years of campaigning journalism in Malta, including work central to the Panama Papers investigation.
In the UK, the top story surrounds accusations of “social apartheid” at Oxford, where one in three colleges failed to admit any black British A-level students in 2015.
If you’re reading this on a smartphone then you might want to check out the Weekly Review lead, which reports on a small but growing band of Silicon Valley heretics concerned by the attention we lavish on our technology. Food for thought, though please digest it after you’ve finished this blog.
Our culture section shows Jane Austen characters as you’ve never seen them before: in a virtual role-playing game. Gentlefolk must mind their manners: progress is made through social gestures.
And a literary theme continues to the back page, where we are all urged to remember the good work of George Bernard Shaw in reminding society that poverty was not, and is not, a moral failing.
If you have any thoughts about Austen, Shaw or any of the issues in our latest edition, please send them for consideration on our Reply page – we’d love to hear from you!
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