Ordinarily a thaw preceding a Winter Olympics would hardly be a welcome development, but around the peripheries of the Pyeongchang Games due to open this Friday, the political climate between the two Koreas has moved from sub-zero to, well, something a bit less chilly.
The Olympics have a history of being boycotted for political purposes but remarkably, North and South Korea have used the occasion to forge a wary rapprochement, symbolised (somewhat controversially) by a combined women’s ice hockey team. But with wider geopolitical pressures on both countries, how long can the thaw last? Benjamin Haas reports for the Guardian Weekly’s cover story this week.
Political temperatures have been rising in Washington as well – when aren’t they these days? – as Donald Trump released a memo critical of the FBI, seen by some as a further attempt to discredit the Russian election interference investigation. Now why would the president want to do that? Amid rumours that special counsel Robert Mueller is close to completing part of his investigation, we bring you the background.
Elsewhere there are great pieces on Europe’s new xenophobic “illiberal” leaders, Trinidad’s Isis converts and Cape Town’s water crisis. News that really matters from around the world.
On the Comment pages look out for Larry Elliott’s sobering piece on automation and work, as well as Natalie Nougayrède on Europe Now, a new strand of opinion where we hope to hear problems, solutions and new voices from around the continent. (If you have ideas for stories that the series should cover, or suggestions of interesting people to write for it, please let Natalie know.)
The Weekly Review takes a trip into the immersive world of baby-parenting self-help manuals. It’s a literary canon we thankfully left behind a few years back, although the remains can still be found at the back of our bookshelves. On the centenary of the extension of the vote to women in Britain, the Books pages reflect on two new celebrations of the suffragette movement, while Culture looks at the dazzling overlap between the worlds of dance and fashion.
In another terrible week for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, the Chinese artist and political activist Ai Weiwei writes movingly on our back page about the west’s responsibilities toward displaced people and of our shared humanity.
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