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Here are 20 articles that may have helped convince people to support the Guardian’s journalismThe Guardian benefited from hundreds of thousands of acts of support from digital readers in 2021 – almost one for every minute of the year. Here we look at the articles from 2021 that had a big hand in convincing readers to support our open, independent journalism.Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House – Luke Harding, Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh

The climate, pandemic and tensions between states means the year ahead is likely to be as tumultuous as the last 12 monthsOn the brink of a new year, the world faces a daunting array of challenges: the resurgent Covid-19 pandemic, the climate emergency, the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, humanitarian crises, mass migration, and trans-national terrorism. There is the risk of new inter-state conflicts, exacerbated by the breakdown of the rules-based international order, and the spread of lethal autonomous weapons. All in all, for most people on Earth – and a handful in space – 2022 will be another year of living dangerously. Continue reading...

Ex-PM warns poverty and starvation mean country is at risk of world’s biggest humanitarian crisisThe west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover.Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”. Continue reading...

Health secretary says it is not ‘justified or proportionate’ to restrict outdoor exercise during Covid

Scuffles broke out in Jordan's parliament where lawmakers were discussing a proposed amendment to the constitution on Tuesday. Heated arguments degenerated when MPs began pushing and shoving each other during the session in Amman Continue reading...

Woman tried to claim her fear of catching virus was a protected belief, after her employer refused to pay her

After decades of decline, jidō hanbaiki are back in fashion with public wary of human interaction

Lawyer argues court does not have jurisdiction as Virginia Giuffre’s ties to Colorado are ‘very limited’Prince Andrew’s lawyer has called for the US civil case against the royal over alleged sexual assault to be stopped because his accuser is “actually domiciled in Australia”.Virginia Giuffre is suing the Queen’s son for allegedly assaulting her when she was a teenager. Andrew strongly denies the allegation. Continue reading...

I am not sure if it’s social phobia or stage fright, perhaps a bit of both. But I want it to stop. So I sign up for something that terrifies me – an improv classI am in the pub. It is dark, loud and at full capacity. Sitting with a group of people, my mind drifts towards something funny that happened at work. I wonder if it is funny enough to repeat and, if so, how it would sound if I were to say it out loud. I mouth the story to myself, word by word, trying out different intonations.Further inane questions skip through my mind. How do I start the story? Do I provide dialogue? Do I do voices? Under the table, my hands rehearse the accompanying gestures. Just as I am about to speak, I sense an ambient dread rising up, like reflux. I blush and the conversation moves on. Continue reading...

Report from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows domestic flights were down by almost 60%

Wait times for testing – and results – have ballooned, leaving many to make their own decisions about dealing with a possible Covid case

The pandemic finally brought into being a European public, as we discovered that our health is a common concernMarch 2020: an insidious virus seeds itself across the globe pitching tens of thousands in the European continent into a life-and-death battle. Most European countries secure their borders; millions of households lock their front doors. Hellish scenes flash by, feeding fears of infection. In Europe a disaster is unfolding, but there is no joint response.The loudest cry comes from Italy, hit by the virus early on. Appeals for help go unanswered and bitter reproaches ensue. The EU is slow to react: the fact that Brussels’ institutions lack the “competences”, or formal powers, to act in the field of public health impresses no one. When, soon thereafter, an economic depression looms, prophets of doom start predicting the end of the EU. Continue reading...

Analysis reveals widespread violations of international democratic freedoms in response to pandemicEurope’s political approach to the coronavirus pandemic has divided down stark east-west lines, a Guardian analysis has found.Five of 18 eastern European countries have registered major violations of international democratic freedoms since March 2020, according to research conducted by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, compared with none of 12 western European countries. Continue reading...

Australia records 18,243 Covid cases as NSW infections top 11,000; AMA says it asked government for testing plan when Australia opened up; labs ‘running at capacity’; Scott Morrison calls rapid antigen tests a ‘precious commodity’ ahead of national cabinet meeting; NSW authorities tell holidaymakers to ‘avoid’ testing. Follow all the latest updates

During the annual Els Enfarinats battle in the south-eastern Spanish town of Ibi participants dress in military clothes and stage a mock coup d’etat as they battle using flour, eggs and firecrackers outside the town hall. The 200-year-old tradition is part of the Day of the Holy Innocents celebrations, a time in Spain for pulling pranks Continue reading...

Abandoned and neglected, I was close to a breakdown when I entered Wormwood Scrubs. Then Simeon introduced me to the black literature that inspired me to writeIt was June 1981 and I was 18. I stood in the dock at Camberwell Green magistrates court in south London. I was just about to receive my sentence for my role in the Brixton uprising of that April, after being arrested for assaulting a police officer. Ignoring the summary of my case, I stared into the public gallery. Relatives of the other six accused sat there in quiet, hopeful silence. I imagined they were mums, dads, aunts, uncles, siblings and grandparents. But not one belonged to me.I studied their faces, trying to comprehend what it might be like to have someone of your own blood supporting you. I tried to picture what my own parents looked like and what they might feel as I was handed down my sentence. If my mother were present, would she be weeping? I barely heard the 12‑month custodial term being given to me. Continue reading...

The Davies have farmed their Welsh heartland for generations – and neither trade pressures nor tree-planters will stop themJohn Davies’ family has farmed in the hills and valleys of mid Wales just north of Brecon since the 19th century and his most cherished times now are when he is working shoulder to shoulder with his 91-year-old father, Elwyn, and 20-year-old son, Brychan.“That’s incredibly rewarding,” says Davies, 55. “There’s a balance there. Dad has seen it all, done it all. Brychan brings in the new things from college. It’s good to see that blend of experience and ambition and I’m in the middle, the bridge. Continue reading...

More students now study Korean than Russian, and Japanese than Italian, report showsInterest in anime, gaming and K-pop is fuelling a boom in Korean and Japanese university degrees that is helping to revive modern languages departments struggling with falling enrolments.Acceptances to study Korean more than trebled from 50 to 175 between 2012 and 2018, while Japanese places grew by 71% in the same period, according to a report published this year by the University Council of Modern Languages (UCML). More students now study Korean than Russian, and more take Japanese than Italian, the report shows.

We were stuck on a trek in the Andes during the worst blizzard in 20 years. Luckily we had Travel Scrabble – unfortunately, we had no toilet rollStrictly speaking, my “winter” love story took place in a whole other season. Although it was January, my girlfriend and I were visiting Argentina, at the height of the Austral summer. But we were in the Andes, 4,000 metres above sea level, surrounded by ice and snow. If that doesn’t count as winter, I don’t know what does.At this point in 2003, Jane and I had been travelling for 10 months – the New Guinea Highlands, Easter Island, Angkor Wat … and we had experience-fatigue. Continue reading...

Declassified documents show officials drew up plan to deal with predicted arrival of flu from far eastHealth chiefs believed a pandemic was “imminent” in 1997 and drew up a contingency plan that included a mass vaccination programme and closing borders.Officials expected a flu pandemic to emerge from the far east and established a UK-wide plan to deal with the health crisis, newly declassified documents have revealed. Continue reading...

A fully vaccinated person who arrived on a flight from the United Kingdom spent two days in the community before the infection was detected

Around 120 Muslim refugees were trying to reach Malaysia when their vessel reportedly foundered off the coast of Aceh, SumatraIndonesian authorities have said they will push a boat containing 120 Rohingya Muslims back to international waters despite fears that it could sink off the country’s northernmost province of Aceh.The boat was reportedly leaking, had a damaged engine, and was at risk of capsizing in harsh weather, the United Nations refugee agency said. Continue reading...

Hamilton, Come From Away, Jagged Little Pill, A Chorus Line, Frozen the Musical and Opera Australia disrupted by major outbreaks as Sydney festival show Qween Lear cancels entire run

We are raiding the Audio Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week, from 2016:Under General Pinochet’s rule of terror in Chile, one man saved thousands of people from the dictator’s brutal secret police. How did Roberto Kozak do it – and escape death? By Ewen MacAskill and Jonathan Franklin Continue reading...

The international context and mood music are very different 14 years after the Beijing Summer GamesSpectacular fireworks lit up the summer sky and the air filled with the smell of sulphur as trails of smoke descended on the crowds in Tiananmen Square. The throng cheered enthusiastically. “Go Beijing, go China, go Olympics,” they chanted. The collective pride was palpable.It was shortly after the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics, which began at 8.08pm local time on 8 August 2008; the Chinese believe eight is an auspicious number. That evening, Chinese-American Kaiser Kuo was watching from the balcony of his apartment in eastern Beijing. “It was meant to be impressive, and watching as a Chinese person, it certainly was: all the pageantry of history, the flawless performances, the grand scale,” Kuo says. Continue reading...

The Bristol University and West Point graduate is the oldest of Hun Sen’s six children and has been groomed to succeed his fatherA doctor in economics, military leader, Bristol University graduate, Hun Manet, the oldest son of Cambodia’s prime minister Hun Sen, has been confirmed as the next leader of the country’s dominant political party, which described him as a “prime minister candidate [of] the future”.At last week’s congress, the Cambodian People’s party (CPP), which holds every parliamentary seat, voted unanimously for 44-year-old Hun Manet to succeed his father. Continue reading...

Then PM raised idea of monarch opening assembly but accepted it was ‘delicate issue’, newly released papers revealTony Blair considered asking the Queen to open the newly formed Northern Ireland assembly in 1998, newly released state papers show.A letter from the then prime minister’s principal private secretary, John Holmes, reveals that Blair accepted it was a “delicate issue” but “[did] not believe it would be inappropriate” for the monarch to be involved. Continue reading...

Performer and campaigner was one of the first Britons to undergo gender reassignment surgeryTributes have been paid to the “true trailblazer” transgender activist April Ashley, who has died aged 86.One of the first Britons to undergo gender assignment surgery, the model and actor was made an MBE in 2012 for her campaigning work for the transgender community. Continue reading...

What to expect in the coming months, and what you can do to manage the costsThe UK’s energy crisis deepened last week after gas market prices surpassed the record highs set in October to reach a new all-time high of £4.50 per therm, about nine times higher than this time last year. Continue reading...

For the second time in a month, conservation experts in Virginia opened an apparent time capsule found in the remnants of a pedestal that once held a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee.State officials hope Tuesday’s opening of the aged copper box, which was discovered and carefully extracted from the monument site on Monday, will mark the end of a long search for an elusive time capsule deposited in 1887.

African nations have huddled together in face of climate and Covid storms. They must make that unity pay off for their citizens“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” So opens Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Set in London and Paris during the late 1700s and the lead-up to the French Revolution, the novel was a warning about what happens when wealth funnels upwards while the masses stagnate. Nowhere do the best and worst of times collide with more geopolitical force than in Africa.African writers swept the board for literature awards from the Nobel to the Booker, while seven out of eight children in the continent’s sub-Saharan region are unable to read by the age of 10. This year the continent was home to the slowest internet speeds on the planet, as African judges granted the world’s first patent given to a robot inventor. About 50 million Africans are expected to fall into extreme poverty in 2021, when the continent’s richest billionaires have seen their wealth increase by a fifth. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Tribunal details litany of offences over six years by PC Ryan Connolly, who resigned from Merseyside force before hearingA police officer took selfies at a murder scene where a teenager had been stabbed to death, and sent “appalling” racist, homophobic and offensive images via WhatsApp, the Guardian has learned.PC Ryan Connolly from the Merseyside force committed a litany of disciplinary offences over a six-year period while a serving officer, a tribunal has decided.Connolly had photos and graphics that were grossly racist, and one depicting Muslim people. He also had an image of a Ku Klux Klan member.In 2016 and again in 2017, while on duty, he took photos on his mobile of men detained by police under mental health powers, who were in hospital, and shared it via WhatsApp.While on duty he took and sent a photo of men in hospital on at least two occasions.He took photos of people who had been arrested.In October 2015 he took a photo, while on duty, of someone who had slashed their wrists, and shared it via WhatsApp.He took a photo of a fellow officer’s rear and shared it via WhatsApp.In 2016 he sent a graphic homophobic message.He took photos in 2018 of himself at a murder scene where he had been assigned to guard the cordon after a teenager had been stabbed to death.He took photos of crime victims, including someone missing from home, and shared details about a woman who went to police for help alleging she had suffered domestic violence.Other images mocked disabled people. Continue reading...

Readers commemorate the late South African archbishop, and the causes of peace, equality and environmentalism that he championedYour informative obituary of Archbishop Desmond Tutu (26 December) missed an important dimension – his warnings on the need to save the planet. In March 2004, he delivered a lecture entitled God’s Word and World Politics at the United Nations as part of Kofi Annan’s public lecture series on cutting-edge topics in the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and the arts.The archbishop said: “Ecological concerns are a deeply religious, spiritual matter. To pollute the environment, to be responsible for a disastrous warming, is not just wrong and should be a criminal offence; it is certainly morally wrong. It is a sin.”

Record number of cases reported despite incomplete data set as Omicron fuels wave of infections

Noam Huppert says he is subject to travel ban until the year 9999 because he owes £1.8m to ex-wifeAn Australian national living in Israel has said he is subject to an 8,000-year travel ban unless he pays an outstanding £1.8m in child support payments.Noam Huppert, a 44-year-old analytical chemist working for a pharmaceutical company, is not allowed to leave Israel until 31 December 9999 owing to a 2013 “stay of exit” order handed down after a family court case was brought by his ex-wife, according to news.com.au. Continue reading...

Mohammad Zaman Khadimi was forced to make an impossible choice as he fled the Taliban for sanctuary in Australia.In one of our best episodes from the Guardian Australia Reads podcast in 2021 – Ben Doherty tells the story of Khadimi, a young Hazara man who walked out of class one morning and into a world entirely changedYou can read the original article here: ‘They will kill you’: a future leader of Afghanistan on the price he paid for freedomYou can find every episode of Guardian Australia Reads here, or subscribe by searching for Guardian Australia Reads wherever you get your podcasts Continue reading...

Their shed may not be state-of-the art but a community-oriented approach to fitness is working out for Barbara and Peter Hill. Lifestyle editor Alyx Gorman introduces a heartwarming story that could get you moving

Authorities to focus on high-risk groups as Dominic Perrottet admits health staff are at point of exhaustion

Severe weather sweeping across parts of the US continues to bring record-breaking cold temperatures to the Pacific north-west and heavy snow to mountains in California and Nevada.Footage from Mammoth Lakes in central California shows blizzards of snow. To the north, the Northstar California ski resort in Truckee closed its mountain operations on Monday due to the extreme conditions

Country’s highest court calls for legally binding guidelines if hospitals are forced to choose which patients need treatment

Creature named after a Gremlin bit more than a dozen people in Buckley before being caught and put downThe tale of Stripe the squirrel began cheerfully enough with Corrine Reynolds, an animal lover in north Wales, feeding the creature titbits and watching its acrobatic adventures in her back garden.But the story took a distinctly unfestive twist when Stripe – named after the sharp-toothed creature in the Christmas horror comedy Gremlins – began nipping at Reynolds and other neighbours. Continue reading...

Deal reached for talks on 10 January that are likely to be followed by discussions with NatoRussian and US officials will hold security talks in early January amid mounting tensions over Ukraine, officials from both countries have confirmed.The high-stakes discussions are expected to address Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, while Moscow will press demands that Nato pledges not to admit Ukraine and roll back the alliance’s post-cold war development. Continue reading...

In a country dominated by gangs, photographer Rodrigo Abd’s images show both armed gangsters and the residents they terrorise

Younger brother of Argentine football legend died after suffering heart attack, says Napoli football clubDiego Maradona’s younger brother, Hugo, has died in Naples at the age of 52 just a year after the death of the Argentine football legend, the Italian football club Napoli has confirmed.“Hugo Maradona has died,” Napoli said in a brief statement on Tuesday, confirming reports in the Italian press that the former footballer had suffered a heart attack. Continue reading...

US health authorities half recommended isolation time and say asymptomatic people should wear a mask for another five daysUS health authorities have halved, to five days, the recommended isolation time for Americans with asymptomatic Covid.The US is facing a huge surge in Covid cases, fueled by the Omicron variant, which contributed to travel chaos over Christmas and stoked worries about damage to the economy and education. Continue reading...

Supreme court ruling on Memorial is watershed moment in Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on independent thoughtRussia’s supreme court has ordered the closure of Memorial International, the country’s oldest human rights group, in a watershed moment in Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on independent thought.The court ruled Memorial must be closed under Russia’s controversial “foreign agent” legislation, which has targeted dozens of NGOs and media outlets seen as critical of the government. Continue reading...

Charity says the two men, both new fathers, were killed in massacre of more than 30 people blamed on junta troopsSave the Children has confirmed that two of its staff were killed in a Christmas Eve massacre blamed on junta troops that left the charred remains of dozens of people on a highway in eastern Myanmar.Anti-junta fighters said they found more than 30 bodies, including women and children, on a highway in Kayah state where pro-democracy rebels have been fighting the military. Continue reading...

Second attack on cargo hub this month reported to have caused ‘significant material damage’An Israeli airstrike hit Syria’s Latakia port before dawn on Tuesday, sparking a fire that lit up the Mediterranean seafront in the second such attack on the cargo hub this month, Syrian state media reported.Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out airstrikes on its neighbour, mostly targeting Syrian government troops as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters. Continue reading...

Man, 19, charged after Denis and Mary Fell were found dead at their house in Raeburn RiggA teenager has been charged in connection with the deaths of a couple at their home on Boxing Day.Denis and Mary Fell, both aged 73, were found dead at their house in Raeburn Rigg, Livingston, West Lothian, at about 11.40pm on Sunday. A sudden death had earlier been reported at the property. Continue reading...

Singer also says not releasing new music is a way of hitting back at those who took advantage of herBritney Spears has said the years she spent under conservatorship have left her scared of the entertainment industry.The singer revealed her reasons for not being ready to return to the music business after her conservatorship was terminated in November in an Instagram post. Continue reading...