The 600th day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is fast approaching, with no end in sight. The conflict, a Zeitenwende as the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, called it, or epochal turn, has pushed the European Union into a fundamental reassessment of its role and policies on issues from agriculture, energy supply and, most obviously, security. In a special report, diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour assesses how Brussels is adapting and what tensions have arisen between member states as this seismic geopolitical shift forces them to adjust.
While politicians and diplomats face the dilemmas of building trust and cooperation between states in real life situations, feature writer Tom Lamont joins academics, military personnel and the simply curious to spend a day playing war games to anticipate, prepare and hopefully avert a future conflict.
Our science pages this week feature Cat Bohannon whose new book is part of a rebalancing away from the male norm that defined centuries of research from medicine to product design. The issue may stem from a historically sexist scientific culture but the major impediment to putting women back in the picture is a lack of data, Bohannon explains. As well as exploring how she used disciplines from evolutionary biology to psychology to write a female-centric history of the human species, she explains why some of those intriguing differences between men and women exist.
Naples is having a cultural moment, its street art-adorned walls the backdrop to films and TV series, which prompts Tobias Jones to head to “the paradise inhabited by devils” for our main culture feature to discover what’s behind the Italian city’s newfound prominence. The author of two books about modern Italy, Jones looks at how the city has been portrayed in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet and the criminal world of Gomorrah uncovered by investigative journalist Roberto Saviano. He also provides a Naples playlist.
We also pay tribute to the actor Michael Gambon, who the Guardian Weekly team remembered either as Professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films or as Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective.
We hope you enjoy this issue.