Keyword – Games
Trefwoorden – Games, Culture
Title – From pwned to kiting – an A to Z of the gaming terms you need to know | Games | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/robin-craig
Link – From pwned to kiting – an A to Z of the gaming terms you need to know | Games | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T11:00:29.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jun/21/from-pwned-to-kiting-an-a-to-z-of-the-gaming-terms-you-need-to-know

T wenty years ago, video games were seen as a niche hobby dominated by hardcore enthusiasts, tucked away in obscure online forums and gaming meet-ups. Back then, the idea that governments would use footage from Call of Duty and gaming terms such as “killstreaks” as war propaganda would have been absurd. Then the 2010s happened: nerd culture popularised, previously online-only spaces began to meld with the real world, and gaming went mainstream.

Now, gaming references have entered common parlance – at the end of 2024, video game terms including “cheat code” and “cutscene” were even added to the Oxford English Dictionary – and they increasingly crop up in politics, too. Earlier this year, the official White House X account posted footage of military strikes on Iran interspersed with footage from the video game Grand Theft Auto. Six days later, another video was posted , this time interspersing military footage with clips from Nintendo’s 2006 game Wii Sports. Video game references aren’t reserved for the political right, either: in February 2026, Democrat representative of New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quipped , “Why does this guy always talk like a World of Warcraft npc [non-player character]?” in response to a post on X by Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff.

To help navigate this new world of gaming references and gaming-inspired “ slopaganda ”, we have compiled a guide to gaming terms, from phrases that are already widespread to those on the verge of cutting through.

A

Any% A method of beating a game by any means possible, including using glitches or other techniques to skip boss battles, cutscenes, and even entire levels. Any%ers often celebrate “breaking” the game through code exploits to gain a speed advantage. For a real world example, see Elon Musk’s approach to the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) .

B

Boosting Paying for someone else to do the hard work for you by, for example, levelling up your character, especially in online games. Generally viewed as cheating and against the ethos of gaming, it is also something that Elon Musk has admitted to doing for his characters in Path of Exile 2 and Diablo 4.

Buff An enhancement made to a character, item or ability that increases its power or effectiveness. The equivalent of having two pints at a bar to buff your confidence before speaking to someone you fancy.

Bullet sponge An enemy character that takes an absurd amount of damage before they are defeated. Also, derogatory military slang for a person whom nobody wants to be around because they always attract enemy fire. See also: “tanks”.

Button mashing Repeatedly pressing a random selection of buttons on a controller, usually as an act of sheer panic and desperation by inexperienced players trying to win difficult fights.

C

Camping A tactic, usually deployed in games involving shooting and combat, of staying in the same spot for long periods because of its strategic advantage. Often used to snipe other players from afar, which can quickly become very annoying and lead to accusations of trolling or “griefing” (see below).

Cheesing Using tactics that are not technically cheating, but are treading a fine line . Cheesing is effectively taking the easy way out and avoiding the intended challenge set by developers. Tactics include exploiting glitches and loopholes, spamming the same move again and again before an enemy can react, or making yourself overpowered (see “OP” below). One example of cheesing was in Crash Bandicoot: Warped (1998), where players could avoid taking any damage during a colosseum-themed boss fight by standing in a safe-spot corner. In the game’s 2017 remake, standing in that corner resulted in the player being pelted by blocks of cheese as a punishment.

Class A character’s role or occupation (such as warrior, samurai or bandit), often chosen early in the game. Most classes fall into the categories of offence, defence and support, and each class has its own strengths and weaknesses that requires players to adapt their playing style.

D

DLC “Downloadable content”, an extra part of a game that players can pay to download, often including new levels, outfits, items or weapons.

DPS “Damage per second”, a way of calculating how effective an in-game attack or weapon is by measuring how much it damages an enemy in one second.

E

Easter eggs One of the oldest video game terms, an Easter egg is a message, reference or feature hidden in a game. It originates from Steve Wright, a software developer at Atari in 1980, who compared a hidden room in the video game Adventure to an Easter egg hunt (the hidden room contained the signature of Warren Robinett, a coder who, in his own words , was “pissed” that he hadn’t received any credit for being the game’s creator).

Emotes Short gestures players can make their characters perform to show emotions, such as waving, laughing or crying. Popular in online games such as Fortnite and World of Warcraft, where emoting is often used to rile or mock other players.

F

Farming Performing an action in a game repeatedly to gather resources such as items or experience, much like going to work every day to accumulate money, but for fun and in your free time. See also: “grinding”.

G

Gank Similar to “jumping” someone in real life, this is a gaming strategy to ambush weaker players by sneaking up on them, usually in a group.

GG Short for “good game”, used during online games as a way to show sportsmanship at the end of a match. Can be extended to GG WP (“good game, well played”) or, if a player wants to brag about defeating a particularly weak opponent, GG ez (“good game, easy”).

Glitch A bug or malfunction in a game that causes unintended consequences. One of the most infamous is the “ Corrupted Blood incident” in World of Warcraft , where a glitch meant that a blood curse spread rapidly between players, eventually spreading so widely that developers had to reset the game. The incident was later used by scientists to study the spread of infectious diseases .

God mode To be omnisciently powerful and invincible within the world of the game, sometimes achieved using hacks or code exploits. During Doge’s overhaul of US government agencies, one senior leader at USAID declared to the Atlantic : “Doge has achieved God mode.”

Griefing To grief someone, or to be a “griefer”, is to wind other players up deliberately by being annoying, disruptive and generally infuriating. Often achieved through killing other players without reason, stealing items, or refusing to engage in team activities. See also: “trolls”.

Grinding Similar to “farming”: a repeated action or task undertaken to gather a resource or level up.

H

HP “Hit points” or “health points”, used to measure the health of a character or how much damage an attack does. Increasingly used in meme culture to joke about real-life damage or embarrassment, such as seeing someone fall over and quipping: “minus 10 HP”.

I

In Minecraft A phrase adopted by far-right sites such as 4chan, often added semi-ironically to the end of threats in an attempt to avoid legal repercussions (for example: “I’m going to punch him … in Minecraft”). It backfired in 2023 when a man was arrested for making death threats against a Florida sheriff on 4chan’s politics board, despite ending his threats with “in Minecraft”.

K

KDR “Kill/death ratio”, a measure used to compare the number of kills a player achieves with the number of times they die, usually to determine skill and competence in online multiplayer games.

Killstreak A continuous series of kills made by a player without being killed themselves (literally a “streak” of kills). This year, the White House was criticised for using a killstreak animation from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in a video featuring real footage from the war in Iran.

Kiting The tactic of hitting an enemy from range while keeping enough distance to avoid harm, often leading them around like a kite on a string.

L

Loot Items players collect as a reward for killing enemies or completing tasks. In recent years, controversial “loot boxes” have gained popularity in games including Genshin Impact and League of Legends, allowing players to exchange real money for randomised virtual items (sometimes also known as “gacha games”, named after Japanese Gashapon , vending machines that dispense capsule toys).

M

-maxxing Prioritising one skill or attribute over all others. Originates from “min-maxing”, a technique of creating the best possible character by maximising desirable traits and minimising undesirable ones. It has now entered mainstream vocabulary with the advent of looksmaxxing and Chinamaxxing .

MMORPG “Massively multiplayer online role playing game”, a game in which players interact with an enormous number of other players in an online fantasy world. A notable example is EVE Online, a sci-fi MMORPG, which, in 2014, saw a battle with 7,548 participants .

Modding Fan-created modifications that change elements of a game’s appearance or add new features. A personal favourite is a Skyrim mod that turns the game’s dragons into Thomas the Tank Engine characters .

N

Nerf To weaken or water down a weapon, character or ability (“I don’t want to play as Riven any more, she’s been nerfed!”), originating from the Nerf brand of toy guns that fire harmless soft foam weapons.

Noob Gaming slang that took hold in the 00s, short for “newbie” and sometimes spelt “n00b”, it is a derogatory word for a clueless and hopeless beginner.

NPC “Non-player character”, a video game character not controlled by the player. Increasingly used as slang for people who are predictable, robotic or lacking interiority, and sometimes tied to the philosophical idea that we live in a simulation .

O

OP “Overpowered”, referring to a character, item or ability that is ridiculously strong and makes winning easy. The spiritual opposite of “nerfed”.

P

Pwned A misspelling of the word “owned”, meaning a humiliating defeat (for example, “You died so easily! Pwned!”). It emerged in the early 00s as part of “leetspeak”, an online slang dialect heavily associated with hackers and coders. A notable example of the word escaping video games is the website “ Have I Been Pwned ”, established by a Microsoft developer to check whether your email has been compromised in security breaches.

R

Ragequit To suddenly stop playing a game out of anger and frustration, usually because you are repeatedly losing. In 2017, Vanity Fair accused Steve Bannon of threatening to ragequit the White House.

RPG “Role playing game”, typically a game with a heavy storytelling element in which players assume the roles of characters, make decisions for them and follow a narrative path.

S

Side quest A mission or activity that isn’t part of the game’s main story and is usually optional to complete. Sometimes used in more general slang to refer to the whimsical activities and adventures of day-to-day life, such as taking a sewing class or getting a tarot reading .

Skins Different designs and outfits that can be applied to characters to customise their appearance, such as “Peely”, a Fortnite skin that gives characters a banana costume.

Smurfing When a highly skilled player in an online game creates a new account to disguise their skill level and play against lower-ranked players. Originating from top Warcraft 2 players Geoff “Shlonglor” Frazier and Greg “Warp” Boyko, who disguised themselves under the usernames PapaSmurf and Smurfette to play against novice players.

Speedrunning A popular spectator sport that involves completing a game as fast as possible, sometimes using loopholes or glitches (see “Any%”). The term has recently broken into common parlance through “Scientology speedruns”, a 2026 social media trend in which participants film themselves running as far into Scientology buildings as possible before being stopped. One video racked up 90m views .

T

Tanks Also known as a meat shield or bullet sponge, a tank is a class of character designed to withstand large amounts of damage, akin to military tanks. See also: “bullet sponge”. Trolls Similar to griefers, players who don’t take the game seriously and annoy other players for fun, including by being purposefully offensive – for example, by posting slurs in the in-game chat.

Turtling A strategy where players build heavy defensive fortifications and force their opponents to make risky moves to break through, akin to building a defensive turtle shell.

X

XP “Experience points”, similar to HP, are a unit of measurement used to quantify a player’s skills and progress. Typically, the more XP one has, the stronger they are. Can also be used in real life, such as when video game streamer Sykkuno said: “ My XP bar is low ” in reference to dating inexperience.

Keyword – Society
Trefwoorden – NHS, Hospitals, Nottingham, Women’s health, Health, Society, England, UK news
Title – Report on Nottingham NHS maternity scandal to reveal ‘horrendous’ failings | NHS | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/deniscampbell,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tobi-thomas
Link – Report on Nottingham NHS maternity scandal to reveal ‘horrendous’ failings | NHS | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T07:00:01.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jun/22/nottingham-nhs-maternity-scandal-ockenden-report

The report of the inquiry into the biggest maternity scandal in NHS history will outline “horrendous” failings in the care provided to women in Nottingham , the Guardian can reveal.

A catalogue of appalling behaviour over many years by staff at the city’s two hospitals – Queen’s Medical Centre and Nottingham City hospital – included racism towards mothers, it will say.

The NHS is bracing itself for the publication on Wednesday of a report by Donna Ockenden on 2,500 cases involving babies and mothers dying or being injured, and babies being stillborn, while under the care of Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust between 1 April 2012 and 31 May 2025.

A senior source with knowledge of Ockenden’s conclusions said: “The findings in the Nottingham report will be very bad. It’s going to be horrendous. There will be some pretty challenging stuff in the report.”

The document will stretch to more than 350 pages. Ockenden, a senior midwife and expert in maternity care failings, began her inquiry into Nottingham more than four years ago, in May 2022. About 2,505 families – more than in any previous maternity scandal – and approximately 850 staff and ex-staff of the NHS trust have given evidence to it.

Ockenden was appointed after families demanded a full-scale inquiry into what they said was the trust’s poor and dangerous treatment of women during their pregnancy, and especially when giving birth.

Nottinghamshire police are still considering whether to charge the trust with corporate manslaughter. The force’s Operation Perth has been examining the care that at least 200 families received.

In anticipation of Ockenden’s report, the Nottingham Maternity Families Group urged Keir Starmer to order a statutory public inquiry into maternity care across England as a whole.

“We have every confidence that Donna Ockenden and her team have left no stone unturned in uncovering the unsafe practices, cultural failures and inadequate leadership that have contributed to avoidable maternal and baby deaths, stillbirths and life-changing brain injuries over many years,” the group said in a statement to the Guardian.

It said Ockenden’s recommendations must be “implemented in full. Anything less would be a betrayal of the families whose suffering has made this review necessary. We know that the problems are not unique to Nottingham and the time has come for there to be a statutory public inquiry into maternity and neonatal services across England.”

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates those professions, is investigating 96 midwives and nurses at the trust for alleged misconduct. Eighty of those cases are still being assessed and 15 are under full investigation.

One midwife is the subject of an interim order and has been suspended from working while fitness to practise proceedings are under way, the NMC said.

James Murray, the health secretary, has vowed to push through major changes to maternity care and not let Ockenden’s recommendations – or those from Valerie Amos’s government-commissioned inquiry into maternity care across England, which is due to report next week – “sit on a shelf”, as many of those produced by previous childbirth care investigations have done. He met some of the affected families in Nottingham last Thursday.

“Since becoming health secretary, I’ve spent time with families who have suffered shocking failures in maternity care to hear about their experiences and to discuss with them what they want to see happen,” Murray said.

Noting the importance of Lady Amos’s national investigation, he said: “One of the things I’ve heard very clearly from families is that recommendations must not sit on a shelf – as we’ve seen so many times before – and must instead be turned into a tangible plan of action. My focus as secretary of state is to make sure that change happens.”

The government is considering setting up a full public inquiry into maternity care because so much of it is “truly shocking”, its adviser on the subject disclosed last week.

The Labour MP Michelle Welsh, who was appointed as the government’s maternity adviser last month, told a Medical Journalists Association (MJA) conference that she was “in conversations” with the Department of Health and Social Care about a public inquiry.

Such an inquiry would bridge the gap faced by Ockenden’s inquiry in that it could not compel witnesses to attend and give evidence, Welsh said. She said it had been hampered by the fact that those “in very, very senior positions” in the NHS at the time of the scandal “can personally decide that they are not going to engage in it”.

Welsh, the MP for Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire since 2024, told the Politics Home website about her traumatic experience when she had her son Billy, who is now six, at Nottingham City hospital.

She told the MJA event: “I was even approached by a senior obstetrician at the [Nottingham] trust who arranged a meeting at my office under a different name not to discuss solutions, not to listen to families, but to persuade me there wasn’t a problem, to convince me that maternity services at Nottingham university hospitals trust were fine, that what families were saying wasn’t true, and the midwives stepping forward to not believe them, yet every week more families came forward, more midwives came forward.”

Ockenden believes there is “an improving culture in maternity services in Nottingham in 2026 but there remains work to do”.

Anthony May, the trust’s chief executive, who took over in 2022, after the scandal emerged, has pointed to improvements including better recruitment and retention of maternity staff. But improvement remained a “work in progress”, he said last week. He has apologised to families who were harmed by the trust’s shortcomings.

In its most recent report in March, based on its inspection in May 2025, the CQC found that maternity services at both of the trust’s hospitals had improved but it continued to rate them as “requires improvement”.

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Brexit, Wales, UK news, Politics
Title – ‘There’s no jobs’: struggle and regret in a Welsh town that backed Brexit | Brexit | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/bethan-mckernan
Link – ‘There’s no jobs’: struggle and regret in a Welsh town that backed Brexit | Brexit | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T05:00:23.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/21/ebbw-vale-wales-struggle-regret-brexit

W here Ebbw Vale’s steelworks once stood is now a cluster of gleaming modern buildings including a hospital, a leisure centre and a college. Over the past decade, these public facilities have been joined by a public-private cybersecurity research centre and two tech firms. A new railway station opened at the site in 2015.

Yet, during the Guardian’s visit to the Welsh valleys town last week, the area was quiet. Nearly as many sheep as people appeared to be using the new facilities: a ewe and three lambs, escaped from somewhere, busied themselves in a strip of rewilded land next to the tech buildings.

“We don’t get as many visitors as we would like,” said John Edwards, 77, a volunteer at the Ebbw Vale Works Museum, an archive of the area’s coal, iron and steelmaking past in the steel mill’s former general offices.“The train station is busy in the mornings, it’s packed with people going to Cardiff. We’ve become a commuter town.”

After the Ebbw Vale steelworks closed in 2002, Blaenau Gwent received the maximum amount of EU funding available for structural and regional development programmes. Much of the money went towards the regeneration projects on the old site.

Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales voted leave in the 2016 EU referendum, although research suggests the Welsh result may have been skewed by retired English people . In Ebbw Vale, support for Brexit was strong: 62% of voters in the town of 18,000 people voted leave, the highest proportion in Wales, despite the huge amount of EU money the town received.

Out shopping on the high street, Claire Jones, 52, winced as she recalled the Brexit vote. “It was shocking so many people voted leave when you just had to look around to see how much help we got from the EU – the flag was on signs everywhere,” she said. “Either people didn’t care or they didn’t know, or they believed what [the leave campaign] said about immigration.”

Lindsay Whittle, a Plaid Cymru representative for the constituency in the Welsh Senedd, said: “What the Brexit vote showed was the depth of despair and how people felt left behind. I think now, with more information available and a lot more engagement on the subject, a lot of people here now regret that decision.”

Ebbw Vale and the wider Blaenau Gwent area are among the poorest places in the UK. Everyone the Guardian met said the town’s troubles began long before Brexit shrank trade and investment and stalled growth , leaving families across the country on average thousands of pounds a year worse off.

The steel mill closed for good more than two decades ago, taking away the last traditional skilled manufacturing jobs in the area. Despite the area receiving the maximum amount of EU funding, up until the Brexit vote in 2016 the number of jobs in the area steadily declined , as did median wages in real terms.

A report by the Bevan Foundation, a Merthyr Tydfil-based thinktank, said: “It’s pretty clear that whatever else EU funds may have achieved, they didn’t boost the fortunes of Blaenau Gwent and many other parts of Wales. If these towns were ‘ showered with cash ’, it appears to have gone straight down the drain.”

In the decade since Brexit, the UK has – as predicted – failed to make up the EU funding shortfall in full. Ebbw Vale has become part of the Welsh government’s £100m tech valleys programme, which aims to bring new industry to the area. Three tech companies have opened offices on the old steelworks site, which is also home to the Goldworks, or Gwaithaur, a coworking and business support hub opened in 2024.

According to Blaenau Gwent council, more local businesses have opened over the past 10 years than in the 10 before it – a net gain of 870, up on 511 – and Blaenau Gwent and neighbouring Torfaen have just announced a joint blueprint for growth capitalising on the Welsh government investment and funding pots for deprived areas announced by Labour in Westminster.

None of it, it seems, has yet made a tangible difference to people in town dealing with the cost of living crisis. Nathan Grist, 40, part of the family-owned butchers with the same name, said: “We’re doing OK but some businesses are barely keeping afloat, and people, customers, have to cut back on even little things now. It’s a struggle for everyone.”

A shopper who gave his name as Mike, 62, called the regeneration projects on the former steelworks site “white elephants”. “I worked in the steelworks until I was made redundant, then I worked for myself. But it’s different for my kids and my grandkids,” he said. “There’s no jobs. You have to get the train, and people from other places have realised that and now it’s pushing up house prices .”

Mike, like other people on the high street, said immigration was a problem in the town, although according to Office for National Statistics data, just 3.2% of Blaenau Gwent’s population was born abroad.

Even though Blaenau Gwent is the birthplace of the Labour movement , Brexit has contributed to soaring support for Plaid Cymru, at Labour’s expense.

It was once unthinkable that the area could abandon the party – at times, it has been the safest Labour majority in the country – but in May’s Senedd election Ebbw Vale’s constituency did not elect a single Labour Senedd member. Three of the six seats available under the new, more proportional voting system went to Plaid Cymru, and the other three to Reform UK.

Whittle, the Plaid Cymru MS, said: “More and more, people in Wales are seeing that Westminster doesn’t work for them. The EU referendum and the mess afterwards are a big reason for that.”

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Society books, Books, Disability, Culture
Title – Disability by David Turner review – a revelatory new history | Society books | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/lucy-webster
Link – Disability by David Turner review – a revelatory new history | Society books | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T06:00:25.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/19/disability-by-david-turner-review-a-revelatory-new-history

Y ou could take two outwardly contradictory lessons from the historian David Turner’s new book on disability in the UK. First, that alarmingly little has changed for disabled people since the beginning of the modern age (the book’s first few stories, of 17th-century men and women having to prove they were disabled enough to receive parish support to avoid starvation, will be familiar to anyone who has tried to claim the personal independence payment). And second, that absolutely everything has changed – from the closing of asylums to the advent of prosthetics to the eventual, belated enshrining of disability rights in law.

But the central argument of Disability helps to reconcile these two narratives into a coherent whole. Turner, a professor at Swansea University, shows that while public and political attitudes to disability have remained poor, disabled people have challenged them at every stage, wresting progress out of even the most unpromising circumstances. This is not a story of rights and dignity bestowed from on high, but of the people and communities clawing them into being.

The sweeping perspective is anchored by incredible personal stories. We meet Duncan Campbell, an aristocrat who, at the turn of the 18th century, became a sensation as a deaf psychic, trading on myth and rumour relating to his disability to boost his fame and credibility at a time when deafness was equated with being childlike and ineducable. Or, two centuries later, May Billinghurst, the infamous “cripple suffragette” who used her bespoke hand-operated tricycle to break through police lines and commit acts of civil disobedience. Or, later still, Megan du Boisson, a 1960s housewife who campaigned for the first disability benefits awarded solely on the basis of impairment, when existing schemes only covered those injured at work or in war, leaving out almost all disabled women.

What they, alongside many others in the book, have in common is that they not only resisted the material limitations society imposed on them, but also rejected the assumptions that went with them. The cumulative picture is therefore not of a downtrodden minority but one defined by ingenuity, determination and grit. This may be a new perspective for many nondisabled readers, but members of the community will find themselves recognising the attributes of they and their friends in people who lived hundreds of years ago. It is welcome to see this understanding of disability so well articulated in a book for a general audience.

One sign of the devaluing of disability activism and history is the fact that none of the personalities in the book are household names. May Billinghurst surely deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the Pankhursts, and we ought to know that it was Vic Finkelstein, an anti-apartheid activist who applied what he had learned in South Africa to the UK disability rights movement, who first articulated what would become known as the social model of disability in the early 1970s, paving the way for activism that went far beyond calls for better financial support.

We should know, too, the name of 18th-century MP William Hay, whom Turner describes as the first person to write about disability as a personal identity, just as we should know the names of Barbara Lisicki and Alan Holdsworth, the punk couple who kickstarted the successful 1980s and 90s campaign for the UK’s first comprehensive disability rights law. All fought loud battles with governments and societies that wanted them to be quiet. Hopefully this book goes some way to giving them the status – and voice – they deserve.

In showing how disabled people throughout history have rejected the narratives foisted upon them, Turner in turn rejects another false narrative: that disabled people are passive recipients of both discrimination and help. This book tells another, truer story: that we have always resisted and always fought to make things better.

Disability: A History of Resistance by David Turner is published by Bodley Head (£25). To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Netherlands, Rob Jetten, Indonesia, Colonialism, Europe, Asia Pacific, World news
Title – Dutch PM apologises for Moluccan soldiers’ mistreatment after Indonesian independence | Netherlands | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/senay-boztas
Link – Dutch PM apologises for Moluccan soldiers’ mistreatment after Indonesian independence | Netherlands | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T15:18:53.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/21/dutch-pm-apologises-moluccan-soldiers-indonesia-independence

The Dutch prime minister, Rob Jetten , has formally apologised for the “heartless” mistreatment of thousands of Moluccan soldiers who fought for the Dutch colonial army during Indonesia’s struggle for independence.

About 12,500 people – men who had served in the Royal Dutch East Indies and their families – came from a group of Indonesian islands to the Netherlands in 1951, many having been given no choice. They thought it would be a temporary evacuation after Indonesia had won independence.

The soldiers hoped for their own Moluccan republic after a six-month stay but instead they were involuntarily discharged, banned from work and voting, and housed in places such as the former Nazi transit camp Westerbork. A republic never came and some never unpacked their suitcases.

At the unveiling ceremony for a crowdfunded national monument on the harbourside in Rotterdam, where their last boat arrived, Jetten said: “For their heartless and dishonourable discharge as soldiers, for their inadequate reception and housing, for being unseen and abandoned, for the unfulfilled longing for home, for the grief and pain in so many Moluccan families … for this, I offer apologies today on behalf of the Dutch government. It is not only high time, but it is also necessary if we want to move forward.”

Activism by the descendants of those Moluccan families in the 1970s – including a school hostage-taking and an armed train hijack – ended in a bloody raid by Dutch special forces. There was a 1986 agreement with the government, including cultural funding and jobs schemes, but pressure had since grown for a formal recognition of the wrongs done.

Jetten stressed that a forthcoming parliamentary investigation, involving the community that now numbers 70,000 descendants, was vital.

Carola Schouten, the mayor of Rotterdam, said she hoped the monument would be a place for stories to be told openly. “They were treated with coldness, their loyalty had a high price and it was often a silent sorrow,” she said at the opening ceremony. “It is important that there is recognition of the injustice that was done to you.”

The project to create the monument – by the artists Jaïr Pattipeilohy and Maurice den Boer, and representing the prow of a traditional ship – had been a 10-year struggle, said Yordi Tahamata, the chair of the monument foundation.

“I stand here as the grandson of my grandfathers … part of a generation that came to the Netherlands under military orders and built a life in a strange land, unsure about a future none of them had predicted,” he said. “This is about the right to tell our history and to give it on to new generations.”

There was some criticism that the government had in effect gatecrashed the opening of a community’s monument, and that the words of apology had come too late for many people who lived through the exclusion and injustice.

Eduard Latuheri, 98, was invited to bless the monument, with several other surviving soldiers and first-generation family members. His grandson Dennis van Peterson spoke for Latuheri. “He is thankful just to come here,” he told the Guardian. “There’s a mixed feeling about an apology. For Grandad, it’s the right thing, but the first generation are mostly not here any more – it’s too late.”

Others recalled the lifelong bitterness of their parents over the broken promise from the Dutch government to help them return. Fred Roos, 70, was born and lived for five years in Westerbork and said his late father was never allowed to work and always felt angry. “Everything was always ready to go back but it never happened,” he said. “This is a loaded moment.”

Fridus Steijlen, a co-author of a recent history of the Moluccan community in the Netherlands, said that because the Moluccans’ stay was always supposed to be temporary, integration was affected for generations – despite the community’s own resilience.

“An apology should address the parternalistic attitude of the Dutch government at the time, and that it didn’t think about how they could go back,” he said. “That’s why the pain went on.”

Keyword – Environment
Trefwoorden – Porpoises, Endangered species, Conservation, Cetaceans, 3D, Technology, Marine life, Environment, Wildlife, Zoology, Science
Title – Skeleton of the world’s rarest marine mammal preserved by digital imaging | Porpoises | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/matthew-pearce
Link – Skeleton of the world’s rarest marine mammal preserved by digital imaging | Porpoises | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T11:00:02.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/20/vaquita-porpoise-worlds-rarest-skeleton-preserved-digital-imaging-aoe

Scientists have created a digital reconstruction of the world’s most endangered marine mammal, preserving its anatomy in three dimensions to aid research and conservation efforts as the species teeters on the brink of extinction.

The project digitised the skeleton of a female vaquita, a small porpoise found only in Mexico’s northern Gulf of California, using a combination of medical imaging, ultra-high-resolution micro CT scans and photography.

Researchers have made the imaging freely available online to ensure that the complete skeleton – of which only a few are thought to exist – can be studied by scientists around the world without risking damage to the rare and fragile physical specimens.

Jamie Knaub, the study’s lead author and a doctoral researcher at Florida Atlantic University, said: “We want to influence conservation and awareness of the vaquita, but what it boils down to is open access datasets for biodiversity.

“There’s this whole web [of information] that can be shared to study biodiversity, conservation, evolution – there’s so many things that can come from one dataset.”

A 1997 survey reported about 600 vaquitas in the wild. Today, the WWF estimates there are between seven and 10 , making it the rarest marine mammal on Earth.

Its decline has been driven by bycatch in gillnets used by illegal fisheries targeting totoaba, a large fish whose bladder commands high prices on international hidden markets.

The research team, led by Florida Atlantic University, San Diego Natural History Museum, SeaWorld California and Noaa Fisheries, based the project on a complete female skeleton collected in 1966.

The study, published in the journal Marine Mammal Science , combined hospital-grade CT scanning with microscopic CT imaging capable of revealing structures smaller than the width of a human hair. Thousands of scan slices were then assembled into three-dimensional models of every bone.

The techniques allowed researchers to create a highly detailed model, from the overall skeleton down to microscopic bone structures.

Because vaquita skeletons are so rare, access to them is limited. Knaub said the imaging could be used to produce accurate replicas for museum exhibits and classrooms, helping introduce more people to the species.

Advances in imaging technology over the past decade have increased efforts to digitise museum collections. Digitised projects such as oVert in the US and Ozboneviz in Australia aim to make rare specimens accessible to researchers worldwide, removing the need to rely on photographs or gain permission to examine delicate originals.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t have access to museum specimens, or museums are wary of loaning out specimens because of how fragile or rare they are,” Knaub said.

The vaquita was only recognised as a species in 1958 . Growing to about 5ft in length, it is the smallest member of the whale, dolphin and porpoise family and is distinguished by dark markings around its eyes and mouth.

Find more age of extinction coverage here , and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage

Keyword – Money
Trefwoorden – Pay, Work & careers, Young people, Resolution Foundation, Business, UK news, Minimum wage, Youth unemployment
Title – Gen Z earning more than millennials did at the same age, says thinktank | Pay | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/simongoodley
Link – Gen Z earning more than millennials did at the same age, says thinktank | Pay | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T05:00:51.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jun/22/gen-z-earning-more-millennials-same-age-resolution-foundation

Gen Z’s early careers are more financially rewarding than those of millennials, research suggests.

Those typically born between 1997 and 2012 are experiencing a mini-rebound in pay packets, according to the research by the Resolution Foundation , in a seeming contrast to how the previous generation entered the job market.

Millennials – those born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s – are the first generation not to have enjoyed higher disposable incomes than previous generations, according to the thinktank. The researchers added that this setback was partly driven by millennials’ careers kicking off at around the time of the 2008 financial crisis, and the long stagnation in real wage growth that has taken place ever since.

However, a preview of a report due on Thursday show the Resolution Foundation’s latest numbers suggest that real weekly pay at age 24 of those born in the late 1990s was 12% higher than for cohorts born in the late 1980s.

At the age of 24, those born in the early 2000s are also earning more than any other generation going back to those born in the 1950s, according to the study.

Charlie McCurdy, senior economist of the Resolution Foundation, said: “The living standards stagnation of the millennial generation has been well documented over the past decade. Many have speculated that the breakdown of generational progress has continued for gen Z too.

“But with the oldest members of gen Z now several years into their working lives, the good news is that they’ve enjoyed a mini pay rebound.”

The report found that the lowest-paid – those in the bottom 10% of earners – enjoyed the biggest lift in pay due to an escalation in the minimum wage, especially since 2016. Their pay rose 36% in real terms between 2012 and 2025.

Further up the pay scale, those workers aged 22-29 on median earnings saw their hourly pay grow by 15% over the same period compared to 4% for those in their 30s and 11% for all employees.

The study cautioned, however, that the “good news story for gen Z is already under threat”, as real wages may be about to fall because of pressures including the higher prices and weaker economic growth resulting from war in the Middle East.

Also, the number of 16- to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training – the so-called Neets – has now reached about 1 million . The former Labour minister Alan Milburn warned last month that Britain is at risk of a 25% rise in the number of Neets to 1.25 million by the early 2030s, without urgent government action to avoid a “lost generation”.

“For a significant share of younger members of gen Z, their careers have not got off the ground at all,” the Resolution Foundation added. “Britain’s Neet crisis presents a huge, long-term challenge for gen Z, and tackling it should be a top priority for the government.”

Keyword – Global
Trefwoorden – Newsletter sign-up
Title – Sign up for the First Edition newsletter: our free daily news email | Newsletter sign-up | The Guardian
Author – Guardian Staff
Link – Sign up for the First Edition newsletter: our free daily news email | Newsletter sign-up | The Guardian
Publish date – 2022-09-20T10:16:38.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/sep/20/sign-up-for-the-first-edition-newsletter-our-free-news-email

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Czechia, Czechoslovakia, European Championship, Football, Sport
Title – ‘That penalty changed my life’: Panenka’s pride 50 years on from special spot-kick | Czechia | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gavinnewsham
Link – ‘That penalty changed my life’: Panenka’s pride 50 years on from special spot-kick | Czechia | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T04:00:53.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/20/antonin-panenka-penalty-50-years-on-czechoslovakia-west-germany-1976

A ntonin Panenka laughs like a bear might, a low rumble, suggesting mischief among the memories. He is sat in an office at Bohemians football club in Prague, recounting the story of his impudent, revolutionary penalty that not only won the 1976 European Championship for Czechoslovakia against West Germany but soured his relationship with the goalkeeper his spot-kick humiliated, Sepp Maier. “He went 35 years without uttering a single word to me,” he smiles.

But the feud went much deeper. “I read some articles that he even had a shooting target in his garage with my face on it that he used to fire darts at. We get on well enough now though.”

Saturday marks 50 years since that moment in Belgrade’s Red Star Stadium slipped into football folklore. With the final locked at 2-2 after extra time, Czechoslovakia and the reigning world champions found themselves in uncharted territory: the first penalty shootout to decide a major international tournament.

It nearly didn’t happen at all. The plan had been for a replay, until a request from the German FA pushed organisers towards penalties, a decision influenced, Panenka believes, by the fact Die Mannschaft had already booked their holidays.

By the time Bayern Munich’s Uli Hoeness blazed Germany’s fourth kick over the bar, the stage was set. Panenka stepped forward with the chance to win it. Then it happened. A brisk run-up, a momentary pause and the most delicate of stabbed touches. The ball floated, dead centre, as Maier hurled himself aside. For a heartbeat, it seemed to hang in the Belgrade air before dropping into the net. The Panenka was born.

In the decades since, many have tried it and succeeded. Zinedine Zidane clipped his against the crossbar and in at the 2006 World Cup final while Andrea Pirlo embarrassed a gurning Joe Hart at Euro 2012. Others have been less successful.

In 1992, Gary Lineker, one goal away from equalling Bobby Charlton’s record of 49 goals for England, duffed his against Brazil at Wembley. More recently, Morocco’s Brahim Díaz dinked his penalty into the waiting arms of the Senegal keeper Édouard Mendy in the Africa Cup of Nations final.

Panenka watches them all with pride and amusement. “It’s pure happiness to see these players using my penalty,” he says. “The only disadvantage is that I don’t get any royalties from it.”

It’s not for want of trying. “I used to think that every time someone takes one, they should have to pay me. Actually, back during the Communist days in Czechoslovakia, I spoke to some friends who worked at a patent office and tried to get it registered but they said it wasn’t possible which was a shame.”

Panenka’s penalty in the final wasn’t the first time he tried it. Two years before Belgrade, Panenka, a creative midfielder with Bohemians 1905, had started a friendly penalty competition with club goalkeeper, Zdenek Hruska.

Each day, the pair would stay behind after training and practise penalties. Ever the competitor, Panenka suggested a bet. He would take penalties and if he scored all five then Hruska would have to buy him some beers or some chocolate. If the keeper saved just one then Panenka would return the favour. But Panenka found himself losing badly and increasingly out of pocket.

Then came his brainwave. “I started to think about how the goalies always tend to dive towards one post or the other and I came up with the idea of just chipping the ball right down the middle instead. And it worked immediately,” he recalls.

Soon, the competition with Hruska tilted in Panenka’s favour. “I started winning our bets all the time which meant that I got all the beers and the chocolate. But that also meant I started to get fat.”

While Panenka attempted his penalty occasionally in friendlies and domestic games, it was still unknown outside Czechoslovakia as they headed into the European Championship in Yugoslavia , and that convinced Panenka to take it on to the international stage.

“I always knew that there was only one way I was ever going to take it, purely because nobody had done it before and nobody would ever think I would do it, especially in a final,” he says. “But I wasn’t 100% confident I would score – I was 1,000% confident.”

For Panenka, his penalty is more than just another opportunity to score. On one hand, he says, you have to have the personality to come up with the original idea itself but energy and work ethic is also needed to ensure having the right technique when the time arrives to take the penalty. “You can’t have one without the other,” he says.

Watch footage of Panenka’s penalty now and it’s unlike many of the versions you might see today. There is no theatrical meandering run-up and no staring down of the goalkeeper. It’s just a straight, aggressive run-up that persuades Maier that what is about to come is a shot struck with pace. Only at the last moment does Panenka kill his run-up, floating the ball into the air and leaving Maier diving helplessly to his left as the ball takes an eternity to drift and dive into the net.

It is, says Panenka, a thing of rare beauty. “I have seen it described as the ‘falling leaf’ penalty and I like that,” he reflects. “It works so beautifully.”

After the final, Panenka and his Czech teammates returned home to anything but a heroes’ welcome. “We expected at least some celebration or recognition but there was very little,” he recalls. “We said: ‘We are European champions!’ And they said: ‘So what? The league starts again tomorrow, so get back to work.’”

As Panenka returned to domestic football with Bohemians, however, his pioneering penalty had now become a weapon to employ sparingly. After Belgrade, he estimates he took another 15 penalties in his playing career, but used the Panenka only three more times, most notably in a European Championship qualifying victory over France in Bratislava in April 1979.

“The only time I ever missed was in a friendly against a small club in southern Bohemia. There had been a lot of heavy rain and the goalie was just stood in a big puddle so I don’t think he actually wanted to dive anyway,” he recalls. “He just stood there and caught it.”

Today, the 77-year-old Panenka and his penalty are known across the world, the result, he believes, of parents passing on this unique piece of footballing vocabulary – noun and verb – through YouTube and social media. But his popularity still surprises him.

Recently, he was on a plane in Madrid waiting to take off when another passenger recognised him. “Suddenly there was this long chain of people all wanting a selfie with me,” he smiles. “Our flight was even delayed.”

It’s possible to count on one hand those players whose names have become shorthand for invention, for a moment that bends the logic of the game itself. Some labels flatter, others fade, but the Panenka endures alongside the Cruyff Turn as something both daring and definitive.

Panenka shrugs at the idea of an ordinary alternative. Yes, a more conventional spot-kick might still have delivered a European title for Czechoslovakia, but it would not have rewritten his life, nor carved his name into football history.

Half a century on, what lingers is not just his medal or the trophy, but that choice – a split-second show of nerve that turned risk into immortality, and a footballer into folklore.

“The penalty I took really changed my life and the fact I’m still here 50 years later talking about it is absolutely amazing,” he adds. “I’m so happy I did it.”

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup, Sport, Football, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé
Title – All-time greatest: who is the highest goalscorer in World Cup history? | World Cup | The Guardian
Author – Seán Clarke
Link – All-time greatest: who is the highest goalscorer in World Cup history? | World Cup | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T21:28:21.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2026/jun/17/who-is-highest-goalscorer-world-cup-history-messi-mbappe

Lionel Messi started his 2026 World Cup campaign with a hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Algeria .

The trio of strikes gave him a career total of 16 World Cup goals, equalling the existing record held by Miroslav Klose. It’s reasonable to expect the Inter Miami player to set a new mark this summer but he is being chased hard by Kylian Mbappé. He scored twice in France’s opening match victory against Senegal , giving him a total of 14 goals since his competition debut eight years ago.

The list shows the top 20 World Cup goalscorers of all time, from data provided by Transfermarkt. If two players are tied, advantage is given to the man who made fewer appearances.