Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Russia, Ukraine, Europe, Poland, Crimea, Donald Tusk, Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Title – Ukraine war briefing: Dispute over second world war army unit threatens to divide Poland and Ukraine | Russia | The Guardian
Author – Guardian staff and agencies
Link – Ukraine war briefing: Dispute over second world war army unit threatens to divide Poland and Ukraine | Russia | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T03:28:52.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/22/ukraine-war-briefing-poland-dispute-second-world-war-army-unit

A conflict between politicians in Poland ⁠and Ukraine is a strategic mistake that will harm both sides, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk ⁠has cautioned, ⁠as he seeks to ​defuse a rekindled dispute over events that occurred during the second world war . Polish president Karol Nawrocki on Friday ⁠ stripped Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the country’s top honour , prompting three former Ukrainian presidents and other senior officials ⁠to return their state awards to Poland. Nawrocki revoked the Order of ​the White Eagle after ‌Zelenskyy angered many in Poland ‌by renaming a Ukrainian army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, ‌nationalists who massacred Poles during the second world war.

“Wading into a conflict between politicians in Poland and Ukraine ‌is a strategic mistake that will harm both sides: business-wise, geopolitically, and reputationally. And in politics, as we know, ​a mistake is worse than a crime,” Tusk wrote in a post on X . The pro-European Tusk was elected prime minister in 2023, after leading a coalition that defeated the nationalist Law and Justice party with which Nawrocki is aligned.

Zelenskyy, in ⁠an interview posted on X, said Ukraine and Poland cannot ​be “anything but ​partners and friends,” adding that a ​political struggle could end in a “very dangerous escalation” . “Our service members ​choose a ‌heroic name for ​their unit themselves, ​and as president and supreme commander-in-chief, I must support them,” he said. “Without Ukraine, no one will be able to defend Poland. It is simply impossible.”

Officials in Russia-occupied Crimea have suspended civilian gasoline sales as Ukraine increases attacks on fuel supplies . The Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea said Ukrainian strikes killed four people and wounded 28 others overnight . He said local petrol stations will now only sell fuel to government agencies. The Crimean peninsula has had periodic fuel shortages from Ukrainian strikes before, but the current crisis is the worst since its 2014 annexation. Social networks are filled with requests for fuel, and some speculators are selling gas at double the market price.

Zelenskyy described the attacks as part of Ukraine’s “long-range sanctions” against Russia’s energy infrastructure . Zelenskyy said in a statement that a Crimean oil depot, as well as an oil transport facility in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region were among the targets. “Russia understands only strength, and our long-range strength is certainly working for peace,” he said. Separately, overnight Russian strikes in eastern Ukraine killed three people.

Ukraine has in recent months also stepped up drone attacks on energy facilities in Russia, striking targets deep behind the frontlines . Last week, it hit a large refinery in Moscow twice. Ukraine says the attacks are aimed at denting oil revenues that Russia uses to fund the war. Some petrol stations in Russia, the world’s third-biggest oil producer, introduced fuel rationing this month. Fuel exports have been banned since April. Energy Intelligence, a US-based energy research firm, said earlier this month that about a third of Russian oil refining capacity had gone offline because of Ukrainian strikes .

Russia’s aviation authorities briefly closed Moscow’s four airports on Monday, after a flurry of drones were intercepted . Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that 59 drones heading towards the city had been destroyed. Kyiv has sent drones into Russia in retaliation for Moscow bombing its cities, although Sobyanin did not specify that the drones were from Ukraine. Authorities announced at 5.39am that airports had reopened. Russia downed 301 drones overnight , state media reported on Monday.

Russian drones set fire to a cargo vessel en route to Ukraine and killed one of its crew , Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said on Monday. “A drone strike set fire to a vessel sailing under the Panama flag. A crew member was killed – a 58-year-old cook, a citizen of Egypt,” Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram. Kuleba said eight sailors, including citizens of Turkey and India, fled on a life raft , and that the vessel “sustained significant damage and lost seaworthiness”.

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Family, Photography
Title – Jack Rooke looks back: ‘Nan was a real prankster. I took the show we made together to Edinburgh’ | Family | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/harriet-gibsone
Link – Jack Rooke looks back: ‘Nan was a real prankster. I took the show we made together to Edinburgh’ | Family | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T13:00:34.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/21/jack-rooke-standup-comedian-big-boys-looks-back

Born in Watford in 1993, Jack Rooke is a comedian, actor and writer. He studied journalism at the University of Westminster, and began his standup career in 2014. Rooke’s breakout show, Good Grief, was written with his grandmother, Sicely, and documented their experiences of bereavement following the death of Rooke’s father, Laurie, from cancer. His next show, Happy Hour, became the basis for his two-time Bafta-winning Channel 4 comedy, Big Boys. Rooke is taking an updated version of Good Grief on a UK tour, starting at the Roundhouse in London on 14 August. Rooke is an ambassador for the suicide prevention charity Calm .

I am three years old and being pushed by my nan on a swing. She’s in a lovely powder-blue two-piece while I am sporting an iconic all-in-one black-and-white striped mini boiler suit dungaree scenario. For reasons we will never know, I look rather unimpressed.

This sums up most of my childhood – hanging out with Nan. My parents worked a lot, so she’d pick me up from school every Tuesday and Thursday. We were always out and about, often in a park, supermarket or shopping centre. She was an ex-dinner lady, and her energy was soft and gentle. She was very active and a real prankster. Her name was Sicely. “Nicely but with an S,” she’d say. It’s a non-name and nobody I am related to has any idea why she was called that.

By comparison, my grandad was quite strait-laced – a man who liked brass rubbings and Emmerdale. Nan was always on charm offensive, and liked musicals, laughing, and had a regular slot down the bingo hall. Mostly, Nan understood creativity as catharsis. Older generations have a reputation for having a stiff upper lip and being stoic, but she was very conscious of mental health and being emotionally available.

As well as our shared curly hair, we were also both the non-drivers of the Rookes. Everyone else in our family was either a mechanic or a black-cab driver, so it felt like a joint rebellion. When I was old enough to drive, I refused to learn because gays don’t drive. Gays are born to be driven.

That said, I never spoke to Nan about being gay. She must have known I was a bit fruity, but my sexuality never came up in conversation. Being gay feels quite low down on the list of things about my identity that I am most preoccupied about. Grieving, or class or size, are far more prevalent subjects in my mind. Size especially. Nan would always wind me up about being bigger, in an affectionate way. Her love language was food, and she was always popping a Werther’s Original in my pocket or making huge amounts of spaghetti bolognese or shepherd’s pie for me. She used food to feed, nourish and also mock me. There was one time I came home from school and opened the fridge. Inside was a big plate with a lid on top and a note saying: “Homemade apple pie for you.” When I took the lid off, I realised it wasn’t a pie – it was a stack of carrot sticks and a Post-it that said “lose some weight” with a smiley face next to it. Nan had quite a laddie sense of humour.

When my dad died, I was 15 and Nan was 80. We were experiencing this huge loss and both missed him in different ways. Our common ground was that nobody was talking to us about it and everyone was being awkward. She was annoyed at certain friends who didn’t know how to address the fact that her child had passed away, and at school I felt people would be weird with me, making me feel like The Boy Whose Dad Had Died. We had lots of great mates, but both felt isolated sometimes. That was where the idea for my show Good Grief came from.

Before becoming a writer, I thought I wanted to be a documentary-maker. More specifically, I thought I wanted to be Stacey Dooley – an ambition I still hold to this day. I was 21 and in my third year at uni when I asked Nan if she would be up for talking about her experiences of grief with me. She was elated and so encouraging. I was the first person in my family to go to university, and she was chuffed to help. She probably would have wanted to go herself if she had had the money or the education or access. Instead, she wanted to make sure I did the best I could do.

On Father’s Day in 2014, I brought my uni friends to her council estate in Harefield, west London, to film our conversations together. We would sit around her kitchen table and chat. At first she was reluctant to be filmed; she hadn’t done anything like it before, so it took her a while to open up. We had to make sure we got her right side, and eventually she warmed up. It was emotional at times – not Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on the Wicked press tour emotional, but more quiet and considered. Often the most powerful stuff was when my nan was saying nothing. She would stare into space reflecting for a few moments and then say something like: “At least we’ve got a fucking holiday booked.”

In 2015, I took the show we made together to Edinburgh. It was on at four o’clock in the smallest room and I was out flyering every day. Within a week the first three reviews were all five stars. Nothing will ever beat that buzz. Winning a Bafta was nice, but the summer when I realised people liked my show, when audiences were coming to see it – when the New York Times were coming to see it – that was all that me and Nan could have hoped for.

Nan died quite suddenly, before she ever got to see me on TV, way before Big Boys. She’d been ill for a few months. The grief I felt for her was different from when Dad died. This time it was less traumatic because through making Good Grief, I had this wealth of film, audio clips and photos of her that I just didn’t have with my dad. When someone dies, they vanish overnight and it is so painful. Whereas with Nan, I can see and hear her whenever I want. My mum often says she misses Nan more than my dad, which is weird, because obviously my nan’s my dad’s mum. But Mum had never had a mum – hers died when she was six. To my mum, and to me, Nan was a huge crux of support.

Experiencing a lot of grief early on in my life means I’ve been to a lot of funerals. Sometimes I think that if my career ever fucks up, I’ll become a humanist celebrant, as I am now the family’s designated speech writer for funerals. Whenever someone dies, my mum or auntie will be like: “Oh, you do it, Jack, you write such wonderful words.” I’ll always do it, even if I barely knew them, because I think funerals need a rebrand. People should not be defined by their death, but celebrated for who they were in life. I’d much rather hear about the holiday in Magaluf where they got rat-arsed than platitudes about how they will be missed.

I owe my nan my career. Good Grief was the first time I made something, the first time I could be creative professionally. And that all comes down to Nan – that she was always so emotionally available and encouraging to me. For that I feel very lucky.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Iran, US-Israel war on Iran, US foreign policy, US military, Pete Hegseth, Trump administration, US news, Middle East and north Africa, World news
Title – Four months after the horrific Iran school bombing, fears grow that Trump and Hegseth will bury the truth | Iran | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/roth-andrew,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tess-mcclure
Link – Four months after the horrific Iran school bombing, fears grow that Trump and Hegseth will bury the truth | Iran | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T11:04:00.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/21/iran-school-bombing-minab-fears-trump-hegseth-bury-truth-investigation-findings

T he attack on a girls’ elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab was one of the US military’s deadliest civilian bombings in decades. But nearly four months on, the Pentagon has produced no answers about why the military fired a Tomahawk cruise missile into a school on the first day of the war, killing at least 175 people, mostly children.

Some critics doubt that the Pentagon ever will, or will bury the results under classifications to keep the worst mistakes secret from the public.

As the US signs a shaky memorandum of understanding on a ceasefire with Iran, the secretive investigation into the attack has also become a test case for the self-styled secretary of war Pete Hegseth’s new approach to what he calls “warfighting”. As he said in early March, nearly two weeks after the attack, “our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it”.

Shortly after the attack, Donald Trump suggested that it was carried out by Iran. When it became clear that the strike used a US-made Tomahawk missile , he suggested that Iran also had access to the cruise missiles. It does not.

As he celebrated a ceasefire deal to open the strait of Hormuz last week, Trump signalled he was ready to write off the attack as a mistake. “It’s such a strange question to be asked at this date, because you’re talking about a long time ago,” Trump said when he was asked about the investigation during a press conference at the G7 meeting in Évian-les-Bains, France. “But nobody did that on purpose.”

It was at the beginning of what Trump has taken to calling a “little excursion” into Iran that the back-to-back or “double tap” strikes on the school building took place, killing mainly children under the age of 12. Officials have told media anonymously that the site was believed to be an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.

Mohammadreza Ahmadi Tifakani lost two children in the school bombing. His seven-year-old daughter, Hanieh, was killed, along with all of her classmates in the girl’s section of the school, when the first missile hit. According to witnesses, her 10-year-old brother, Sobhan, survived the initial explosion and ran back to look for his sister. He was killed in the second blast.

“I personally went to the morgue and identified both of them,” Tifakani told the Guardian in an interview shortly after the attack. “Sobhan was missing an eye, and half of his face was gone. His legs were broken. Hanieh’s skull was fractured but her face was intact. I recognised Sobhan at first glance, even though he was severely injured.”

Trump said last week: “Mistakes are made. The war is nasty.”

Several former Pentagon and national security officials expressed doubt to the Guardian that the US government would take responsibility for the deaths of the schoolchildren in Minab or even release the full report into the attack.

“It’s very rare that you would have a military operation and not have some incidents where there was a mistaken target and civilians are harmed or killed, but then there is a system for investigating, assessing accountability and taking responsibility” in those cases, said one former senior Pentagon official.

“Even without the civilian harm mitigation office, there’s a very clear process for this, and I’m very doubtful that the Hegseth Pentagon will follow through,” the former official added.

As part of Hegseth’s “anti-woke” crusade at the Pentagon, the military has shuttered or reduced units meant to review civilian casualty incidents and has more broadly indicated that decisions made in combat by “warfighters” would not be subject to such close scrutiny. The reduction in civilian oversight at the Pentagon under Hegseth may make it easier to skirt blame for the incident.

The incident is comparable to some of the worst mass-casualty incidents of past US wars, including the 2017 Mosul airstrike that killed at least 105 and perhaps more than 200 civilians, the 2015 Kunduz hospital airstrike that killed 42 people, and the 1991 Amiriyah air raid shelter bombing that killed more than 400 Iraqi civilians who were sheltering during Desert Storm.

Trump said last week that the investigation was continuing. US Central Command, when asked about the investigation, gave no new information. “We have no updates at this time,” a defence official wrote.

But media reports indicate that the investigation has concluded. Preliminary results said the attack came because of the US using seven-year-old targeting data that failed to indicate that the building next to an IRGC base was in fact a girls’ school. The New York Times reported last week that at least one analyst had alerted a colleague several years ago that the US appeared to be targeting what was now a school in Minab. But the targeting data was not updated, and military officials continued to revalidate the site as a legitimate target for bombing.

Tifakani said at the time he had little hope of accountability from US investigations or the world. Asked what message he had for legal institutions or investigators looking into the bombing, he said: “They are witnessing everything themselves. We saw what happened in Gaza and Palestine. Now the same tragedy has befallen our own children. No matter what we say to them, that will not change anything.”

Congressional inquiries into the incident have also been stymied. “The US strike in Minab is one of the most horrific episodes of the entire illegal Trump war in Iran,” said Yassamin Ansari, an Iranian-American congresswoman who represents Arizona’s third district. She said she had written to the Trump administration to demand answers about the strike and “gotten little to no response”.

“Donald Trump is hiding the truth from the American people and Congress, and deflecting blame to Secretary Hegseth, because he does not want the public to know the true horrors of what he unleashed on the Iranian people with absolutely nothing to show for it,” Ansari said. “I will continue to do everything in my power to get answers for the families of these girls.”

Wes Bryant, a former US air force special operations targeting expert and former chief of civilian harm assessments at the Pentagon, said his few remaining colleagues overseeing civilian harm reduction at the Pentagon had been prevented from seeing the preliminary results of the investigation.

“I believe Hegseth and Trump are both going to do everything they can to suppress this investigation,” he said. “So, even if there is one really sitting there, it’s not getting out any more, unless we have, you know, a brave whistleblower.” He added: “The amount of people with eyes on that report are going to be very small.”

He said strikes in Iran that had killed thousands of civilians were a sign of the rising “aggregate harm” that the US was willing to accept as part of a culture of that pointed to “pure negligence and recklessness, but also to a degradation of culture at senior leadership levels in the military”.

Early in his tenure as secretary of defence, Hegseth moved to close down or severely reduce civilian oversight of the Pentagon’s civilian harm mitigation and response, and a report released in May by the department’s inspector general concluded that the US military no longer had the people, tools or infrastructure needed to comply with two federal statutes requiring it to maintain a functioning civilian casualty policy and operate a civilian protection centre of excellence.

In September, Hegseth said publicly that he had done away with “stupid rules of engagement” for the US military as part of an anti-woke revamping of the Pentagon. In March, weeks after the strike on the school, as the US campaign against Iran continued at a fever pitch, he boasted: “Warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly.”

Observers have said the remarks and shuttering of key offices have limited civilian oversight at the Pentagon, with one former official saying the US “threw in the trash the whole mitigating civilian harm strategy”.

Niku Jafarnia, the acting deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said: “Hegseth himself has publicly expressed a lot of his scepticism around the amount of measures that we had in the military previously to mitigate these types of reckless errors and massive civilian harm incidents.

“He has publicly expressed scepticism about the value of constraints on fighters, and he has taken actions that have systematically weakened some of these protection measures that are supposed to ensure compliance with the law.”

Pointing to Hegseth’s earlier public remarks about “untying the hands of our warfighters” and ignoring “stupid rules of engagement”, she added: “I think we saw the effects of that on day one of the war.”

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Armenia, Europe, World news, Christianity
Title – An Armenian tycoon has a private zoo. Now he wants the world’s biggest Jesus statue | Armenia | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/pjotr-sauer
Link – An Armenian tycoon has a private zoo. Now he wants the world’s biggest Jesus statue | Armenia | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T07:00:23.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/21/armenian-tycoon-private-zoo-worlds-biggest-jesus-statue-gagik-tsarukyan

Behind the walls of a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Yerevan, six tigers prowl behind a fence, three lions pace their enclosures, and alligators bask in the afternoon heat.

Further into the compound, more animals appear. Beneath a gilded, hand-painted ceiling, a dining hall houses a taxidermy menagerie: white tigers reared on their hind legs, a stuffed eagle perched atop a table, bear and wolf pelts spread across the floor. All of these, the owner proudly said, had been shot by him.

The scene offers a glimpse into the tastes of Gagik Tsarukyan, Armenia’s most flamboyant business tycoon and opposition politician, whose displays of wealth have long been the stuff of local folklore.

Having secured less than 4% of the vote in this month’s parliamentary election , Tsarukyan’s chances of ever leading Armenia look slim, but one of Armenia’s richest and most divisive men remains determined to leave his mark on the country.

His chosen monument: erecting the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ, perched atop a 2,500-metre (8,200ft) mountain overlooking Yerevan.

It is, depending on who you ask, either a celebration of the small Caucasian nation’s ancient Christian heritage or the ultimate expression of one oligarch’s appetite for excess.

“This will be Armenia’s calling card,” Tsarukyan said during a rare interview at one of his homes in the village of Arinj, where he was born. “Christianity will become Armenia’s new brand.”

A former athlete turned businessman and politician, Tsarukyan built his fortune in gambling, alcohol and mining during the turbulent decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Dressed head-to-toe in white linen and matching trainers, the barrel-chested one-time arm wrestling champion said the project was designed to resonate with a growing international movement that blends religious faith with nationalism and cultural conservatism – a trend most visible in Donald Trump’s Maga movement and among far-right parties across Europe.

“Trump is, of course, invited. We hope he comes,” Tsarukyan said, adding that an unofficial American delegation from the US embassy had already visited the mountain site.

Once completed, the 101-metre (331ft) statue will stand atop Hatis, a mountain about 25km (15.5 miles) east of Yerevan, making it visible from much of the Armenian capital. Tsarukyan noted with evident satisfaction that it would dwarf Brazil’s iconic Christ the Redeemer and stand slightly taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty.

“We are the oldest Christian nation in the world,” Tsarukyan said. “It only makes sense we should have the biggest Jesus statue in the world.”

Although most of its neighbours today are Muslim-majority countries, Armenia is widely regarded as the world’s oldest officially Christian nation, traditionally dating its conversion to AD301.

But the Armenian Apostolic church has repeatedly opposed the project, arguing that its mass scale and style sit uneasily with Armenia’s religious and architectural traditions.

Church leaders say Armenian Christianity has historically expressed itself through monasteries, churches and khachkars – intricately carved stone crosses unique to Armenia – rather than colossal statues modelled on monuments elsewhere in the world.

The proposal has also drawn criticism from environmentalists, who warn that construction could cause lasting damage to the natural landscape of Hatis.

Tsarukyan brushed aside the clergy’s and activists’ objections, insisting he enjoyed good relations with the Armenian Apostolic church and pointing to the eight churches he says he has financed across the country.

More importantly, Tsarukyan said, the monument was intended to appeal to a far broader audience than Armenia’s faithful alone.

He claimed that 10 million tourists a year would eventually visit the site. “There’s nothing else like it in the world. From ocean to ocean, everyone will be talking about it.”

At present, however, the monument, which has been under construction on and off since 2022, looks less like the centrepiece of a future pilgrimage site than a giant relic abandoned in a construction yard outside Yerevan, where it is being pieced together before its eventual ascent to the mountain.

On the Guardian’s recent visit to the site, Christ’s vast white figure loomed over piles of stone, cranes, and workshop buildings, appearing almost surreal against the sparse landscape.

Back at the estate, Tsarukyan appeared tired after a bitter election campaign that had only just ended.

Voting results showed his nationalist and Russia-friendly Prosperous Armenia party hovering just below the 4% threshold needed to enter parliament, a result the party was challenging in court.

The poor showing continued a reversal for a politician who, for two decades, had been one of Armenia’s most durable power brokers.

Tsarukyan built that position on close ties to the former president Robert Kocharyan, expanding his empire as part of a small group of politically connected businessmen who came to dominate much of Armenia’s economy.

With his private zoo, marble mansions and fleet of luxury cars, he can seem like a relic of the post-Soviet boom years, when fortunes were amassed at dizzying speed and displayed with little concern for subtlety.

That image made him a natural target for the current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who rose to power in the 2018 Velvet Revolution pledging to dismantle Armenia’s oligarchic system.

Pashinyan has repeatedly cast Tsarukyan as a symbol of the country’s corrupt old order, at times reviving dark episodes from his Soviet-era past, including a 1979 gang-rape conviction that was later overturned after Armenia gained independence.

In his victory speech on 7 June, Pashinyan further vowed to jail his political opponents, singling out Tsarukyan, Kocharyan and the billionaire businessman Samvel Karapetyan.

The following day, investigators arrived at Tsarukyan’s estate to formally charge him with tax-related offences. Local media reported that he had attempted to flee the country before the charges were announced.

Tsarukyan rejected the allegation, saying he had merely planned a short trip to the United Arab Emirates but had been prevented from boarding his flight and returned home.

Yet Tsarukyan strongly dismissed suggestions that the authorities could derail his construction plans, arguing that the Jesus project had become too significant to abandon and would bring substantial benefits to Armenia’s economy and tourism industry.

“How can a man be afraid?” he said. “Why be afraid? What will they put me in prison for?”

For now, he said his team appeared more concerned with the practical challenge of getting Christ to the mountaintop.

The logistics of building the monument have proved almost as ambitious as the project itself.

Tsarukyan said the original plan was to transport sections of the statue by helicopter. The idea was eventually abandoned in favour of a more conventional solution: hauling the enormous pieces up the mountain by truck before assembling them onsite.

And the Jesus statue, he insisted, is only the beginning.

Construction has already begun on another biblical attraction nearby: a giant Noah’s Ark. Pulling out images of the project on his phone, he described a vessel 134 metres long, 24 metres wide and 18 metres high. The ground floor would house a museum, the first floor a hotel and the second a cafe.

“These projects are sacred,” he said. “This is how I will inscribe my name in history, for the world to see during my lifetime and long after.”

For now, though, on the hillside above Yerevan, the world’s largest Jesus has yet to rise.

In the summer heat, passersby stopped to photograph the towering figure and debate its merits.

“It’s beautiful. It will make Armenia known across the world,” said Arman, a 54-year-old taxi driver who had pulled over to admire the statue. “I am really proud of this.”

Others were less convinced.

“I don’t quite understand why it has to be this big,” said Mariam, a local resident, looking up at the monument. “It’s all a bit crass.”

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Andy Burnham, Politics, Privatisation, Utilities, Labour party leadership, Manchester, UK news, Labour, Business, Economic policy
Title – Burnham ally to unveil ambitious plan to reverse decades of privatisation | Andy Burnham | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessica-elgot
Link – Burnham ally to unveil ambitious plan to reverse decades of privatisation | Andy Burnham | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T16:00:34.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/21/burnham-ally-to-unveil-ambitious-plan-to-reverse-decades-of-privatisation

Andy Burnham’s government should reverse 40 years of privatisation with a long-term plan to take over failing utilities in administration, issuing “bonds for shares” and setting up state competitors, according to a new blueprint for “Manchesterism”.

The policy paper – The Productive State – is released on Monday as Burnham arrives in Westminster to be sworn in as the MP for Makerfield. He widely expected to seek to enter No 10 to replace Keir Starmer in a matter of weeks.

Its author, Mathew Lawrence, who is close to Burnham and has worked with him on his thinking on public control of utilities – is publishing the paper with Mainstream, the Labour group that has been the vehicle for Burnham’s leadership ambitions.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the former minister who has been advising Burnham on policy, called it “an important contribution to the debate on how we fix this, deliver the change that people are crying out for and start to rebuild our broken economy”.

Lawrence said the essay envisages “a state that owns, invests and provides to make life affordable. A politics that takes back control of the foundations of a decent life: clean water, cheap energy, warm homes, reliable transport, built and run by institutions that answer to the public.”

The paper, which has the subtitle A Framework for Manchesterism, criticised the long trend of privatisation of utilities and says it is at the heart of the UK’s growth and productivity struggles – because of the loss of control over the basics that make life more expensive.

Though the essay – and Burnham himself – do not advocate for blanket nationalisation likely to cost hundreds of billions, it argues for a framework for greater state intervention to protect the public from soaring costs and from picking up the bill for failing private companies.

Lawrence, the director of the thinktank Common Wealth, drafted the essay independently of Burnham inspired in part by his arguments and agenda, and seeking to provide a framework for national renewal.

The Guardian has previously reported that Burnham’s allies have talked about overseeing a 10-year project to take large parts of Britain’s water and energy sectors into public control – likely to start with Thames Water, the stricken utility.

Eventually Burnham’s allies want to bring energy transmission and supply companies, possibly including National Grid, into public control.

The Productive State essay argues that people are facing a “privatisation premium” – essentially a regressive hidden tax embedded in everyday bills that transfers wealth from households to investors. The government is then forced to subsidise inflated costs with welfare transfers such as housing benefit or support with energy bills.

“For millions of households, the basic non-negotiable expenses of life – rent, energy bills, water charges, transport fares, the cost of care – now consume so large a share of their income that insecurity has become a permanent condition,” the essay argues.

“Britain’s essential sectors cost more than comparable alternatives not because they deliver more, but because they are organised to extract more. Working people pay the price.”

Burnham’s commitment to public control of utilities – not necessarily full nationalisation in all cases – has been one of the measures which has raised alarm in the markets. But the essay argues that “rebuilding Britain’s systems of public provision is not the alternative to fiscal prudence. It is fiscal prudence.”

It says public control can be asserted in a number of ways in the long term – when a company like Thames Water is in financial distress, the government can step in using a “special administration regime”.

For utility companies that are financially healthy, the law typically requires the government to pay fair market value to acquire them. To achieve this without a massive upfront cash expense, the state can use a “bond-for-share exchange”, the essay argues, though the move would need legislation and would probably provoke significant legal challenges.

And the state can also gradually assert control by setting up its own commercial public corporations – though the process would requite potentially major borrowing.

“The ultimate goal of The Productive State approach is … an economy … in which the essentials of life are treated as rights rather than revenue streams, and society builds the abundance, security, and stability it currently lacks,” it says.

The essay has been praised by a number of Labour figures including Fahnbulleh and Stewart Wood, the Labour peer who was an economic adviser to Ed Miliband. He said the essay was a “valuable contribution to rethinking a social-democratic case for a more active state that helps to generate wealth and improve lives across the country”.

Fahnbulleh said: “At the heart of the cost of living crisis gripping this country is a basic truth. The essentials that everyone needs to survive – a decent home, clean water, electricity, transport – have become unaffordable for too many. The public have put us on notice: we must deliver the change we promised in 2024.”

The Labour MP Yuan Yang, a member of the soft-left Tribune group who has been a key thinker contributing policy ideas to the Burnham campaign, said: “Change requires a diagnosis and a solution that matches the scale of our challenges, and a broad consensus is emerging within the Labour party on the need for bolder measures to tackle the cost of living crisis at its root, reducing inflation and ensuring sustainable growth in the long run.”

Luke Hurst, the national coordinator of Mainstream, said a new leadership in Labour could not be “business as usual … We need a much more transformative offer and real debate within the party about our platform and priorities.” He said the essay was “an urgent rethinking of Labour’s political economy”.

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Scottish independence, Brexit, Scotland, UK news, European Union, Europe, Foreign policy, Politics, Scottish politics, World news, Nicola Sturgeon, Kezia Dugdale, Boris Johnson, Ruth Davidson, Theresa May
Title – ‘This changes everything’: how Brexit altered Scotland’s political landscape | Scottish independence | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/severincarrell
Link – ‘This changes everything’: how Brexit altered Scotland’s political landscape | Scottish independence | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T11:00:30.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/21/this-changes-everything-how-brexit-altered-scotland-political-landscape

T he decision to quit the EU bolstered support for Scottish independence , which a decade after the Brexit referendum is at near record levels, according to Scottish Labour’s former leader Kezia Dugdale.

Dugdale said the Brexit vote “creates a frame around fairness” for many in Scotland because, unlike England, Scottish voters comprehensively backed remain in 2016, by 62% to 38%, yet found their country taken out of Europe.

She also believed the UK government’s embrace of a “hard Brexit” swayed many Scots who had been undecided about Scottish independence when a referendum was held on the issue in 2014.

Support for independence currently stands at about 50%, reaching 55% in some polls.

Dugdale recalled feeling “utterly devastated” when the leave result was confirmed early on 24 June 2016. That morning, she spoke privately to the then first minister, Nicola Sturgeon , telling her: “This changes everything.”

She said many Scots felt they “faced an immediate binary choice of an independent Scotland in Europe or a Boris Johnson-led Brexit Britain”, and that sense of betrayal changed the landscape of Scottish politics .

“I think it sustained support for independence, which otherwise would have fallen back,” she said.

Ruth Davidson, who was the Scottish Conservative leader in 2016 and championed the remain campaign, was shocked by the leave result.

She recalled speaking that day to Sturgeon, who sought to persuade her to “move forward together” alongside Dugdale in support of a second independence vote. “I can remember thinking ‘no, no, no’,” Davidson said. “The remain vote shouldn’t be coopted for something it wasn’t for.”

In her memoir Frankly, Sturgeon said:“I felt distraught and enraged by the prospect of Brexit and what it said about Scotland’s powerlessness within the UK. I had a strong sense of ‘If not now, when?’”

There was speculation that in the wake of Brexit, support for Scottish independence could surpass 60%, but the tidal wave many expected did not transpire.

Instead, over the past decade, the issue’s salience faded as the political crises that followed Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit, the Covid pandemic, the Ukraine war, and Donald Trump’s chaotic presidencies translated into deep insecurity about the economy and public services.

Davidson, a staunch unionist, said she retained her “animosity” towards Johnson, who she believes neglected to show genuine leadership and failed to articulate a coherent vision for a unified post-Brexit Britain. But the “Boris effect” on support for independence was much less significant than she had feared.

“There was a hierarchy of concern” for voters, she said. “Whether we were for independence or for staying in the UK was a more material concern than the UK’s relationship with the EU.”

The electoral realities of that tension could be seen as early as 2017.

Sturgeon’s attempts to leverage remainer anger into an irresistible case for a second referendum floundered. Theresa May’s Conservative government resisted her demands. Support for independence fell during 2017 to below 40%.

In the 2017 general election, the SNP lost 21 Westminster seats and its vote share fell 13 points as voters punished Sturgeon for demanding a second independence vote. The pro-UK parties, which had previously held only a seat each, enjoyed a renaissance.

Davidson’s Tories won 13 seats; Dugdale’s Labour won seven, and the Lib Dems four. In the five UK and Holyrood elections since, the SNP has never won 50% of the vote, weakening its claims to a mandate for a second independence referendum.

Yet during 2019, with Johnson succeeding May as prime minister and pressing forward with a hard Brexit, followed by his blundering failures during the Covid crisis in 2020, independence polling changed.

As Sturgeon became a commanding presence in contrast to Johnson’s chaotic leadership, support for Scotland leaving the UK surged, reaching 59% by October 2020.

Economic decline and fears about the NHS now dominate the Scottish political agenda. Dugdale traces much of that to Brexit, and its impact on the UK’s economy.

Based on recent estimates from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Scottish government’s Europe minister, Stephen Gethins, told Holyrood on 18 June that Brexit led to £3.3bn in lost revenue for Scotland last year and added £250 to food bills.

Prof Mairi Spowage, the director of the Fraser of Allander Institute, a leading Scottish economics thinktank, argued that while it was clear Brexit had hit economic output, EU exports and public finances, its precise impacts had been obscured by other crises and policy failures.

She said the UK’s economic decline could be partly traced to longer-term underinvestment by business and government since the 2008 banking crisis. Since then, Covid, Ukraine, the Liz Truss government, US trade policy and wars in the Middle East have also affected the economy.

Migration to the UK, too, has been complex: the “Boris wave” of post-Brexit migration has offset a fall in EU workers – partly due to increasing prosperity for EU member states, once a source of migrant labour.

Despite the efforts by John Swinney, the first minister and SNP leader, to make Scottish independence and rejoining the EU central to the recent Holyrood elections, that gambit failed to deliver the overall majority he craved.

The SNP achieved 38% of the vote, its lowest since 2007, and won most seats only because the opposition was divided. The anti-EU party Reform UK drove that opposition split, winning 17 seats and is now jointly Holyrood’s second largest party; some of its voters were EU sceptics who once backed the SNP.

Dugdale, now an associate director of the Centre for Public Policy at Glasgow University, is no longer a member of the Labour party and voted SNP in the last European parliament election in 2019 in protest over Brexit.

Many voters are now driven by anger and disillusionment, partly because of a belief that Brexit failed to deliver on its supporters’ promises. “We’ve had more than 15 years of austerity and 15 years of falling trust in political institutions,” Dugdale said. “If we sustain these things long enough, people no longer trust the system to make their lives better.”

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – Cristiano Ronaldo risks ruining his legacy if he continues to stymie Portugal by starting | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – Miguel Dantas
Link – Cristiano Ronaldo risks ruining his legacy if he continues to stymie Portugal by starting | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T04:00:49.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/22/cristiano-ronaldo-portugal-world-cup

At 41, Cristiano Ronaldo’s problem is not his age. It is that nobody seems willing to tell him to his face what everyone else can see. In Portugal, patience for the legend has run dry.

Ronaldo is not fit to be a Portugal starter any more. What would have sounded like a treasonous statement a few years ago now looks an obvious truth. At least to everyone except the national team manager, Roberto Martínez, and his coaching staff.

More than the shock of Portugal drawing against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – a team that had never earned a point at a World Cup – Ronaldo’s future has been the country’s biggest talking point. Whether you’re on the subway, walking your dog through the park or doing your shopping, you can’t escape the debate. It raged before the tournament and is deafening now.

Before discussing Ronaldo’s form, let’s get a few things straight. As a Portuguese citizen, football fan and journalist, I feel indebted to him. Travel to almost any corner of the globe, mention where you are from and his name will probably be the first thing you hear in response. People will ask whether you like him. They will recall a goal he scored against their favourite team. They will tell you where they were when they watched him play.

At the height of Ronaldo’s rivalry with Lionel Messi, choosing the Argentinian felt almost unpatriotic. Family lunches descended into chaos when the subject came up and two uncles had opposing views. Few athletes have done more to project the image of their country and Ronaldo has the merit of having done so since the early stages of the social media boom.

But that legacy is beginning to suffer. It is hard to understand why Martínez continues to start Ronaldo and, even more puzzlingly, leaves him on for the full 90 minutes. Against the DRC, he touched the ball 25 times, the lowest number of anyone who played the entire game for Portugal. He neither threatened the opposition goal nor disrupted the DRC’s defensive structure in any meaningful way.

The DRC midfielder Ngal’ayel Mukau in effect said as much after the match: “We know that he isn’t the same as before. He is a little bit older now. But still, he is one of the greatest to play the game. We have much respect for him.”

Can you imagine an opponent saying that about Ronaldo in 2016? Today, it reflects a reality that the vast majority of people can plainly see. Portugal have one of the best squads in the world, with players such as Vitinha, Bruno Fernandes and João Neves. They do not need Ronaldo to start any more.

So, who is responsible? Ronaldo is among the least culpable. It is natural for a footballer, regardless of age, to want to play as much as possible – especially someone with his relentless competitive drive, the quality that allowed him to conquer multiple leagues and countries.

More surprising is Martínez’s approach and that no one in Ronaldo’s inner circle appears willing to tell him what has become increasingly obvious: if he truly wants to serve the team, he should approach the coach about taking a reduced role.

Players of his stature have a duty to recognise when they are no longer contributing to the team as they once did. By continuing to occupy a position he can no longer justify on merit, he is holding Portugal back and damaging the image he spent his career building.

Should Ronaldo be part of Portugal’s World Cup squad? Absolutely. A player with his experience remains invaluable off the field. He can guide younger players through high-pressure moments, provide leadership from the sidelines and serve as a source of inspiration. It would be naive to ignore his commercial value for the tournament and the Portuguese football federation, and there may be moments when it would be useful to bring him off the bench.

The saddest part of the story is that the greatest player in Portuguese football history risks seriously tarnishing his legacy. How will he be remembered? As the boy from humble beginnings who left Madeira at a young age, moved to Lisbon alone and conquered world football? Or as the ageing superstar who tried to defy time and ended up a shadow of his former self?

Ronaldo no longer tracks back during defensive transitions. He lacks the explosiveness and relentless movement that once defined him. These were observations that many privately acknowledged years ago but hesitated to voice publicly. Now they are impossible to ignore or stay silent about.

Fernando Santos recognised this during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, when he made the bold decision to leave Ronaldo out of the starting lineup. For the first time, his untouchable status within the national team was challenged. When Santos departed, a reset button was pushed and Ronaldo returned to being an automatic starter.

Will this criticism motivate Ronaldo to work even harder? Absolutely. Can he still prove everyone wrong? Realistically, no. Would I like him to enjoy a dignified farewell on football’s biggest stage? There is nothing I want more.

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Palestine, Gaza, West Bank, Israel, War crimes, World news, Middle East and north Africa, Israel-Gaza war
Title – The Guardian view on Israel and the West Bank: allies must protect Palestinian lives and livelihoods | Editorial | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/editorial
Link – The Guardian view on Israel and the West Bank: allies must protect Palestinian lives and livelihoods | Editorial | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T16:30:35.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/21/the-guardian-view-on-israel-and-the-west-bank-allies-must-protect-palestinian-lives-and-livelihoods

T he “ceasefire” in Gaza is a “cruel and deadly illusion”, warned James Elder, the Unicef spokesman, on Friday. Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since its declaration in October, says the Gaza health ministry, including 265 children – an average of one a day.

The killings and broader humanitarian crisis have been overshadowed by the war on Iran and have diverted attention from escalating violence in the occupied West Bank. Last week, former Israeli prime ministers, military chiefs and heads of security services were among the signatories of a letter accusing its government of “doing nothing to eradicate Jewish terror” there. Ehud Olmert, one of the former prime ministers, accused Israel of “an organized, systematic, state-funded campaign of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”, with security forces assisting settler violence. Meanwhile, the army chief has reportedly described troops “killing like we haven’t killed since 1967”.

But a report from the International Crisis Group points to another dangerous development: the relentless campaign pushing the West Bank’s economy towards collapse. That does not only hurt individuals and families. Without a functioning economy, there can be no Palestinian state. As the report warns: “The economic conditions necessary for any Palestinian future other than permanent subjugation are being dismantled.” Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and head of a far-right pro-settler party, has said that he wants to bury the idea of Palestinian statehood and promised “economic strangulation”.

Since 1967, Israel’s controls on the West Bank have prevented it from developing an autonomous, functioning economy. The chokehold tightened dramatically after the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. The Palestinian economy saw real GDP shrink from $17.8bn to $13.7bn in 2024. Almost 300,000 Palestinians lost jobs in the West Bank and Israel.

The demolition of homes and uprooting of olive trees are visible. But damage behind the scenes goes deeper. The tightening of already punitive restrictions on movement in the West Bank has damaged agriculture, employment and business and fractured its economy. Few Palestinians are now permitted to work in Israel , though the security establishment reportedly believes that restoring work permits could make Israel safer. The withholding of customs revenues collected by Israel has crippled the Palestinian Authority, which paid employees just half their salaries last June. The Palestinian economy rests on the ability to do business with two Israeli banks; repeated threats to the immunity and indemnity letters underpinning that relationship have made even the US bridle.

Meanwhile, an investigation by a rights group has reported that Israeli exporters regularly hide the origin of produce grown in occupied Palestine to qualify for unlawful tax breaks. The Charity Commission is investigating after Melanie Ward, a Labour MP, said that charities in England and Wales have donated at least £28m to illegal settlements. And an Israeli real estate event in London appears to have advertised land in settlements .

This contrast casts an especially harsh light on the failure of Israel’s allies to take substantive action. Sanctions against violent settlers and those who enable them are insufficient, yet the UK has shied away from a ban on trade with illegal settlements or other decisive action. MPs rightly call for more. Palestinian livelihoods, as well as lives, must be protected.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here .

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – US-Israel war on Iran, Iran, Israel, Middle East and north Africa, US foreign policy, Trump administration, Donald Trump, Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon, Hezbollah, JD Vance, World news, US politics
Title – Iran hails ‘progress’ as first day of talks with US conclude after shaky start | US-Israel war on Iran | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jonathan-yerushalmy,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/patrickwintour
Link – Iran hails ‘progress’ as first day of talks with US conclude after shaky start | US-Israel war on Iran | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T07:33:52.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/22/iran-us-talks-progress-pakistan-qatar-lebanon-israel

Iran’s foreign minister has declared “progress” after the first day of talks between high-ranking officials from Washington and Tehran ended in Switzerland, despite a tense opening marked by Donald Trump threats to restart attacks.

A joint statement from mediators Qatar and Pakistan said the ⁠US and Iran agreed to a roadmap towards⁠ a final deal within 60 days. Technical talks between lower-ranked officials ​will continue for the rest of the week, according to the statement, with fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon at the top of the agenda.

“Pakistani and Qatari mediation has delivered major progress to end [the] Lebanon war,” said Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, after talks broke up just after 3am local time (1am GMT).

The joint statement said the US and Iran agreed to establish a “communication line” to avoid incidents in the strait of Hormuz, and to set up a “de-confliction cell” with Lebanon’s government to ensure the “adherence of the termination of military operations in Lebanon”.

In a development that is critical to unlocking progress, the US Treasury was also preparing to issue a 60-day waiver lifting sanctions on oil, petrochemicals and derivatives. Iran said this meant its central bank would be able to sell oil to customers, principally China, and receive payments without the threat of sanctions.

Qatar and Iran also signed a memorandum about the release of Iranian assets frozen in Qatar bank accounts due to US secondary sanctions. It was not clear whether the US had placed any restrictions on Iran’s use of the assets, such as demanding the money only be spent on humanitarian goods.

The economic measures may help lift some of the pressure in Iran’s exchange markets, and gradually slow runaway inflation, the country’s biggest domestic concern at present.

The joint statement by the mediators focused on new implementation mechanisms to turn the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last week by Washington and Tehran into reality over the next 60 days – the timeline set out to reach an agreement on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme and the lifting of sanctions on its economy.

Although the main talks involving the US vice-president, JD Vance , and the Iranian chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, were declared concluded, lower-ranked officials will remain in the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock to continue the technical discussions.

In his message, Araghchi said the first real test of the understandings reached would be this “deconfliction” method for Lebanon, which has emerged as the biggest threat to the agreement signed by the US and Iran last week.

Over the weekend, Iran said it had reinstated its blockade in the strait of Hormuz in protest at the continued Israeli strikes on Lebanon and that Trump was allowing Israel to breach the MOU. The memorandum calls for a ceasefire on all fronts, but Israel killed more than 30 people in attacks on Saturday in central and southern Lebanon.

Despite the US military denying that the strait had been closed, Trump responded strongly to the threat on Sunday, saying: “You close it and you won’t have a country. You won’t even make it back to your fucking country.”

The US president also weighed in on the situation in Lebanon, writing on social media: “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid proxies in Lebanon from causing trouble … If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again.”

Iranian state media said talks had paused after the “publication of an insulting message by the US President”. The Iranian delegation then met with Qatari mediators and left the negotiating site, state media said. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said the Iranian delegation refused to return to the room where talks were held, but messages were still being traded via Pakistani and Qatari mediators.

Speaking to reporters, a senior US diplomat said late on Sunday that the Iranians remained on site and the negotiations were on, according to the Associated Press.

Vance was joined by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Iran was represented by Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, and Araghchi. It was unclear whether Vance was set to continue the talks on Monday. The vice-president told US media that he anticipated staying only a “day or two”.

“The question before us now is how much more can we accomplish together? Can we turn over a new leaf?” Vance said as the talks began.

Vance and his US negotiating team will use the talks to try to reach an agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme. The MOU calls for Iran to, at minimum, dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but many issues – including Tehran’s right to enrich uranium in the future – remain unresolved.

Iran had sought to hold back the nuclear element of the talks until the US blockade of its oil ports was lifted, a clear oil sales sanctions waiver was published, and half of its estimated $24bn in overseas assets were unfrozen and returned to Tehran.

But with the bulk of its preconditions met, the joint mediator’s statement indicated that Iran would now permit some talks to take place on the future of its domestic uranium enrichment and the down blending of its large stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Araghchi acknowledged the most difficult issue remained the future of the Lebanon crisis, describing “the elimination of the conflict in Lebanon as the first real test” of the agreement.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Netherlands, Amsterdam, Europe weather, Europe, Climate crisis, Environment
Title – From mobile jungles to shadow art: how Dutch people try to beat the heat | Netherlands | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/senay-boztas
Link – From mobile jungles to shadow art: how Dutch people try to beat the heat | Netherlands | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T04:00:50.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/22/from-mobile-jungles-to-shadow-art-how-dutch-people-try-to-beat-the-heat

H ouseholds in Amsterdam are being urged to hang their curtains outside their windows as health experts recommend simple hacks to moderate the heatwave rolling across the Netherlands , where homes were built for old-fashioned damp and coldish northern European weather.

In a viral social media post last week, Eline Coolen, the heat coordinator at the city’s public health institute, urged sweaty city-dwellers to rig up temporary curtain rails or drape curtains or sheets outside to stop the sun’s rays reaching their large windows.

The government, meanwhile, has activated a national heatwave plan , with advice on caring for elderly and vulnerable people, and researchers are trialling everything from fake trees to shadow art to cool down pavements and pedestrians.

“In Dutch houses, but also in many houses in northern Europe , you have very big windows,” said Coolen. “We have always built for the winter, when you want as much sun and warmth in your house as possible.

“But every year in Amsterdam alone, 110 people die because of the heat – and that could rise to as many as 600 in the future without serious measures.”

Inspired by the sheets that appear draped over windows in Amsterdam-Noord, where she lives, and a recent trip to Barcelona where people mounted blinds on their balconies, she urged people online to make DIY adjustments – because if you can stop the sun touching your windows, there will be less heat transfer into your house.

It’s a matter of physics, according to Bert Blocken, a professor of mechanical engineering at Heriot-Watt University, who believes in alternatives to energy-guzzling air conditioning.

“Most of the time we spend indoors, even on very beautiful, sunny days, because we’re working or we’re sleeping, when we also recover from heatwaves,” he said.

“We need to keep our buildings cool, ideally without active cooling devices. The climate adaptation of individual buildings is important but still today, many are built with large, glazed facades that generate a lot of heat.”

A huge body of research showed the best way to keep a building cool was simply to keep out the sun, he said. If architects considered a textile striped canopy ugly, there were modern, retractable outdoor blinds.

“The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans did this tens of centuries ago, but sometimes we’re very good at forgetting lessons from the past,” Blocken said. “If I were mayor, my first executive order would be to apply exterior solar shading on all buildings.”

There are three levels of action, according to RIVM, the Netherlands’ national public health institute: behaviour, housing and urban design. Werner Hagens, coordinator of the Dutch heatwave plan, said new research had shown that simple awareness campaigns appeared to reduce deaths during heatwaves .

“You can make changes in the area, more green spaces, you can make changes in the building, like screens and maybe other cooling mechanisms, but you can also give perspectives on how people inside them can minimise heat,” he said. “These temperatures can form a risk for people in vulnerable health … and it reduces the risks.”

A study by the homeowner association Vereniging Eigen Huis found that 23% of people surveyed felt their homes were too hot in a heatwave, although four in five had tried to do what they could to cool them down.

Blocken said that while building owners could whitewash flat roofs and invest in outside blinds, greenery was key: not only green roofs and facades, but large parks, trees and green spaces.

Fake trees, pergolas covered with greenery and mobile “jungle blocks” can all help pedestrians stay cool and even slightly moderate temperatures , according to Jeroen Kluck, a professor of climate resilient cities at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

“There’s always a reason not to do it: there’s limited public space, there’s no more money,” he said. “But it makes the city more attractive, liveble on hot days and it increases biodiversity. If you make shadow, with a nice place to sit underneath and plants that can survive a bit of drought, it all helps.”

Sandra Phlippen, an economist and head of climate strategy at ABN Amro, said it made economic sense for local governments and businesses to invest. “One night of sleep loss [costs] close to €200 [£173],” she said.

“Imagine a street where there are 100 people living, everybody sleeps terribly for three nights because of a heatwave and the next day they’re unproductive. That’s your investment in trees for the whole year.”