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MPs and peers say pitting defence and welfare against each other risks losing public support for increased spending on the militarySenior Labour figures have warned that Rachel Reeves must find alternative ways to increase military spending rather than slashing welfare, saying it risks public support for investment in defence.Pressure has been mounting from Labour backbenchers for the Treasury to urgently agree the defence investment plan (Dip) after George Robertson, a former Nato secretary general, said there was a “corrosive complacency” on defence funding. Continue reading...

Struggle for justice symbolises limitations of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose hearings began 30 years agoDarkness had fallen on 27 June 1985 when Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkonto set off on the 150-mile drive back from a meeting of anti-apartheid activists in the South African city of Port Elizabeth, now known as Gqeberha. They never made it home.About an hour into their journey, as the road wound north from the coast towards their home town of Cradock (now called Nxuba), the four men were pulled over by three white security police officers. They were handcuffed and driven back towards Gqeberha. Continue reading...

Nurul Shah Alam, a nearly blind Rohingya refugee, was left alone in a Buffalo parking lot. His death has been ruled a homicide – what now?On 19 February, the second day of Ramadan, Mohamad Faisal Nurul Amin and his family gathered to pray before sunrise in their apartment on the outskirts of Buffalo, New York. After nearly a year of waiting, they believed their family would be together again. Amin’s father, Nurul Shah Alam, 56, was coming home.“For the first time since we arrived in America, I felt happy,” said Fatima Abdul Roshid, Shah Alam’s wife, speaking through an interpreter. “I thought my husband would be with our two sons and me for Ramadan.” Continue reading...

Government told to focus on transition to mix of wind, solar, tidal and nuclear energyMore drilling in the North Sea would do nothing to improve the UK’s energy security, former military leaders have said, as a new analysis finds no fossil fuel importer is safe from chokepoints in the global supply chain.The government should focus on a rapid transition to a mix of wind, solar, tidal and nuclear energy to ensure the UK’s future security, the former military leaders told the Guardian, as well as a programme of energy efficiency and a “major renewal” of the electricity grid. Continue reading...

More use of two-way charging will earn money for owners and could avoid the need to expand North Sea oil drillingThe Iran war has sent petrol and diesel prices to their highest levels in years, sparked warnings of fuel rationing across Europe and triggered calls for Britain to drill more North Sea oil and gas. But analysis suggests the UK is looking for solutions in the wrong places – and that one of them is sitting on people’s driveways or parked in the street.If more drivers switched electric vehicles, Britain would sharply reduce its petrol and diesel consumption, with every car charged from the grid rather than the pump extending the country’s fuel reserves – and experts say the potential impact goes far beyond that. If more drivers switched to electric vehicles, Britain could sharply reduce its petrol and diesel consumption. Every car charged from the grid rather than the pump extends the country’s fuel reserves – and experts say the potential impact goes far beyond that. Continue reading...

Figuring out what really counts as a galaxy could give us insights into dark matter and potentially shake up astrophysics, cosmology and particle physics, says columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days Continue reading...