The cover-up and human impact of a disastrous error

This week, Britain’s political establishment was left reeling by the news of an extraordinary military leak and an even more extraordinary cover-up.

Our correspondents have spent the past few days making sense of how the personal information of about 18,700 at-risk Afghans was accidentally leaked by a defence official in 2022. And then, how ministers in the former Conservative government used an unprecedented legal superinjunction in 2023 to totally suppress both the data breach itself and a secret £2bn+ scheme to relocate 15,000 Afghans.

Dan Sabbagh, defence and security editor, and Emine Sinmaz, senior reporter, covered the initial lifting of the superinjunction, while this explainer from Esther Addley and this timeline by Kiran Stacey laid out what happened and when. Dan later explored the scale of the fiasco on Today in Focus with Helen Pidd, and also discussed the later revelation that British spies and SAS personnel were among 100-plus Britons included in the data leak.

The decision by a judge to impose the superinjunction meant that journalists were banned from disclosing anything about it – including the fact that the injunction itself existed. Our editorial made clear that keeping such a blanket of secrecy in place for two years was deeply troubling: “In an era of depleted trust in politics, its deployment to keep a serious scandal from public view is also corrosive of democracy. A dangerous precedent has been set.” In our opinion section, columnist Gaby Hinsliff wrote that “if you were to invent a scandal expressly to convince conspiracy theorists they were right all along [about establishment cover-ups] this would be hard to beat” while lawyer Theo Burges, argued that the use of the superinjunction shows how easy it could be for a government to avoid proper scrutiny when “national security” is invoked.

Much of the focus in the UK on this extraordinary case has been on the data leak and the secret relocation scheme. But for the Guardian it’s also critical that we focus on those most impacted: the Afghans on the leaked list who are now terrified about the implication of the data being in the wrong hands.

Since 2001, and especially since the rapid western withdrawal in 2021, our reporters have worked extremely hard in difficult circumstances to foreground the lives of Afghans as their existence has been shaped and reshaped by war and the fall and rise again of the Taliban. One powerful manifestation of that has been through Annie Kelly and others’ work with Zahra Joya and her Rukhshana Media organisation of female journalists, which is still producing extraordinary work from inside Afghanistan.

This week, Zahra worked alongside Emine Sinmaz, Diane Taylor and Deepa Parent to speak to Afghans whose data was leaked and who are fearing for their lives. Diane also wrote a column which drove home what this would mean for a group already neglected and betrayed by the British state. It’s a shocking story with implications that will likely continue to ripple for years.

See you next week.

In comments that reverberated around the world, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert told Emma Graham-Harrison, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, that the Israeli government’s proposals to force the population of Gaza into a camp in Rafah would be ethnic cleansing and that the proposed “humanitarian city” would be a “concentration camp” for Palestinians. Separately Juliette Garside, Manisha Ganguly and Ariane Lavrilleu revealed how profits generated by the US arm of European missile group MBDA for bombs that have killed children in Gaza are being routed through the UK. Writing from inside Gaza, Nour Abo Aisha explained what she believes is driving the plans. On Monday, we also ran Ruaridh Nicoll’s sobering interview with the anonymous author of the Guardian’s Gaza diaries, who talked about the life that has vanished in the last 21 months. And our editorial on Tuesday reflected on the killing of six Palestinian children – and four adults – as they queued for water in a refugee camp: “The children of Gaza have the same rights as children anywhere – to water, to food, to shelter, to education, to play, to hope, to joy. To life. Yet on Sunday, Israel killed Abdullah Yasser Ahmed, Badr al-Din Qarman, Siraj Khaled Ibrahim, Ibrahim Ashraf Abu Urayban, Karam Ashraf al-Ghussein and Lana Ashraf al-Ghussein. They were children. They were loved.”

Following Donald Trump’s abrupt about-face on supplying weapons to Ukraine, while making other Nato countries pay for them, Luke Harding was in Kyiv where he found there was still some confusion around exactly what the US president had agreed to send. Luke also spoke to people in the city who are exhausted and searching for normality amid a massive increase in the number of Russian missile and drone attacks.

In the US, Adam Gabbatt has been closely following the Epstein files fallout which is unfolding into a political crisis for the Trump administration. Our helpful timeline explained how and when the backlash began, and how tensions have escalated this week. Jonathan Freedland discussed the intra-Maga war on Politics Weekly America.

From an Osaka baseball stadium stifling in the summer heat, Justin McCurry reported on how global warming is threatening grassroots sport in Japan, with warnings that by 2060 temperatures will reach levels high enough to prevent children from taking part in outdoor games. Damian Carrington covered a new analysis showing that record-breaking extreme weather is now the new norm in the UK. We continue to expose the countries and corporations driving the crisis: this week we launched a series looking at the planet’s 10 biggest emitters, introduced by this piece from Fiona Harvey about how to negotiate with autocracies.

Science editor Ian Sample reported that eight healthy babies have now been born in the UK following a groundbreaking procedure that creates IVF embryos with DNA from three people. Ian was the first to report the first birth in May 2023.

As artificial intelligence reshapes the jobs market, we spoke to UK graduates who are competing with thousands applying for the same job with almost the same CV. We spoke to recruiters for their advice on how to stand out from the crowd and explored the impact on the economy.

In another enjoyable week of sport, Wimbledon ended with some contrasting finals and some fine writing from, among others, Tumaini Carayol on Jannik Sinner’s victory over Carlos Alcaraz and Jonathan Liew on the pain of Amanda Anisimova’s double-bagel defeat to Iga Świątek. At the women’s Euros, England fans were put through the wringer during the Lionesses’ dramatic win on penalties against Sweden. Jonathan described the team’s shift from shambles to euphoria. Suzanne Wrack summed up the tournament so far (mostly good), while Tom Garry broke the news that Olivia Smith is being signed by Arsenal from Liverpool to become the first £1m player in women’s football. And Gerard Meagher reported on the pride of British Nigerians at Maro Itoje’s ascent to the captaincy of the British & Irish Lions.

I enjoyed Simon Hattenstone’s prickly but wildly entertaining encounter with British TV personality Janet Street-Porter; Prianka Srinivasan and Carly Earl’s trip to the remote Cook Islands in the South Pacific, a nation caught in the geopolitical contest between China and the west; Charlotte Higgins’s interview with director Mstyslav Chernov about his astonishing follow-up to the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol, which was filmed in the trenches using a bodycam; and Tory Shepherd on the remarkable survival story of German backpacker Carolina Wilga, who was found after 11 nights lost in the Australian outback.

As is often the case, our lifestyle section was full of indispensable life advice. Well Actually had a fun set of articles on the joys of ageing (including pieces on the benefits of co-housing and the joy of later-life video gaming). Joel Snape asked experts for the best ways to cope with a bad night’s sleep; we also explored the travails of holidaying-while-vegan; looked at the dirtiest items in your house; and tried to answer the thorny question of when you can invite yourself along to an event.

The Guide, our weekly pop culture newsletter written by Gwilym Mumford, marked its 200th edition on Friday with a detailed look at the movies, music, podcasts, art and more that have shaped the 21st century so far. It’s a fascinating journey from Big Brother to All Fours via World of Warcraft and the White House correspondents’ dinner – do sign up if you don’t receive it already.

Finally, our Long reads section featured two absolutely unmissable pieces this week. The first was top French writer Emmanuel Carrère’s funny and revealing profile of Emmanuel Macron, based on three days he spent with the French president last month in Greenland and at the G7 in Canada. The second was a gripping piece of court reporting by Sophie Elmhirst, who followed the chaotic scenes at the retrial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon, who were found guilty at the Old Bailey this week of the manslaughter of their two-week-old baby.

One more thing … I have a close family member who is living with a devastating form of dementia, and I find it hard to read about. But this article in the New York Times by Lynn Casteel Harper – We May Soon Be Telling a Very Different Kind of Story about Dementia – stopped me in my tracks and matched my experience. “I have seen up close that dementia is not just a decline unto death,” she writes. “It can also involve ascendant humor, compassion and connections beyond the strictly rational.”

Cook this | Ravinder Bhogal’s spicy peanut butter potato salad

The spicy peanut sauce is very adaptable. If you prefer, use any nut or seed butter, such as cashew, almond, sunflower or even tahini instead. It also works poured over noodles and crunchy vegetables for a tasty lunch.

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After the fall of Assad, a new business is booming in Syria: metal detectors. Reporter William Christou tells Michael Safi that the war-ravaged ancient city of Palmyra is covered in holes left by Syrians searching for millennia-old burial sites. Christou explains that the collapse of the security services combined with high levels of poverty after the war have driven people to search for ancient treasures like never before.

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In scenes echoed across southern Europe, Spain’s Canary Islands are suffering from a crisis of too many tourists. As protests across the Mediterranean continue, local people vent their anger at an exploitative, extractive and unsustainable tourism model. But is it still possible to change course?

The Guardian’s crosswords and Wordiply are here to keep you entertained throughout the weekend.