The human side of an issue dominating global politics

Last year the number of people forced from their homes around the world was equivalent to the population of London. The story of what happens to those forced to flee is one of the biggest of our times. It is a story that has radically reshaped global politics in the past decade as political leaders use the perceived threat of migration as a toxic political weapon.

To challenge those narratives, our reporters try to look at the lives behind the statistics. A powerful example came this week when Amy Hawkins, our senior China correspondent, wrote a dramatic dispatch from Bihać in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There, she met a man (whom we identified only as Zhang) who is one of a fast-growing number of Chinese people who are hoping to make it to the EU to escape the political repression of their homeland. Instead, he is stranded with his two young children at the Croatian border.

Amy’s piece reminded me of some notable Guardian projects in the wake of the Arab spring and the Syrian civil war, when an unprecedented number of people headed for western Europe. These included John Domokos’s film We Walk Together, an intense closeup account of the journey on foot of 2,000 refugees heading from Budapest to the Austrian border. It’s still heartstopping to watch, nine years later. In 2021, Guardian Documentaries produced the Emmy-winning Get Away from the Target, a startling film by Ed Ou from onboard a refugee rescue ship as it attempted to rescue a migrant boat against armed threats from the Libyan coastguard. Our correspondent Lorenzo Tondo has also done great work in this area, including as part of the team of reporters who last year revealed the vast number of unmarked graves along the EU’s migration routes.

The story of those trying to make it across the US-Mexico border has become a defining feature of November’s US election, as well as the subject of rhetoric from Donald Trump and his supporters. We’ve done some important reporting in the wake of the Biden administration’s border crackdown, including this piece by Lorena Figueroa and Amanda Ulrich which spoke to those stuck at the border with nowhere to go.

This is a story reflected across the world. This week we talked to people in Israel and Lebanon forced to flee the escalating destruction near the border. Ongoing wars, political crackdowns and the climate crisis will mean even more people seeking shelter in distant countries. It’s our duty to tell their stories, and through them help our readers understand how they are shaping our domestic and global politics.

As tensions continued to escalate in the Middle East, and Israel rejected calls for a 21-day ceasefire, William Christou in Beirut and Lorenzo Tondo in Jerusalem described the impact of Israel’s devastating airstrikes on southern Lebanon after the country’s deadliest day since the end of the 1975-90 civil war. Jason Burke examined the 40-year shadow war between Israel and Hezbollah and Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem, who was in Lebanon during the last war between the two, looked at how advancing Israeli ground troops in 2006 had encountered a dug-in and challenging adversary even though their air force controlled the skies.

As part of her reporting on the horrific trial of Dominique Pelicot, Angelique Chrisafis visited Mazan and painted a picture of the southern French village where Gisèle Pelicot was allegedly drugged by her husband and raped by as many as 80 men.

A deep dive into the 2024 UK summer riots, compiled using exclusive court data, has challenged the assumptions about how and why the riots happened. There were fascinating insights from our data reporting team, who found the rioters were local, left behind and prey to populist politics. Our North of England editor, Josh Halliday, has been covering the sentencing of some of the youngest rioters to find out why they took part and concluded very few of them held openly racist views, but that they wanted to belong to something.

It was Labour’s first conference as the UK’s party of government in 15 years, but it began under a cloud after rows about freebies and anger over the removal of a winter fuel payment for pensioners. On a lively edition of our Today in Focus podcast, Jessica Elgot examined to what extent prime minister Keir Starmer’s speech had managed to lift the gloom, while Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey picked over the speech.

The number of women accusing the late Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed of sexual harassment and rape continues to grow. Daniel Boffey looked at the role John Macnamara, Al Fayed’s security chief, was said to have played in intimidating female Harrods staff members and shutting down allegations against his boss. Marina Hyde was uncompromising in her condemnation of those who enabled Al Fayed’s alleged abuse.

Another week, another strange US election animal story. Stephanie Kirchgaessner revealed in this exclusive how the brains behind the controversial rightwing Project 2025 allegedly admitted killing a neighbour’s dog with his shovel – because it was barking too loudly.

An investigation by Hilary Beaumont and Nina Lakhani revealed that fossil fuel lobbyists and lawmakers have been uniting behind the scenes and across US states to promote laws to crackdown on peaceful protests against oil and gas expansion that could result in non-violent climate and environmental activists being jailed for up to 10 years.

Afghan women held a secret summit about how to make the Taliban accountable for its human rights abuses. It came a few weeks after the Taliban published new laws banning women’s voices from being heard in public, because female “voices were considered an intimate part of their body”. Annie Kelly covered the landmark meeting in a strong episode of Today in Focus.

Guardian Australia’s Nick Evershed always has innovative ideas of how to present data. This week I enjoyed his visualisation of the growing number of vaping shops and tobacconists in Australia, told through charts made of cigarettes.

I loved drama at school and enjoyed reading about theatre professionals including actor David Oyelowo, writer James Graham and set designer Es Devlin who shared their stories of the transformative power of school drama.

Our consumer champions do sterling work each week clawing back money for UK readers who have been messed around by big companies. One of them, Miles Brignall, signed off this week by sharing the lessons he’s learned from 20 years of helping people, including the best way to complain and the only brand of consumer appliances he will buy.

One more thing … This year’s Booker prize shortlist is full of exciting titles. I’ve just finished Stone Yard Devotional, a powerful meditation on women, ageing and the climate crisis by the brilliant Australian novelist Charlotte Wood, and loved it.

Cook this | Georgina Hayden’s roast courgettes, feta and preserved lemon

This throw-it-together tray of Mediterranean goodness is great as a side or light meal – “on a slab of sourdough, perhaps,” Georgina suggests.

Watch this | Back from the dead: could AI end grief?

Tech entrepreneur Justin Harrison is on a mission to fundamentally change how we experience loss, using artificial intelligence to recreate the essence of dead loved ones from their digital footprint. The Guardian visited him and one of his clients to attempt to understand his aims.

Listen to this | Comfort Eating with Grace Dent

The singer Rag’n’Bone Man joins Grace for a new serving of Comfort Eating. He and Grace discussed how oven chips are always either too burnt or raw, his dreams of opening a pub, and the day Shania Twain asked him out for lunch.

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