Jess Cartner-Morley’s December style essentials: Icelandic puffers, cowgirl belts and the ultimate PJs

Jess Cartner-Morley’s December style essentials: Icelandic puffers, cowgirl belts and the ultimate PJs

Our fashion editor picks out the items that’ll keep you in style no matter how cold and icy it gets • The best coats for winter First things first: this is absolutely not a last-minute-Christmas shopping guide. Yes, I am fully aware that it’s December already, but I intend to float serenely above the rising panic. It drives me absolutely nuts the way that Christmas shopping from mid-November onward is now labelled as “last minute”, as if gift-buying is a two-month full-time activity. Please can we normalise starting your Christmas shopping in December? Otherwise, we will all go insane and bankrupt. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk. Here are some lovely things to buy – for the people you love, or for your good self – this month. Continue reading...

‘We’re true guardians of the forest’: quilombola community near Belém demand land rights and recognition

‘We’re true guardians of the forest’: quilombola community near Belém demand land rights and recognition

Short boat ride from Cop30 host, Afro-descendant residents of Menino Jesus say their voices are not being heard Walk through the conference centre where the recent UN climate talks were held and representations of Indigenous people and culture were everywhere, from the spear-carrying, fiery-headed Cop30 mascot Curupira to huge mural-sized photos of people navigating the Amazon in dugout canoes and the many protests demanding dialogue outside. Yet a short boat ride down the river from Belém, into the forest itself, takes you to another forest-dwelling community also fighting for further recognition within the Cop process. The quilombola community of Menino Jesus has existed for six generations. Quilombolas are the descendants of former enslaved people who fled into the forest as a site of refuge. Over hundreds of years, they established a unique way of life separate from mainstream Brazilian society, living in harmony with nature as fugitives protected by the jungle. Continue reading...

The Metro daily cartoon by Guy Venables

The Metro daily cartoon by Guy Venables

As US Forces continue to concentrate in the Caribbean ahead of the holidays, President Donald Trump has announced all skies around Venezuela are ‘closed’. There have been rumblings of a potential conflict between Venezuela and the United States for months now, but tensions are coming to a head.