For the past few years, Greece has been held up as having a successful immigration policy – a country that has managed to "get a grip" on the small boats that arrive at its sea borders. In a praising tone, Laura Kuenssberg even asked the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis: "Like the UK, Greece has had to grapple with migrants arriving on its shores, but you have really cut the numbers… So do you think there are things we have to learn from you?"
Since July, the country has tested even more controversial solutions – of the kind that Nigel Farage is now championing in the UK. But they haven't exactly delivered on the ground, says Thimios Tzallas, who says if you want to see how Farage's plan for migrants would unravel, and how quickly, just look at Athens.
One political manoeuvre that caught everyone off guard last week was the news that Tony Blair was talking to president Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner about ideas for a post-war Gaza. But this should have surprised no one, says Anne McElvoy, who recalls how friendly Blair was with Kushner's wife and Trump's daughter, Ivana, a number of years ago in Davos and how involved he has been in a number of government resets ever since.
Meanwhile, the Independent's brilliant Trump watcher, Jon Sopel, looks at the recent spate of firings in the US and asks, is America in the grip of the most authoritarian, power-hungry president we have seen? That's an easy question to answer, he says.
And in the week that the price hike of Mounjaro, the medication many are turning to for losing weight, comes into effect, Leah Hardy looks at the next generation of weight loss drugs which could change everything. Medication that means you lose fat, not muscle, could be here sooner than we think.
Meanwhile, half of the UK's calorie intake comes from UPFs, many of which are often disguised as healthy choices (those "high protein" cereal bars and plant-based ready meals might not be as good for us as we would hope). In this piece, nutritionist Rob Hobson tells Hannah Twiggs the top five red flags to spot on labelling and the processed foods that are still okay to put in your supermarket trolley.
And Stephen Armstrong asks, as an old Prodigy T-shirt is going for £900 in Selfridges, are you sitting on concert merch gold? In the 30-year rule of cool, Nineties band T-shirts are being sold for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds. Here's what you need to know about the merchflation trend, which has left Stephen regretting not buying that Oasis T-shirt in 1995 and throwing away his Massive Attack Tee now worth £500.
Until next weekend!
Victoria Harper, Assistant Editor (Premium)
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