Kashmir in crisis / Carney’s carnival: inside the 2 May Guardian Weekly

. UK edition

The covers of the Global and North America editions of the 2 May edition of Guardian Weekly.
The covers of the Global and North America editions of the 2 May edition of Guardian Weekly. Illustration: Sebastian Thibault (Global); Leon Neal/Getty; Guardian Design (N America)/The Guardian

Tension between India and Pakistan. Plus Canada’s rebuke to Trump

The covers of our Global and North America editions of the Guardian Weekly take different directions this week.

The North America edition showcases Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, who achieved a remarkable victory in Monday’s federal election. As our reporter in Ottawa Leyland Cecco explains, Carney reversed a huge Liberal party poll deficit after voters backed him over his conservative opponent, Pierre Poilievre, to stand up to the threats of Donald Trump. Can the dour but tough former central banker succeed in fending off the aggressive advances of his US counterpart?

For all other international editions of the magazine, the cover focuses on the crisis over Kashmir, where a terrorist attack on tourists last week brought relations between India and Pakistan back to boiling point. Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Aakash Hassan and Peter Beaumont report on the latest turmoil engulfing the Himalayan region.

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Five essential reads in this week’s edition

The big story | Kharkiv suffers in the shadow of a peace deal
While US-led negotiations threaten to carve up Ukraine, deadly Russian attacks continue amid deep cynicism about the process. Luke Harding reports from a city under siege

Science | Why f ish farms on the moon aren’t such a wild idea
The Lunar Hatch project is studying whether aquaculture might be able to provide a source of protein for astronauts on space missions. Kim Willsher paid them a visit

Feature | The dirtiest race in Olympic history
How did the 2012 Olympics women’s 1500m get its reputation? Athletes cheated out of medals talk to Esther Addley about what happened – and how the results unravelled

Opinion | Will Pope Francis’s compassionate legacy endure?
Some, especially within the US, see the forthcoming conclave as an opportunity to establish a more conservative leader, says Guardian associate editor Julian Coman

Culture | The genius of Barrie Kosky and his Wagner phantasmagoria
He put Carmen in a gorilla suit and had Das Rheingold’s Erda represented by a naked elderly woman. What are the the opera director’s plans for his edge-of-the-seat Die Walküre? Fiona Maddocks finds out

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What else we’ve been reading

• The photographs of Georgia and train travel pulled me into an inspiring piece on following the old hippie trail as far as it can now go. I’d happily follow in the writer’s footsteps, but would stop in Tbilisi and then take the train back home by a different route. Isobel Montgomery, Guardian Weekly deputy editor

• How did the niche UK publication Dogs Today score an exclusive interview with Barack Obama? And why did Somerset Life get much-coveted access to Johnny Depp? This strange and rare insight into the engine room of UK celebrity journalism is every bit as intriguing as the thought of Jack Sparrow tending his English country garden. Graham Snowdon, Guardian Weekly editor

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Other highlights from the Guardian website

Audio | Why did Just Stop Oil just stop?

Video | Could the West Bank become the next Gaza?

Gallery | Blackouts tip Spain and Portugal into darkness – in pictures

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