Movim • The Guardian

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New laws to be considered after ‘harrowing stories’ from ex-Vodafone franchisees

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

Concerns about power imbalance in franchise agreements amid claims over firm’s treatment of small-business owners

The government will consider new laws to correct the power imbalance in franchise agreements in response to the “harrowing stories” of small business people running Vodafone stores.

The move follows allegations of suicide and attempted suicide among shopkeepers who had agreed to deals to run retail outlets for the £18bn telecoms company, which were revealed by the Guardian on Monday .

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Guardian photographs of 2025 – own a fine art print

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

Explore a curated selection of images by Guardian photographers from 2025. Available to buy through the Guardian Print Shop. Produced on premium heavyweight fine art paper, the prints are supplied with a Guardian Archive certificate of authenticity

Order your print here

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Guardian photographs of 2025 – own a fine art print

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

Explore a curated selection of images by Guardian photographers from 2025. Available to buy through the Guardian Print Shop. Produced on premium heavyweight fine art paper, the prints are supplied with a Guardian Archive certificate of authenticity

Order your print here

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New laws to be considered after ‘harrowing stories’ from ex-Vodafone franchisees

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

Concerns about power imbalance in franchise agreements amid claims over firm’s treatment of small-business owners

The government will consider new laws to correct the power imbalance in franchise agreements in response to the “harrowing stories” of small business people running Vodafone stores.

The move follows allegations of suicide and attempted suicide among shopkeepers who had agreed to deals to run retail outlets for the £18bn telecoms company, which were revealed by the Guardian on Monday .

chevron_right

Guardian photographs of 2025 – own a fine art print

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

Explore a curated selection of images by Guardian photographers from 2025. Available to buy through the Guardian Print Shop. Produced on premium heavyweight fine art paper, the prints are supplied with a Guardian Archive certificate of authenticity

Order your print here

chevron_right

New laws to be considered after ‘harrowing stories’ from ex-Vodafone franchisees

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

Concerns about power imbalance in franchise agreements amid claims over firm’s treatment of small-business owners

The government will consider new laws to correct the power imbalance in franchise agreements in response to the “harrowing stories” of small business people running Vodafone stores.

The move follows allegations of suicide and attempted suicide among shopkeepers who had agreed to deals to run retail outlets for the £18bn telecoms company, which were revealed by the Guardian on Monday .

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As the UK looks to invest in nuclear, here’s what it could mean for Britain’s environment

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

In this week’s newsletter: The government’s bid to speed up nuclear construction could usher in sweeping deregulation, with experts warning of profound consequences for nature

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When UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced last week that he was “implementing the Fingleton review”, you can forgive the pulse of most Britons for failing to quicken.

But behind the uninspiring statement lies potentially the biggest deregulation for decades, posing peril for endangered species, if wildlife experts are to be believed, and a likely huge row with the EU.

2025 ‘virtually certain’ to be second- or third-hottest year on record, EU data shows

Just 0.001% hold three times the wealth of the poorest half of humanity, report finds

‘Even the animals seem confused’: a retreating Kashmir glacier is creating an entire new world in its wake

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Joyride by Susan Orlean review – an extraordinary, curious life

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

An exuberant, inspiring memoir from the New Yorker writer and author of The Orchid Thief

In 2017, 10 years after Susan Orlean profiled Caltech-trained physicist turned professional origami artist Robert Lang for the New Yorker, she attended the OrigamiUSA convention to take Lang’s workshop on folding a “Taiwan goldfish”. I was with her, a radio producer trying to capture the sounds of paper creasing as Orlean attempted to keep pace with the “Da Vinci of origami”, wincing when her goldfish’s fins didn’t exactly flutter in hydrodynamic splendour.

It was Orlean in her element: an adventurous student, inquisitive and exacting, fully alive to the mischief inherent to reporting – and primed to extract some higher truth. “When we first met you said something to me I’ve never forgotten,” Orlean told Lang. “That paper has a memory – that once you fold it, you can never entirely remove the fold.” Was that, she wondered, an insight about life, too?

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Joyride by Susan Orlean review – an extraordinary, curious life

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 12 December 2025

An exuberant, inspiring memoir from the New Yorker writer and author of The Orchid Thief

In 2017, 10 years after Susan Orlean profiled Caltech-trained physicist turned professional origami artist Robert Lang for the New Yorker, she attended the OrigamiUSA convention to take Lang’s workshop on folding a “Taiwan goldfish”. I was with her, a radio producer trying to capture the sounds of paper creasing as Orlean attempted to keep pace with the “Da Vinci of origami”, wincing when her goldfish’s fins didn’t exactly flutter in hydrodynamic splendour.

It was Orlean in her element: an adventurous student, inquisitive and exacting, fully alive to the mischief inherent to reporting – and primed to extract some higher truth. “When we first met you said something to me I’ve never forgotten,” Orlean told Lang. “That paper has a memory – that once you fold it, you can never entirely remove the fold.” Was that, she wondered, an insight about life, too?