25 March 2002

From the Editor…

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Cover story

Should we go to war against these children?

A compliant press is preparing the ground for an all-out attack on Iraq. It never mentions the victims: the young, the old and the vulnerable

Features

Now the good news for America

Suddenly, people want to bowl together again. Trust and community spirit are back. And, reports John Lloyd, it's all thanks to terrorism

The sad truth about child molesters

Johann Harimeets paedophiles at a sex offenders' treatment centre and reaches what, for liberals, will be a dispiriting conclusion

To them that hath . . .

Barbara Gunnell finds that charity has become a vehicle for the poor to give to the rich, and that the whole voluntary sector needs reform

A black actor winning an Oscar? Cut!

Hollywood is still racist and critics open their mouths at their peril

Slobo runs rings round his accusers

In his trial in The Hague, Milosevic, applying the old Marxist-Leninist view that politics is a trial of strength, plays brilliantly to world opinion

America's obsolete weapons

The Pentagon spends shocking amounts on outdated tanks and aircraft. Why? Because securing votes counts for more than military need. Paul Isaacs reports

Bhopal refuses to flip the page

After more than 17 years, thousands of Indians still suffer from the lethal gases that leaked from a US chemical plant. John Elliottreports

Essay

The New Statesman Essay - The decay of the free market

The IMF and the World Bank carry on as if nothing had changed, but it is already clear that we have entered a new era of state power

Arts & Culture

When Ann met Louis

Critics felt that the ingenu Theroux had gone too far, but, says his recent victim Ann Widdecombe, all's fair in fly-on-the-wall (except for bedroom shots)

Body parts

Drama - Jed Mercurio diagnoses the shortcomings of medical fiction

The great game

Mathematics - Simon Singh on "Nash's equilibrium", the brilliant legacy of an unstable mind

Balls and battles

Opera - Peter Conrad is supplied with moral courage at a flawless production of War and Peace

Thin ice

Film - Philip Kerris left cold by an aggressively demotic American adventure

Full of their selves

Television - Andrew Billen finds new reasons to distrust shrinks, pundits and PR men

Satanic glasses

Wine - Roger Scruton gets his just desserts

Books

Slow puncture

My Lover's Lover
Maggie O'Farrell Review, 322pp, £12.99
ISBN 0747271119

The theatre of outrage

A Season with Verona
Tim Parks Secker & Warburg, 447pp, £16.99
ISBN 0436275953

The lone wolf

Denis Healey: A Life in Our Times
Edward Pearce Little, Brown, 634pp, £30
ISBN 0316858943

Paperback reader

Drowning Ruth
Christina Schwarz Headline, 276pp, £5.99
ISBN 0747264651

The skinhead

Mussolini
R J B Bosworth Arnold, 584pp, £25
ISBN 0340731443

A great Englishman

Ernest Bevin: A Biography
Alan Bullock Politico's, 850pp, £30
ISBN 1902301854

Grey romance

The Sex Life of My Aunt
Mavis Cheek Faber and Faber, 282pp, £10.99
ISBN 0571205089

Novel of the week

The Feast of the Goat
Mario Vargas Llosa Faber and Faber, 404pp, £16.99
ISBN 0571207715

Tiananmen Square

20 years on

Desperately seeking democracy

Nina Power

Newspeak's legacy

Bamboozle, baffle and blindside

Television

Simon Schama

Simplistic Simon says: “Look at me, everyone!”

Theatre

Liberal guilt

Watch out for the bleeding-heart liberal

Vernon Bogdanor

Worse than Profumo

End of the party

Nicky Wire

The way I see it

Nicky Wire: The way I see it

Vote!

Will China rule the world?

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