09 September 2002

From the Editor…

Welcome to the New Statesman website. Whether you are a new reader or an existing one - online or via the magazine - I hope you'll enjoy the great writing, fresh ideas and provocative debate that make the New Statesman Britain's award-winning current affairs weekly

Jason Cowley, Editor, New Statesman

Cover story

In the name of the law

11 September - The terrorist attacks on America showed the peculiar vulnerability of the modern world economy. Can we develop a legal order that adequately protects it?

By Robert Cooper

Features

When the whirlwind blows

By John Pilger

11 September - John Pilger finds cause for optimism as the world awakens to the true rapacity of US power and detects, even in America, the beginnings of a new rejection

The honeymoon is over, Mr Bush

By Andrew Stephen

11 September - Hit by financial scandals and a weakening economy, Americans are losing patience with a president who, a year ago, could do no wrong. Andrew Stephen reports

Bin Laden belongs to me

By Jason Cowley

11 September - A mysterious terrorist. A secret cell of fanatics. An audacious attack on a world-famous target . . . the stuff of novels. But are the writers robbing graves?

Second thoughts

By George Hay and Abbie Fielding-Smith

11 September - The attacks prompted a volley of opinion and a wave of emotion. Have the commentators changed their minds? Interviews

Brits lead the workers of the world

By Robert Taylor

The crush of civilisations

By John Lloyd

The Afghan peasant has a faith that has tunnelled mountains and smashed cities. Can anyone really hope to convert him to western values? John Lloyd reports from Kabul

Let us now praise President Bush

By Nick Cohen

A new American law would stop companies defrauding pensioners. But Blair is lobbying Washington for UK companies to be exempt. He is being ignored

Slaves in the land of the free

By Helena Smith

Behind the doors of some of America's poshest, and supposedly most socially conscious, homes lies a scandal. Helena Smith reports

Interview

NS Interview - John Monks

By John Monks

The head of the TUC speaks out against war in Iraq and issues a veiled warning to Blair that he faces more strikes. John Monks interviewed by John Kampfner

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

The weakness of governments

Darcus Howe wants a battle between two blacks

By Darcus Howe

For Mayor of London, why can't we have a battle between two blacks?

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Film

Sleepless in Los Angeles

By Philip Kerr

Film - Philip Kerr is impressed by two stars who haven't lost their appetite for acting

Television

Up hill, 'cross moor and down dale

By Andrew Billen

Television - Andrew Billen flinches from the melodrama of a modern Wuthering Heights

The Fan

The fan - Hunter Davies praises Big Ron's new silver wig

By Hunter Davies

Big Ron has become Herr Ron, with a sleek silver wig and new specs

Books

Jorie (& Jamie)

By Joyce Carol Oates

An exclusive short story by Joyce Carol Oates

The ultimate sacrifice. At a certain intensity, the will to suicide becomes a deranged affirmation of life. J G Ballard sees similarities between the Japanese soldiers he met as a boy and the terrorists of al-Qaeda

By J G Ballard

Kamikaze: Japan's suicide gods Albert Axell and Hideaki Kase Longman, 274pp, £19.99 ISBN 058277232X

Golden brown

By Hugo Barnacle

Dead Air Iain Banks Little, Brown, 408pp, £16.99 ISBN 0316860549

The game of war

By Andrew Hussey

The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers Jean Baudrillard, translated by Chris Turner Verso, 52pp, £8 ISBN 1859844111 Ground Zero Paul Virilio, translated by Chris Turner Verso, 82pp, £8 Welcome to Desert of the Real Slavoj Zizek Verso, 154pp, £8