18 October 2004

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

America's next target

By keeping the rest of the world guessing about its nuclear capacity, Tehran has raised talk of war to dangerous levels in Washington and Tel Aviv

By Barbara Smith

Features

No longer fooled by the west

By Ali M Ansari

When Britain failed to help liberal Iranians depose their autocratic regime, it lost crucial allies

Let's not panic about pensions

By Richard Reeves

There is no "longevity crisis", only decisions to be made about how we pay for retirement

Hopi candles for the worried well

By Theodore Dalrymple

The NHS plan for taxpayers to fund hocus-pocus marks a historic betrayal of science

Let the courtship begin

By Antonio Maqueda

Britain's politicians had better start listening to ethnic minorities: they need their votes

Writers at war

By David Cox

The literary world loves a feud, but a fierce row is threatening English PEN's very existence. The casualties may be imprisoned authors around the world

Why does Tony fear the G-word?

By Becky Tinsley

The people of Darfur have been murdered, raped, forced to leave their land and abandon their livelihoods. Yet the British government says that claims of genocide are exaggerated

Getting better all the time

By Liam Vaughan

The New Statesman and Fellows' Associates, with the support of Northgate Information Solutions, have organised six regional round-table discussions on community justice. At the first meeting in Cardiff, participants from a range of sectors focused on well-being in Wales

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Expect Labour to find one old weapon

The Politics Column

Politics - John Kampfner on the man who would be Gladstone

By John Kampfner

The man who would be Gladstone is unfurling all kinds of visionary reforms. The problem is that, for the electorate, the question of Iraq simply won't fade away

John Pilger cheers the islanders fighting dirty tricks

By John Pilger

More than 30 years ago, the British expelled the inhabitants of Diego Garcia so the US could establish a military base. Now the government's dirty tricks are being challenged in court

Darcus Howe exonerates the countryside of racism

By Darcus Howe

Trevor Phillips knows as well as I do that rural racism is not the problem here

Amanda Platell witnesses Peter Hain being booed

By Amanda Platell

On Any Questions, the studio audience booed and jeered when Peter Hain defended the war

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Return of the Native

By Louise Jury

With low-budget, politically searching British pictures, foreign-language movies and restored classics from the archives, it could only be the London Film Festival. Louise Jury gives a sneak preview of cinema's most determinedly uncommercial love-in