14 November 2005

From the Editor…

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Cover story

America's new enemy

Latin Americans have spent the past few years finding their voices. Now they may have the strength to defy their northern neighbour

Features

Scandals threaten Lula

After the passion, the turn-off

Once, we couldn't get enough of our mobiles, but the love affair is coming to an end

'It says something about the nature of Cameron's coterie that it views the leadership campaign as a mock-heroic game where the future of the universe is at stake'

The Etonian pretender to the Tory throne is fiercely resisting attempts to nail down his beliefs. The only clear pattern that is emerging from the leadership contest is that the old class order is reasserting itself. A special report

Interview

NS Interview - Jack Straw

''Tony will go at a time of his own choosing and it won't be soon . . . He's got a great deal more to do''. Jack Straw interviewed

Regulars

At last they have defied Blair

Ziauddin Sardar explains the long history of violence behind Hizb ut-Tahrir

What Hizb ut-Tahrir peddles is escapist fascism that appeals to people who want to be told what to do

Michela Wrong asks why Blair backs a brutal regime

A regime hailed as progressive by Tony Blair has shot women and children in the streets and detained thousands

Village life - Kevin Maguire flies with Big Geordie to Israel, and back

Big Gordie makes two mistakes, Blair's man loses out, and the truth about feasting MPs

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

From Prussia with hate

Lynx and Lamb are Californian twin sisters hoping to become stars. But, as Carolyn O'Hara reveals, their pop-country ballads represent the latest strategy of America's white supremacists

The problem of popularity

Architecture - Giles Worsley on the complicated transition of Zaha Hadid from "unbuildable" architect to ubiquitous global presence

Mauled by John Huston

Encounters - Nicholas Wapshott meets Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, an overnight sensation at 69

Shandy but not bitter

Film - What would a Sterne scholar make of a new version of an "unfilmable" novel? Lana Asfour attends the premiere

Radio - Rachel Cooke

Reduced rather than boiled down, R4's Couples was not Updike-lite, but Essence of Updike

Julian Clary - Chattering classes

Theatre - George Bernard Shaw receives a witty, pretty make-over, writes Julian Clary You Never Can Tell Garrick Theatre, London WC2

John Lyttle - Victorian virtues

Film - Black-and-white morality takes on an unexpected colour, writes John Lyttle The Constant Gardener (15)

Andrew Billen - Ladies' night

Television - In an updated Shakespeare, the girls get all the best lines, writes Andrew Billen Much Ado About Nothing (BBC1)

The fan - Hunter Davies keeps hold of his tickets

My unused ticket to last week's game could yet be part of my pension

Books

Sick to the core. We know that Pop Idol is commercially driven trash. But are most "quality" offerings, such as Lost in Translation, really any better? charlotte raven despairs at the emptiness of modern culture

Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? The encyclopedia of modern life Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur Time Warner Books, 277pp, £9.99 ISBN 0316729531

Out of gear. George Walden on a writer whose sympathies were too broad to be constrained by the cliquishness of English life

The Real Life of Anthony Burgess Andrew Biswell Picador, 434pp, £20 ISBN 0330481703

Curves in motion

Mae West: it ain't no sin Simon Louvish Faber & Faber, 512pp, £20 ISBN 0571219489

Persian gulfs

We Are Iran Nasrin Alavi Portobello Books, 336pp, £12.99 ISBN 1846270014

The American scene

the american scene A new consumer-driven literary prize is vulgar in the true meaning of the word

Fiction - Bloody trail

No Country for Old Men Cormac McCarthy Picador, 309pp, £16.99 ISBN 0330440101

Unending battle

The Utility of Force: the art of war in the modern world General Sir Rupert Smith Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 428pp, £25 ISBN 0713998369

Observations

A national idea goes up in flames

Observations on France

Did Charles Clarke want my views?

Observations on the terror bill

Where 5 November is a way of life

Observations on bonfire night

Fidel Castro

The last revolutionary

The last revolutionary

Steve Richards

On Tory policy

Our future in their hands

Science

Religion and Darwin

Since the dawn  of time

James Macintyre

Miliband's dilemma

Brussels is back with a vengeance

Will Self

On Oscar Wilde

Where the Wilde things are

Film review

Bright Star

Bright Star (PG)

Books

Paul Auster

Invisible

Interview

Alain de Botton

The Books Interview: Alain de Botton

Vote!

Was the government wrong to sack David Nutt?

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