03 July 2006

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

The suicide bomber in his own words

Shazad Tanweer wrote the statement below on his university application form. Five years later this optimistic young man blew himself up with seven others. What changed him?

By Shiv Malik

Features

Where were you?

Five things you might have missed last week

The task force was a sham

By Martin Bright

Whitehall documents leaked to the New Statesman reveal that the Foreign Office manipulated the task force on extremism, set up to respond to the bombings

I'm a survivor, but not a victim

By Alice O'Keeffe

Has victimhood become a badge of honour? Alice O’Keeffe, who was on one of the bombed trains, argues that we should value resilience more

The day we knew would come

By Lucy Chapman

When it happened we were ready, recalls Lucy Chapman, a London hospital doctor

Can British Islam change?

By Ziauddin Sardar

Muslims have become the country's most politically aware faith group, but they are divided about what must happen now

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Al-Qaeda: still a step ahead

By Zaki Chehab

Why the organisational skills of Osama Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri continue to outwit the west

Before the next attack

By Bruce Ackerman

After every terrorist attack, governments respond with ever more repressive laws, tearing up civil liberties in the search for greater security. It is a cycle that cannot continue. Bruce Ackerman proposes an alternative

Terrorism around the globe

By Sohani Crockett

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

A terrorist threat and a crisis of trust

Diary

The rebranding of Germany

By Jason Cowley

It was hot and I was late. There was a little tussle and I was soon in the company of the German military. So not arrested exactly, but not entirely innocent, either

Politics

Familiarity and contempt

By Martin Bright

Brown is convinced he must confirm his centrist credentials to prepare for the takeover, but it is a strange moment to spark civil war. A three-way contest would not be a foregone conclusion

Commons Confidential

Dinner of despair

By Kevin Maguire

This England

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The bug's story No 3935

Set by Stan Knafler: The people of Malham (population: 120) were baffled at the news that their parish hall had been bugged, reported the Observer. The bug was found in a 13-amp wall socket. But what led to the discovery?

Arts & Culture

Rider on the storm

By Richard Cork

Haunted by visions of apocalypse and the approach of war, Kandinsky aimed to create a global "spiritual awakening". Richard Cork on the mystic who revolutionised 20th-century painting