21 August 2006
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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
Cover story
Al-Qaeda: Britain in its sights
For Osama Bin Laden there is nowhere quite like Britain. Not only are we the loyal, vulnerable partner of his arch-enemy, but there is no shortage of young Britons ready for martyrdom. All he has to do is train them and point them at targets
Features
Cuba: Braced for change
Can the ailing Castro's revolution survive a handover of power? Alice O'Keeffe, one of the few journalists granted access to the country during the tense interregnum, tests the mood in Havana
Changing the world one boy at a time
More at risk than girls of committing suicide, underperforming at school and turning to criminal behaviour, young men are in crisis. Can a new scheme that uses myths and mentors help to show them the way to manhood?
Regulars
The Politics Column
It doesn't have to be Gordon's
Labour MPs know the Chancellor isn't fit to be PM, yet they are accepting him by default. For the good of us all, they should put up an alternative
Fat-buster duster
Set by Valerie Yule We asked for dual-purpose exercises that would a) help you lose weight while fighting heart disease and b) get the house clean and in order
Culture
We didn't start the fire
In the scorching Nevada Desert, thousands of revellers gather each summer to create a beautiful temporary city where art rules and everything is free
Peace and the PlayStation
Forget guns and cars - the best new games are about love and rainbow plankton.
Theatre
Despatches from the front line
Reportage and Middle Eastern crisis lend a raw tone to this year's Fringe Edinburgh Fringe Festival Various venues
Film
Who's the weirdest of them all?
Drug paranoia rules in a dark and gripping thriller A Scanner Darkly (15) dir: Richard Linklater
Television
Who asks the questions round here?
The tables are turned on our top political journalists, to oddly little effect Tony Benn: interviewing the interviewers Channel 4
Radio
The guilty delights of poodle rock
Digital listeners love big hair, tight jeans and epic solos
Books
The ideas corner: The savage within
We are not as far removed from barbarism as we like to think, warns John Gray
The month of cherry blossom
Elegiac and exquisite, the fictions of Yasunari Kawabata were among the most memorable of the 20th century. Jason Cowley on a writer who knew the value of silence
A matter of perspective
The Objective Eye: colour, form and reality in the theory of art John Hyman University of Chicago Press, 286pp, £20 ISBN 0226365530
Sibling rivalries
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox Maggie O'Farrell Headline Review, 245pp, £14.99 ISBN 0755308433
All-star rogues' gallery
Under Arrest: a history of the 20th century in mugshots Giacomo Papi (Granta Books, 191pp, £10) ISBN 1862078920
Beware of the frogs
Touché: a French woman's take on the English Agnès Catherine Poirier Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 192pp, £9.99 ISBN 0297852345
Interesting times
A Disorder Peculiar to the Country Ken Kalfus Simon & Schuster, 237pp, £12.99 ISBN 0743286081
Rocks of ages
Megalith: 11 journeys in search of stones ed. Damian Walford Davies Gomer Press, 128pp, £9.99
Bucks and dandies
Regency Recollections: Captain Gronow's guide to life in London and Paris ed. Christopher Summerville Ravenhall Books, 207pp, £16.99 ISBN 1905043074
