SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
MAJOR GENERAL James Cowan, who led the British Army operation in Afghanistan as the head of Task Force Helmand in 2009-10, says Britain needs to “swallow our pride and support a moderate wing of the Taliban” to avert a “catastrophe,” a “humanitarian disaster” and a “civil war.”
Major General Cowan now runs the Halo Trust, a de-mining charity, which has over 2,000 staff still working in Afghanistan removing deadly mines and “IEDs” planted during decades of war.
The fact that the man who led the life-and-death fight against the Taliban for Britain now argues this suggests that a British deal with the Taliban is inevitable – it’s just a question of when. Major General Cowan’s argument is that sooner is better than later.
Modi has rolled out the carpet for the Taliban in New Delhi — and we shouldn’t be surprised. They have more in common than you might think, argues Bhabani Shankar Nayak
US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
As the cover-ups collapse, IAN SINCLAIR looks at the shocking testimony from British forces who would ‘go in and shoot everyone sleeping there’ during night raids — illegal, systematic murder spawned by an illegal invasion



