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
THE FATE of Afghanistan also shows how Western forces approached the September 11 attacks as a test of national virility rather than a crime. The hijackers of the aeroplanes largely came from Saudi Arabia, with a couple from the United Arab Emirates.
However, neither the US nor Britain took any significant action against Saudi Arabia, because they are an economic and military ally. They’ve got a lot of oil and money and their generally reactionary politics fit well enough with Western foreign policy.
Bin Laden, whose organisation had a role in the attacks which the Western powers said was crucial, was in Afghanistan in 2001. But he wasn’t there for any of the subsequent 20 years of occupation.
On International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, HUGH LANNING warns that the US-led “Comprehensive Plan” entrenches decades of Western complicity in Israel’s domination and denial of Palestinian land and rights
ANDREW MURRAY looks back on the ignominious career of the former US vice-president, who died earlier this week
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



