Young, gifted, black…and very confused

Is Britain today a bastion of tolerance, a model of multicultural living? Or just another battleground in the war on white supremacy? At street level, leading British novelist Diran Adebayo finds truth in both extremes

Not again

Two months and a day after the apocalyptic attack on the World Trade Centre, New Yorkers were yesterday glued to their TV screens once more, watching plumes of smoke rise from the wreckage of an air crash. Here, two writers describe reactions to the city's latest disaster.

Leader of the pack

Pulitzer prize winner Seymour Hersh works in a tiny Washington office far from the Afghan front line but, at 64, he's crowning his glorious career by beating the competition to the biggest scoops of the war. By Peter Pringle.

Species barrier

A photograph showing the results of a US air strike on an Afghan village, which appeared in newspapers last month, inspired Tony Harrison to write this poem.

Nile blues

Britain and the US claim the support of most Middle Eastern governments in the war against terrorism, but what do ordinary Arabs think? Do they see it as the west versus Islam? And what do they make of Tony Blair? Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif visited Cairo to find out.

Wrong wars

Martin Woollacott asks if we have learned the lessons of the Balkans and the Gulf

Familiar ground

Much has changed in the 120 years since British forces last fought in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, finds Justin Cartwright, there are a number of ominous parallels.

No job for a woman?

Julie Wheelwright on the forces that kept women out of the forces in Men, Women and War: Do Women Belong in the Front Line? by Martin van Creveld and War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System by Joshua S Goldstein

A wealth of knowledge

It began with one man's obsession with ships and grew into a £100m publishing empire. And Jane's is still the company the media turn to when they need military expertise. Paul Kelso reports.