Columnists

Last September Subhaan Younis, a young Glaswegian, was discussing the Iraq war with Charlotte McCay in the shop of the city's Moathouse hotel. He asked if he could show her something that would give her nightmares. When she responded, "Aye, right," Younis held out his video phone and played her a clip he had downloaded of a hostage in Iraq being beheaded.

It is demanding financial compensation to spend on sports development in the borough. The Hackney council logo, a round "H" surrounded by the words "The London Borough of Hackney", which appears on public buildings, council vans, staff uniforms and street signs across Hackney, has been used by Nike on T-shirts, vests, trainers and footballs designed to promote Nike's grassroots football campaign for the World Cup. As well as demanding money, the council has said that it wants assurances from Nike that all this kit has been ethically produced.

The US war on Iraq and its threat against Iran are products of US capitalism's drive for global hegemony. That is what we have always argued in SR.

But there is another interpretation to be found on both the fringes of the anti-war movement and in the Muslim majority regions of the world. It holds that the driving force behind the war is the "Jewish lobby" in the US.

I never had much time for Margaret Hodge when she was the leader of Islington council back in the 1980s, and I never knew what wrong the people of Barking, one of London's poorest areas, had done to deserve this millionaire as their MP.

But her behaviour in recent weeks has really put her beyond the pale. I simply don't believe her claim that eight out of ten white families she canvassed in her constituency were "tempted to vote BNP". Even the BNP don't believe that, or they would have put up a full slate of candidates across all the wards in the constituency.

Morrissey remains one of the most enigmatic and compelling figures in recent pop history. As the lead singer of The Smiths, arguably one of the most important indie bands of the 1980s, his poetic lyrics, romantic anguish, ambiguous sexuality and vision of a troubled and alienated Britain cut with many a sensitive soul. His solo career has followed a similar trajectory. But I want to start this column in a way that I don't mean to continue. The Morrissey of the past is someone I have loathed and hated, but at times sympathised with.

The arrival of the internet has given a new lease of life to this attempt to represent the dynamic of the real world of exploitation, violence and oppression behind the smooth surfaces of a society that freezes appearance and formally separates the world into artificially distinct categories.

Kurtz immediately called paramedics. On arrival, the response team noticed assorted laboratory equipment in the home - petri dishes, microscopes and test tubes. Nervously, they alerted the FBI. The Joint Terrorism Task Force soon descended on the Kurtz home and agents and confiscated Hope's body, and gathered a variety of materials for scientific analysis. They also impounded the artist's passport, lesson plans, books, car, computers, and even his cat.

The hypocrisy of the Western governments' threats to Iran should be obvious. Iran does not have nuclear weapons, whereas nearby states like Israel, India and Pakistan do, as of course do all the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Compare and contrast, as the exam papers say. A heist called the biggest robbery in Britain takes place where £50 million in notes is stolen from a depot. Days of headline news follow, including a dramatic incident where police shoot out the tyres of a car, the eventual recovery of some money and the detention of suspects.

why has the success of Crash at the Oscars been treated with such scorn? For donkey's years the Oscar for Best Picture has gone to, well, donkeys, and no one gave a damn. This year the Academy gives the statuette to a halfway decent movie, and all hell breaks loose.