Columnists

Chris Gelken

I rested the book on the arm of my chair and gazed through the living room window at the majestic peaks of the Alborz Mountains rising in the distance. "Wow," I thought, "She just described my day. In fact, she has just described my week, my month and my year." I double-checked the publication date. First released in 2003, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran is a personal memoir of life in Iran before, during and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, up to her departure from the country in 1997.

Charlene Muhammad

Times are getting tougher in the United States, but putting an end to the plight of the poor isn’t high on the political agenda. The number of Americans living in poverty increased last year, but advocates for the poor say the situation is more desperate than the rising numbers.

Cynthia McKinney - Green Party candidate.

The very foundation of the US economy is crumbling underneath our feet. We the people must now seize the time! We have always had the capability of determining our own destiny, but for various reasons, the people failed to elect the leaders who provided the correct political will. There was always some corporate or private special interest that stood in the way of the public good.

Georgia Goodrick and I (left)Albie Espinola

I feel like a real veteran now that I've done three out of the four major fashion weeks (London, Paris and New York) and back for my second season rocking the shows in London town!

Thomas L Blair

Talk of the "end of racism" gives a misleading impression that the long struggle for racial equality has finally been won. Supporters argue that a new generation of younger well-educated Black-elected officials has emerged. Typically, they have moved on from the confrontational politics of the 1960s civil rights era. They herald the advent of a "post-racial nation".

Originating in the US, the post-racial-future ideology has most recently been bandied about in Britain by Mike Phillips, a Guyana-born,novelist-crime writer in The Observer, London, 24 August 2008. However, the facts negate this fanciful and unsubstantiated view applied to British race relations.

Disparity in the health and well-being of Black (African and Caribbean) people is one glaring example of continuing race-based problems. Most shocking, reports show the rates of ill health are worse among Black families and youth born in the UK than they were in the rough-hewn, migrant West Indians in the mid-20th century.

Tom Shales

Debaters: Barack Obama and John McCainJohn McCain wore the more presidential tie - that much can be said for him - but Barack Obama displayed the more presidential temperament, or the kind of demeanor people presumably would want in a president, when the two candidates met at the University of Mississippi last night for their first debate of the campaign.

John Haylett - Editor, Morning Star

Despite the eagerness of some newspapers and commentators to pronounce US President George W. Bush's billions of dollars banking system rescue as a done deal, the haggling continues in Washington. And, true to type, the British prime prime minister has travelled to Washington to place himself if not centre stage at least within camera shot of the decision makers.