In this week’s New Statesman, we report on the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that has been ravaged by war for nearly two decades. In our cover story, David Patrikarakos warns that Congo’s war will once more become Africa’s war as the largest UN peacekeeping mission in history is asked to leave. Also this week, we feature a series of philosophical aphorisms from Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s new book The Bed of Procrustes.
Elsewhere, in the politics column, Mehdi Hasan explains why Ed Miliband should reject conventional wisdom, David Blanchflower warns that Spain could be next in line for a bailout and Alice Miles isn’t impressed by the first episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska.
Also don’t miss Andrew Adonis’s review of David Laws’s new book, Rachel Cooke on the vampiric Peter Mandelson and Philippe Sands on why the coalition must repeal Britain’s shameful anti-terrorist legislation.