Contrary to “Progressive liberalism is the enemy of tolerance” (Comment, last week, page 47), the Muslim Council of Britain is not “demanding a blasphemy law”. A quote in the article about Muslim communities needing to be able to respond to accusations against Muslims, or against the Prophet, “in a more effective way” was taken from an interview with Al-Arabiya given by MCB assistant general secretary Miqdaad Versi on ways of reaching a better understanding with the press, not a blasphemy law. Apologies.
“Meet Britain’s new generation of fearless young female playwrights” (In Focus, last week, page 39) twice wrongly stated that there was only one woman dramatist in Michael Billington’s book, The 101 Greatest Plays. In fact, the Guardian critic lists six. Apologies.
Claims that cosmonauts were “burned alive as they fireballed through re-entry” and that a “saltwater grave awaited astronauts on splashdown” (“Khrushchev, Kennedy ... the Kinks”, Books, 15 Nov, page 35), were not drawn from the books under review but from the late James Shefter’s book The Race, though none of the assertions can be substantiated. We described this as “the cost of progress in the 1950s” but there were no manned spaceflights until 1961.
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