Book review: Waging A Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968 by Thomas E. Ricks.by Ian SinclairPeace NewsApril-May 2023 A long-time war correspondent with the Washington Post, journalist Thomas E. Ricks has turned his attention to the American civil rights movement. Why? ‘The overall strategic thinking that went into the Movement, […]
Research for the Revolution: Interview with James Ozdenby Ian SinclairMorning Star8-9 April 2023 Set up in 2022, according to its website the Social Change Lab “conducts and disseminates social movement research to help solve the world’s most pressing problems”, with a particular interest in environmental protest. This research, it hopes, will “inform advocates, decision-makers and […]
Qatar: what the media isn’t reportingby Ian SinclairMorning Star21 November 2022 ‘Qatar Struggles To Shift Focus Away From Workers’ Rights’. The headline in the Financial Times earlier this month confirms PR-savvy Qatar, hyper aware of the soft power boost hosting the 2022 football World Cup could be expected to create, is having trouble controlling the […]
Book review: Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire by Caroline Elkinsby Ian SinclairPeace NewsFebruary-March 2003 At 875 pages, including a 50-page bibliography and 90 pages of references, this is a huge tome, and a serious investment of time. Those looking for a much shorter primer covering much of the same ground may […]
The Second Superpower: 15 February 2003by Ian SinclairMorning Star15 February 2023 In two key respects, there is a broad consensus about the 15 February 2003 anti-Iraq War march. First, it’s understood to be the largest political demonstration in British history, with over one million people marching in London. Second, it is generally considered a total […]
Keeping the spotlight on the West’s ongoing devastation of Afghanistan and Syriaby Ian SinclairMorning Star21-22 January 2023 Amnesty International’s 1991 Annual Report should be required reading for all media studies and journalism students. “The Iraqi Government headed by President Saddam Hussein had been committing gross and widespread human rights abuses” in the 1980s, including using […]
“This civilization as we know it is finished”: Rupert Read interviewby Ian SinclairMorning Star8 November 2022 Professor Rupert Read has devoted a huge amount of his life to green politics – as a Green Party member, councillor, parliamentary candidate and spokesperson, as an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and in […]
Book review: Why Climate Breakdown Matters by Rupert Readby Ian SinclairMorning Star24 October 2022 “There are no non-radical futures,” top climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has repeatedly explained. “The future is radically different from the present either because we make huge, rapid shifts in reducing our emissions with profound shifts in our society, or we […]
“Desperate times call for desperate measures”: Peter Kalmus interviewby Ian SinclairMorning Star7 June 2022 In April Dr Peter Kalmus, an American climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, was arrested after he chained himself to the door of the JP Morgan Chase building in Los Angeles in protest at the bank’s investments in new fossil […]
Book review. The Ledger: Accounting for Failure in Afghanistanby Ian SinclairPeace NewsJune-July 2022 Presumably hastily put together after the disorderly US-UK-NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, The Ledger is written by two advisors to the Western militaries and Afghan government: David Kilcullen and Greg Mills. Their roles gave the pair an enviable level of access to […]
