Benny Morris London: I. B Tauris, 2002, £24.50, h/b In report after report on the major media we hear about or see pictures of ‘refugee camps’ in Israel – and no-one ever explains from where the refugees came. Perhaps editors think we know already. Benny Morris is an Israeli historian who became well known … Read more
I invited David Turner to begin writing a regular column for Lobster. He agreed then rang to tell me his computer had been attacked by a virus and could not meet my deadline. (He is the second contributor to this issue to have been virused recently.) But I had on file this splendid polemic written … Read more
There is an unmistakable thread running through America’s move eastward since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Using their vast economic clout – in the form of loans, grants and sanctions – and backed by threatening military supremacy (to say nothing of the devious use of ‘unattributable’ mercenary groups such as the MPRI), … Read more
Electromagnetics & VDU News Subtitled ‘a News Report on Non-ionising Radiation’, this is now up to volume 6, and is now extremely impressive – and pretty alarming. Vol. 6 nos 1-2, for example, includes: Dramatic cuts in EMF exposure demanded by US draft report; biggest EMF lawsuit launched by top attorney – then dropped; breast … Read more
Abstract The Tribunal established to investigate complaints about phone-tapping and the activities of the intelligence agencies has, at its first ever public hearing, quashed rules made by the Home Secretary forcing the tribunal to hold all its hearings in secret. However, the Tribunal procedure remains too secret, and its decisions cannot be appealed. Malcolm Kennedy’s … Read more
Clint Eastwood Movies Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood and to be released in Britain in December 2006, is an example of post-9-11 PR. It tells the story of the 1945 battle for Iwo Jima and has been described as the first film in which the balance of combat and public relations has … Read more
Scott Newton, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996, £30 This is the book Newton was working on which produced the spin-off pieces published in Lobster: ‘The economic background to appeasement and the search for Anglo-German detente before and during WW2’ in Lobster 20, and ‘The Who’s Who of Appeasement’ in Lobster 22. As those essays showed, Newton … Read more
Mobile phones cause cancer, and other modern horror stories It appears that the facts about the medical hazards of electromagnetic fields and mobile phones and their masts are breaking into the mainstream consciousness in this country. Who now wants to live near a mobile phone mast? There are major protests all over the world about … Read more
Books The Great Betrayal Nicholas Bethel (London 1984) This is either a ‘snow job’, designed to discourage further research in this area (British intelligence attempts to destabilise Soviet and communist influenced regimes), or is just a poor effort on Bethel’s part. One can’t deny that it is useful – after all, it is the first … Read more
Responsibilities, old boy The Big Breach Richard Tomlinson Cutting Edge, Edinburgh, 2000, £9.99 I found it hard to ‘see’ this because so much of its contents have been published in the media. There have been some changes – names altered – since the newspaper versions; and I am told that the original hardback version … Read more
