Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
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Media moon mania eclipses truth about the space race
STEVEN WALKER puts the exploration of outer space into context
Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who was transferred to Nasa shortly after its creation
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
Born on this day in 1931, the heroic revolutionary faces a dangerous new wave of White House aggression. We must treat his birthday as a rallying cry to resist the illegal siege of Cuba, writes ROGER McKENZIE
RAMZY BAROUD decries the rats of Gaza, the rodent and human type. Both abound as profiteering from tragedy reaches obscene levels
THE hyperbole and wall-to-wall media coverage of the moon landing and safe return of three US astronauts 50 years ago fails to tell the real story about the motivation of and purpose of the Kennedy promise to land a human on Earth’s satellite.
In reality it was about trying to restore macho pride in a nation that had suffered the humiliation of being outstripped by the Soviet Union in space technology, the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba defeat, the Korean and Vietnam war debacles, and the demands of the US military-industrial complex to test potential military hardware.
Kennedy also needed to secure a second-term presidency and domestically had to win black voters who were engaged in civil rights demonstrations exposing the hypocrisy of US claims to be leaders of the free world.
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JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
As we mark the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, JOHN WIGHT reflects on the enormity of the US decision to drop the atom bombs
While politicians condemned fascist bombing of Spanish civilians in 1937, they ignored identical RAF tactics across the colonies. Today’s aerial warfare continues this pattern of applying different moral standards based on geography and race, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT