World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

Qantas tops cabinet agenda as parliament returns - politics live
Ukraine crisis hits stock markets as Russia hikes interest rates - business live
Ukraine crisis: 'Russia in control of Crimea' - live updates
Britain's new 'governor of the Falkland islands' is a provocation | Alicia Castro
First of Tony Abbott's bills to scrap carbon tax defeated in Senate
Johnston Press hopes to raise £75m with new rights issue
Oscar Pistorius goes on trial for murdering Reeva Steenkamp
Oscar Pistorius trial - live stream
Morwell coalmine fire: doctors warn residents face serious health risks
Spanish journalist freed by Syrian captors after six months
Labor party complains government has run out of legislation to debate
Final push to reinstate health food rating website fails
Oscars 2014: quotes of the night
John Short arrives in Beijing after expulsion from North Korea
Former HSU boss Michael Williamson taken to jail, his 'downfall complete'
Not regulating 'legal highs' condemns drug users to playing Russian roulette | Max Daly
US concedes Russia has control of Crimea and seeks to contain Putin
Open thread: how do we make International Women's Day 2014 count?
Immigration approved treatment for detainees without their consent
Tony Abbott singles out carbon tax as the main cause of Qantas woes
Ukraine must focus on where its assets are stationed, experts say
Production returning to UK as cost advantage in China diminishes
John Sinclair: 'We wanted to kick ass – and raise consciousness'
Russia and Ukraine: the military imbalance – graphic
Islamabad court suicide attack strikes rare terrorism blow in Pakistani capital

Qantas tops cabinet agenda as parliament returns - politics live

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 01:13 AM PST

The government will consider the rules around national carrier Qantas as parliament returns for another sitting week. All the politics news today live

Gabrielle Chan

Ukraine crisis hits stock markets as Russia hikes interest rates - business live

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 01:13 AM PST

Russian stock market tumbles 9% in early trading, as escalating tensions over Crimea hit shares worldwide - with the FTSE 100 down 100 points at the open

Graeme Wearden

Ukraine crisis: 'Russia in control of Crimea' - live updates

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 01:09 AM PST

Follow live updates as the US says Russia is in 'complete operational control' of Crimea

Haroon Siddique

Britain's new 'governor of the Falkland islands' is a provocation | Alicia Castro

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 01:00 AM PST

Colin Roberts, who once referred to Chagos islanders as 'Man Fridays', is not the person to encourage dialogue between nations

The British government has appointed Colin Roberts, who was previously director for overseas territories in the Foreign Office, to be the "governor" of the Malvinas, or Falkland, islands.

Since their seizure in 1833, the Malvinas islands have been a territory under sovereignty dispute, a pending case for decolonisation. As such, Roberts's appointment represents yet another unilateral act on the part of the United Kingdom that violates its obligation under international law to resolve the dispute over the islands through diplomatic negotiations with Argentina.

I once met Roberts at the Foreign Office, and I do not have a fond recollection of our meeting. His conduct towards me, as the ambassador of my country, was akin to that one might expect from an official of the empire, scolding his subjects. This, had it not been offensive, would have been quite simply ridiculous.

Yet neither imperial arrogance nor the breaching of international law is anything new. One element that is striking, however, is that the UK, which refuses to resolve the dispute and aims to justify the continued occupation of the islands by invoking the right to self-determination for the current British inhabitants, decided to choose none other than Roberts to "govern" them.

The right of self-determination of peoples is not applicable to any or every human community, but only to "peoples". In the case of the inhabitants of the Malvinas, we do not have a separate "people", still less one subjected to colonialism. The British residents of the islands do not have the right to resolve the sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the UK: nobody doubts they are British, and can continue to be so, but the territory in which they live is not. It belongs to Argentina.

In contrast, the ones who were denied the right to exercise self-determination were, and are, the inhabitants of Diego García in the Chagos archipelago, in the Indian Ocean. More than 2,000 islanders were expelled by the UK during the late 60s in order to enable a US military base to be established there. Ever since, living in poverty and scattered far and wide across the world, the Chagossians have been claiming their right to return to their territory and their homes.

Through cables from the US embassy in London leaked by WikiLeaks, which were published by the Guardian in 2010, we were told that the then director for overseas territories of the FCO, Roberts, insisted to the US political counsellor that "establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago's former residents", and would thus prevent these Chagossians, these fishermen, from returning to their island.

According to the US diplomats, Roberts said that "there will be no human footprints nor Man Fridays [sic] on these uninhabited islands". He used the term "Man Friday" for the Chagossians, which is the pejorative name given to Robinson Crusoe's aboriginal servant. Responding to the concerns of the American diplomat, who warned him that those who support the Chagossians' return would continue to fervently raise media attention over their cause, Roberts attempted to quell any fears by assuring him that "the environmental lobby is much more powerful than the Chagossians' advocates".

This is the very same Colin Roberts who is now going to the Malvinas; he who was quoted describing the native Chagos islanders as servants, and who devised a strategy to destroy their livelihood – fishing – so that they might never again return to their island. It is he who the British government has sent to lead a small population who have sought – by casting 1,513 votes in a referendum – to impose by force their will and ambition to maintain their business monopoly. And this has been done against the opinion of millions of people from the world over who, through numerous resolutions from the UN and other international bodies, have called for dialogue between Argentina and the UK to resolve the sovereignty dispute.

This modern-day story possesses all the ingredients of a typical 19th-century colonial saga: violence, racial discrimination, double standards, arrogance, manipulation, cynicism and deception.

The 21st century demands, along with an end to this British colonial enclave in the south Atlantic, a policy of dialogue and respect between peoples and nations, within a multipolar world that will help promote universal peace.

Alicia Castro

First of Tony Abbott's bills to scrap carbon tax defeated in Senate

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:58 AM PST

Legislation to dismantle the Climate Change Authority was knocked back in the upper house by Labor and the Australian Greens

Johnston Press hopes to raise £75m with new rights issue

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:57 AM PST

Regional newspaper publisher Johnston Press is hoping to raise £75m in a rights issue, reports the Sunday Telegraph.

The company, which owns some 200 titles, is expected to issue new shares to investors at a discount as part of a debt-refinancing package.

It follows a turnaround in the business since Ashley Highfield became chief executive in 2011 and immediately instituted a strategy of cost-cutting and digital transition.

The group has been weighed down by a debt burden of £300m, which was a legacy of its growth by acquisition in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Since the beginning of the year, Johnston's shares have risen from 16p to more than 26p (25.1p as I write).

As I reported a couple of weeks ago, the company is in advanced talks to dispose of its 14 Irish titles for about £7m.

Source: Sunday Telegraph

Roy Greenslade

Oscar Pistorius goes on trial for murdering Reeva Steenkamp

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:57 AM PST

Paralympian goes on trial in North Gauteng high court for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria on Valentine's Day last year

Sam Jones

Oscar Pistorius trial - live stream

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:46 AM PST

Full coverage of the trial of South African athlete for murder of girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in Pretoria last year

Morwell coalmine fire: doctors warn residents face serious health risks

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:45 AM PST

Thousands are being affected by smoke from the fire which has been burning for three weeks and looks to continue for many months

Helen Davidson

Spanish journalist freed by Syrian captors after six months

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:40 AM PST

Spanish journalist Marc Marginedas, who was kidnapped in Syria by an Islamic group linked to Al-Qaida in September, has been released in good health.

Now in Turkey, Marginedas spoke yesterday by phone to his family and to Spain's prime minister Mariano Rajoy to tell them he was feeling fine after his six months in captivity.

Marginedas, a reporter with El Periodico de Catalunya, was abducted near the city of Hama on 4 September 2013 by a group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Rajoy pointed out that there are other Spanish journalists still being held in Syria: Javier Espinosa and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova.

Source: Latin American Herald Tribune

Roy Greenslade

Labor party complains government has run out of legislation to debate

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:31 AM PST

'I've never known a government that has so little legislation to debate,' says manager of opposition business, Tony Burke

Lenore Taylor

Final push to reinstate health food rating website fails

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:16 AM PST

It is understood there was a push to reinstate the website but its was decided it would not be re-launched until at least June

Bridie Jabour

Oscars 2014: quotes of the night

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:10 AM PST

From hashtags to gumbo, what Hollywood's finest found to talk about on Oscars night

Paul Simon

John Short arrives in Beijing after expulsion from North Korea

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:08 AM PST

Australian officials meet the 75-year-old, who was arrested for trying to spread Christianity

Former HSU boss Michael Williamson taken to jail, his 'downfall complete'

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:00 AM PST

Family and supporters blow kisses and wave as the father of five is taken into custody after a sentencing hearing in Sydney

Not regulating 'legal highs' condemns drug users to playing Russian roulette | Max Daly

Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:00 AM PST

We should follow New Zealand, which has passed a law to ensure synthetic drugs are safe, yet political cowardice in the UK means this will never be viable

Despite excitable claims in the Times on Friday and other papers over the last few months, the Home Office has announced that, contrary to "out of context" reports, it is not planning to license the sale of legal highs in UK high streets. Bearing in mind Britain's track record on drug policy, this was wholly predictable.

Regulating the sale of new psychoactive substances, in an attempt to make them safer, was never going to be a viable policy in the UK. Logical, yes, but politically it's a no-brainer: why risk the wrath of the Daily Mail for being soft on drugs, even if it does mean passing up the chance to ensure these concoctions – produced and marketed by manufacturers who work one step ahead of the law – are better controlled, dosed and labelled, and therefore less likely to maim or kill.

Norman Baker, the Home Office drugs minister, is leading a taskforce to look at legal highs (a confusing phrase because many of them contain illegal substances). To give him the benefit of the doubt, the Liberal Democrats and their leader, Nick Clegg, are publicly, and in the corridors of Whitehall, pushing for drug policy reform. It's just that the Tories are refusing to budge.

For them, as with Labour before, it's easier to play safe and talk tough than to take a political risk – even if that risk could save the lives of young people, for whom these highly potent drugs are now the fashionable way of getting out of it. Because of political cowardice, we'll never know.

Conversely, in New Zealand, where legal highs have been an issue far longer than here – because illegal highs are so expensive and hard to source – politicians have decided to make a move. Tired of the endless cat-and-mouse game of banning drugs only for new, more harmful products to appear in head shops and online, the New Zealand government decided to put the onus on legal-high producers to develop products that are low risk.

In New Zealand, drug manufacturers, whose names and addresses are listed in public, must now send their products for clinical testing before they can be legally sold, while the government oversees the importation, manufacture and sale of these products under tight regulations. These drugs can only be sold from licensed premises, resulting in a country which had 3,000 head shops and now has 170.

Explaining the logic behind the law, which sailed through the New Zealand parliament last year and is in the process of being enacted, Ross Bell, of the New Zealand Drug Foundation, said: "The producers of synthetic substances always hold the upper hand. Their chemists are always one step ahead of any regulation.

"The New Zealand government finally lost patience and did something counter-intuitive. It moved new synthetic drugs from a legal grey area to a well-defined and robust regulatory framework. It forces producers into the light of day and makes them responsible for the safety of their products. These substances will be better regulated than tobacco or alcohol."

Whether New Zealand's bold move does achieve the chief aim of any drug policy – keeping young people safe as possible from the dangers of drugs – remains to be seen. Meanwhile in Britain, the game of Russian roulette played out by young drug users every night continues apace, with the risks continually heightened by the introduction of ever more dangerous drugs, such as PMA, which killed 23 people last year.

Max Daly

US concedes Russia has control of Crimea and seeks to contain Putin

Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:56 PM PST

Senior officials say goal is to avoid further incursion as administration seeks to apply economic and political pressure

Paul Lewis

Spencer Ackerman

Jon Swaine

Open thread: how do we make International Women's Day 2014 count?

Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:48 PM PST

Who has inspired you in 2014? How do we give women around the world economic freedom? And what more could we do? Tell us in the comments now

With International Women's Day around the corner I wanted to use this blog to celebrate how far we'd come in the last year. Janet Yellen was made chair of the Federal Reserve Board, the most powerful person in Europe is not David Cameron, whatever he believes, but Angela Merkel and Saudia Arabia's best known female film-maker was nominated for an Oscar.

Maybe I've got the Monday morning blues but somehow these achievements, great though they are, can't bridge the gap between where we are and where we should be. The plight of Malala Yousafzai highlighted the courage and bravery of women around the world, but also the lack of education, respect and safety they have. It took a seven year old to point out to Lego that girls played with the company's toys too. And the Everyday Sexism campaign seems to never run out of material. Will any of this ever change?

This week sees the UN Global Compact's conference on Gender Equality and the Global Jobs Challenge, a two day event discussing how more women in the workplace at all levels could re-energise business and change women's rights across the world. By offering more employment opportunities to women around the world, and making sure those opportunities are fair and supportive, we give them the economic power to change not only their life but that of their family and their community.

So this week, in the run up to International Women's Day, we wanted to get your views on the achievements of the past year and what more could be done. Feel free to hold forth, in the comments below, on:

Who has inspired you in the past year and how can we emulate them?

Any brilliant initiatives that bring women into the workforce or help them stay there.

What more could businesses be doing to promote the women who are working for them?

Tell us now in the comments and please invite your friends and colleagues to share their views too.

Harriet Minter

Immigration approved treatment for detainees without their consent

Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:45 PM PST

Department allowed medical treatment without consent 10 times since 2005 and approved force-feeding a hunger striker

Paul Farrell

Tony Abbott singles out carbon tax as the main cause of Qantas woes

Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:02 PM PST

Forget management decisions and the bitter turf war with Virgin – it seems Labor's refusal to repeal the tax is to blame

Lenore Taylor

Ukraine must focus on where its assets are stationed, experts say

Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:00 PM PST

Ukraine's forces are outnumbered in Crimea, as Russia's presence continues to strengthen in the region and elsewhere

• Graphic: the imbalance of forces between Ukraine and Russia

Ukraine's problems in standing up to Russia militarily revolve not just around its numerical inferiority - but where its assets are stationed, military experts say.

In Crimea, its forces are outnumbered and outgunned. And in its vulnerable east, where it shares a 1,200-mile land border with Russia, it has precious few forces at all.

The Black Sea fleet, a prized Moscow asset ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union, has enabled Russia to maintain at least 16,000, and potentially up to 25,000, personnel on the peninsula. It has an attack submarine, more than 30 warships and amphibious craft and five fighter squadrons with 18 fighter aircraft. Ukraine by comparison has at best 14,500 personnel, 10 naval vessels that are still perilously berthed at Sevastopol just up the bay from their Russian adversaries. Already they have removed a coastguard presence from the city and from the eastern port of Kerch.

Ukraine accused Russia this weekend of augmenting its force this weekend with another 6,000 soldiers. Serhiy Zgurets, expert of Center of Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies told the Guardian that the new soldiers arrived on cargo planes - which was one of the reasons why the Russian forces captured the military airports in the region.

"One reason for the airport seizure was the desire to prevent the landing of other troops. They (the Russians) were hoping to cut off any aid to Ukrainian forces this way," the expert said. Other military analysts believe that the new arrivals may well include battalions comprising mostly professional "contract" soldiers - far more effective than the conscripts that make up most standard Russian army units.

Zgurets said Ukraine's military bases located in Belbek, Yavpatoria, Kirovske and naval crossings in Feodosia and Kerch has been surrounded by Russian soldiers. "But it's good that soldiers in Crimea don't yield to provocations. The problem is big but it's still not a catastrophe," he said. Ukraine's problems are compounded by the fact that many men under arms are ethnic Russians, though analysts have thus far played down the prospect of mutinies or defections, arguing that ethnicity in the Ukrainian army is not as powerful an idea as it was in the Balkans for example.

Away from Crimea, it's an even more one-sided story. Ukraine has a total of 130,000 personnel in its armed forces, compared to almost 850,000 in the Russian military. In fact, Russian assets - troops, aircraft, tanks and armoured vehicles - in just one region bordering Ukraine are bigger than its smaller neighbour's entire military. And Ukrainian units are particularly sparse in the eastern region along this border.

"We have one mechanized brigade near Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia. Each of them includes some 4,000-6,000 soldiers," Zgurets said. "In Donetsk and Lugansk (Ukraine's far east bordering with Russia) regions we have nothing at all. And this problem has been long voiced but without any reaction of the officials," the expert said.

However, Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based military expert, said he did not expect to see long columns of Russian tanks rolling across the black earth border regions into eastern Ukraine.

"The time of year for serious warfare is totally wrong," he said. "This is black soil area and at this time of year it's wet, wet, wet. The Germans found that. They'll have to wait until June for it to dry up or they won't be able to move off the roads."

"Russia does not have the will or capability for mass invasion of Ukraine. It can bite off some pieces and the government in Kiev would not likely survive. But I'm anticipating a long drawn out stand-off."

Oksana Grytsenko

Mark Rice-Oxley

Production returning to UK as cost advantage in China diminishes

Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:00 PM PST

One in six companies brought manufacturing back to Britain in last three years according to EEF, with signs trend will continue

Manufacturers are bringing production back to Britain at an increasing rate, attracted by the UK's technical edge and a diminishing cost advantage in countries including China.

One in six companies "re-shored" manufacturing in the last three years according to trade body EEF, compared with one in seven in 2009.

Production was most commonly brought back from China, followed by countries in Eastern Europe.

Terry Scuoler, EEF's chief executive, said the trend was gradual, with five in six companies choosing to keep their operations overseas, but that it was encouraging.

He said: "While it will always be two-way traffic, the need to be closer to customers, to have ever greater control of quality, and the continued erosion of low labour costs in some competitor countries means that in many cases it makes increasingly sound business sense."

The survey, co-produced with law firm Squire Sanders, found that 6% of companies planned to bring production to Britain in the next three years. The main reason given for moving production back was to improve the quality of products and components, with other factors including certainty, speed of delivery, and cost.

Lee Hopley, EEF's chief economist, said that while the difference in wages paid in the UK and China is still enormous the gap is closing and overall the cost advantage of basing manufacturing operations in China has been eroded, when elements including transport and logistics are included.

For around 40% of companies that had re-shored production, turnover increased as a direct result, with 3% reporting a fall. Around 60% reported a moderate rise in profits and employment.

Hopley said there were still some major areas of concern limiting re-shoring, including the high cost of energy faced by UK based manufacturers and a perceived shortage of skilled workers.

The business secretary, Vince Cable, is expected to say on Tuesday that the government will do more to "rebuild British manufacturing prowess, which we will exploit to bring more work to these shores".

At EEF's national manufacturing conference in London, Cable is expected to say: "Britain winning back business on the basis of quality and good performance is a good characterisation of the sort of industrial strategy that I have been promoting. We are now seeing a number of encouraging signs of production returning to the UK.".

He will also announce the latest winners of the government's advanced manufacturing supply chain initiative – a £245m fund to help companies strengthen their UK supply chain, creating and safeguarding thousands of British jobs.

Angela Monaghan

John Sinclair: 'We wanted to kick ass – and raise consciousness'

Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:00 PM PST

He was the fearless Detroit protopunk who terrified America with his band the MC5 – and saw busts and jail as all part of a revolutionary's lot. So what's John Sinclair doing today? Writing jazz poetry in Amsterdam

I meet John Sinclair in a canalside coffeeshop in Amsterdam, where the vibes are mellow, the air perfumed, and the soundtrack a stream of vintage rock songs of the more laidback kind. Compared to slightly self-conscious young pot tourists skinning up at a nearby table, Sinclair seems utterly relaxed, an ageing hippy blissfully at home in a city that still retains some of the libertarian values he fought so hard for – a fight that cost him his liberty at the tail end of the 1960s.

"I live here about half the time," he says, his voice a low, gravelly drawl that seems to grow even lower and more gravelly each time he inhales. "I'm not really an urbanite, but I love it here. Everything is close, public transport works, and it's OK to get high." He grins. "It's my kind of town."

It is, however, a long way – literally and metaphorically – from Detroit, the city where Sinclair made his name, and that of the rock group he managed, the MC5, in the most dramatic fashion. Almost 50 years after those culturally heady and politically tumultuous days, when he found himself at the heart of the race riots that raged through Detroit, the 72-year-old now keeps the freak flag flying as best he can in a world that has become more liberal, and paradoxically more conservative, than his younger self could ever have imagined.

He has just recorded an album of jazz poetry, Mohawk. The rhymes, originally written in the early 80s, have been given a kind of post-modern jazz setting by his musical collaborator, Steve Fly, a soft-spoken young producer and multi instrumentalist who hails from Stourbridge, but now resides in Amsterdam, where his day job is managing another coffee shop near Central Station.

"John did all the vocals in one session," elaborates Fly, "and then I spent three months recording and overdubbing the parts. We could just have hired a Theolonius Monk-style piano trio but that would just have made it an exercise in nostalgia."

For all that, Mohawk, sounds out of time, its free-styled beatnik verse dedicated to Sinclair's musical heroes – Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, – and couched in the language of his other big influence, the Beat poets. The words are delivered over a soundscape by his musical collaborator Steve Fly that deftly pastiches the original rhythms and swerves of bebop. It is, on every level, a labour of love. "Man, I worshipped those guys as gods when I was young," he says, relighting his joint. "Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders. That's where I was coming from, not rock or folk."

In 1966, Sinclair and Charles Moore, the jazz trumpeter who helped him found the Detroit Artists Workshop in 1964, headed for New York City. "We knocked on Cecil Taylor's door, then we went to Archie Shepp's house and knocked on his door. They thought we were crazy, but we were two 23-year-olds hungry for wisdom. They didn't have people like that in the white world. You had to go out there and find the cool people."

Sinclair was, and remains, a believer in the transformative power of what he calls "righteous" music. When he met the fledgling MC5 in 1966, he was already a poet, jazz reviewer and activist of some repute. He immediately picked up on their sense of possibility and, though inexperienced, offered his services as a manager. "They were a mess, man," he chuckles. "Not only did they not have a manager, they didn't even have a roadie. They would show up when they were supposed to be playing on stage, and then spend an hour setting up and arguing over who owned what guitar lead. And all the while, the audience was sitting there, waiting. It was kind of tragic. I helped knock them into shape."

Reading on mobile? See the MC5 play Kick Out the Jams here

As the 2002 documentary MC5: A True Testimonial showed, under Sinclair's guidance the MC5 soon became arguably the greatest high-energy, hard-rock group of that, or any other, time. Their only real rivals in the down-and-dirty stakes were that other great Detroit rock group, the Stooges, but unlike them, the MC5 had a radical political vision that was transmitted through the music. It was delivered with a visceral thrust that, even on grainy, black-and-white YouTube footage, is still breathtaking. The MC5's live sound, described by one rock writer as "a catastrophic force of nature the band was barely able to control", was nothing less than an incitement to revolution.

"We wanted to kick ass and raise consciousness," Sinclair says. "Most performers will admit that sometimes, for whatever reason, you just go out there and do the show. The MC5 never ever went out there and just did the show. They played every gig like it was their last. They wanted to level the audience like rubble. Every night. That's why it was way too intense for the hippies on the west coast. They hated us, man. But in Detroit, we made total sense."

Central to the MC5's difference from their contemporaries, Sinclair says, was their blue-collar upbringing in America's most industrialised city. "A lot of those radical groups of that time, the Yippies, the SDS, didn't know anything about the working class because they didn't know any working-class people. Same with black people – they didn't mix with any black people, didn't have black friends. The MC5 were working class, they knew about life on the streets. And we dug black people cos that's where the great music came from and the great weed and the refreshing concepts of sexuality. All that stuff didn't come from no white people. Are you kidding me?"

The MC5's revolutionary tendencies did not go unnoticed: when Sinclair formed the White Panther party, in solidarity with the Black Panthers, the FBI began to monitor the group's communal house in Detroit. As race riots devastated the city in the summer of 1967, a banner appeared on the exterior bearing the words: "Burn baby burn." The building was stormed by riot police who claimed a sniper had been firing at them from the roof. "We were harassed 24/7," says Sinclair, "busted for incitement, obscenity, possession, whatever they could throw at us." At some gigs, armed police lined the walls, waiting with batons drawn for the band's rallying cry: "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" Then it was another night in the cells, another obscenity charge.

Undeterred, the MC5 were the only group to show up and play to protesters in Grant Park at the Democratic party convention in Chicago in 1968. This was in defiance of a ban on live music implemented by the city's infamous mayor, Richard J Daley. The event ended in running battles between the police and demonstrators. The following year, Sinclair was arrested after offering two marijuana joints to an undercover narcotics officer. In a verdict designed to send out a strong message to the underground, he was sentenced to 10 years.

It must have been quite a wake-up call. "Well, yes and no. I mean, I was part of the revolution, and that's what authoritarian states do to revolutionaries. So it was part of my job. I accepted it. Plus I had a lot of support from my political comrades on the outside, and I was a hero to the guys on the inside, who hated the pigs with every fibre of their being. Those guys loved me."

He served more than two years, writing daily missives to the outside world and becoming a countercultural cause célèbre, as a campaign to free him snowballed. It culminated in the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in the Michigan city of Ann Arbor in December 1971. Stevie Wonder, Allen Ginsberg and Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers shared a stage with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in an event that sold out in minutes. Three days later, Sinclair was released. The following year, Lennon included the track Free John Sinclair on his album Some Time in New York City. "I heard the song while I was in prison," says Sinclair, beaming at the memory. "I made them bring me in a tape because I didn't believe Lennon had written it and that he was coming to Ann Arbor to sing it. It was a beautiful thing to do."

Reading on mobile? See a documentary about John Sinclair and Mohawk here

I ask Sinclair when the revolutionary dream ended for him. He answers without hesitation. "Early 1975. That's when the movement folded. President Nixon was removed from office, the Vietnam war ended, and it seemed everybody went back to their day jobs. I didn't have a day job and I didn't want one, so I became a poet and a community activist again."

Does he miss those times? He pauses for a good while. "I never think of it that way. What good would it do? They sure as hell ain't coming back. I live in the present, and who can tell what will happen in the future? All I know is that if you want things to change, you have to work to make them change. And sometimes, you have to be prepared to go to jail or have your head cracked open. Far as I can see, that's still the case. Look at Pussy Riot. They are the first kick-ass revolutionary group since the MC5. They don't want a record contract, they don't want their own fragrance, they want to overthrow the goddam Russian government. Yes!"

He clenches his fist and raises it in the air, then falls back in to his chair, grinning. "Those girls don't give a shit," he says. "That's what being a revolutionary is really all about."

Mohawk is released on 24 March on Iron Man Records.

Sean O'Hagan