Born in Liverpool, UK, Britain Ian Williams graduated from Liverpool University despite several years’ suspension for protests against its investments in South Africa. Consequently, he had a variegated career path, which included a drinking competition with Chou En Lai and an argument about English literature with Mme Mao and being a rail workers’ union executive, before taking up journalism, briefly taking time off to be a speech/article writer for British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock in the 1987 election campaign. He has been in New York since 1989.

He has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, ranging from the Australian, to The Independent, from the New York Observer and the Village Voice to the New Statesman and Newsday, to the Financial Times and the Guardian.  He is the UN correspondent for the Nation, Tribune, and Middle East International and a frequent contributor to In These Times.

He has also “pundited” on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBC and innumerable radio stations, for example appearing on “Chris Matthew’s Hard Ball,” “the O’Reilly Factor,” and Wolf Blitzer. Online he writes for Salon, AlterNet and MaximsNews, among many others. He has recently launched the Deadline Pundit blog.

More details at www.ianwilliams.info and www.rumspiritof1776.com.