Brenda Goh and Andrea Shalal-Esa, “Britain may order 14 F-35 jets as early as next week: sources,” Reuters, 23 January 2014
The so called ‘Main Gate 4’ order, for the F-35 B vertical take-off variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, would mark the Britain’s first firm F-35 purchase since it committed to buying 48 planes in 2012.
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Guardian had put together an interactive timeline of Britain’s 100 years of conflict. It shows that the UK has been at wars or involved in military conflicts with at least one other country/opposing group every year since 1914.
This is in addition to the revelation in 2012 that only 22 countries in the world have not been invaded by Britain in its history.
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Heather Stewart, “UK credit binge pushes debt above 500% of GDP,” The Guardian, 19 January 2012
An international study found Britain had the highest level of debt after Japan, that the debt had risen over the past three years to more than 500% of national output, and that on current trends it would take until 2020 for UK households to return debt levels to the pre-bubble trend. …
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Joe Glenton, “Reducing the defence budget is not the end of Britain. It could be part of our rebirth,” The Independent, 17 January 2014
The tantrums which are emerging from the offense camp should be ignored. Britain has one of the largest military budgets in the world. As part of our swollen offense portfolio this small nation wields a preposterously expensive standing military which lacks utility (see Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) and a nuclear arsenal which has no practical value beyond masculine prestige. There are three factors to consider.
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Kate Ravilious, “The seven deadly sinners driving global warming,” New Scientist, 15 January 2014
Dr Rafeef Ziadah from War on Want talks to Afshin Rattansi, the host of Going Underground, about the UK’s billion pound drones deal with Israel and the incompetence of the companies involved when it comes to getting them ready on schedule.
Aimee Vallory, “What kept Hetty Bower campaigning for peace and justice for over ninety years?,” Stop the War Coalition, 20 November 2013
Hetty Bower campaigned for peace and justice for ninety years, from campaigning as a suffragette after the first world war, to marching against the endless “war on terror” in the new millenium. …
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Trevor Timm, “Will the US State Dept Condemn UK’s Attempt to Use ‘Terrorism’ Laws to Suppress Journalism?,” Freedom of the Press Foundation, 3 November 2013
In a shocking court filing this week, the UK government accused journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda of “terrorism” for allegedly transporting leaked (and heavily encrypted) NSA documents from documentarian Laura Poitras in Germany to Greenwald in Brazil, on a journalistic mission paid for by the Guardian newspaper.
In a statement that should send chills down the spine of every reporter, the government made the unbelievable claim that merely publishing information that has nothing to do with violence still “falls within the definition of terrorism.”
“Additionally the disclosure, or threat of disclosure, is designed to influence a government and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause. This therefore falls within the definition of terrorism…”
Nafeez Ahmed, “How the World Health Organisation covered up Iraq’s nuclear nightmare,” The Guardian, 13 October 2013
Ex-UN, WHO officials reveal political interference to suppress scientific evidence of postwar environmental health catastrophe. Continue reading
Ben Quinn, “MoD study sets out how to sell wars to the public,” The Guardian, 26 September 2013
The armed forces should seek to make British involvement in future wars more palatable to the public by reducing the public profile of repatriation ceremonies for casualties, according to a Ministry of Defence unit that formulates strategy.
Other suggestions made by the MoD thinktank in a discussion paper examining how to assuage “casualty averse” public opinion include the greater use of mercenaries and unmanned vehicles, as well as the SAS and other special forces, because it says losses sustained by the elite soldiers do not have the same impact on the public and press.
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Jeremy Harding , “‘Go home or face arrest’,” London Review of Books, 1 August 2013
Three years ago in Arizona, Russell Pearce, the leader of the state senate, hit the ‘illegal’ button, and a strange thing happened: authorised migrants and citizens of non-US extraction – often the first to call for stricter immigration targets – changed their position and started muttering about racism. Meanwhile, as the round-ups began, thousands of unauthorised workers left for neighbouring states and the local economy went from steep decline to death row.
Unauthorised arrivals by boat have always been a prickly issue in Australia.
Read the full article here.
Karen Rowlingson, “Short of cash, rent and food – Britons in dire financial straits,” The Conversation, 25 July 2013
Britain is currently experiencing its longest and deepest economic slump in a century. But through new research we’re only just beginning to realise quite how dramatic the impact of this recession has been on UK residents. …
Around 2.5 million people have been out of work since 2008 and, among those in work, earnings have been falling or stagnating for some years. In 2012, the real value of workers’ wages fell back to 2003 levels, following several years of pay freezes and economic restructuring.
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Ha-Joon Chang, “George Osborne’s description of the economy is near-Orwellian,” The Guardian, 26 July 2013
If all else fails, they say, you can always lower your standards. This is what we have become used to doing in relation to the UK economy. The UK’s economic performance since the start of the coalition government in May 2010 has been so poor that Thursday’s announcement of 0.6% growth in the second quarter of 2013 was greeted with a collective sigh of relief.
Prem Sikka, “Prince Charles must go public with tax dealings,” The Conversation, 15 July 2013
The UK House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is examining some of the financial affairs of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne. The Committee should be concerned that the Duchy of Cornwall, Prince’s business arm, is exempt from corporation and capital gains tax. This means that the Duchy does not make any financial contribution towards the social infrastructure used by it. Its tax exemptions also give it unfair advantage over its rivals.
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Kim Sengupta, “Blood money: UK’s £12.3bn arms sales to repressive states,” The Independent, 17 July 2013
The Government has issued more than 3,000 export licences for military and intelligence equipment worth a total of £12.3bn to countries which are on its own official list for human rights abuses.
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Aimee Meade, “UK co-op membership reaches record high“, Guardian, 24 June 2013
A record number of entrepreneurs, employers and communities in the UK have opted for the co-operative business model, according to a new report by Co-operatives UK.
The report Homegrown: The Co-operative Economy 2013 which was published today by Co-operatives UK, outlined how local shops, owned and run by members of communities across the UK had a combined turnover of £49m in 2012 with over 50,000 members.
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“UK soldier and veteran suicides ‘outstrip Afghan deaths’“, BBC, 14 July 2013
More British soldiers and veterans took their own lives in 2012 than died fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan over the same period.
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“The real cost of getting rid of Trident from Scotland: £150m“, HeraldScotland, 14 July 2013
Westminster warnings that the bill for ridding an independent Scotland of Trident would run into billions have been undermined by revelations that the UK Government previously put the cost at £150 million.
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Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “The British nuclear stockpile, 1953–2013“, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2013, 69 (4)
Recent research has revealed new facts about the British nuclear arsenal over a 25-year period starting in 1953. This accounting and the authors’ own research support an estimate that the British produced about 1,250 nuclear warheads between 1953 and 2013. From a peak of about 500 warheads in the period between 1974 and 1981, the UK arsenal has now been reduced to some 225 weapons.
Tipping Point North South 