The UK government’s failure to provide protective equipment to all health staff treating coronavirus victims prompts questions over whether ministers are legally culpable for failing to prevent deaths. But ministers routinely act with impunity and every prime minister since 1945 has been complicit in deaths abroad.
Archive
How Britain’s Labour government facilitated the massacre of Biafrans in Nigeria – to protect its oil interests
by MARK CURTIS | 29 April 2020
TAGGED: Declassified files, Nigeria
On the 50th anniversary of the end of the Biafran war, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in the late 1960s, declassified British files show that Harold Wilson’s government secretly armed and backed Nigeria’s aggression against the secessionist region.
Coronavirus cannot stop Britain’s war in Yemen
by PHIL MILLER | 22 April 2020
TAGGED: BAE Systems, Coronavirus, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
Despite claiming to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic, Britain’s military and arms industry continue to facilitate bombing one of the world’s poorest countries, which is most at risk from Covid-19.
Torture ‘for your amusement’: How Thatcher’s government misled MPs and public about its dealings with the Pinochet regime
by GRACE LIVINGSTONE | 21 April 2020
TAGGED: Chile, Declassified files
The British government under Margaret Thatcher misled the public and MPs about its dealings with the Pinochet regime in Chile while it tortured and killed thousands of people, declassified British documents show.
Coronavirus could overwhelm public healthcare in developing countries, where British aid has promoted private hospitals
by DANIEL WILLIS | 17 April 2020
TAGGED: Aid, Coronavirus
British aid sponsors private hospitals for better-off patients from India to Zimbabwe, risking diverting doctors and money away from treating poorer patients who will be hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
Labour Party officials secretly blacklisted Britain’s anti-war activists
by PHIL MILLER | 15 April 2020
TAGGED: Iraq
A leaked report appears to show evidence that some of the most highly-paid Labour Party staffers wanted their party to lose the UK general election in 2017, and that they actively campaigned against anti-war activists within the party.
Who controls the World Health Organisation?
by PHIL MILLER | 9 April 2020
TAGGED: Aid, China, Coronavirus, Taiwan
With some Western governments failing to follow the World Health Organisation’s advice on tackling coronavirus, right-wing figures in the US and UK are seeking to discredit the UN body as pro-China. But Britain and the US themselves are the WHO’s largest funders and among its major influencers.
Exclusive: Before coronavirus, UK government promoted ‘business opportunities’ in China’s wet markets
by PHIL MILLER | 4 April 2020
TAGGED: China, Coronavirus
The UK government promoted exports of live animals and shellfish to China for years, knowing they would be sold at “wet markets”, amid repeated warnings from British health authorities that these markets posed an influenza threat, it can be revealed.
Despite lockdown, the UK military still flies, risking the spread of coronavirus
by MATT KENNARD | 2 April 2020
TAGGED: Coronavirus, Cyprus
Since air travel was largely locked down to curb the spread of coronavirus, the UK military has airlifted personnel to at least six countries that have banned British travellers or flights — potentially moving thousands of troops.
At risk from coronavirus, Julian Assange is one of just two inmates in Belmarsh maximum-security prison held for skipping bail
by MATT KENNARD | 31 March 2020
TAGGED: Assange
Julian Assange is one of just two inmates at Belmarsh maximum security prison in London, which houses 797 prisoners, being held for violating bail conditions, it can be revealed.