After a coup in the South American country of Bolivia in November 2019, democratically elected president Evo Morales was forced to flee. Foreign Office documents obtained by Declassified show Britain saw the new military-backed regime, which killed 18 protesters, as an opportunity to open up Bolivia’s lithium deposits to UK firms.
New research reveals that dozens of senior UK defence, foreign office and intelligence officials find employment with oil, gas and mining corporations once they leave public office, rubber-stamped by a Whitehall committee which pays little attention to potential conflicts of interest. Such private profiting from energy companies is likely to restrict Britain from taking stronger action to address climate change.
Military exercises at British bases in the Mediterranean are causing miscarriages and deaths among farm animals, generating hundreds of compensation claims each year, and threatening protected environmental sites, Declassified UK can reveal.
Before Covid-19, British colonial authorities allowed a deadly flu virus to spread from Hong Kong in 1968 with devastating consequences for the US and the rest of the world – one million people died.
The greenhouse gas emissions produced by the UK military and its supply chain are up to 11 times higher than admitted by the Ministry of Defence, which has produced a ‘pattern of flawed reporting’ on its environmental impacts, new research carried out for Declassified UK has found.
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.
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.
The UK government, which has been widely criticised for its slow and inadequate response to the coronavirus crisis, has failed to heed five areas of advice from the World Health Organisation – despite being its second largest state funder.
The British army is using one-sixth of Belize’s total landmass for jungle warfare training after gaining access to more than a dozen sites across the former UK colony in Central America, it can be revealed.
