16 April 1999 As of 16 April 1999, it was three weeks into the bombing campaign against Serbia and the RAF was still regularly missing its targets. The assault was not only flattening extensive areas of Belgrade, killing many civilians and creating a huge flood of refugees but it was also provoking Serb forces in…
10 November 1994 On 10 November 1994, the High Court ruled that the British Government had acted illegally in linking a huge aid transfer of £234 million for the Pergau Dam in Malaysia to a colossal arms sale of £1.3 billion to the country. The development assistance package had also broken another fundamental legal requirement…
17 July 1990 On 17 July 1990, just two weeks prior to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the British government granted Matrix Churchill, a Coventry based company, licenses for the export of machine tools to Iraq, with the knowledge that they would be used to manufacture artillery shells and medium range missiles. In 1992, a…
24 February 1991 [ 24 February 1991 ] On 24 February 1991, during the First Gulf War, Colonel John King of the Media Response Unit, informed embedded British journalists, who had been summoned to a tent in the desert near the border of Iraq occupied Kuwait, that there were to be severe constraints on what…
15 February 1996 On 15 February 1996, the Arms to Iraq Inquiry, chaired by Sir Richard Scott, a senior judge, was finally published after a three year long investigation. It revealed that, despite signing up to a United Nations ban on exporting arms to either party in the Iraq-Iran war, the British government had deliberately…
LORD MILNER ON HIGH DEATH RATE IN BRITISH CONCENTRATION CAMPS [ 4 December 1901 ] Lord Milner, Britain’s High Commissioner for Southern Africa, was charged with sorting out the concentration camps for civilian detainees during the Second South African Boer War, after the scandal of their inhumane conditions had been exposed in the press. In…
SHIP’S CREW SAVED BUT ‘NOT EVEN ANY OF OUR CLOTHES OR ONE SLAVE.’ [ 28 October 1763 ] The London registered Phoenix was carrying 332 slaves crammed into its hold from Africa towards Maryland on the United States’ mid-Atlantic coastline. BRITAIN’S HIGH COURT – CHILE’S TYRANT PINOCHET CAN’T BE PROSECUTED [ 28 October 1998 ]…
CITY OF LONDON AUCTION – RUM, BRANDY AND ‘ONE NEGRO BOY’ [ 4 October 1743 ] Today in 1743, a fairly routine sale took place at the Marine Coffee-House in Birchin Lane in the City of London, which comprised, according to an announcement placed in the Daily Advertiser ‘the following goods, Viz. 36 hogsheads of…
HUNGER STRIKER DENIED A BED, BEDDING AND EVEN HIS BOOTS, DIES FROM FORCED FEEDING [ 25 September 1917 ] Irish republican Thomas Ashe. who had taken part in Ireland’s 2016 Easter rebellion against British rule, died on Tuesday 25 September 1917, just five days into a hunger strike at Mountjoy prison, due to a complication…
MI6 OVERTHROW MOSSADEGH – THE POPULAR MODERATE PRIME MINISTER OF IRAN. [ 19 August 1953 ] Today in 1953, British intelligence, helped by the CIA, staged a coup to oust Muhammad Mossadegh, the moderate nationalist prime minister of Iran, who had been a firm believer in liberal values, democracy and the rule of law. London’s…
