by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 8 November 2022 The UK armed the Shah’s “autocracy” and directly aided his brutal security service in the decades leading up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, declassified files show. “Iran is an autocracy and all power flows from the Shah”, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) wrote in an internal […]
Topic: Arms
by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 27 September 2022 UK participation in the Ukraine conflict is far-reaching, involving military and intelligence support, arms supplies and information warfare. But as Ukraine makes gains on the battlefield, Whitehall sees the war not only as a way to defend Kyiv but to ensure the strategic defeat of its rival, […]
by Mark Curtis and Richard Norton-Taylor, Declassified UK, 8 June 2022 ‘Global Nato’. Help Taiwan ‘defend itself’. Recover the ‘whole’ of Ukraine. Promote ‘the free world’ – UK foreign policy under Liz Truss has become a series of empty slogans from a declining power desperate to remain a major one. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, foreign […]
By Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 30 June 2021 Britain’s Middle East minister James Cleverly is regularly refusing to provide answers to written questions posed to him by members of parliament, especially on UK arms exports to Israel, contravening House of Commons rules. James Cleverly has been accused of breaking the UK’s Ministerial Code and of […]
By Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 7 June 2021 While British ministers claim China is an increasing threat to UK interests, they have approved the sale of £2.6-billion worth of military and dual civilian/military equipment to the country in the last three years. The exports will likely benefit China’s navy and airforce – as the UK […]
By Phil Miller and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 24 February 2021 The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, has held 95 meetings with eight repressive monarchies in the Middle East since the ‘Arab Spring’ protests of 2011 threatened their power. Charles has played a key role in promoting £14.5-billion worth of UK arms exports […]
By Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 4 February 2021 New research finds 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 […]
By Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 23 July 2020 In the two years since a British citizen died following a chemical attack by Russian military intelligence officers in southern England, the UK government has licenced £232-million worth of controlled equipment to Russia, Declassified UK has found. Former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal […]
By Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 20 July 2020 Eyewitnesses in Yemen tell Declassified UK’s reporter on the ground about the aftermath of an airstrike that killed a young girl and her grandmother. “At first we suddenly heard an explosion. We saw a light that filled the store and the neighbourhood. We thought […]
by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 3 June 2020 GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence agency, is secretively promoting arms companies involved in war crimes to British school children, apparently without the informed consent of parents, it can be revealed. Declassified UK can reveal that a secretive GCHQ programme is allowing officials from British and American arms companies involved […]