Campaign Against Arms Trade (Caat) pointed out that one of the key listed themes of the visit was “military links between the Saudi and UK Armed Forces.”
The group said that it suspected that the visit has been added to the prince’s Middle East itinerary in an attempt to persuade the Saudi regime to finalise a contract for 48 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.
Prime Minister David Cameron failed to secure the deal during a trip in November. Caat suggested that the British government may believe that the Saudis will be more impressed with a royal.
Caat spokeswoman Kaye Stearman said: “The BAE Eurofighter deal is still under discussion, the Serious Fraud Office is investigating a second Saudi arms deal, and a parliamentary committee is undertaking a review of UK-Saudi relations.
“Added to this is the steady stream of news about human rights abuses and reports of unrest in Saudi Arabia. No wonder the Saudi rulers are feeling concerned – even insecure.
“The visit of Prince Charles is meant to reassure them that they still have the support of the UK government and that they should sign the Eurofighter Typhoon deal.”
Over the past five years Britain has licensed almost £4 billion worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia.
Government to boost military spending – but cut services
Thursday 31 January 2013
Unions and anti-arms campaigners joined forces today to condemn suggestions the government intended to boost spending on military equipment – but slash public services.
Senior government sources have indicated that Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to deliver real-terms rises in equipment spending after 2015.
During the Prime Minister’s trip to north Africa it was signalled that Mr Cameron “does not resile” from comments he made in October 2010, when he appeared to accept that defence spending had to start rising again from 2015.
But Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said today that while he had been given a commitment that the equipment side of his budget – accounting for roughly half of Ministry of Defence spending – would rise in real terms, there would be a “robust discussion” about other elements.
Asked whether staffing budgets could be cut, he said: “The rest of the budget will be subject to a discussion around the spending review the Chancellor announced in the Autumn Statement.
“But I’m going into that spending review discussion on the basis that I expect the outputs that I have defined to be protected.”
A spokesman for public servants’ union PCS said that since 2010 the MoD has lost 20-25,000 civilian employees.
The spokesman said that while any extra funding for the ministry was welcomed “we would prefer to see being put back into full time jobs for civilian staff, not just equipment which will mean the money goes to private firms who are only interested in profit.”
Mr Hammond published a detailed equipment plan for the next 10 years.
The £159 billion programme included £35.8bn for a new generation of nuclear-powered submarines, £18.5bn for combat aircraft and £17.4bn for Royal Navy warships, including aircraft carriers.
“The scale of the proposed spending is unbelievable, particularly when you consider what that money could be invested in to actually meet the needs of the British people and generate British industry and jobs – like homes, health and education,” said Ms Hudson.
This video is called “Olympic Dreams” – Omani Human Rights Defender – Habiba Al-Hinai.
This video says about itself:
July 20, 2012
France 24 report on human rights defenders in Oman, including the case of Habiba Al-Hinai and her colleagues who were detained while supporting striking oil workers.
UK aerospace company BAE Systems has won a £2.5bn aircraft contract with the Sultanate of Oman.
BAE will provide 12 Typhoon fighter jets and eight Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer aircraft.
The contract will cover the supply of the aircraft and in-service support for them and is the latest in a long line of contracts to supply Oman.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who is due to visit the Middle Eastern state on Saturday, welcomed the deal. …
The deal will come as a welcome fillip for BAE following Wednesday’s news that its deal to supply Saudi Arabia with 72 Typhoon fighter[s] has been delayed because of disagreements over the final contract price. BAE has supplied 24 jets to the kingdom so far.
The group said the delay could reduce full-year underlying earnings-per-share by approximately three pence.
BAE has been under pressure to develop an alternative growth strategy following the collapse of its planned merger with European defence company EADS earlier this year.
Britain cannot stop illegal gun-running until it ends its own dalliances with dictators, peace activists said today ahead of a BBC exposé of arms dealers: here.
Arms manufacturer BAE Systems was ordered to pay £350,000 in fines and costs at Hull Crown Court today following the death of a worker who was crushed by a 145-tonne metal press: here.
The National Gallery, one of our most iconic public institutions, regularly hosts evening events for the arms trade. In this video, 16 artists spell out what they think of the gallery’s support for arms companies. Add your voice:
http://www.caat.org.uk/email-the-gallery /
A spokesperson for the gallery said today that the company had “exercised their right to terminate” the deal – which netted the site £30,000 in the last year alone.
Inked in 2006, Finmeccania – the world’s eighth largest weapons manufacturer – had been due to continue as sponsor until October next year.
Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s Sarah Waldron was “delighted.”
The gallery was an “iconic and much-loved institution” but the deal had only tarnished its reputation.
Ms Waldron said: “This deal gave practical support to Finmeccanica’s business activities but, more importantly, the company was able to use the gallery’s facilities and prestige to give the appearance of legitimacy to its work.
“We hope the end of this relationship marks a recognition that arms companies and their deadly deals have no place in our arts institutions.”
Talking about merchants of death: Talks over a possible £28 billion merger of defence giant BAE Systems with French rival EADS have collapsed, writes Tony Patey.
A British arms dealer was convicted today of involvement in the shipping of thousands of AK47 assault rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition from China to Nigeria in 2007: here.
2011-03-14: A convoy of UK-made Saudi Arabian armoured personnel carriers arrives in Bahrain to aid the government’s brutal suppression of pro-democracy protests. The armoured vehicles, marketed as Tacticas, were manufactured by BAE Systems Land Systems Division in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
Campaign Against The Arms Trade (Caat) parliamentary co-ordinator Ann Feltham accused the company of undermining Tanzania’s government after a Commons committee investigated the affair on Tuesday.
Serious Fraud Office (SFO) director Richard Alderman told the committee BAE‘s actions were “unsatisfactory and frustrating.”
The deal was originally struck last December, he said, but BAE had failed to lodge the money with the government’s Department For International Development.
BAE general counsel Philip Bramwell explained to the committee that his firm had instead appointed an independent advisory board – on which he sits – to decide how the “charitable payment” should be spent.
But Ms Feltham said today BAE should not be involved at all.
“If unaccountable arms company appointees are allowed to determine which projects this payment should go to, it would be a highly retrogressive and irresponsible step for democracy and parliamentary processes in Tanzania.”
It was Tanzania’s own elected representatives who should have proper oversight, she said.
The £29.5m payout is part of a plea bargain struck with the SFO over accounting irregularities in BAE‘s 2001 sale of a £28m military radar system to Tanzania – a country which has no air force.
A Crown Court hearing found that BAE had paid a local lobbyist £8m for “technical services” to secure the contract – the “obvious inference” being that it was used for bribes, according to presiding judge Justice David Bean.
But Justice Bean fined the company just £500,000 “so that the reparation is kept at a maximum.”
Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, with around a third of the population living on less than a dollar a day.
A BAE spokeswoman told the Morning Star the money had no “direct relation” to the radar deal and it was a gift to the people of Tanzania.
It was only appropriate to appoint an independent advisory board in line with company policy, she added.
Four of the six board members are BAE executives, while deputy chair Philippa Foster Back is a former treasurer for rival arms manufacturer Thorn EMI, who sat on a previous BAE committee in 2007 to investigate its dealings with Saudi Arabia.
Defence giant BAE Systems has finally agreed to pay £29.5 million immediately to the Tanzanian government to bring an end to a long-running row over allegations of corruption, MPs said today: here.
Anti-arms campaigners have hit out at reports that the boss of BAE Systems stands to personally pocket £18 million if the firm’s controversial merger with European arms giant EADS goes ahead: here.
Campaigners called for British industry to shift away from defence production today following reports that 3,000 jobs could go at arms manufacturer BAE Systems: here.
The World Socialist Web Site interviewed workers and youth in Lancashire, England as to the consequences of the 3,500 job losses recently announced by BAE Systems: here.
Paul Fuhrmann’s painting titled War Profiteer depicts a straightforward scene of an artist at work in his studio with a patron approvingly overseeing the beginnings of a freshly painted canvas. Upon closer inspection the picture reveals a narrative on the subject of culpability and corruption; the canvas is in actuality a fully relevant morality tale for today’s art world. Fuhrmann is little known outside of Germany, though he was an important figure in the avant-garde of that country during the pre-Nazi Weimar years (1919-1932). Though Kriegsgewinnler (”War Profiteer”) was painted in 1932 under extreme circumstances, it is still worth analyzing for the insights it continues to provide: here.
USA: How the DoD Allows Contractors to Grade Themselves and Write Their Own Contract Terms. Dina Rasor, Truthout: “The Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General’s (IG) office recently found that the Marine Corps allowed their contractors for a vital troop protection system to act as government employees, including directing and evaluating government employees’ work, grading their own work and writing up requirements for the follow-on contract. The contractors then bid on those requirements and won multimillion-dollar contracts”: here.
How the DoD Allows Contractors to Grade Themselves and Write Their Own Contract Terms, Part II: here.
International pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson is to pay more than $75m (£45.9m) to UK and US authorities to settle corruption charges spanning three European countries and Iraq: here.
Shocking new allegations of corruption and fraud on a massive scale which have emerged in further British and American media reports covering the Carroll Foundation Trust and the parallel Carroll Maryland Trust cases have revealed that BAE Systems based at the Farnborough Airport Hampshire executed serious multi-million dollar fraudulent transactions “in concert” with HSBC Holdings Plc.
The US Senate oversight committees are understood to be also taking a close interest in the combined Carroll Trust case following these new disclosures which center around the Carroll Aircraft Corporation global reach operations which were based at the world renowned Ministry of Defence Farnborough aviation establishment under the umbrella of the Farnborough Aerospace Development Corporation Plc. (FADC) the Carroll Aircraft Corporation Plc. (CAC) and the Strategic Research & Development Corporation Plc. (SRDC).
The Carroll Aircraft’s interests are understood to have embraced over two hundred and fifty million dollars of military-industrial complex investment holdings on a world wide basis including aviation assets which are thought to have involved a full spectrum of civilian/military jets and helicopters. In a sensational further twist it has emerged that HSBC were one of the main banking institutions for the Carroll Global Corporation Group which ultimately fell victim of a co-ordinated multiple criminal seizure operation over a number of years which saw the virtual vaporisation of one of the Ministry of Defence’s primary external operating contractors known at the time of these shocking events as the Farnborough Aerospace Development Corporation Plc and the Carroll Aircraft Corporation Plc.
Sources have now disclosed that the Carroll Aircraft Corporation group structures were utilised within the framework of a co-ordinated trans-national crime syndicate operation which effectively impulsed the criminal liquidation and tax fraud embezzlement of over a staggering one billion dollars of the Carroll Trust’s world wide interests. Further sources have revealed that the FBI Washington DC field office elite law enforcement officers charged with this case of international importance have recently obtained Carroll Aircraft Group case files which are understood to contain a startling litany of forged and falsified Delaware corporations directly linked to fraudulent HSBC International offshore numbered bank accounts incorporated in the Bahamas Gibraltar the British Virgin Islands and the City of London.
The BAE Systems chairman Dick Olver continues to refuse to issue a detailed public statement to the world’s media hungry for an explanation about these serious criminal allegations which now confront Europe’s largest defence contractor.
Oxford University was exposed today for hosting an international “Serious Study of Peace” conference at the same time as ploughing millions of pounds into weapons development.
It showed that between 2008 and 2010 Oxford’s endowment and capital funds invested an average of £4.5m a year into arms dealers through third-party funds.
BAE grabbed headlines in March when its armoured personnel carriers were used to crush dozens peaceful protesters in Bahrain, while Lockheed Martin – in which the university held a £1.4m stake as recently as last April – is a known manufacturer of banned cluster bombs.
The period of the group’s investigations encompasses the May 2009 peace event held at the university’s St John’s College.
At the time Chancellor Lord Patten of Barnes said in a message to attendees that the world had become much better at preventing and resolving conflict.
“But as I know from my work as co-chair of the International Crisis Group
not really a peace group since it sometimes lobbies for so-called ‘humanitarian’ war
there is much more that we could do to resolve conflicts and avoid the conditions which help produce and sustain them,” he said.
That same month the university launched a socially responsible investment review committee specifically to address arms manufacturing.
In its official recommendation last March the committee advised against investment “directly or indirectly” in companies selling weapons banned under Britain’s arms control treaties.
But the university’s council overruled the recommendation, saying that screening out such arms manufacturers would be difficult due to a lack of reliable information.
Vice-chancellor Andrew Hamilton said that council members felt investment in arms dealing “was actually very difficult to achieve as such a tiny minority of companies manufactured such weapons or munitions.”
But the report’s authors said Oxford had a choice.
“They can channel their considerable capital to worthy enterprises, shaping the future in a responsible way – or they can continue to provide the financial wherewithal to produce potentially ever deadlier and more indiscriminate means of destruction.”
A university spokesman said they had no response at this time.
BAE Systems Retains Control of Money it Owes the Tanzanian People: here.
Some of Britain’s top universities have accepted millions of pounds from the arms industry giving the controversial trade “a veneer of respectability,” campaigners said today: here.
USA: Defender of the Capitalist System: Department of Defense Worst in Competitive Contracts. Dina Rasor, Truthout: “The Department of Defense (DoD) came in the lowest in the government on competing their procurement contracts…. In the DoD, unlike the past, once a company makes a weapon, it almost always gets the follow-on contract. Some of these weapons … go through generations of technical changes and use of totally difference technology, but because it was originally competed up to decades earlier, these follow-on contracts can be considered ‘competitive’”: here.
A previous bid by BAE‘s predecessor British Aerospace to sell Hawk jets to Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1989 was blocked by the British government over fears the jets could be converted to fly combat missions.
Stop the War said that the cynical bid exposed the true reason for the invasion, using Iraq as a means to further Western interests whether they be oil or armaments.
CAAT spokeswoman Kaye Stearman said: “Iraq is a nation in ruins, in good part due to disastrous military interventions, including by the UK. It desperately needs to rebuild its civilian infrastructure – water, sanitation, health, education.
“Instead, we are trying to sell them weapons in the form of BAE Hawk jets. This money should be spent on areas which directly benefit Iraq citizens, rather than add to BAE‘s already handsome profits.”
The irony of a British firm attempting to sell replacements for planes Britain helped to destroy was not lost on campaigners.
“The Iraqi air force was destroyed by the UK/US offensive and now in a classic manoeuvre BAE is trying to get the contract to replace it. There are a number of companies doing the same thing, especially oil firms, trying to loot the country.
“This is a country with no infrastructure and which suffered massive damage during the war and occupation. The government should be trying to rebuild that infrastructure not buy weapons of mass destruction, which it did not have before.”
Britain: Anti-arms trade campaigners have condemned new evidence of a cosy relationship between BAE Systems and the Ministry of Defence: here.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) launched its latest campaign on Wednesday to counter BAE Systems recruiting on British university campuses: here.
Anti-BAE protesters shut down a careers fair at Edinburgh University on Wednesday: here.
The time has come for warmonger and criminal leviathan BAE Systems to be dismantled, writes Steven Schofield: here.
Arms giant BAE systems delivered a huge blow to workers on Wednesday announcing plans to axe over 1,400 jobs just weeks before Christmas: here.
Britain: Showing how the arms industry has colonised the Commons is as simple as looking at its guest list: here.
Campaign Against Arms Trade has called on the coalition government to end its active promotion of the international export of weapons of mass destruction: here.
Anti-arms trade campaigners have made their case for the government to end its links to the arms industry with a mock demolition of UK Trade and Investment’s offices in London: here.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has condemned a Tory minister’s claims that the new government will have a “very heavy” commitment to promoting arms sales to compensate for the huge cuts at the Ministry of Defence: here.
Anti-arms trade campaigners have condemned the Farnborough Airshow as a “shop window for deadly weapons”: here.
Anti-arms campaigners have reacted with outrage to reports that the Ministry of Justice has been paying a secretive lobby group to secure defence contracts in Washington for British firms: here.
• New documents in inquiry into corruption allegations
• Vienna prosecutor builds case against ‘persuader’
* David Leigh and Rob Evans
* Friday 19 June 2009 21.58 BST
Austria expects to bring corruption charges in connection with BAE arms sales, the first such prosecution in five years’ of bribery investigations all over the world.
The Austrian prosecutors’ decision follows the emergence of new documents that outline in considerable detail the channelling of secret BAE cash to Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, an Austrian aristocrat who worked undercover for the arms firm. In one memo, Mensdorff claims Austria was persuaded to buy BAE‘s Eurofighters in 2002 for €1.7bn (£1.5bn), thanks to “aggressive incentive payments to key decision-makers”.
Leaked Austrian legal files reveal a new witness has emerged, Mark Cliff, 51, a British accountant, who helped the count to acquire a shooting estate with castle at Dalnaglar in Scotland in 2003. Cliff has now supplied information and documents. He was closely involved in running a chain of offshore companies used by Mensdorff. Cliff told the Guardian he did not wish to comment. …
According to the documents, Mensdorff helped promote BAE‘s interests in Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
New business for BAE Systems boosted its shares in a lacklustre stockmarket . News of a £370m contract to maintain and develop torpedoes for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force lifted the defence group 4.9p, or 1.5%, to 325.5p: here.
Documents filed in federal court in Virginia allege Don M. Ayala of New Orleans helped subdue and arrest civilian Abdul Salam after he tossed a container of flammable liquid at a fellow contractor.
Documents say that after learning the contractor had suffered serious burns, Ayala shot and killed Salam, who was handcuffed.
Ayala, who worked for contractor BAE Systems, is charged with murder in the Nov. 4 incident 50 miles west of Kandahar. A hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria has not been set.
From MSN News UK:
More than £100m was secretly paid by the arms company BAE to sell warplanes to South Africa, according to allegations in a detailed police dossier seen by the Guardian: here.
Anti-war activists are set to urge the Government to bring the “occupation” of Afghanistan to an end and bring UK troops home.
LONDON (AP) – BAE Systems PLC, Europe’s largest defense contractor, said Friday that first-half profit rose 14 percent, chiefly because of demand for armored vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Net profit in the six months to June 30 rose to 586 million pounds ($1.16 billion) from 515 million pounds in the same period a year ago. Revenue rose to 7.09 billion pounds ($14.05 billion) from 6.35 billion. …
Olver said Saudi Arabia remains a key overseas market, predicting that BAE will add to the 4,600 staff already employed there by the group. BAE is focussed on modernizing the Saudi armed forces, including the replacement of Tornado fighter jets with new Typhoon aircraft from next year.
Then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Saudi officials would have likely withheld crucial cooperation on anti-terrorism intelligence if the inquiry continued.
The Serious Fraud Office currently is investigating possible BAE bribes to Tanzania, Romania, Chile and the Czech Republic in other arms contracts.
Olver said the company’s outlook for 2008 looks positive, with more orders for armored and mine protected vehicles likely — particularly to protect NATO forces in Afghanistan.
