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Arms-to-Iraq
The Arms-to-Iraq affair concerned the uncovering of the government-endorsed sale of arms by British companies to Iraq, then under the rule of Saddam Hussein. The scandal contributed to the growing dissatisfaction with the Conservative government of John Major and the atmosphere of sleaze that contributed to the electoral landslide for Tony Blair's Labour Party at the 1997 general election. The whole affair also highlighted the weakness of the constitutional convention of individual ministerial accountability, leading to its codification as the Ministerial Code by the Blair Government. Following the first Gulf War of 1991 there was interest in the extent to which British companies had been supplying Saddam Hussein's administration with the materials to prosecute the war. Four directors of the British machine tools manufacturer Matrix Churchill were put on trial for supplying equipment and knowledge to Iraq, but in 1992 the trial collapsed, when it was revealed that the company ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Support For Iraq During The Iran–Iraq War
In the United Kingdom there were direct sales to both sides in the Iran–Iraq War. With an embargo in effect various companies also supplied Iraq and Iran by shipping materials through third-party countries and from those countries to the belligerents. While some of this exporting was legal, permitted or tolerated by parliament, Iraqi clandestine procurement operations were especially active in Britain. Motives for policy towards Iraq In spite of the British embargo, both the Iraqis and Iranians purchased British goods, from BMARC and other countries, using false end user certificates citing the destination as Singapore, Jordan or South Africa. Economically, Britain wanted to continue an export trade with Iran and Iraq, which accounted for a total of 1 billion pounds per year. These guidelines, according to evidence to the Scott arms-to-Iraq inquiry, were subsequently secretly relaxed. After "The United Nations imposed an embargo, to try to restore stability to the region. Britai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Clark
Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (13 April 1928 – 5 September 1999) was a British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), author and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade and Defence. He became a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1991. He was the author of several books of military history, including his controversial work ''The Donkeys'' (1961), which inspired the musical satire ''Oh, What a Lovely War!'' Clark became known for his flamboyance, wit, irreverence and keen support of animal rights. Norman Lamont called him "the most politically incorrect, outspoken, iconoclastic and reckless politician of our times". Clark is particularly remembered for his three-volume ''Alan Clark Diaries'', which contains a candid account of political life under Thatcher and a moving description of the weeks preceding his death, when he continued to write until he could no longer focus on the page. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Interest Immunity
Public-interest immunity (PII), previously known as Crown privilege, is a principle of English common law under which the English courts can grant a court order allowing one litigant to refrain from disclosing evidence to the other litigants where disclosure would be damaging to the public interest. This is an exception to the usual rule that all parties in litigation must disclose any evidence that is relevant to the proceedings. In making a PII order, the court has to balance the public interest in the administration of justice (which demands that relevant material is available to the parties to litigation) and the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of certain documents whose disclosure would be damaging. PII orders have been used in criminal law against large organised criminal outfits and drug dealers where the identity of paid police informants could be at risk. Seeking the order An order that PII applies would usually be sought by the British government to pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iraq And Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons during the 1980s campaign against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War. In the 1980s, Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Gulf War (1990–1991), the United Nations (with the Government of Iraq) located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs. In the early 2000s, U.S. President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair both asserted that Saddam Hussein's weapons programs were still active ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supergun Affair
The "Supergun" affair was a 1990 political scandal in the United Kingdom that involved two businesses, Sheffield Forgemasters and Walter Somers, Gerald Bull, (then) members of parliament Hal Miller and Nicholas Ridley, the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, a failed prosecution, and components of a "supergun" (as newspaper headlines had it) that the businesses were alleged to have been exporting to Iraq that they and others had contacted the government about in 1988. The collapse of the court case preceded the Arms-to-Iraq case, that involved a different company Matrix Churchill, by four months. Canadian engineer Gerald Bull became interested in the possibility of using 'superguns' in place of rockets to insert payloads into orbit. He lobbied for the start of Project HARP to investigate this concept in the 1960s, using paired ex-US Navy 16"/50 calibre Mark 7 gun barrels welded end-to-end. Three of these 16"/100 (406 mm) guns were emplaced, one in Quebec, Canada, another i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed by Coventry City Council. Historic counties of England, Formerly part of Warwickshire until 1451, Coventry had a population of 345,328 at the 2021 census, making it the tenth largest city in England and the 12th largest in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest city in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, after Birmingham, from which it is separated by an area of Green belt (United Kingdom), green belt known as the Meriden Gap, and the third largest in the wider Midlands after Birmingham and Leicester. The city is part of a larger conurbation known as the Coventry and Bedworth Urban Area, which in 2021 had a population of 389,603. Coventry is east-south-east of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Political Scandals In The United Kingdom
This is a list of political scandals in the United Kingdom in chronological order. Scandals implicating political figures or governments of the UK, often reported in the mass media, have long had repercussions for their popularity. Issues in political scandals have included alleged or proven financial and sexual matters, or various other allegations or actions taken by politicians that led to controversy. In British media and political discourse, such scandals have sometimes been referred to as political sleaze since the 1990s. Notable scandals include the Marconi scandal, Profumo affair and the 2009 expenses scandal. 1890s *Liberator Building Society scandal, in which the Liberal Party MP Jabez Balfour was exposed as running several fraudulent companies to conceal financial losses. Balfour fled to Argentina, but was eventually arrested and imprisoned. 1910s * Marconi scandal of insider trading by Liberal Party Ministers including: ** Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scott Report
The Scott Report (the ''Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions'') was a judicial inquiry commissioned in 1992 after reports surfaced of previously restricted arms sales to Iraq in the 1980s by British companies. The report was conducted by Sir Richard Scott, then a Lord Justice of Appeal. It was published in 1996. Much of the report was classified as secret. Background In the late 1980s, Matrix Churchill, a British (Coventry) aerospace quality machine tools manufacturer that had been bought by the Iraqi government, was exporting machines used in weapons manufacture to Iraq. According to the International Atomic Energy Authority, the products later found in Iraq were among the highest quality of their kind in the world. They were 'dual use' machines that could be used to manufacture weapons parts. Such exports are subject to government control, and Matrix Churchill had the appropriate government permissions, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Export Licence
An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ''exporter''; the foreign buyer is an ''importer''. Services that figure in international trade include financial, accounting and other professional services, tourism, education as well as intellectual property rights. Exportation of goods often requires the involvement of customs authorities. Firms Many manufacturing firms begin their global expansion as exporters and only later switch to another mode for serving a foreign market. Barriers There are four main types of export barriers: motivational, informational, operational/resource-based, and knowledge. Trade barriers are laws, regulations, policy, or practices that protect domestically made products from foreign competition. While restrictive business practices sometimes have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Campaign Against Arms Trade
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) is a UK-based campaigning organisation working towards the abolition of the international arms trade. It was founded in 1974 by a coalition of peace groups. It has been involved in several high-profile campaigns, including a legal challenge against the Serious Fraud Office's decision to suspend a corruption investigation into BAE Systems in 2007. On 27 September 2012, it was honoured with a Right Livelihood Award for its "innovative and effective campaigning". Research Campaigns are founded on research into the arms trade and arms companies, and their relationship with the UK government and military, through political, financial and military support. The focus is on arms exports, although they recognise that there is a close relationship with military procurement. The research places particular emphasis on debunking myths and exposing hidden features of the arms trade, and large government subsidies given to the arms industry, largely through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dual-use Technology
In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.''Exporting dual-use goods.'' European Commission (accessed Aug 2022) More generally speaking, dual-use can also refer to any goods or technology which can satisfy more than one goal at any given time. Thus, expensive technologies that would otherwise benefit only civilian commercial interests can also be used to serve military purposes if they are not otherwise engaged, such as the . The "dual-use dilemma" was first noted with the discovery of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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