Category Archives: Military

UK inquiry blames ‘pervasive racism’ for unequal commemoration of troops

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Exclusive: Commonwealth War Graves Commission expected to apologise for commemorating British empire’s black and Asian first world war dead ‘unequally’

Hundreds of thousands of predominantly black and Asian service personnel who died fighting for the British Empire have not been formally commemorated in the same way as their white comrades because of decisions underpinned by “pervasive racism”, an investigation has concluded.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is expected to issue a formal apology on Thursday after it discovered that at least 116,000 – but potentially up to 350,000 – predominantly African and Middle Eastern first world war casualties may not be commemorated by name, or at all.

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China may need Britain more than it cares to admit | Jeevan Vasagar

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The value of British cultural capital in China makes the souring of relations all the more painful

When it is fully open later this year, the Londoner Macao hotel will be a kitsch recreation of tourist Britain, with a facade modelled on the Houses of Parliament, actors in bearskin hats performing the changing of the guard, and an English fried breakfast served at a restaurant called Churchill’s Table.

The new casino resort in China is one of the more tacky examples of the country’s fondness for British culture. Alongside the US and the Gulf, China is a crucial overseas market for English Premier League football broadcast rights. Britain’s heritage attractions, private schools and designer brands are immensely popular with China’s elite. The UK is also a favoured destination for higher education: numbers of Chinese students at UK universities soared by 56% from 2015 to 2019.

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UK defence policy review lacks clarity on China and Indo-Pacific

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Analysis: focus shifts away from cooperation with the EU but fails to balance far east investment and security issues

Prof John Bew, the historian appointed by Boris Johnson to write the foreign and defence security review, has privately insisted the document should not be seen as an apology for Brexit or a turning away from Europe, the charge sometimes levelled by pro-EU critics such as the former national security adviser Lord Ricketts and Sir Simon Fraser, the former foreign office permanent secretary.

It is instead intended as a hard-headed look at the new collective security threats facing Britain, many of which, notably the rise of China, the spread of authoritarianism, the challenge of the climate crisis and the ubiquity of cyberwarfare, the UK would have faced in or out of the European Union.

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Why Britain is tilting to the Indo-Pacific region

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Critics warn of imperial fantasy but the economic and political forces pulling the UK back to the region are real

Some will call it a tilt, others a rebalancing and yet others a pivot but, either way, the new big idea due to emerge from the government’s foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday will be the importance of the Indo-Pacific region – a British return east of Suez more than 50 years after the then defence secretary Denis Healey announced the UK’s cash-strapped retreat in 1968.

Boris Johnson and his admirals are billing the focus on a zone stretching through some of the world’s most vital seaways east from India to Japan and south from China to Australia as Britain stepping out in the world after 47 years locked in the EU’s protectionist cupboard. Others warn Johnson is indulging a hubristic and militarily dangerous imperial fantasy.

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Women in UK armed forces face ‘hostile environment’ if they report bullying

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Army veteran Diane Allen tells MPs that women are coerced to withdraw harassment complaints

Women who serve in the armed forces find that they face “a hostile environment” when they are victims of bullying or harassment and try to complain, according to candid testimony given to a parliamentary committee on Thursday.

Diane Allen, who served for 30 years in the British army, told MPs that women were often pressed to withdraw their complaints, reflecting what she said were “mixed messages” from the defence leadership.

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British soldiers sacked for being gay can get their medals back

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Campaigners say veterans should also get compensation for injustice they suffered and pensions restored

Thousands of British military personnel who were dismissed because they were homosexual will be able to have their service medals restored if they had been taken away when they were kicked out of the armed forces.

Gay rights campaigners welcomed the move as the “first step on a journey” but said that issues such as enduring criminal records, lost pension rights and still blemished service records now needed to be dealt with by the Ministry of Defence.

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Harry says Mail on Sunday underplayed gravity of false claim as libel case settled

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Duke settles libel case with paper and Mail Online over stories about his relationship with armed forces

The Duke of Sussex has accused the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online of underplaying the seriousness of an error in a story about his relationship to the British armed forces as the two sides formally settled a high court libel claim.

Harry had sued Associated Newspapers over two articles published in October, which claimed he had snubbed the Royal Marines and “not been in touch … since his last appearance as an honorary marine in March”, citing “informed sources”.

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Australia’s air attacks in the Middle East ended three years ago – or did they? | Paul Daley

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Defence is refusing to provide details about the Australians piloting deadly British air force drone strikes in Iraq and Syria

Australian air attacks on enemy ground targets in the Middle East ended three years ago. Or so the Australian military told us.

But undisclosed to either the Australian public or the federal parliament, this country’s air force personnel have been piloting deadly British air force drone strikes on enemy combatants in Iraq and Syria.

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UK trained military of 15 countries with poor human rights records

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Campaigners seek inquiry into whether skills gained in UK were used to commit abuses in countries such as Bahrain, China and Saudi Arabia

The UK government has trained the armies of two-thirds of the world’s countries, including 15 it has rebuked for human rights violations.

An anti-arms trade organisation has called for an investigation into the use of UK military training by other countries to determine whether it has been used to perpetrate human rights abuses.

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Asylum seeker housing conditions under scrutiny at third ex-military site

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Allegations of poor conditions, poor food quality and mental health crises at RAF Coltishall in Norfolk

A third former military site being used as temporary housing for asylum seekers is facing allegations of poor conditions, poor food quality and mental health crises, it has emerged.

The Home Office has been housing asylum seekers in a former officers’ mess at RAF Coltishall, north of Norwich, since April last year. The Norfolk site has not received as much scrutiny as two similar facilities, Napier Barracks in Kent and Penally Barracks in Pembrokeshire, which have been dogged by allegations of cover-ups, poor access to healthcare and legal advice, and crowded conditions.

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Military helicopters may be sent to evacuate Covid patients from Isle of Wight

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Exclusive: 74-fold rise in cases, fuelled by Christmas mixing, leaves island’s only hospital struggling

Military helicopters could be used within days to airlift coronavirus patients from the Isle of Wight, the island’s medical director has said, after an “astronomical” rise in infections fuelled by mixing and visitors over Christmas.

A 74-fold increase in cases means the Isle of Wight has the 13th highest infection rate in the UK this week, from having one of the lowest in early December.

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Four navy ships to help protect fishing waters in case of no-deal Brexit

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Exclusive: two vessels to be deployed at sea with two on standby in case EU fishing boats enter EEZ

Four Royal Navy patrol ships will be ready from 1 January to help the UK protect its fishing waters in the event of a no-deal Brexit, in a deployment evoking memories of the “cod wars” in the 1970s.

The 80-metre-long armed vessels would have the power to halt, inspect and impound all EU fishing boats operating within the UK’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which can extend 200 miles from shore.

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Military planes to fly vaccines in to Britain to avoid ports hit by Brexit

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Officials fear delays even after EU deal as Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen order talks to resume

Tens of millions of doses of the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured in Belgium will be flown to Britain by military aircraft to avoid delays at ports caused by Brexit, under contingency plans being developed by the government.

Both the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and senior sources at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed to the Observer on Saturday that large consignments would be brought in from 1 January by air if road, rail and sea routes were subject to widely expected delays after that date.

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‘Where is the fairness?’ Fiji’s British Army veterans fight for a life in UK

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Taitusi Ratucaucau served 11 years in the Royal Logistics Corps, only for his contract to be terminated and his life left in limbo

Two decades ago, when Taitusi Ratucaucau signed his papers, there was such hope. A career in the British Army would bring security, adventure, a sense, too, of service.

In 2000, his homeland Fiji, roiled by a protracted and violent coup, held little hope. A career in the British military was Ratucaucau’s ticket to a wider world.

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UK soldiers 12% more likely to die than US troops in ‘war on terror’

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Study says poor equipment could be a reason for higher British fatality rate in Iraq and Afghanistan

British soldiers were 12% more likely to have been killed than their American counterparts during the “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a study of casualty figures.

The research – intended as a lessons learned exercise – also concludes that UK forces were 26% more likely to have been killed by improvised explosives, validating longstanding complaints about the poorly armoured Snatch Land Rover.

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Fijian British army veterans lose court battle to remain in UK

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Judge tells eight who served in Iraq and Afghanistan that courts not concerned with misadministration

Eight Fijian-born soldiers who served with the British army in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed in a legal effort to overturn what they say were bureaucratic errors that have left them living illegally in the country they once served.

The group were refused leave for a judicial review of their cases by Mr Justice Garnham, who concluded the veterans had made their claim too late and that the courts were concerned with “illegality not misadministration” or an “unfocused idea of fairness”.

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Hackers HQ and Space Command: how UK defence budget could be spent

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Creation of specialist cyber force and artificial intelligence unit in pipeline

A specialist cyber force of several hundred British hackers has been in the works for nearly three years, although its creation has been partly held back by turf wars between the spy agency GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence, to which the unit is expected to jointly report.

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Seven men bailed following suspected hijack of oil tanker off Isle of Wight

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Nigerians arrested after SBS stormed Nave Andromeda are still detained by Border Force

Seven Nigerian men detained after British special services stormed an oil tanker off the Isle of Wight have been bailed, police have said.

The raid was carried out by around 16 members of the Special Boat Service (SBS), backed by airborne snipers, who secured the Nave Andromeda tanker in around nine minutes.

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What do we know about the SBS?

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The Special Boat Service that stormed a tanker off the Isle of Wight is closely aligned to the SAS

The secretive Special Boat Service, which stormed a tanker off the coast of the Isle of Wight on Sunday evening and detained seven stowaways suspected of seizing it, is Britain’s elite military unit tasked with tackling terrorist and other localised, violent incidents at sea. Its origins date back to the second world war, and the Ministry of Defence refuses to say how many fighters it comprises or give any detail of its operations.

SBS operatives are trained to seize control of ships, tankers or rigs, typically by fast-roping down from helicopters. A similar operation in December 2018 saw the SBS take control of an Italian tanker that was subject to an attempted hijack by four stowaways near Tilbury in Essex, on the orders of then prime minister Theresa May.

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Russia spreading lies about Covid vaccines, says UK military chief

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Head of armed forces says both China and Russia trying to undermine cohesion in west

Russia is seeking to destabilise countries around the world by sowing disinformation about coronavirus vaccines that is shared rapidly across social media, the head of the armed forces has warned.

Gen Sir Nick Carter, the chief of defence staff, said the propaganda tactic reflected a strategy of “political warfare” aggressively undertaken by Beijing as well as Moscow “designed to undermine cohesion” across the west.

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