5 h. ago Pentagon provided $2.4tn to private arms firms to ‘fund war and weapons’, report finds

Exclusive: Most of defense department’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 went to military contractorsA new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a “continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing”.The report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War project at Brown University said that the Trump administration’s new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark. Continue reading...

Economics

12 h. ago Israeli report accuses Hamas of using sexual violence as a weapon of war on Oct. 7

An Israeli report released Tuesday accuses Hamas of using sexual violence as a weapon of war during its Oct. 7, 2023 attacks

Events

12 h. ago Government could help City firms fund defence industry – taskforce report

Ministers have been urged to produce a 10-year outlook revealing their intentions for equipment procurement.

Politics

19 h. ago China’s weaponisation of rare earths is a new kind of trade war

The country’s latest sanctions are proving far more effective than prior efforts

Events

23 h. ago Ukraine war briefing: US to resume shipments of weapons for Ukrainian defence

Deaths as Kharkiv, Odesa and Zaporizhzhia come under attack; Ukraine hits Russian warhead plant. What we know on day 1,231 Continue reading...

Events

23 h. ago Trump says US will resume weapon shipments to Ukraine days after pause

A top Pentagon official had ordered a halt to weapons shipments just days earlier

Politics

4 d. ago Dutch intelligence services say Russia has stepped up use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine

Two Dutch intelligence agencies say that Russia is increasing its use of prohibited chemical weapons in Ukraine including the World War I-era poison gas chloropicrin

Events

4 d. ago Russian use of chemical weapons in Ukraine ‘widespread and growing’ European intelligence warns

Moscow is accused of using deadly choking agent chloropicrin to flush Kyiv’s troops out of trenches

Events

5 d. ago Ukraine war briefing: Washington downplays halt of some weapons shipments as Kyiv calls in US ambassador

Ukraine warns that any cut-off will ‘only encourage the aggressor’ while Pentagon spokesperson says Donald Trump still has ‘robust options’ for military aid to Ukraine. What we know on day 1,226Read all our Ukraine war coverageA decision by Washington to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine prompted warnings by Kyiv on Wednesday that the move would weaken its ability to defend against intensifying airstrikes and battlefield advances. Ukraine said it had called in the acting US envoy to Kyiv to underline the importance of military aid from Washington continuing, and cautioned that any cut-off would embolden Russia in its war in Ukraine. The Pentagon’s decision – tied to concerns that US military stockpiles are too low – began in recent days and includes 30 Patriot air defence missiles, which Ukraine relies on to destroy fast-moving ballistic missiles, four people familiar with the decision told Reuters on Wednesday. It also includes nearly 8,500 155mm artillery shells, ...

Events

6 d. ago US halts weapons shipments to Ukraine over fears stockpiles are too low

Some shipments have been stopped ‘to put America’s interests first’, White House saysSee all our Ukraine war coverageThe US is halting some shipments of weapons to Ukraine amid concerns that its own stockpiles have declined too much, officials said Tuesday, a setback for the country as it tries to fend off escalating attacks from Russia.Certain munitions were previously promised to Ukraine under the Biden administration to aid its defences during the more than three-year-old war. The pause reflects a new set of priorities under President Donald Trump and came after defence department officials scrutinised US stockpiles and raised concerns. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Nuclear weapons threat to UK 'growing' as challenge 'more complex than Cold War'

The National Security Strategy review says the 'foundations of strategic stability' are being challenged, and tackling the nuclear weapons threat is 'likely to be more complex than in the Cold War'

Events

2 w. ago America made a catastrophic mistake with the Iraq war. Is it about to repeat it in Iran? | Stephen Werthheim

If the United States joins Israel’s fight to try to finish Israel’s job, it will enter into a war of unknowable scope against a country of 90 million peopleTwo decades ago, as Americans debated whether their country should invade Iraq, one question loomed the largest: did Saddam Hussein possess weapons of mass destruction? If so, the implication was that the United States should disarm and overthrow his regime by military force. If not, Washington could keep that option in reserve and continue to contain Saddam through economic sanctions and routine bombings.In time, the implications of the Iraq war far exceeded the boundaries of the original debate. Saddam, it turned out, had no weapons of mass destruction. But suppose he had possessed the chemical and biological agents that the war’s advocates claimed. Invading his country to destroy his regime would have given him the greatest possible incentive to use the worst weapons at his disposal. The war would have been just as mistaken — ...

Events

2 w. ago Israel’s attack has exposed Iran’s lack of firepower – but conflict could yet turn in Tehran’s favour

Iran has struggled to respond effectively after Israel killed many of its top military commandersIt is a week since Israel began its largest attack ever on Iran, and in conventional military terms it is clear that Tehran is under extreme pressure. Israel has been able to achieve superiority over Iran’s skies at extraordinary speed, within hours of launching its surprise assault. Its military claimed on Monday to have knocked out 120 Iranian air defence systems through a mixture of air and drone strikes, about a third of Tehran’s pre-war total.In response, Iran’s most effective weapon has been its stock of high-speed ballistic missiles, estimated at about 2,000 by Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) at the outset of hostilities last week. But the heavy targeting by Israel of launch sites in western Iran, in underground bases such as at Kermanshah – coupled with Israel’s grimly effective targeted killing of Iran’s top military commanders – have left Iran struggling to respond militarily and ...

Events

3 w. ago Send in armed UN troops to protect aid convoys or risk ‘dystopia’, says expert

UN rapporteur calls for move as food deliveries are attacked and starvation becomes a weapon of war in Gaza and SudanUN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Attack dogs: how Europe supplies Israel with brutal canine weapons

Military dogs involved in attacks on Palestinian civilians – including children – are likely to have been exported from European countries, investigation findsWarning: readers may find some of the details in this piece distressingIt was only seconds after soldiers entered the Hashash family’s home in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank that the dog attack began. As military raids rolled out across her neighbourhood one morning in February 2023, Amani Hashash says she took her four children into a bedroom. When she heard Israeli military coming into their home she called out that they were inside and posed no threat.Moments later the bedroom door was opened and a large, unmuzzled dog launched itself into the room, plunging its teeth into her three-year-old son, Ibrahim, who was asleep in her lap. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago King Charles has special reunion with old pals as he hosts secret Palace party

King Charles, who is now the armed foreces Commander in Chief, held a special private reception at Buckingham Palace today for his old shipmates who he served with in the Royal Navy

Society

3 w. ago This Striking $10.1 Million Home in London Was Born From a Cold War Weapon Site

This Striking $10.1 Million Home in London Was Born From a Cold War Weapon Site  Yahoo

Events

3 w. ago Trading firm Tower Research to launch fund for outside investors

High-frequency market makers are seeking new avenues for growth as competition rises

Economics

4 w. ago Blix Not Bombs review – former UN weapons inspector revisits the Iraq war

Greta Stocklassová’s documentary films Hans Blix, aged 97, and asks about his role in the war, WMD, and why his world of diplomacy has now disappearedAt the age of 97, entirely lucid, still writing books and physically spry enough to be shown swimming in a Norwegian lake, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has given an extended interview to the Czech-born Swedish film-maker Greta Stocklassová about his life and times, about George W Bush Jr, Saddam Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction that were not there. The result is insightful and a vivid time capsule for the grim and mendacious era of the “war on terror”, during which Blix was tasked with discovering the truth about Saddam’s supposed weapons. The film is also unexpectedly spiky, with Blix at one stage threatening to walk out, as Stocklassová presses him on his apparent fence-sitting, then as now, insisting on an absence of evidence for WMD but also reluctant to commit himself definitively to this being evidence of abse...

Events