Iain Overton

1 week ago | aoav.org.uk | Iain Overton

British companies exported thousands of military items to Israel after the Labour government’s suspension of key arms export licences in September 2024, according to new findings reported by The Guardian. The analysis, based on Israeli import data, raises serious questions about the government’s enforcement of its own export restrictions and the true nature of ongoing UK arms transfers to Israel.

1 week ago | bylinetimes.com | Iain Overton

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on ‘what the papers don’t say’ – without fear or favour. To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis. The Prime Minister’s Office has declined to reveal how many WhatsApp messages sent or received by Keir Starmer over a four-day period were saved for the public record.

1 week ago | aoav.org.uk | Iain Overton

As Britain commemorates VE Day, reactionary commentary has emerged – but not to honour the past, rather to weaponise it. In The Spectator and The Telegraph, recent columns by Gavin Mortimer and David Blair have turned remembrance into grievance, and set about casting diversity and diplomacy as threats to military strength. But their arguments rely on selective nostalgia and historical amnesia, constructing a dangerous mythology of British might that distorts both past and present.

1 week ago | aoav.org.uk | Iain Overton

An 18-month-old girl named Liliana was brought into the emergency room at a hospital in Gaza with a bullet wound to her temple. According to American anaesthesiologist Dr Ahlia Kattan, who held her as staff attempted chest compressions, “I knew she was dead, but her mum was screaming… she had tried for nine years to have her.” A CT scan confirmed the worst: this was not shrapnel or incidental trauma. The child had been shot—directly, precisely—in the head.

1 week ago | aoav.org.uk | Iain Overton

There’s a bitter truth in warzones that should be read out to the men in suits who approve arms deals and the generals who sign off on weapon transfers. Once a gun is made, it doesn’t disappear. It lingers. It doesn’t fall apart on its own will. It just finds new hands. In the badland-borderlands of the central Sahel, Salafi jihadist groups are waging war with weapons of the past. No ideology-driven arsenals flown in from foreign patrons. No 21st-century weaponry bought in dark web bazaars.