The government registered strong disagreement with the IDC’s claim that there was “growing evidence of indiscriminate bombing by the Saudi-led Coalition in Yemen, in violation of IHL,” which raised “serious questions over the Government’s continued licensing of arms transfers to Saudi Arabia [that] must be answered.”

The committee referenced “the UK’s obligations under the laws which regulate the international arms trade.”

The Government denied that the Saudi-led bombing was “indiscriminate” and claimed to have “considerable insight into the systems, processes and procedures that the Saudis have in place,” as UK personnel are embedded with Saudi forces.

It also claimed that then-foreign secretary Philip Hammond had “raised the importance of compliance with IHL with the Saudi Government during his visit to the region late May, emphasising the importance for thorough and conclusive investigations of alleged IHL breaches to be conducted.”

The government asserted that it has a “key test” in place in relation to “our continued arms exports to Saudi Arabia,” which determines “whether there is a clear risk that the items to be licensed might be used in a serious violation of IHL.”

“Having regard to all the information available to us, we assess that this test has not been met. The Government is therefore satisfied that extant licences for Saudi Arabia are compliant with the UK’s export licensing criteria,” it argued.

NGOs dealing with Britain’s global arms trade have not taken the government’s response well.

Within hours, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) spokesman Andrew Smith issued a statement.

“We are always being told how ‘rigorous’ and ‘robust’ UK arms export controls supposedly are, but the decision to keep arming Saudi shows how hollow those words are. There is a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and the UK government has been complicit in it,” Smith added.

In early July, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a 59-page report titled “Bombing Businesses: Saudi Coalition Airstrikes on Yemen’s Civilian Economic Structures.”

The document made a detailed study of 17 airstrikes on 13 civilian economic sites, including factories, warehouses, a farm, and two power facilities.

Those facilities had employed some 2,500 people before the airstrikes, after which many ceased operations. Up to 130 people were killed and 171 injured in the attacks.

(RT)

A full regiment system of S-400 Triumph is to be delivered to Crimea in August, told the media Lt. Col. Evgeny Oleinikov, deputy commander of the 18th missile air defense regiment of the 31 air defense division.

“After tests at a firing range… are complete, in August 2016 the accepted hardware will be transported to its permanent deployment site in the city of Feodosia,” he said.

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Bulgaria sails against tide as NATO mulls stronger presence in Black Sea

The equipment was manufactured by S-400 producer Almaz Antey this year under a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry. The regiment’s personnel have been trained to use the new system earlier this year, the officer said.

READ MORE: Russia to monitor NATO vessels in Bosphorus with new long-range radars from Crimea - source

Crimea is a former Ukrainian region, which opposed an armed coup in Kiev two years ago and voted in a referendum to rejoin Russia, from which it was rezoned during Soviet times. The peninsula is vital for Russian national security, and has been home base of the Russian Black Sea fleet for decades. Russian soldiers legally deployed in Crimea under a treaty with Ukraine provided security during the days of the referendum, when nationalists in Kiev threatened to attack the rebellious region.

Ukraine and its foreign sponsors consider the move a hostile takeover by Russia through military force. Moscow says it was a legitimate exercise of the right of self-determination as stipulated by the UN Charter.

NATO, which considers Crimea part of Ukraine, has ramped up its military presence in the Black Sea region significantly since 2014, deploying additional warships and holding more military exercises in a display of force, which, the alliance claims, is meant to deter ‘Russian aggression’. Moscow sees it as provocative and threatening and has ramped up Crimea’s defenses accordingly.

At the moment older S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles are deployed in Crimea, ensuring protection from possible airstrikes or cruise missile attacks.

The S-400 system for Crimea is a small part of military hardware produced for the Russian military this year. In Q2 2016 the ministry accepted a new Iskander-M tactical missile system, a new advanced frigate, the Admiral Essen, a medium rocket for space launches, 15 drones, eight radar stations, and other equipment, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu reported on Friday.


(RT)

In the run up to the Iraq War, Blair claimed Iraq’s child mortality rate was 130 deaths per 1,000, a figure he obtained from a long-discredited source, the Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Survey (ICMMS).

This is despite the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) telling Downing Street there were no reliable figures for Iraq’s infant mortality rate.

The former PM repeated the claim when testifying before the Chilcot inquiry in 2010, after he was asked whether the invasion had been good for the Iraqi people.

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“In 2000 and 2001 and 2002 they had a child mortality rate of 130 per 1,000 children under the age of five,” Blair told the Chilcot inquiry.

“The figure today is not 130, it is 40. That equates to about 50,000 young people, children, who, as a result of a different regime that cares about its people – that’s the result that getting rid of Saddam makes.”

According to economist Professor Michael Spagat, Blair was wrong about the figures and should have known better the first time he used them to justify war in 2003.

Writing for the Conversation, Spagat said the ICMMS data was flawed and hugely unreliable.

“As the Chilcot report notes, no fewer than four subsequent surveys plus the 1997 Iraqi census failed to confirm the ICMMS data, which found a massive and sustained spike in child mortality in the closing years of the 20th century,” Spagat wrote.

The former PM was also told by one of his own government department’s that the figures could not be trusted.

In February 2003, Downing Street asked the FCO for data on child mortality rates in Iraq in a bid to strengthen the argument for war.

The FCO replied, in now declassified correspondence, that there were “no truly reliable figures for child mortality rate” in Iraq. It went on to describe the ICMMS statistics as having “relied on some Iraqi figures” and been “proved questionable.”

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According to Spagat, Blair’s private secretary then “iron[ed] out the nuances in the FCO’s spot-on analysis,” leaving the former PM to reference the discredited child mortality figures in his party speech in 2003.

Spagat said “there was no excuse” for Blair to repeat the incorrect claim in 2010, because the figures were already widely discredited.

“All in all, this affair is a remarkably good example of how complex information can end up being manipulated thanks to political imperatives and time limitations,” Spagat writes.

“But it still doesn’t explain why Blair held onto the discredited figure for so long.”

(RT)