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From The Socialist newspaper, 26 January 2022
War in Yemen, made in Harlow, profit for rich
British-supplied Eurofighters have been central to Saudi raids on Yemen, backed by the Blairites photo Laurent ERRERA/Creative Commons, photo Laurent ERRERA/Creative Commons (Click to enlarge)
Three children were killed by an air strike as they were playing football in Yemen on 21 January, and more than 70 prisoners died when a detention centre was bombed. In all likelihood, these deaths were caused by Paveway IV bombs dropped by the Saudi Air Force.
The Paveway IV bomb was designed in Harlow by Raytheon UK. It is a disgrace that a company based in our town exports bombs to the tyrannical Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - bombs that are dropped on civilians in Yemen, bombs that are exacerbating the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
Four million people have been internally displaced in Yemen during seven years of civil war. Last September, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned that 16 million Yemenis were "marching towards starvation".
As arms manufacturers profit from the civil war in Yemen, the WFP has been forced to reduce food assistance to eight million people in need in Yemen because it is running out of funds. Affected families will get barely half the daily minimum ration from the WFP. It has warned that its food stocks are dangerously low and more severe reductions would soon be unavoidable.
Companies such as Raytheon UK and British Aerospace enrich their shareholders at the expense of the human rights of the people of Saudi Arabia, and the peace of the people of Yemen. There is no moral justification for the Saudi military intervention in the civil war in Yemen.
Those who supply weapons to the belligerents in that conflict are complicit in war crimes. The UK government is laying the ground for the growth of al-Qaeda and Isis by fuelling the civil war in Yemen.
Harlow's Tory MP Robert Halfon must discover his moral compass, and insist that his party's government imposes an immediate embargo on the supply of the means of destruction to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and all other parties to the war in Yemen.
John Wake, Harlow
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In The Socialist 26 January 2022:
What we think
We need a workers' alternative to big business Tories and Labour
News
Lords reject parts of anti-protest bill
Social care providers put profit before residents' needs - nationalise care now
Cost of living
Trade unions and the cuts
Trade unions and the fight against council cuts
Workplace news
Sheffield Just Eat strikers step up action and hold mass rally
Oaks Park School: valiant strike exposed state of schools
Education: Workload and inflation goes up, incomes fall
DWP reps demand action from PCS leadership
10,000 tube workers vote to strike - don't make workers pay for TfL funding crisis
Strike action by Carmarthenshire winter gritters wins concessions from council
Universities: Strike action at 68 in two disputes
Worksop Wincanton logistics workers begin ninth week of strike action
International news
Trade unionists in the USA fighting back
Campaigns news
Hundreds protest to save St Mary's Leisure Centre in Southampton
Wakefield TUSC - Fighting for low-paid workers and NHS
Eviction resistance on the march in Waltham Forest
This is students' chance to fight back - help build 2 March NUS walkout
Environment
Britain's waterways choked with a 'chemical cocktail'
Readers' opinion
War in Yemen, made in Harlow, profit for rich
UK Covid-19 mortality similar to Spanish Flu
It's my party, and I'll lie if I want to
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