As the UK gears up to celebrates the Diamond Jubilee, amid street parties, parades and flotillas, it is timely to take a closer look at one of the less edifying aspects of the royal family - the links between royalty, the military and the arms industry.

David Cameron has defended his decision to promote British arms sales to Indonesia, arguing the South Asian country has the right to be able to defend...

Britain is demanding that Argentina pay back £45m in loans that the country took out from the UK in order to buy ships and helicopters later used to ...

The UK government makes a great deal of its support for the democratic awakening of the Arab Spring, yet continues to support repressive regimes through arms sales and trade missions. By April 2011 the UK government had officially revoked over 160 military licences (i.e. for arms and weaponry) to Bahrain, Egypt and Libya. This gesture neatly hid the fact that many licences remained in place. Some of the revoked licences were for weaponry with such repressive potential - such as sniper rifles, tear gas and crowd control ammunition - that MPs questioned why such licences had been granted in the first place.