Dr Sarah Benn said that as a doctor, she had a moral duty to take action to protect life and health
A doctor, arrested and jailed for her involvement in Just Stop Oil protests, has had her medical licence suspended for five months.
Dr Sarah Benn, formerly a GP in Birmingham, was arrested after taking part in peaceful demonstrations at the Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire.
Dr Benn, who had already given up practising in August 2022, said that as a doctor, she had a moral duty to take action to protect life and health.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) imposed the suspension on Tuesday after ruling last week that Dr Benn’s fitness to practise was impaired.
A row of tanks is pictured in southern Israel on March 14, 2024. (Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images
“Can we get some healthcare please, or maybe feed some of the 40 million+ Americans who can’t get enough food?” asked the watchdog group Public Citizen.
New research published Monday shows that global military spending increased in 2023 for the ninth consecutive year, surging to $2.4 trillion as Russia’s assault on Ukraine and Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip helped push war-related outlays to an all-time high.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recorded military spending increases in every geographical region it examined last year, from Europe to Oceania to the Middle East. Last year’s global increase of 6.8% was the largest since 2009, SIPRI said.
The United States was by far the largest military spender at $916 billion in 2023, up 2.3% compared to the previous year. The next biggest spender was China, which poured an estimated $296 billion into its military last year—three times less than the U.S.
“Can we get some healthcare please, or maybe feed some of the 40 million+ Americans who can’t get enough food?” asked the watchdog group Public Citizen in response to SIPRI’s report, which found that the U.S. accounted for 37% of the world’s total military spending last year.
A separate analysis of U.S. military spending in 2023 found that 62% of the country’s federal discretionary budget went to militarized programs, leaving less than half of the budget for healthcare, housing, nutrition assistance, education, and other domestic priorities.
Together, SIPRI found, the top five biggest military spenders last year—the U.S., China, Russia, India, and Saudi Arabia—accounted for 61% of global military outlays.
“The unprecedented rise in military spending is a direct response to the global deterioration in peace and security,” Nan Tian, senior researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program, said in a statement. “States are prioritizing military strength but they risk an action-reaction spiral in the increasingly volatile geopolitical and security landscape.”
In the Middle East, military spending jumped by 9% last year—the highest annual growth rate in the past decade. Israel, which relies heavily on weapons imports from the U.S., spent 24% more on its military last year than in 2022, according to SIPRI, an increase fueled by the country’s devastating assault on Gaza.
SIPRI found that NATO’s 31 member countries dumped a combined $1.3 trillion into military expenditures in 2023, accounting for 55% of the global total.
U.S. military spending, which is poised to continue surging in the coming years, made up 68% of NATO’s 2023 total.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
We seek peace in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, the DRC and elsewhere, but we’re ignored. History will damn the warmongers
“The protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.”
Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers retells the story of the outbreak of the first world war. Mapping a multipolar world enthralled by imperialism and paranoia, Clark refuses to pin the blame on a single power. Instead, he explains how political leaders narrowed the prospects for peace one misstep at a time, and sleepwalked into a global catastrophe that left around 20 million people dead.
Today, once more, our political leaders are stumbling through crisis after crisis to convince themselves that war is the only solution. The principal difference is that this time they are not sleepwalking into war. They are doing so with their eyes wide open.
For months, millions of us have demonstrated for a ceasefire in Gaza to stop the loss of life, end the perpetual cycle of violence and prevent a wider escalation. We have been ignored, maligned and demonised. Last week, Israel conducted missile strikes against Iran in a fast-widening conflict across the Middle East. Even without the involvement of more global players, the human, economic and environmental consequences of all-out war with Iran would be catastrophic for the entire world.
We need not imagine the worst-case scenario in order to put the brakes on. As the Israeli government weighed up its options in response to Iran’s attack on 14 April,bombs continued to fall on Palestinians in Gaza. Over the past few months, human beings have been forced to endure a level of horror that should haunt us for ever. Entire families have been wiped out – and survivors will face lifelong mental health consequences for generations to come. Neighbourhoods have been completely obliterated, strewn with corpses and limbs. Doctors are performing amputations without anaesthesia. Children are gathering sticks and leaves from the ground and fashioning “bread” from animal feed to stay alive. If the unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people does not already constitute a worst-case scenario, what does?
A World Central Kitchen vehicle hit by an Israeli drone in Gaza. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy via Alamy)
New court documents reveal that ministers David Cameron and Kemi Badenoch authorised UK arms sales to Israel right after an airstrike killed three British charity workers in Gaza.
On 1 April, Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on a convoy of aid workers in Gaza, killing three Britons, a Polish national, a Palestinian, an American-Canadian dual citizen, and an Australian.
The Israeli Air Force carried out the bombing with a Hermes 450 drone. According to Campaign Against the Arms Trade, this drone may be powered by a R902(W) Wankel engine produced in Britain by UAV Engines Limited (UEL).
New court documents show that the UK government decided to continue arms exports to Israel on 8 April, one week after the strike on the aid workers who were employed by the charity World Central Kitchen (WCK).
The revelation will put additional pressure on the Foreign Office to justify its decision not to suspend arms sales to Israel.
‘Killed with British weapons’
Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq challenged the UK government today in court over arms sales to Israel.
Documents provided to the court show that the UK government has conducted five legal assessments of the situation in Gaza since 18 December.
One of those assessments, which covered the period 18 December to 29 February, was delivered to UK foreign secretary David Cameron on 28 March.
On 3 April, two days after the Israeli airstrike on the aid workers, Cameron used this assessment to recommend that the UK continue arms sales to Israel.
Five days later, UK trade secretary Kemi Badenoch authorised the continuation of extant licences and new licences to Israel, according to GLAN’s press statement.
Ofcom warns breaches could result in ‘statutory sanctions’.
Media regulator Ofcom has issued a warning to broadcasters about using politicians as presenters, ahead of the general election.
The media regulator issued a statement in which it said it was putting ‘broadcasters on notice that they must maintain the highest editorial standards ahead of a General Election’ and that breaches could result in ‘statutory sanctions’.
It comes after Ofcom found GB News in breach of broadcasting rules when three Conservative MPs acted as newsreaders across five different episodes of its programmes.
Ofcom found that two episodes of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation, two episodes of Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, and one episode of Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, broadcast during May and June 2023 had broken impartiality rules. These episodes broke the part of the Ofcom code that says, “News, in whatever form, must be… presented with due impartiality” and “No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified.”
