MBDA’s Alabama factory makes components for Boeing’s GBU-39 bombs used to kill civilians in Gaza. Its profits flow through Stevenage to Paris — and it is one of the British government’s favourite firms, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

ON THE cold morning of September 11, 50 years ago in Santiago, Chile, armed forces commander in chief Augusto Pinochet led a bloody military coup against democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende.
Tanks had the presidential palace, La Moneda, surrounded, Pinochet demanded Allende surrender and resign from the presidency, handing power to the armed forces.
President Allende refused and bravely resisted gun in hand; Pinochet, most likely prompted by the US, ordered the air force to bomb the palace. UK-built Hawker-Hunter war planes repeatedly hit the palace with missiles, setting it alight.

FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ asks what we should read into the sudden doubling of Washington’s outrageous bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s head


