The arms giant BAE Friday agreed to pay out almost £300m in penalties, as it finally admitted guilt over its worldwide conduct, in the face of long-running corruption investigations.

For 20 years, the firm refused to accept any wrongdoing, despite mounting evidence of alleged bribes and kickbacks, much of it uncovered by the Guardian.
But BAE yesterday said it would plead guilty to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements, in simultaneous settlement deals with the Serious Fraud Office in the UK and the department of justice in Washington.
The admissions in the US covered BAE's huge £43bn al-Yamamah fighter plane sales to Saudi Arabia and smaller deals in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in central Europe.
In the UK, the admissions cover a highly controversial sale of a military radar to poverty-stricken Tanzania, which the development secretary Clare Short said at the time ""stank"" of corruption, but which the then prime minister, Tony Blair, forced through the cabinet.
The Serious Fraud Office said in its announcement yesterday that some of the £30m penalty BAE was to hand over in the UK would be ""an ex gratia payment for the benefit of the people of Tanzania"". Another $400m (£257m) would be paid in penalties to the US authorities.