Arms trade

In 1948 the UN introduced a new category called Weapons of Mass Destruction: atomic explosives, radioactive material weapons, chemical and biological weapons.

Declared nuclear states:

USA (1945)
Soviet Union (1949)
Britain (1952)
France (1960)
China (1964)
India (1998)
Pakistan (1998)

Undecleared:

Israel

Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the devastation that nuclear weapons cause.…

BAE Systems AGM, 9 May. Some shareholders are confused about the legality of their profits. Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) organised a protest outside, and difficult questions inside the AGM. The last question came from South African Andrew Feinstein who resigned as an ANC MP in 2001 when the Pretoria government refused to allow a full investigation into corruption allegations relating to a £5m arms deal involving BAE Systems.

Following their stunning defeat in the British high…

In 2003, the global arms trade was worth around $40 billion. As in any trade, the deals which make up this figure are facilitated by bringing together potential buyers and sellers. It is this role that is fulfilled by the glossy corporate arms bazaar due to take place in London's ExCel Centre from 13-16 September: Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEi).

Organised by Spearhead Exhibitions, now a subsidiary of information and education giant Reed Elsevier, DSEi does much to…

On the basis of the official invitations from previous DSEi exhibitions, we can say with certainty that representatives from countries engaged in conflict, with poor human rights records and with major development needs will all be in attendance again this year.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's annual Human Rights Report for 2005 considers twenty countries in detail, in which it considers that human rights are a particularly serious problem. Six of these; Afghanistan…

One group has been working with the local community to raise awareness about the arms fair and to keep up the pressure on the organisers.

East London Against the Arms Fair (ELAAF) is a group of people who live in London's Docklands area and have protested against the arms fair since it was first held in the area. One of our aims is to inform local people about what is happening on their doorstep and to encourage their support.

To this end we have been…

CAMPAIGNS

Regardless of the outcome of our protests at this year's DSEi, we want to make sure that the arms fair doesn't come back to London in 2007. The DSEi organisers have booked themselves into the ExCel Centre biennially until 2011. Moreover, Reed Elsevier, the company responsible for organising DSEi, currently organises seven other arms fairs around the world - in Brazil, Taiwan, Singapore, the Netherlands and the UK.

What can be done? We must continue to pressure Reed Elsevier to give up…

As Peace News goes to press, Britain is once again bombing a Middle Eastern dictatorship that it previously helped to arm.

On the day that the UN security council passed a no-fly zone resolution, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi threatened rebels: “We will come house by house, room by room.... We will have no mercy and no pity.”

In the areas under his control, Gaddafi’s programme of hunting down his political opponents house by house has been aided by £4.1m worth of military…

The involvement of US arms giant Lockheed Martin (LM) in this year’s census – due to take place on 27 March – has spurred calls for both a boycott and creative obstruction. One of the world’s largest arms companies, LM makes cluster bombs and Trident nuclear missiles, and is involved in surveillance for both the CIA and the Pentagon.

That its UK subsidiary has been awarded a £150m contract to process the census questionnaires for England and Wales has therefore angered many peace…

In early March, it became apparent that BAE Systems, Britain's biggest military manufacturer, was about to be punished by the US state department after the arms company's admission last year that it conspired to defraud the US and made false statements about its anti-bribery compliance programme. The guilty pleas, made to a US court, came as part of legal settlement with the US justice department on corruption-related allegations.
The admissions resolved conflicts with the justice…

US Arms Manufacturer Lockheed Martin has the contracy for the 2011 UK Census in March this year.

The US arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin makes Trident nuclear missiles, cluster bombs and fighter jets and is involved in data processing for the CIA and FBI. It has provided private contract interrogators for the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Lockheed Martin has the UK Government contract to process the data for the 2011 census in March. (Observer, 20 February 2011)

(Updated as at 18-03-2011)

US Arms Manufacturer Lockheed Martin has the contract for the 2011 UK Census in March this year.

The arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin US makes Trident nuclear missiles, cluster bombs and fighter jets and is involved in data processing for the CIA and FBI. It has provided private contract interrogators for the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Lockheed Martin has the UK Government contract to collect the process the data for the 2011…

As we go to press, the British government’s systematic, sustained and deep-rooted support for repressive Arab regimes is being exposed by the wave of grassroots pro-democracy movements in the Middle East, and by anti-arms trade campaigners at home. Late on 18 February, the British government was forced to cancel more than 40 arms export licences to Bahrain, after the Gulf state’s security forces fired on peaceful pro-democracy activists, killing four people, and the Campaign Against Arms…