Issue: 2452

After being massively disrupted by the war, Iraqi society shows some signs of recovery, with volunteers cleaning the streets and collecting rubbish in Baghdad.

With the first UN Biennial Meeting of States to discuss the UN's programme of action on small arms and light weapons having taken place in New York between 7 and 11 July 2003,this special feature by Robert Muggah considers some of the relationships between small arms misuse and development - and what the development community is, or isn't, doing about it.

Paul Ingram unravels the economic subsidies made in support of the British arms trade.

In part one of a special two-part PN investigation, Caroline Lauer takes a look at the development and economics of non-lethal weapons.

Plans for protest at DSEi this year are large-scale and thorough.

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

Street campaigning has become a visual event enabling people to get high media coverage with innovative ideas and actions.

The scenario is depressingly familiar, the outcome tragically the same. The feared Indonesian armed forces, TNI, are engaged in a massive military offensive in a territory strongly opposed to rule from Jakarta.

Where will the future arms trade profits be found? And who will be making a killing (again)? Bruce Gagnon looks at the development of space-based weapons.

In July and August, WRI's Andreas Speck travelled in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, meeting with human rights and conflict resolution NGOs. Here he reflects on his impressions of a region in a situation of neither war nor peace.

Jo Wilding reflects on military tactics and civilian experience during the bombing of Iraq.

From Amritsar to Depayin, Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan offers a comparison between the experiences and methods of the Indian liberation struggle by the Congress Party and Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolent campaign waged by the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma.