War Profiteers

How far reaching is the EU's financing and support for the emerging drone industry? With what  intended purpose? And what will be the consequences of European citizens?

What could we do with 1.75 Trillion US dollars? This is the question we are asking ourselves in the run up to the 2014 Global Day of Action on Military Spending, which this year falls on 14 April.  Global military spending in 2012 was 1.75 Trillion US dollars. It is almost impossible to think how much you could do with that amount of money as the figure is very difficult to grasp.  David Schwartz has a useful way to help us see the magnitude of this figure: "My favorite way to think of it is in terms of seconds...

Patrick Kane of War on Want and Sarah Shoraka of Platform report from the Niger Delta on the Ogoni people’s struggle against Shell and the wider mobilisation in Nigeria towards 2015 as a ‘year of change’.

The International Peace Bureau is happy to announce that the 4th edition of the Global Day of Action on Military Spending will be held on Monday, 14 April 2014. The GDAMS initiative was co-founded in 2011 by the International Peace Bureau and the Institute for Policy Studies. 

This year’s day of action coincides, once again, with the release by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) of their annual statistics on global military spending.  In the USA, Tax Day actions will be held on 15 April and some groups will combine the GDAMS actions with those. Peace Action through Judith Le Blanc, is the U.S./North America  Coordinator.  In other places, activists may prefer to do an action on the weekend, i.e 12-13 April. This could be followed by an extra activity on the Monday, and/ or the release of an action-report to the media on that day, together with the latest SIPRI figures.   So there are a number of options available in terms of timing. Whatever works for you!

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinationalinformation technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. It provides hardware, software and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors. In the United States, HP is one of the top 25 defense contractors with the Pentagon/U.S. Department of Defense. HP also provides products and services to the Department of Homeland Security for enhanced immigration status checks

Terry Crawford-Browne

Introduction:

One is familiar with the “criminal underworld” of thieves, gangs, drug lords, the Italian Mafia, and other manifestations of organised crime.

More serious is the “criminal overworld” of corrupt politicians, corrupt bankers, corrupt lawyers -- in other words the world’s elites. Historically, this is not a new phenomenon. In recent years however, it has become more pervasive and blatant in which privileged members of society fleece the public, evade taxation and lobby vigorously for even greater benefits.

Emily Masters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a four-month campaign, the international Stop the Shipment campaign succeeded in stopping a shipment of over a million canisters of tear gas to Bahrain on 8 January.

The government of Bahrain has been using tear gas to repress pro-democracy demonstrations since the Arab Spring spread to the Gulf state in February 2011.

Andrew Dey

The International Peace Bureau announced that the date of the 4th edition of the Global Day of

Action on Military Spending is  Monday, 14 April 2014. It coincides, once again, with the release by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) of their annual statistics on global military spending.

On 19th and 20th December, European leaders met in Brussels. During the summit, the fortification of the European arms industry was explicitly on the agenda. While it preaches austerity across the board, the EU is poised to increase military expenditure. The goal: to safeguard the 'global competitiveness' of the European arms industry.

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The Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition 2013 (Seoul ADEX 2013) started on 28th October, 22 civil society organizations in South Korea engaged in a series of actions targeting the largest arms fair in the Asia-Pacific region.

Laboratorio de Paz

In recent years Latin America has been able to maintain itself on the margins of the economic crisis that is hitting most countries in Europe as well as the United States. The region is showing positive macroeconomic indicators that speak of growth and poverty reduction. These figures, which have to be interpreted with care due to their quantitative emphasis – leaving qualitative evaluations unaccounted for – are defended by the majority of governments, from the most conservative to the so-called 'progressive' ones, as an expression of the 'success' of their social policies. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), which permanently compiles these sorts of statistics, affirmed that in 2012 the continent showed the lowest percentage of people living in poverty (28.8 % of the total population) in the last 30 years.