War Profiteers News

Welcome to War Profiteers' News, WRI's newsletter on the issues around war profiteering.

This issue covers the arms fair in India, 16-19 February. Arms fairs are used to make new deals promoting the latest military technology and also in many cases to promote the arms industry to the general public as they offer a good family day out. For many years, arms fairs have been the target for anti-militarist action, sometimes quite successfully.

The Defexpo India exhibition was conceptualised in the year 1998 by the Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence Government of India in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry with an objective to promote defence exports from India at the same time exhibit the capabilities of Indian Defence R&D and production.

En el sur de Chile, la industria forestal –patrocinada por el Estado– constituye una amenaza para la ecología y la cultura de la región. Ya en los primeros tiempos del colonialismo, los españoles intentaron despojar a los mapuches de sus tierras. Hoy, las plantaciones comerciales de pino y eucalipto amenazan la flora y la fauna autóctonas, además de contaminar el agua y provocar períodos de escasez que impiden el cultivo de otras cosechas.

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The Basque antimilitarist groups KEM-MOC and Kakitzat protested on 23 January in front of the head office of the bank, BBVA, declaring that "BBVA finances war, Gastu Militarrik ez".  Several anti-militarists dived into BBVA's fountain.

BBVA collaborates and profits from war through its participation in the military industry, as shareholders of companies that are providers

to the defence sector.

Hands Off Iraqi Oil held a demonstration outside the Middle East Energy 2008 conference at Chatham House in London on Tuesday 5 February.

Iraqi oil minister Dr Hussain Al-Shahristani and UK minister Malcolm Wicks spoke at the conference, which was financed by the British companies BP and Shell, as well as ExxonMobil and StatoilHydro.

Demonstrators were warning that Iraq would lose billions of pounds in oil income under a proposed new law which the British and US governments are pressing the Baghdad administration

Reported by: Kory Raftery

Tuesday, February 12, 2008: Students at UC Santa Barbara in the US take to the streets over U.S.

Current "military” includes Dept. of Defense ($653 billion), the military portion from other departments ($150 billion), and an additional $162 billion to supplement the Budget’s misleading and vast underestimate of only $38 billion for the “war on terror.” “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.*

These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the “Analytical Perspectives” book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009.

Crocodyl.com is a collaborative research project to profile transnational corporations, instigated by CorpWatch and working with partner organizations such as Center for Corporate Policy and the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First. Together, they are building a free and open source database of corporate profiles to provide information for activists, journalists, researchers, government officials and others interested in improved scrutiny of corporations.

General Dynamics has long been one of the largest military contractors for the Pentagon and many foreign governments. The company’s roots go back to the pioneering work on military submarines by the Electric Boat Company, but it later expanded into surface ships, aircraft, tanks and, most recently, military information technology.

Disarm UCL is a campaign in the UK which has widespread support among University College London students, staff and alumni. UCL Student Union fully supports the campaign.

It aims to get UCL to divest its shares in arms company Cobham plc, which profits significantly from the sale of military components. Cobham plc is the world's 46th largest arms producer by military revenue. UCL as a major university sets an important precedent for the whole sector.

Resist Military Globalisation!

Five years after the Iraq war started: an international action weekend at NATO's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Followed by the seminar organised by Bombspotting and War Resisters' International "Military globalisation and nonviolent resistance in Europe"

Interested?