War Profiteers News

So the no-news is that for the year 2011 the total world military spending amounted to $1,74 trillion ($1,740,000,000,000) as announced by SIPRI on the 17 April - which coincided with the Global Day of Action on Military Spending. This is just a "slight" increase from last year, just 0.3 percent. According to SIPRI, this figure means that for the first year in 13 years, the world military spending has leveled out.

Through four months of fruitful outreach, fortifying and expanding the network of civil society groups that make up the Global Day on Military Spending (GDAMS) coalition, the second Global Day last Tuesday, 17 April, was a tremendous success worldwide.

Jungmin Choi

On 19 March, massive blasting of the Gureombi rock, the symbol of the campaign against the new naval base in South Korea's Jeju Island, began. There was blasting, of course, before that, but it's different now because while the blasting so far has been of the fields near the Gureombi rock to make the worksite for Caisson, now the blasting is of the Gureombi rock itself. This is the first time the Gureombi rock has been affected since Samsung C&T first pressed ahead with blasting. At the start of this new phase, Gangjeong villagers and peace activists resisted fiercely, but the police had organised protection for Samsung C&T and violently arrested protesters so that Samsung C&T could continue working. The Gangjeong Village Council strongly protested, saying that Samsung is a merchant of death, destroying natural heritage and building a war base, and appealed for various kinds of online and direct action against Samsung. From 17 March, there was a Catholic mass every day to urge the stopping of the blasting, and demanding the release of prisoners, this was in front of the Samsung C&T building and in support of the campaign against the Samsung credit card. In these ways, the nonviolent action aimed at Samsung C&T was designed to make the struggle more of a national issue.

Tear gas, policing, and the counter-revolution:

Action against BBVA during their AGM

The National Gallery is one of Great Britain's most iconic public institutions. It is also supporting the arms trade.
Last year the National Gallery hosted an evening reception to celebrate the first day of business at DSEi, the world's largest arms fair.

Sten Tolgfors may have resigned. But no one has so far taken responsibility for the scandal of the Saudi arms factory. The fundamental problems do not disappear with the resignation of the Minister of Defence. This is a systemic crisis on full public display, where the problems inherent in the Swedish defence and arms export policy have been made unambiguously clear to all, writes Anna Ek, president of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society.

Martyn Lowe

There has been a lot of press coverage within the last few years about pirate activities around the world, and in particular in and around the coastal waters of Somalia.

This is something which has exercised lot of attention both within the maritime and insurance industries.

So far there have been four kinds of responses to this problem:

A call for more naval forces to be present within the Gulf region.

DynCorp does not like to be compared to controversial contractors such as Blackwater and KBR, but the company does exactly what they do. It performs a wide range of functions for U.S. government agencies, including security and support services in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. While DynCorp is not quite as well known as those other private military companies, it has had its share of scandals.

Tim Wright

Each year, the nine nuclear-armed nations spend a combined total of more than US$100 billion on their nuclear forces – assembling new warheads, modernizing old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to deliver them. Much of this work is carried out by private corporations, which are financed by a vast web of financial institutions around the world.

Countering the Militarisation of Youth International Study Conference, Darmstadt, Germany 8-10 June, 2012

War Resisters' International is organising an international study conference on countering the militarisation of youth, in cooperation with German partner organisations and supported by the German teachers union (GEW). The conference will not just look at military recruitment and counter-recruitment actions, but will take a much broader view on the militarisation of youth, the creation of a culture and value system favourable to recruitment.