War Profiteers News

And the bombs continue to drop... As I write Gaza is again being bombarded by Israel, intensifying even more the human rights violations of Palestinians. There have also been limited rockets heading in the other direction.

Israel is the fifth largest arms exporter in the world. Israel has received more US military aid than any other country. European Union countries crucially fund and support joint military-related research, and the Global South (most importantly India, Brazil, and Colombia) buy the majority of Israeli-produced weapons.

Pelao Carvallo

Monsanto brought GM into Paraguay in the same way that it has usually done elsewhere: by smuggling. And smuggling imposed GM soya, Monsanto soon achieved its legalisation by means of a powerful lobbying apparatus. And along with this soya came aerial and ground fumigation of glyphosate, and with that poisonous pesticide came diseases, contamination, malformation and deaths. The parliamentary coup d’etat occurred not long after (15-22 June 2012), effected to a large degree by Monsanto's agents at the Paraguayan parliament.

Jordi Calvo Rufanges

Kristina Johansson & Martin Smedjeback

On 29 October 2012 two peace activists from the Swedish anti-militarist network Ofog were in the district court of Malmö. The arms company Aimpoint demanded €40,000 in damages from them.

In 2008 Ofog held a rally outside of Aimpoint's Malmö base. The two activists climbed over the fence into the arms company's grounds to show their opposition to Swedish arms exports. The police arrested them quickly and calmly on the other side of the fence. Aimpoint chose to close their production that day because of the protest, and are now demanding that the activists should pay the company’s costs for lost production and security. We believe that this is a way to intimidate activists into silence.

Bruce K. Gagnon

The Global Network (GN) began holding Keep Space for Peace Week events in 2001. Since then, early each October, we invite peace groups and church committees around the world to hold local actions to help build consciousness about how space is used to direct warfare on the planet.

The National Gallery's long-standing sponsorship arrangement with weapons manufacturer Finmeccanica has ended, following a campaign by Campaign Against Arms Trade to 'Disarm the Gallery.' The arrangement has been terminated one year early and just weeks before the next protest event was planned.

Stephanie Westbrook

On Saturday, 13 October 2012, over 2000 people marched from the Northern Italian provincial town of Venegono (Varese) to the headquarters of Alenia Aermacchi to protest the sale of 30 M-346 trainer jets to Israel. Alenia Aermacchi is part of the Finmeccanica Group, a partially state-owned conglomerate and one of the world’s top ten weapons producers.

Founded in 1901 to make artificial sweeteners, Monsanto has had a long history of controversial products, using litigation and sophisticated lobbying and public relations strategies to battle critics. Many of its products have produced harmful side-effects, including chemicals such as PCBs and dioxin (a by-product of chlorinated herbicides, including Agent Orange), rBGH (bovine growth hormone) and certain herbicides and genetically modified seeds.

We oppose the export of terror and violence Made in Germany!

German exports of weapons and military equipment have doubled in recent years. Customers include dictatorships and authoritarian regimes in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. Germany now ranks third in the worldwide list of weapon-exporting countries. Arms exports are a profitable business, but they do not provide many jobs: only 0.2 per cent of all German employees work in the weapons industry.