arms trade

The anti-arms trade movement has an important victory to celebrate as a major arms fair due to begin on Remembrance Day in Adelaide, Australia, has been cancelled because of high levels of protest.

Finmeccanica is determined to become one of the world’s leading aerospace and weapons producers. The company, publicly traded but controlled by the Italian government, has spent the past decade forming a complicated web of alliances with Europe’s other players in this field, and now it has its sights set on the huge U.S. military market. It already got a foothold when one of its helicopters was chosen to become the new Marine One used by the U.S. President.

Exxon Mobil has broken its own profit record by making $11.7 billion during the second quarter—the most profitable quarter for any business in history. This means Exxon Mobil made about $90,000 per minute. Despite the record, Exxon Mobil’s profit fell short of Wall Street estimates, and the company’s stock fell about two percent. Meanwhile, analysts say Exxon Mobil spent just one percent of its $41 billion in profits last year on alternative energy sources.

An US government audit has found the private military company Blackwater has obtained dozens of contracts meant for small businesses. The Inspector General of the Small Business Administration says Blackwater was awarded $110 million in small business contracts despite uncertainty over whether it qualifies as a “small business.” >From 2005 to 2007, Blackwater was awarded thirty contracts intended for companies with revenues under $6.5 million. Blackwater’s revenues exceeded $200 million for each of those years.

BAE Systems, the British arms manufacturer under investigation in several countries for alleged bribery, paid at least £20m to a company linked to a Zimbabwean arms trader allied to President Robert Mugabe, documents seen by the Financial Times show.

John Bredenkamp, who has indefinite leave to remain in Britain, has had a controversial career ranging from supplying military equipment to the Zimbabwean military to mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United States this year will have spent $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, a milestone that reflects the Bush administration’s unprecedented level of dependence on private firms for help in the war, according to a government report to be released Tuesday.

The report, by the Congressional Budget Office, according to people with knowledge of its contents, will say that one out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone to contractors for the United States military and other government agencies, in a war zone where employees of priv

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KBR, Inc. (formerly Kellogg Brown & Root) is an American engineering and construction company, formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton, based in Houston. After Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries in 1998, Dresser's engineering subsidiary, The M. W. Kellogg Co., was merged with Halliburton's construction subsidiary, Brown & Root, to form Kellogg Brown & Root. KBR and its predecessors have won many contracts with the U.S.

New resources

Bank Secrets - new web-page

New website with resources on banks and their bad policies. You can find out what your bank is doing. It also comes with good ideas for campaigning.

http://bankgeheimen.be/

Bite the Bullet updated web-page

The US network against war profiteering has updated their website, with many good resources on war profiteers in the US.

http://bitethebullet.us

BBVA

From the 12th to19th of June the peace action camp Disarm08 took place in Kalskoga, the heart of the Swedish weapons indsutry. Karlskoga is the home of the two big companies BAE Systems Bofors and Saab Bofors Dynamics (together known as "Bofors").