Red Pepper News

Arms-free university

London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has announced that it is to sell all of its investments in arms companies, reports the Campaign Against Arms Trade.  The campaign also recently released an 'Ivy League' of university arms investors, which makes for interesting reading.

MoD invites human rights abusers to London Arms Fair

James O'Nions. The Defence Export Services Organisation, the part of the Ministry of Defence which markets UK weapons abroad, released the list of official invitees to the DSEi arms fair on Sunday. Defence Systems and Equipment International is one of the world's largest Arms Fairs and from 13-16 September will host companies selling everthing from fighter jets to small arms to cluster bombs.

The list of invitees includes seven countries (Colombia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Russia, Vietnam and China) which were featured in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's 2005 Human Rights Report as major human rights black holes.   It also includes mutually hostile India and Pakistan, and newly friendly Libya.

Arming the world

Who are the world’s biggest arms dealers? A new report from the US Congress can help you to find out. According to "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1997-2004" , the USA and Russia still top the list of conventional arms suppliers, with China and India leading the list of purchasers.

Britain ranked third in the list of arms sellers in 2004, whilst Israel jumped to fifth place in the list.

One of the report’s major findings is that nearly 22 billion dollars in new arms agreements were signed between developed and developing countries last year, a sharp increase over the 15.1 billion of the previous year.