Starting Points: arms shipments

Showing posts with label arms shipments. Show all posts

Apr 12, 2010

BAE Systems Tops List of Biggest Arms Companies - NYTimes.com

By DAVID JOLLY

PARIS — BAE Systems has topped the list of the world’s biggest armaments companies, as the company, based in London, sharply expanded its sales of armored vehicles for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Swedish research institute said Monday.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said BAE moved up two spots in 2008 to become the largest arms maker, with military sales of $32.4 billion. It was followed by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics, all based in the United States, in the top five spots.

Image by Kuba Bożanowski via Flickr

Though BAE is a British company, more than half of its business is with the United States. Sales in its land and armaments business rose to $12 billion from $7 billion, the institute said, largely on the strength of sales to the U.S. military of mine-resistant, ambush-protected, or MRAP, vehicles.

Total arms sales by the world’s 100 largest arms-producing companies rose to $385 billion in 2008, an increase of $39 billion from a year earlier, the institute said. The data are for 2008 because that is the latest period for which the figures can be verified and analyzed, the institute said in its annual ranking.

The institute, partially financed by Sweden, describes itself as “an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament.”

Chinese companies were conspicuously absent from the list, even though the institute ranks China’s military spending as second only to that of the United States. “China probably would appear in the top 100 if we had adequate information,” Bates Gill, director of the institute and a longtime student of East Asian military affairs, said by telephone. “The figures are opaque. Still, it’s a big, big industry,” he said.

But even considering China’s huge domestic sales, it does not rank among the top 10 exporters, he said. The United States ranks first, Mr. Gill said, followed by Russia, Britain, Germany and France.

Mr. Gill said that “one or two of the big Chinese producers, those making rockets for their space program, for example, would probably rank in the top 25 if we simply valued Chinese production at the international market rate.”

China’s overseas arms sales have declined in the past two decades, Mr. Gill said. “Partly that’s because of a greater availability of other competitors with more advanced weaponry since the end of the Cold War,” he said, “and partly, quite simply, because China doesn’t compete very well in terms of quality.”

Still, he noted, Pakistan ordered Chinese fighter jets last year in a deal worth more than $1 billion, a sign that Chinese exporters were taking overseas markets seriously.

Also notable, the institute said, was that Navistar, a truck maker based in Illinois, sold military goods worth $3.9 billion to the U.S. government in 2008, an increase of 960 percent from 2007. The Navistar sales were primarily of armored vehicles for use in Afghanistan.

North American companies, of which all but one are based in the United States, dominate the list, accounting for 60 percent of arms sales by the top 100 companies, the institute said.

Nov 5, 2009

Israeli navy says it seized ship carrying arms bound for Hezbollah - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 5, 2009

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli navy said Wednesday that commandos had seized a container ship carrying a huge cache of weapons that originated in Iran and was ultimately destined for the militia of the Islamist Hezbollah movement.

As part of its routine inspection of ships in the Mediterranean Sea, the Israeli navy intercepted the vessel Tuesday night near Cyprus, roughly 100 miles off the Israeli coast. There was no resistance from the ship's crew, and once Israeli special forces boarded, they found an estimated 600 tons of rockets, guns and other munitions, said Rear Adm. Rani Ben-Yehuda, deputy head of the Israeli navy.

Flying under an Antiguan flag, the ship, called the Francop, was carrying cargo loaded in Damietta, Egypt, and bound for Latakia in Syria, Israeli defense officials said. Some of the ship's 500 containers were stamped with the insignia of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, and 36 of them were found to contain arms. Other documents found on board identified the cargo as originating in Iran, Ben-Yehuda said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, speaking from Tehran, denied that Iranian arms were bound for Syria and said "pirates" had disrupted legitimate trade between Syria and Iran, news services reported.

The incident comes as Israeli political officials defend their country in the U.N. General Assembly against allegations that Israeli forces committed war crimes during last winter's three-week war with the Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.

Israel contends that it took military action only after years in which the Iranian-backed group fired rockets at civilian targets in Israel. The country regards Hamas and Hezbollah as imminent threats -- a point highlighted when Israeli intelligence officials told the country's parliament this week that Hamas had recently test-fired an Iranian-supplied rocket able to reach Tel Aviv. Hamas denied the allegation.

"This is the state of Israel's answer to all those who call on Israel to examine itself, about how it defended its citizens," former defense minister Shaul Mofaz said on Israel Radio after the seizure of the ship was announced. "We have to act constantly, daily, to defend our citizens. This is further and emphatic proof that attempts by the other side do not stop."

Israeli officials offered no direct evidence that the supplies were bound for Hezbollah. They noted, however, that Iran is forbidden under a U.N. embargo to export arms. Iran is widely considered a major weapons supplier for Hezbollah and Hamas.

Ben-Yehuda said the nature of the supplies, including thousands of shorter-range Katyusha rockets, supported the idea that the arms were not intended for the Syrian military or some other standing force.

"We know what Hezbollah uses and what ranges they need," he said.

Israel fought an intense war with the Lebanese Islamist militia in 2006, and since then, Lebanon has been under a U.N. resolution meant to discourage the presence of armaments not under the control of the nation's military.

After the naval boarding, the ship was redirected to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where officials began to offload it and display what they say is Israel's largest haul of smuggled arms to date.

Ben-Yehuda said neither the ship's 11-person crew nor the Egyptians at the port knew about the contents of the containers, which held civilian goods layered over weapons crates.

Aug 29, 2009

UAE 'seizes N Korea arms cargo' - BBC

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The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship illegally carrying embargoed North Korean weapons bound for Iran, diplomatic sources at the UN have said.

A diplomat told the AFP news agency that the UAE had informed UN officials responsible for implementing sanctions on Pyongyang.

The UK-based Financial Times reported earlier on Friday that the ship was seized "some weeks ago".

It said the armaments included rocket-propelled grenades.

The arms had been falsely labelled as "machine parts," the Financial Times reported, adding that the vessel was still being held in the UAE.

The diplomatic source told AFP that the issue was being dealt with by the UN Security Council's sanctions committee, and declined to comment further.

A new round of UN sanctions on North Korea was approved unanimously on 12 June, following a nuclear weapons test by Pyongyang and subsequent missile launches.

The UN resolution, which aimed to cut arms exports as a source of revenue for North Korea, also called for tougher inspections of air, sea and land shipments to and from the hard-line communist state.

Jun 30, 2009

U.S. Condemns Coup in Honduras but Makes No Firm Demands

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 30, 2009

President Obama said yesterday that the military ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and could set a "terrible precedent," but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States government was holding off on formally branding it a coup, which would trigger a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid to the impoverished Central American country.

Clinton's statement appeared to reflect the U.S. government's caution amid fast-moving events in Honduras, where Zelaya was detained and expelled by the military on Sunday. The United States has joined other countries throughout the hemisphere in condemning the coup. But leaders face a difficult task in trying to restore Zelaya to office in a nation where the National Congress, military and Supreme Court have accused him of attempting a power grab through a special referendum.

Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said the situation presented a dilemma for the United States and other countries. Zelaya is "fighting with all the institutions in the country," Hakim said. "He's in no condition really to govern. At the same time, to stand by and allow him to be pushed out by the military reverses a course of 20 years."

U.S. officials had tried ahead of time to avert the coup, warning the Honduran military and politicians against suspending democratic order. The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, sheltered one of Zelaya's children to prevent him from being harmed, according to Carlos Sosa, Honduras's ambassador to the Organization of American States.

But the Obama administration has had cool relations with Zelaya, a close ally of Venezuela's anti-American president, Hugo Chávez. While U.S. officials say they continue to recognize Zelaya as president, they have not indicated they are willing to use the enormous U.S. clout in the country to force his return.

Asked whether it was a U.S. priority to see Zelaya reinstalled, Clinton said: "We haven't laid out any demands that we're insisting on, because we're working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives."

John D. Negroponte, a former senior State Department official and ambassador to Honduras, said Clinton's remarks appeared to reflect U.S. reluctance to see Zelaya returned unconditionally to power.

"I think she wants to preserve some leverage to try and get Zelaya to back down from his insistence on a referendum," he said.

Zelaya clashed with the Honduran Congress, Supreme Court and military in recent weeks, particularly over his promotion of a referendum that might have permitted him to run for another four-year term. The Congress and Supreme Court said the referendum was illegal.

The Congress overwhelmingly voted to depose Zelaya after he had been forcibly removed. Lawmakers then named a new president, Roberto Micheletti, from the same party.

Obama repeated yesterday that the United States viewed Zelaya as Honduras's president and that "the coup was not legal."

"It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections," he told reporters after a meeting with Colombian President Álvaro Uribe.

Clinton told reporters that the situation in Honduras had "evolved into a coup" but that the United States was "withholding any formal legal determination" characterizing it that way.

"We're assessing what the final outcome of these actions will be," she said. "Much of our assistance is conditioned on the integrity of the democratic system. But if we were able to get to a status quo that returned to the rule of law and constitutional order within a relatively short period of time, I think that would be a good outcome."

The Obama administration has pledged to work more closely with Latin America and not dictate policy in its traditional back yard. But the United States has several points of leverage: It is Honduras's biggest trading partner, and President Obama has requested $68 million in development and military aid for 2010. Portions of that aid, which are provided directly to the government, would be cut off in the event of a coup. Congressional officials said last night they were not sure exactly how much that amounted to. Honduras also is a recipient of a five-year, $215 million Millennium Challenge grant that is conditioned on the country remaining a democracy.

The United States also has a close military relationship with Honduras. Hundreds of Honduran officers participate in U.S. military training programs each year, more than most other Western Hemisphere countries.

Among those who have attended such training is the senior military officer of Honduras, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, who was dismissed by Zelaya prior to the coup. After that dismissal, other senior Honduran military leaders resigned, including the Air Force commander, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo.

Vasquez attended the Pentagon-run School of the Americas in 1976 and 1984, and Suazo attended in 1996, according to Army records of graduates obtained by a watchdog group. A spokesman for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which replaced the School of the Americas in 2001, said the records of graduates obtained by the group, School of Americas Watch, are accurate.

"We have a strong military relationship with them and in . . . military exchange training that takes place, we emphasize civilian control of the military" as well as human rights and the rule of law, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

A contingent of about 600 U.S. military personnel is based at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras as part of Joint Task Force Bravo, which mainly supports disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and counternarcotics activities in Honduras and the region.

The Organization of American States has summoned the hemisphere's foreign ministers to Washington to discuss the crisis. Clinton said the United States is pushing for a delegation to be sent to Honduras after the session.

The United States has been a strong backer of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, a document signed by OAS members in 2001 that commits them to observe the "right to democracy." Violators can be suspended from the organization.

OAS members issued a statement calling for "the immediate, safe and unconditional return" of Zelaya to the presidency.

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report.

Jun 29, 2009

Colombia's Uribe Faces a New White House Approach Toward Latin America

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 29, 2009

BOGOTA, Colombia -- In a White House ceremony in January, President George W. Bush awarded Colombian President Álvaro Uribe the Presidential Medal of Freedom and praised him for his "immense personal courage and strength of character" for taking on his country's fight against Marxist guerrillas.

On Monday, Uribe again arrives at the White House. But this time he will encounter an administration pushing to expand its alliances in Latin America and increasingly worried about Colombia's dismal human rights record, Colombia experts say.

Obama administration officials declined interview requests to discuss policy toward Colombia, a country that has received nearly $6 billion in mostly military aid since Uribe took office in 2002.

But four people who have met with policymakers in the Obama administration say the United States is concerned about the wiretapping and surveillance of Uribe's critics by an intelligence agency controlled by the presidency and reports that as many as 1,700 civilians have been killed by Colombian army units in what a preliminary United Nations investigation characterized as "cold-blooded, premeditated murder."

Administration officials also believe that democratic institutions are at risk as the Uribe government lobbies for a constitutional amendment to permit him to run for an unprecedented third term next year, said those who have met with aides to President Obama.

"I believe the Obama administration will question President Uribe on his human rights record and democracy," said one of the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "And I don't think they will either mince words or hold back too much."

Analysts say a new, more guarded approach toward Colombia is part of a wider policy designed to repair the tarnished relationships the Bush administration had in Latin America. The strategy hinges on showing that the United States is not solely preoccupied with Colombia, Washington's closest ally in Latin America this decade. Uribe is a conservative, openly pro-American leader in a region marked by leftist presidents.

"The way the Bush administration left it was that Colombia and maybe El Salvador were the only significant friends we had left -- the only two who would work with us on everything, unconditionally," said Adam Isacson, a Colombia analyst at the Center for International Policy in Washington.

"One of the first priorities of the Obama administration was to increase the number of friends, and he's made overtures to Mexico, Chile and Brazil," Isacson added. "To Colombia, that's bad news because they become one of many friends, not the only friend."

Uribe is the third Latin American leader invited to the White House since Obama took office. The first two came from countries Obama has repeatedly praised, Brazil and Chile. Both of those countries have dynamic economies and governments that have initiated programs to deal with poverty. Colombia, too, is considered economically sound. Uribe's government is also popular here for putting rebel groups on the defensive.

But Uribe's seven years in office have also been characterized by scandal.

In the latest to transfix the nation, the attorney general's office is unraveling domestic spying carried out by the Department of Administrative Security, or DAS, against judges, opposition politicians, journalists and human rights workers. Four former DAS directors and more than 30 agents are under investigation, Attorney General Mario Iguarán said.

Investigators have turned up hundreds of documents showing how a secretive group in the DAS, called the G-3, even tailed the children of human rights workers, searched through the bank records of targets and looked for "unusual behavior (vices, lovers, etc.)" by those who were under surveillance.

Gustavo Gallón, director of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, which investigates rights abuses and has been critical of the government, learned that 30 agents were assigned to follow him, his two daughters, his parents and siblings. "This boggles the imagination," Gallón said. "They are following your children. What is the reason for that?"

Another target, Hollman Morris, a journalist known for his tough reports on Colombia's long guerrilla war, said he and his wife were stunned to read DAS documents describing how his two daughters, ages 8 and 5, were photographed by DAS agents. Ironically, Morris and Gallón had been assigned government bodyguards years ago because the state thought they could be assassinated.

Uribe administration officials have said the president had nothing to do with the scandal. But Colombia's inspector general's office is investigating three of Uribe's closest advisers.

Andrew Hudson, an investigator for New York-based Human Rights First, said the scandal shows that the president's rhetoric translated into a systematic policy designed to, at the very least, tarnish the image of government critics.

"The attorney general's recent investigation proves, for the first time, what human rights defenders have been saying for years: that instead of protecting them, the DAS engaged in 'intelligence offensives' against defenders," said Hudson, who has documented the imprisonment of rights workers in Colombia.

On Capitol Hill, an aide involved in Latin America policy said there is also concern about another scandal of "massive proportions" -- the killing of mostly poor farmers by Colombian army units in several states.

A special U.N. investigator, Philip Alston, called the killings a systematic practice by "significant elements" of the army. In a preliminary report, Alston said the soldiers killed young men and presented them as rebels killed in combat. Dozens of soldiers are under arrest, Alston said, but he worried that prosecutions could be thwarted.

The aide in the U.S. Congress, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly, said key lawmakers have directly raised concerns with Uribe and other Colombian officials. Often, though, the response has been defensive, he said.

"I see this as an indicator that they just don't get it," he said.

Jun 27, 2009

U.S. Has Sent 40 Tons of Munitions to Aid Somali Government

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 27, 2009

The U.S. government has provided about 40 tons of weapons and ammunition to shore up the besieged government of Somalia in the past six weeks and has sent funding to train Somali soldiers, a senior State Department official said yesterday, in the most complete accounting to date of the new American efforts in the strife-torn country.

The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the military aid was worth less than $10 million and had been approved by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the National Security Council.

"We do not want to see Somalia become a safe haven for foreign terrorists," the official said.

Hard-line Islamist rebels allegedly linked to al-Qaeda have launched an offensive to topple Somalia's relatively moderate government, which has appealed to the United States and other African countries for help. The fighting has killed 250 civilians and forced more than 160,000 people out of their homes in the past month, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

In an indication of the rebels' growing power, they held a ceremony Thursday in the capital, Mogadishu, in which they chopped off a hand and foot from each of four men convicted of stealing cellphones and other items, according to news reports from the region. The punishment was in line with the rebels' harsh version of Islam. The United States considers the rebel group, al-Shabab, a terrorist organization.

Somalia has been racked by violence since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. U.S. officials say the bloodshed and lawlessness in the country have caused a massive outflow of refugees and contributed to an upsurge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden. The country has also become a haven for al-Qaeda operatives alleged to have carried out attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, U.S. officials say.

The African Union has sent troops from Uganda and Burundi to help Somalia's fragile government keep order.

The U.S. aid does not involve the deployment of any troops to Somalia, where 18 American soldiers were killed in the 1993 raid depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

In order to strengthen Somalia's military, the U.S. government is providing cash to its government to buy weapons, and has asked Ugandan military forces there to give Somali soldiers small arms and ammunition, the official said. The U.S. government is then resupplying the Ugandans, he said.

The U.S. government will also help pay for the Kenyan, Burundi and Ugandan militaries to train Somali soldiers, and is providing logistical support for the African Union troops, the official said.

Clinton called Somalia's president, Sharif Ahmed, in recent weeks to consult on the crisis, according to another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.

He said the U.S. aid would likely encourage other African countries to do more to help Somalia's government.

U.S. officials accuse Eritrea of supporting the Somali rebels as part of a proxy war with its rival, Ethiopia. But efforts by State Department officials to meet with the Eritrean government have been fruitless so far, the official said.

Jun 26, 2009

Somalia Fighting Forces More to Flee Capital

A Somali woman and her child sit in front of a makeshift home after they fled fighting in Mogadishu, 09 Jun 2009

VOA, Nairobi, Derek Kilner, June 26 - The United Nations refugee agency says nearly 170,000 people have now been displaced from their homes in Somalia's capital since Islamist insurgents launched a renewed offensive in early May.

According to the U.N. refugee agency hospital records indicate that more than 250 people have been killed since May 7, and nearly 169,000 displaced. The UNHCR says the bulk of those fleeing their homes have headed to settlements for internally displaced people in Afgooye, south of Mogadishu, or have moved to safer areas of the capital and its outskirts. According to the agency, 33,000 people have been displaced in the last week alone.

In early May, the al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam militias launched a new offensive in Mogadishu in an effort to topple the internationally-backed transitional government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The insurgents reject the government's brand of Islamism as too moderate and want African Union peacekeepers to leave the country.

About 4,300 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers are deployed in the capital. Their presence has prevented key landmarks, including the president's residence, the port, and the airport, from falling under insurgent control, but they have had little success in stemming the overall fighting.

In a letter to the African Union ahead of a summit meeting in Libya early next month, the organization Human Rights Watch called on the AU to ensure that its peacekeepers respect human rights. While noting the extensive challenges faced by the mission, the group raised concern with reports that AU peacekeepers have fired indiscriminately at civilians, including an incident in February in which peacekeepers allegedly killed 13 civilians after their convoy came under attack.

The AU has appealed to the U.N. to take over responsibility for peacekeeping, but the Security Council has said the security situation remains too precarious.

Al-Shabab militiamen fire on Somali government troops in the streets of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, 22 May 2009

Human Rights Watch is also urging African leaders to press the United Nations to establish a commission of experts to investigate rights abuses in the Somali conflict, saying it would be the first step towards providing accountability. The Africa director at Human Rights Watch, Georgette Gagnon, says much of the relevant information is already available through existing reports.

"There really isn't a lack of information per se about what's going on," said Gagnon. "The information is getting out. The real issue is what's being done about it which is very little, both at the Security Council in New York and to some extent by the African Union."

Meanwhile, the United States government has acknowledged sending arms to the Somali government. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the transitional government represents Somalia's best chance in 18 years to return to peace and stability.

"At the request of that government, the State Department has helped to provide weapons and ammunition on an urgent basis," said Kelly. "This is to support the Transitional Federal Government's efforts to repel the onslaught of extremist forces which are intent on destroying the Djibouti peace process and spoiling efforts to bring peace and stability to Somalia through political reconciliation."

Human Rights Watch's Georgette Gagnon says it has not yet received any information about the arms transfers. The group has been highly critical of Somalia policy under the Bush administration, including its support for Ethiopian forces who occupied the country from late 2006 to early this year, and its policy of launching air strikes against suspected terrorists. Gagnon.

"We've also been very concerned about U.S. policy in Somalia which frankly has not been good and has in our view to some extent increased the bad human rights situation there. So we've been calling on the new Obama administration to change its policy in Somalia," said Gagnon.

The United States has also said it believes that Eritrea is providing support to al-Shabab, which is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, suspected of links to al-Qaida.