North Korea will ‘pay a price’ if it supplies arms to Russia, says US

The US warned Kim Jong-un that North Korea would “pay a price” for supplying Russia with weapons to use in Ukraine, saying that arms negotiations between the two states were actively advancing.

Providing weapons to Russia “is not going to reflect well on North Korea and they will pay a price for this in the international community,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House.

The Kremlin said earlier on Tuesday it had “nothing to say” about statements by US officials that Kim planned to travel to Russia this month to meet President Vladimir Putin and discuss weapons supplies to Moscow.

Turkey extols booming defence industry at international arms fair

Istanbul, Turkey – The pride in Ugur Zengin’s voice is palpable as he stands in front of a full-scale model of Turkey’s fifth-generation stealth fighter jet.

“It’s a very prestigious project and a technical breakout for Turkey that will introduce a lot of new technologies for the whole defence industry,” said Zengin, vice president of the National Combat Aircraft project.

“There will be a very high percentage of local parts in the aircraft.”

Saudi Arabia buying new missile technology from China: Report

Saudi Arabia has significantly escalated its ballistic missile programme by buying technology from China, according to a US media report.

In a story published on Wednesday, broadcaster CNN said the United States government had obtained intelligence on the technology transfers, but the administration of US President Donald Trump did not initially share its knowledge with key members of Congress.

For the U.S., There’s No Business Like the Arms Business

When American firms dominate a global market worth more than $70 billion a year, you’d expect to hear about it.  Not so with the global arms trade.  It’s good for one or two stories a year in the mainstream media, usually when the annual statistics on the state of the business come out.

The Obama Years Have Been Very Good to America's Weapons Makers

The Obama years have been a boom time for America's weapons makers. Since 2009, the United States has approved arms deals worth some $200 billion—more than under any other presidency. The deals include sending Apache helicopters to Qatar, "bunker buster" bombs and cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia, and Hellfire missiles all over the place. Predicting an increase in weapons sales fueled by the war against ISIS, an unnamed American weapons manufacturing executive told Reuters last year: "Everyone in the region is talking about building up supplies for 5 to 10 years. This is going to be a long fight. It's a huge growth area for us."

Saudi Arms Deal Signals Mideast Betrayal

It is difficult to predict what kind of misstep can seriously tarnish a government's reputation. Some mistakes have legs and others, inexplicably, don't.

But the stunningly stupid decision to go ahead with a $15-billion sale of light-armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia has the potential to expose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a phony.

David Swanson: US Wars Are Not Waged Out of Generosity or for Democracy

In this interview, David Swanson, author of War Is a Lie, counters the theory that war is an inevitable part of human nature, says the antiwar movement is larger than the dominant media suggest and shares the view that wars are fought primarily for money and markets.

Mark Karlin: How do you respond to people who say that war is due to human hard-wiring that goes back to battling clans of cave people over territory and resources?

David Swanson: Thanks for the terrific questions. At least 90 percent of humanity is represented by governments that wage war much less than the US government. Over 99 percent of people in the United States are not in the military. There is not a single case of PTSD from war deprivation. The largest cause of death in members of the US military is suicide. So you can try to claim that hunter-gatherers waged wars despite the lack of evidence, or that chimpanzees wage wars despite the lack of either evidence or relevance. But the very claim that humans all wage war is ridiculous on its face. The notion that it comes naturally to them is a horrible joke, given the damage it inflicts even on drastically better-armed aggressors who kill even from the safety of a drone base thousands of miles from their victims. If someone thinks war comes naturally, I would suggest, respectfully, that they should try sexual abstinence, starvation or eating feces.

Obama Went From Condemning Saudis for Abuses to Arming Them to the Teeth

In the 2002 speech against the Iraq War that helped propel him to the presidency, then-state Sen. Barack Obama denounced not just the looming invasion of Iraq, but also human rights abuses by our “so-called allies” in Saudi Arabia:

    Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

The Big, Fat Saudi-Arms-Deal Spin

According to Prime Minister Trudeau, proceeding with the multi-billion dollar arms deal with human rights violator Saudi Arabia is "a matter of principle." When have we heard this before? Ah yes, the previous government.

Global Affairs Canada has released a statement explaining its rationale for authorizing the deal, ostensibly in response to the widespread backlash and barrage of questions in the wake of revelations that export permits for the deal were only authorized in early April. Perhaps not surprisingly, the statement's title, "Honouring the deal with Saudi Arabia: Credibility, Security, Economy" lacks any reference to the protection of human rights.

Justin Trudeau’s Saudi sellout

There are lots of ways to record Stéphane Dion’s sad collapse in the few short months since he was handed real power.

I guess the execution of 47 prisoners by Saudi Arabia — including dissident Shia cleric Sheik al-Nimr Nimr — tracks Dion’s moral arc as well as anything.

On the one hand, Canada’s foreign minister went through the pantomime of principled denunciation in the wake of the mass beheadings. He urged the Kingdom to “protect human rights, respect peaceful expressions of dissent and ensure fairness in judicial proceedings.”

The Canadian military wants armed drones. Here’s why we should say no.

Almost all the defence policy experts in Canada these days seem to think that that the Canadian Armed Forces need to acquire drones suitable not just for surveillance, but for engaging the enemy in low-intensity wars.

I think the experts are wrong — dead wrong.

Acquiring armed drones — MQ-1 Predators or the larger MQ-9 Reaper, Washington’s attack drones of choice — would risk involving Canada in all manner of military follies and morally questionable acts of assassination. Because deploying armed drones is so easy — and so low-profile — when compared to fighter-bombers, their presence in the arsenal would solidify an expectation in the CAF that their primary role is to serve in expeditionary campaigns run by the U.S. or NATO.

Transparency a casualty in arms deals with Saudis

The federal government is fond of boasting about how its controls on weapons exports are among the strongest in the world, but Canadians are left largely in the dark over precisely what military and security equipment is being shipped to foreign customers – including those with poor human-rights records.

For instance, Canada’s flourishing security and defence business with Saudi Arabia goes well beyond the controversial $15-billion sale of General Dynamics fighting vehicles to Riyadh, but Canadians must turn to the Internet, rather than their government, for details.

Trudeau's Stance On Saudi Arms Deal Unpopular, Poll Suggests

A new poll suggests that only one-fifth of Canadians think the federal government should stick by the controversial, $15-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia — and it's an issue that cuts across party lines.

Numbers released by the Angus Reid Institute on Monday show nearly half of Canadians (48 per cent) believe that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is making the wrong call by honouring the deal.

Saudi Arabia isn't the only despotic Gulf state Canada is helping oppress human rights

Five years after the waves of popular protest spread excitedly across the Arab world, little seems to have improved.

Egypt is again being presided over by an autocrat embroiled in high-level corruption; Libya, Yemen and Syria are being blown apart in civil wars that seem to have no end in sight.

Then there's Bahrain, the tiny, nearly forgotten Gulf island kingdom that quietly suppressed its own mass uprising on Feb. 14, five years ago. It was a brutal uprising in which rights groups allege Ottawa played a direct hand.

Saudi Arabia leads surge in arms imports by Middle East states

The international transfer of weapons to the Middle East has risen dramatically over the past five years, with Saudi Arabia’s imports for 2011-15 increasing by 275% compared with 2006–10, according to an authoritative report.

Overall, imports by states in the Middle East increased by 61%; imports by European states decreased by 41% over the same period. Britain sold more weapons to Saudi Arabia than to any other country. Saudi Arabia is also the biggest US arms market and buys more American arms than British, the report shows.

Liberals didn’t sign off on Saudi arms sale but will let it stand, says Dion

OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion says the Liberal government does not necessarily approve of Canada's sale of $15 billion worth of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, a country with a dismal human rights record.

But Dion says the government is simply allowing a previously negotiated contract to stand.

Trudeau's Handling Of The Saudi Arms Deal Will Define His Legacy

In an apparent and welcome reversal, Ottawa seems to be reconsidering its position on the $15-billion contract for Canadian-made military equipment with Saudi Arabia -- one of the worst human rights violators in the world.

Only days after Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion seemed to signal the irreversibility of the contract, declaring emphatically that "what is done is done," an official statement from his department stated: "Should we become aware of reports that would be relevant to Canada's export control regime, the government can consider whether existing permits should be suspended or cancelled." For once, Ottawa conceded that existing arms deal authorizations can be reassessed.

The largest arms export contract in Canadian history is apparently no longer an arms deal

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is referring to a $14-billion deal to provide Saudi Arabia with light armoured vehicles as a contract for “transport vehicles.” And he says such equipment can’t be considered arms.

The characterization of the deal comes as Harper defends the contract with the Saudi Arabian regime.

Conservatives amend law to allow export of prohibited weapons to Israel, Kuwait

OTTAWA — Critics are raising an alarm over what they say is an ongoing erosion of government control over the export of Canadian military goods.

The Star reported Wednesday the Conservative government quietly amended the export law to permit Canadian shipments to Israel and Kuwait of prohibited weapons such as banned handguns or automatic weapons.

Campaign cone of silence descends on Saudi Arabia arms deal

The definition of a "campaign issue" is elusive. Generally, it has to do with the self-interest of politicians and the reporters who cover them.

If the former think advancing a subject might mean more votes, they declare that "the people of Canada are concerned." Journalists then decide whether it'll sell papers, to use an old term. If the subject clears both bars, it's a campaign issue.