Saudi Arabia

The Spanish government has decided to go ahead with the delivery of 400 laser guided missiles to Saudi Arabia, worth more than $10m, a few weeks after saying they would cancel the order.

Journalists in Yemen and the USA have collected evidence that the missile used by the Saudi-led coalition forces to bomb a civilian bus Yemen, killing dozens of children and injuring many more, was as a 500-pound GBU-12 MK 82 laser guided missile, built by Lockheed Martin.

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) have been granted permission to continue to pursue it's legal case against the British government regarding arms sales to Saudi Arabia. On 4th May two Court of Appeal judges granted CAAT permission to appeal, and the case will be heard by the Court of Appeal in the months ahead.

A coalition of human rights organisations from Germany, Italy and Yemen have begun a legal action against a European arms manufacturer and officials in Italy.

A new report from French human rights group says the French government may have breached international law in it's sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that could be used in their war on Yemen.

For the past few years, the Finnish arms trade has been changing. Data compiled by the peace and security think-tank SaferGlobe shows that the largest export region used to be the European Union, since 2015 the top position has been taken by Middle Eastern countries.

Across Europe, activists have been resisting arms sales to Saudi Arabia, destined to be used the ongoing war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia's bombing campaign has seen many thousands of civilians killed.

From 11 to 15 September, Geneva will be hosting the Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty. The world’s third largest purveyor of armaments, France has a privileged relationship in this area with Saudi Arabia and its allies. According to hitherto undisclosed data revealed to Orient XXI by the Observatoire des Armements, the French government used a contract for weapons ostensibly meant for Lebanon to prepare for the Kingdom’s war in Yemen and speed up delivery at the height of that conflict.

Journalists in the UK and Denmark have uncovered evidence that BAE Systems – the UK's largest arms companies and one of the largest in the world – has profited from the sale of surveillance technology, including to many oppressive governments in the Middle East.

While 119 nations have joined the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions to rid the world of cluster munitions, in the past four years, 166 financial institutions invested US$31 billion in companies that produce cluster munitions, an increase from $28 billion in 2016.

Textron is an American global aerospace, defense, security and advanced technologies industrial conglomerate. Textron includes several companies including Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft, and Beechcraft, Textron Systems, and has offices across the USA and in the United Kingdom.