United Arab Emirates

Joe Biden is pushing ahead with plans drawn up under the Trump presidency, to export $23.4bn worth of weapons to the United Arab Emirates, despite a pledge not to support "offensive operations" in Yemen.

The Italian government has banned arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in a move campaigners have described as "historic".

A Danish independent media and research centre has published a report accusing the country’s largest arms manufacturer, Terma, of war crimes after continuing to supply arms to the United Arab Emirates, despite a decision by Denmark to stop arming Saudi and the UAE because of their involvement in the war in Yemen.

Pindad PT is an Indonesian state-owned arms company, producing a wide range of weapons for the Indonesian military, police and security forces, and exporting to a number of other countries in the region. In 2016 the company had just over 2000 employees and revenue of around £100m.

South Africa has stopped shipping arms to countries including Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, in a dispute over a clause in the country's arms shipment protocols which demands that recipients commit to not transferring weapons to third parties.

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 many years, it looked like obligatory military service was on the way out. But in the last five years, the picture has changed: Norway has extended conscription for women; Sweden has reintroduced conscription for all; Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania and Kuwait have reintroduced conscription for men after short hiatuses; Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have introduced conscription for the first time. We look at why governments are turning to compulsion in filling their armies, and what this means for pacifist movements.

Using leaked documents, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has disclosed details of an extensive “weapons laundering scheme” involving Ukrainian companies and authorities.

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.

During 2014, Spain made defence materials exports worth €3.203 million, whilst in total €3.666 million worth of exports were authorized. The value of the actual exports has decreased by 18% in comparison to that reached in 2013, from €3.907 million. Nonetheless, the tendency during the last 10 years has been a continued increase, as revealed in the following graph.

Spanish exports of defence material 2005-2014

Wendela de Vries describes the action Stop Wapenhandel took against the presence of Dutch companies at the IDEX arms fair.

The last CO Update reported plans in UAE to introduce conscription. This has now begun. Conscripts start at age 17, with high school students who have failed their last year of schooling delaying their conscription until they have completed final exams in the next academic year. The military training centres for conscripts can accommodate between 5,000 and 7,000 people. Conscription began on July 13.