United Kingdom

Arms Fairs are the trade exhibitions for military industry which are an integral and important part of the international arms trade. They happen all over the world, from Paris to Jakarta and provide arms companies with a forum for marketing their goods and services, and an opportunity to discuss collaboration on military projects.

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has welcomed the Prime Minister's announcement that the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) is to be shut down. The news follows a high-profile campaign by CAAT and other groups for the closure of DESO, a Government unit whose purpose is to promote sales for private arms companies, despite being funded with taxpayers' money. CAAT hopes that with the closure of DESO, the undemocratic power of arms companies in the UK will be brought to an end.

"Serious flaws regarding human rights"

Using the UK Freedom of Information Act, War Resisters' International
finally obtained the regulations governing the right to conscientious
objection for the three branches of the British Armed Forces [1], in
time to examine them for a counter-report to the United Nations Human
Rights Committee, which will examine the United Kingdoms human rights
record in its sessions in October 2007 and July 2008 [2].

Block the Builders is a campaign in Great Britain  which aims to nonviolently prevent the building of a new laser facility at AWE Aldermaston, the first stage of a series of proposed developments which would enable AWE Aldermaston to build new nuclear weapons. Block the Builders holds a monthly nonviolent blockade of the site. As and when details of companies profitting from the development of new nuclear weapons emerge, we also protest at that companies offices or site.

The BBC reported on 28 May that more than 1,000 British soldiers deserted from the Armed Forces since the beginning of the war in Iraq.

The USA section of Amnesty International focuses in their 2006 annual report on the role of private military contractors. PMCs are one of the most scandalous part of the spectrum of war profiteering and the U.S. government is their main contract provider “the U.S. government is outsourcing key security and military support functions, particular in Iraq and Afghanistan, to private companies whose civilian employees carry out the work.

Presentation for the ESF Seminar USA's military bases and the militarisation of the European Union in the service of "global war against terror".

In the previous month, the WRI office issued the following co-alerts:

(a full archive of co-alerts is available at wri-irg.org/news/alerts)

UK14787-170406: BRITAIN: Conscientious objector sentenced to eight month in prison

TK14682-110406: TURKEY: Police searching for Turkish/Kurdish CO Halil Savda / fear of safety

The new Armed Forces Bill going through parliament in Britain now will introduce new harsh punishments.

The Guardian reported on 25 July on the judicial review of the "Peace Tax Seven" to guarantee the right to conscientious objection against military taxation:

'A group of conscientious objectors today lost a high court bid to stop their taxes being put toward military spending.

The "peace tax seven", backed by more than 50 supporters, asked Mr Justice Collins, sitting in London, for permission to seek a judicial review of a continuing government refusa

Britain's nuclear weapons - the four Trident nuclear weapon submarines based at Faslane on the west coast of Scotland - have a destructive power 1000 times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. They are used, every day, to threaten the rest of the world, and to defend Britain's "vital economic interests" like oil supplies and shipping lanes. Trident benefits the big multinational corporations who see their investments protected around the world, and also the weapons companies who benefit from big arms contracts.

In a landmark case, the UKs Immigration Appeal Tribunal granted asylum to a Russian deserter. The person in question deserted from the Russian Army in Grozny in Chechnya shortly after being sent there in 1999, and fled to Britain. The Tribunal concluded: "He had been called up for service after deferments and had received three months training.