The Speaker News Journal

Taliban Group Captures Afghan District Denied by Afghanistan Government

November 11, 2014October 5, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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After the Taliban released a statement days ago claiming to have captured the Registan district of southern Kandahar, after routing Afghan forces and raising the “white flag of Islam” over the territory, the Afghan government has denied the Taliban claims, stating that they still controlled the area and insisting that they moved the district center not because the Taliban had overrun their forces but because it was difficult for people to reach it.

Pajhwok Afghan reported, “Authorities rejected the assertion as exaggerated.” The news network reported that the Registan district remained under the government’s control, and that Afghan officials insisted that the district center was moved for “administrative reasons.”

The Taliban had released a statement Oct. 2 that said that the organization had routed Afghan forces in Registan, forced them to flee after killing and wounding dozens, and “liberating the district center, unfurling the sublime white flag of Islam over it and bringing the entire district under their complete control.”

and al Qaeda-loyal group Junood al Fida was involved in the fighting, and also claimed on Twitter to have taken the Registan district, citing the “Commander of the faithful,” Mullah Omar, to whom Junood al Fida is pledged subject, as well as the late Osama bin Laden.

“Glad tidings O Ummah–the den of Shaykh Osamah will fall to the lions of the #Islamic_Emirates–by the will of Allah!” The accompanying hashtags are #Kandahar and #Afghanistan,” read one Tweet by the group.

Other Tweets showed photos of the fighting and a base the group claimed to have assaulted.

By James Haleavy

Source: Long War Journal

US Experts Warn US Not Prepared to Contain Ebola, US Officials Reject Travel Restrictions

October 6, 2014October 5, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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While experts in the US warned that the US was not prepared to contain an Ebola outbreak, citing mistakes and missteps in the handling of the first US Ebola case which resulted in the death of Thomas Duncan last week, US officials and US President Barack Obama rejected increasing calls for travel restrictions to and from the affected areas of West Africa.

“It is America–our doctors, our scientists, our know-how–that leads the fight to contain and combat the Ebola epidemic in West Africa,” said Obama in rejecting travel restrictions, stressing his faith in US doctors and health facilities.

CDC Director Tom Friedman also dismissed calls for travel restrictions and isolation of the West African nations where the Ebola outbreak has claimed thousands of lives.

Friedman rationalized his position by saying that isolating the outbreak regions may cause the disease to spread more widely and cause greater risk to America.

“It’s a tough question that’s coming up and will keep coming up,” Friedman said. “Our perspective–very much like the situation with regard to the individual–is to take actions that seem like they may work. The approach of isolating countries–it’s harder to get help into that country and it may enable the disease to spread more widely there and potentially become more of a risk to us here.”

However, Friedman admitted that the risk was not controlled.

“The bottom line here is the plain truth that we can’t make the risk zero until the outbreak is controlled in West Africa,” said Friedman.

Several US politicians have made public calls for travel restrictions.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Humble) requested that the president restrict travel to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

“I believe that the recent Ebola case in Dallas highlights the fact that non-essential travel to the affected region is putting Americans at unnecessary risk,” Poe wrote in his request.

Texas US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration questioning the measures it was taking to protect America from Ebola.

“Due to the Obama administration’s unclear approach to addressing the threat of the Ebola virus, Americans–particularly the Texans who have possibly been exposed–deserve specific answers to how the administration is addressing travel to and from the countries impacted by the disease,” Cruz wrote.

US Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Upper St. Clair) also warned of a need to increase health security. “The propensity of people coming out of those countries may be to get out of there as fast as possible,” said Murphy. “Even if that means lying on their records. We can’t necessarily just use that verbal screening process. CDC and NIH are going to tell us how they are adapting and changing this, because the current process apparently is not effective.”

Experts in the US have also called for restrictions.

Gavin MacGregor-Skinner, an assistant professor of public health at Penn State University, who helped set up an Ebola clinic in Nigeria weeks ago, said of the outbreak, “This is a Category 5 hurricane. It just happens to be viral.”

Phenelle Segal, president of Montgomery County-based Infection Control Consulting Services and a former infection prevention analyst for the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, warned, “Unless the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention take extreme measures to prevent the universal spread of the disease, we could possibly end up with a pandemic.

“I think as soon as we started seeing West Africa go out of control with Ebola, that was the time [to impose travel restrictions.]”

In West Africa, the disease has claimed 3,300 lives with no end in sight. The UN has said of the outbreak that it is surging “beyond control,” and warned of a worldwide disaster.

Ebola cases in West Africa have doubled every three weeks. In Sierra Leone 121 people died of Ebola Sunday.

UN officials have stated that a total air quarantine would not stop the spread of Ebola, but would delay it.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Kazakhstan-China Immigration Surprising, Expert Finds

October 14, 2014October 5, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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Several unexpected trends were reported by international migrations specialist Elena Sadovskaya, who is based at the Moscow Institute for Economic Forecasting, regarding immigration patterns between China and neighboring Kazakhstan. Among those findings were that many less Chinese are working in Kazakhstan than commonly thought, and that many of those migrants counted as Chinese are in fact other ethnicities.

“Chinese migration to Kazakhstan is not especially ‘Chinese,’” Sadovskaya stated. “[It includes] not only ethnic Chinese [Hans] but also Kazakhs, Uyghurs, Dungans, Uzbeks, Koreans and even [ethnic] Russians.”

Sadovskaya’s analysis was reported in the current issue of Karavan, a Kazakhstan weekly.

Different ethnic groups dominate different parts of the migratory flows in and out of Kazakhstan, Sadovskaya reported.

Most immigrants to Kazakhstan that are counted as Chinese are actually non-Han ethnic groups from the restless Chinese-controlled land of Xinjiang, and include ethnic Kazakhs.

Most migrants coming to Kazakhstan for work, however, are Han Chinese. Around 6,000 to 7,000 Han relocate to Kazakhstan per year for work, and form about one quarter of Kazakhstan’s guest workers. This finding has been remarked as surprising because of a widespread belief that Han workers in Kazakhstan are a much larger group.

Although most job-seekers coming to Kazakhstan are Han, those coming for business include Hans, Dungans, Uyghurs and Kazakhs, and those seeking permanent resident are primarily ethnic Kazakhs, known as “Oralmany,” who are returning to their homeland from a period of residence in China.

Sadovskaya pointed out that a large number of these returning Oralmans have not become Kazakhstan citizens–only about half of those who return from China have done so. The reasons for this range, Sadovskaya said, from partiality to Oralmany government benefits to language barriers.

Within Kazakhstan, recent polls have shown that locals are increasingly hostile towards Chinese immigrants. Those expressing some hostility toward Chinese immigrants rose from 18 percent in 2007 to 33 percent in 2012.

Immigrants to China from Kazakhstan, on the other hand, are largely students to are relocating to study at Chinese higher learning institutions. About 10,000 Kazakhstani students are studying in China in the current academic year–eight to 10 times the number of Chinese studying in Kazakhstan.

The two nations mirror each other’s deficits, Sadovskaya commented. Official corruption in Kazakhstan has led to a large number of illegal immigrants, while poor education in Kazakhstan has led to Kazakhs moving to China to study.

“It is possible to call Chinese migration a mirror image of the problems which exist in Kazakhstan,” said Sadovskaya.

By James Haleavy

World Has In Fact Not Begun Deleveraging Crisis-Linked Borrowing, ICMBS Warns

October 14, 2014October 2, 2014 by Andrew Stern

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The world has not yet begun to deleverage its crisis-linked borrowing, a recent report by the International Centre for Monetary and Banking Studies (ICMBS) found. Despite currently prevailing popular opinion that the global economy is deleveraging, the world is in fact not reducing the burden of its debts, according to the organization’s research; in fact, public sector debt in rich countries and private debt in emerging markets–notably China–have not stopped rising, and this may cause a new economic crisis.

“Contrary to widely held beliefs, the world has not yet begun to delever and the global debt to GDP ratio is still growing, breaking new highs,” said the report.

The document, the 16th annual Geneva Report, titled “Deleveraging? What deleveraging?,” was commissioned by the ICMBS and written by a panel of senior economists, and was published on the Centre for Economic Policy Research website.

The total burden of world debt–private and public–has reached 215 percent of national income. For perspective, the whole world would need to consume nothing while continuing current levels of production for two years in order to pay back the world debt.

That burden was only 160 percent of national income in 2001, and under 200 percent in 2009.

The report notes that debt growth was primarily in the private sector of the developed world before the financial crisis. After the crisis, Western governments accepted a lot of debt, which reduced the burden on the private sector.

Meanwhile, developing countries like China increased debt when they saw that Western economies would not be able to sustain the rapid growth, the report found.

The report characterized the combination of record debt and slowing growth as a “poisonous combination” that pointed toward further economic crisis.

The report stressed economies with high debts and persistently slow growth–such as the eurozone periphery in southern Europe and China–as economies that were most concerning.

An author of the report, Luigi Buttiglione, compared China to past miracle economies. “Over my career I have seen many so-called miracle economies – Italy in the 1960s, Japan, the Asian tigers, Ireland, Spain and now perhaps China–and they all ended after a build-up of debt.”

The report suggested a possible model that may explain the current existence of debt bubbles: innovation tends to increase productivity–therefore growth. Market participants become more optimistic and credit is easier to obtain, leading to more loans. Loans are often tied to a project and show up as more growth, which further nurtures optimism and increases loans, even if the underlying productivity gains have run their course.

The authors of the report concluded that in order to avoid another crash, interest rates across the world will have to stay low for a “very, very long” time to enable households, companies and governments to alleviate their debts.

The report was published a week before the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in Washington and concerns that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates within the year.

By Andrew Stern

America’s Most Prominent Southern Secession Group Forms Paramilitary Unit for Action

October 14, 2014October 1, 2014 by Sid Douglas

America's Most Prominent Southern Succession Group Forms Paramilitary Unit for Action (1)

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A previously vocal but nonviolent neo-Confederate group–the League of the South (LOS), the most prominent Southern separatist group in the US–has begun training a uniformed paramilitary unit for any-means-necessary style action, according to civil rights watch group Hatewatch, which based its revelations on leaked internal documents and sources within the LOS.

“We are for the survival, well-being, and independence of the Southern people,” said LOS president Michael Hill of the movement. “And when we say ‘the Southern people,’ we mean white Southerners. We are an ethno-nationalist movement and we want a free and independent South for our people, as our homeland. That’s pretty much what we are fighting for.”

The move to train a paramilitary unit comes after years of rhetoric threatening violence, Hatewatch reported. The unit has been named “The Indomitables” and is comprised of former Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis, Hatewatch reported.

The unit was conceptualized at a LOS meeting earlier this year, according to Hatewatch. The lead trainer for the unit is US Army and Navy veteran Floyd Eric Meadows, 43, of Rome, Ga., whose online name is Eric Thorvaldsson.

Hill responded to the SPLC revelations on his blog, “Even if we are–and you really have no idea on earth if we are or not–setting up a Southern militia or some other form of paramilitary organization, we are doing nothing that free men have not done for centuries. Deal with it and stop your whining.

“The primary targets will not be enemy soldiers; instead, they will be political leaders, members of the hostile media, cultural icons, bureaucrats, and other of the managerial elite without whom the engines of tyranny don’t run.”

Of LOS’s motives, Hill has stated, “We desire that our women and children be warm and snug while the world outside rages. And as our due for that we must face the world.”

The current roster of the group is as follows:

By Sid Douglas

Public Votes Pluto Is a Planet at Harvard-Smithsonian Meeting

October 14, 2014October 1, 2014 by Joseph Reight

International Astronomical Union Meets to Define Planets, Votes Pluto Should Be a Planet Again

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The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics held a meeting last week to discuss the definition of what a planet is, and whether Pluto–which had its planet status removed in 2006 after a vote by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)–should be considered a planet. Three experts paneled the meeting, and each argued for or against Pluto as a planet. The audience then voted.

Pluto has not been considered a planet since 2006, when the IAU met for the same purpose.

In 2005, the discovery of an object, later called Eris, which was farther out than Pluto, and which was larger and more massy than Pluto, disrupted the nine-planet concept of the Solar System. Astronomers met to make a final decision on the definition of a planet at the 26th General Assembly of the IAU in the summer of 2006.

At the 2006 meeting, astronomers voted on the definition of a planet and the status of Pluto. They had three options: maintain the traditional nine-planet Solar System, add three planets of similar size to Pluto–including Eris and Ceres–or remove Pluto and adopt an eight-planet Solar System.

Controversially, they voted for an eight-planet system. Pluto and Eris became “dwarf planets.”

The IAU decided three criteria needed to be met to be considered a planet: the object must orbit the sun, it must have sufficient gravity to pull itself into spherical shape, and it must have “cleared the neighborhood” of its orbit. Pluto had not achieved the last of these criteria.

Today, many astronomers and the public are still uncertain about what exactly defines a planet, but the meeting last week reconsidered the definition, and Pluto.

Three experts presented their case, and the audience voted on the status of Pluto.

One expert, Gareth Williams, associate director at the IAU Minor Planet Center, who was opposed to making Pluto a planet, argued, “Jupiter has cleared its neighborhood. Earth has cleared its neighborhood. Ceres, which is in the main asteroid belt, hasn’t. Pluto hasn’t. In my world, Pluto is not a planet.”

However, the two other experts thought Pluto should be a planet. Historian Owen Gingerich thought that the concept of “planet” is one that is culturally defined and changes over time, and Dimitar Sasselov, director of Harvard’s planetary program, thought that a planet was the smallest spherical lump of matter formed around stars or stellar remnants, so Pluto qualified as a planet.

The audience voted, and found in favor of Pluto being counted a planet.

By Joseph Reight

The Full Debate About Planets and Pluto:

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RNGSuFqmro”]

More information: Universe Today

California Bans Plastic Bags – First State to Do So

October 14, 2014September 30, 2014 by Sid Douglas

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The governor of California has signed the first statewide plastic bag ban in the US. Single-use plastic bags will be prohibited at grocery and convenience stores.

“This bill is a step in the right direction—it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself,” said California Gov. Jerry Brown. “We’re the first to ban these bags, and we won’t be the last.”

Gov. Brown signed bill SB270 Tuesday–the first statewide ban in the US. Over 100 cities and counties throughout California already have local bans, however.

Plastic bags will be phased out of use at convenience stores, grocery stores and supermarkets next summer, when the bill is scheduled to take effect. The bill also allows stores to charge over 10 cents for using paper bags.

However, the fees will be waved for customers who are on public assistance. Lawmakers felt that SB270 would penalize lower-income Californians by charging for bags that were previously free. Use of the proceeds from the fees will also be regulated under the new law.

The bill will not apply to bags used for fruit, vegetables or meats, or to bags used at other retailers.

The bill is being opposed by a national coalition of plastic bag manufacturers. The coalition, proceeding under their trade group, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, is running a campaign characterizing the ban as a cash-giveaway to grocers that will cause thousands of job losses. They are calling for a referendum on the matter.

Other states are also banning single-use plastic bags. Hawaii is expected to follow California with a state-wide ban–all Hawaii’s counties have already approved prohibitions. Local bans have also been implemented in Chicago, Austin, Seattle and other US cities, and legislation is pending in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico.

By Sid Douglas

White House Changes Neutral Position on Hong Kong, Supports the Hong Kong Vote

September 29, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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The White House, which had maintained a neutral stance regarding attempts by Hong Kong citizens to regain universal suffrage in the face of Chinese national oppression, changed its position Monday and supported democracy in Hong Kong.

“The United States supports universal suffrage in Hong Kong in accordance with the Basic Law and we support the aspirations of the Hong Kong people,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest in a press briefing, Monday.

“We believe that the basic legitimacy of the chief executive in Hong Kong will be greatly enhanced if the Basic Law’s ultimate aim of selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage is fulfilled,” said Earnest.

“We have consistently made our position known to Beijing, and will continue to do so.”

“We do not take sides in the discussion of Hong Kong’s political development, nor do we support any particular individuals or groups involved in it. We encourage all sides to refrain from actions that would further escalate tensions, to exercise restraint, and to express views on the SAR’s political future in a peaceful manner.”

The US government had faced criticism in recent weeks for an apparent lack of action regarding the events in China.

Tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens have been demonstrating for their right to universal suffrage over the past week, after the Chinese government decided it would only allow political candidates to run for the 2017 elections in Hong Kong who met the approval of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China (CPC).

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Men May Be Getting More Abuse Online Than Women – Study

October 14, 2014September 29, 2014 by Eli Ramos

Men Getting More Abuse Online Than Women - Study

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According to a recent study, and despite popular sentiment that the internet is not safe for women, men may be ones who receives the most abuse on social media. According to think tank Demos, male public figures are several times more likely than female public figures to receive abuse on Twitter.

The think tank analyzed over 2 million tweets over a two-week period. The sample of public figures included celebrities, politicians, journalists and musicians. An equal number was chosen for males and females.

Despite recent claims that the internet is misogynist and is particularly unsafe for women, the think tank found that men were more often abused than women, at least on Twitter.

Over 2.5 percent of tweets directed at the males–tweets containing the @username–contained abuse. Less than 1 percent of the tweets directed at the females was abusive.

That is, over 1 in 20 tweets sent to the males included abuse. Only 1 in 70 tweets directed at the females included abuse.

There was one category, however, where female celebrities received more abuse than men: journalism. Females in this line of work recieved abuse around 3 times as often as men.

Males were found to also be the most common abusers. Men were behind 75 percent of abusive tweets toward other men, and were behind over 60 percent of abusive tweets directed toward women.

There may be more to the issue than can be understood based on these figures alone, however.

According to a recent Harvard study, men have 15 percent more followers than women, men are almost twice as likely to follow another man than a woman, women are 25 percent more likely to follow men than women, and the average man is 40 percent more likely to be followed by another man than by a woman.

The Harvard team concluded that, although there are more women on Twitter, and unlike most other social networks, men dominate the action on Twitter.

By Eliana Ramos

IBM Develops New Brainlike Chip, 180,000x More Efficient Than Modern CPUs

October 14, 2014September 29, 2014 by Andrew Stern

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The new chip developed by IBM has 4096 cores, 1 million programmable neurons, and 5.4 billion transistors, heralding what some are calling a new era in computing.

The chip, called TrueNorth, is the most advanced neuromorphic (brain-like) chip created, and is incredibly efficient.

The chip consumes only 72 milliwatts at maximum load–equivalent to 400 billion synaptic operations per second per watt. The chip is therefore around 180,000 times more efficient than a modern CPU, and almost 800 times more efficient than other cutting-edge neuromorphic approaches.

Spokespeople for IBM commented on the TrueNorth chip, “One of the key problems with developing a new chip based on a novel architecture is that you also have to create developer tools and software that actually make efficient use of those thousands of cores and billions of synapses. Fortunately, IBM’s already got that covered: Last year it released a specialized programming language (Corelet) and simulator (Compass) that let you program and test your neuromorphic programs before running them on actual hardware.”

“Ultimately, the main purpose of the SyNAPSE project is to take existing systems that simulate the functionality of the brain in software — such as deep neural networks — and run them on hardware that was specifically designed for the task. As you may already know, dedicated hardware tends to orders of magnitude more efficient than simulating/emulating the hardware in software on a general-purpose CPU. This is why IBM is touting some utterly incredible efficiency figures for TrueNorth. For neural networks with high spike rates and a large number of active synapses, TrueNorth can deliver 400 billion synaptic operations per second (SOPS) per watt. When running the exact same neural network, a general-purpose CPU is 176,000 times less energy efficient, while a state-of-the-art multiprocessor neuromorphic system (48 chips, each with 18 cores) is 769 times less efficient. While it’s not directly comparable, the world’s most efficient supercomputer only manages around 4.5 billion FLOPS per watt.

“I don’t think IBM is actually getting back into the consumer electronics market (though that would be amusing). Rather, this is just a concept of the kind of thing the TrueNorth chip might one day enable.”

A technical reserach paper was published in Science today, titled “A million spiking-neuron integrated circuit with a scalable communication network and interface.”

By Andy Stern

Men Read More News, But Women Read More Fiction

October 14, 2014September 29, 2014 by Heidi Woolf

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There are variations in who reads what between the sexes. American men have been found to read more news and to discuss news more often than women. Men also use social media platforms that are more commonly used for news discussion than women. Women, however, read fiction much more than men, even when extremely female-oriented genres are factored-out. Women seem to be writing more of the most popular novels as well.

The Newspaper Association of America has found that a greater percentage of men read news than women. Nearly 2 million more men are reading news in the US, despite the fact that there are nearly 8 million more females than males in America. Women, however, are more frequent readers of Sunday edition news than men.

US men are also bigger users of online discussion forums such as Reddit. The average Reddit user is male (59 percent site-wide). Men are also the biggest users of LinkedIn and Google+, while women are bigger users of Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

Women and men also read news differently.

Men more closely follow sports, science, technology, business, international, political, and consumer news, while women more closely follow religion, health, entertainment, community, arts and culture, crime and weather news.

More specifically, men are more interested in stories about sporting events, international conflict, international politics, court cases, economic conditions, and social issues like immigration, while women are more interested in stories about tornadoes, kidnapped boys, floods, missing pregnant women, trapped coal miners, infectious diseases, contaminated pet food and toy recalls.

Women read more fiction than men. The marked difference between the sexes in novel-reading habits has been consistent. This is true even when the female-targeted romance genre is removed from calculations. Women account for 80 percent of the fiction market.

A recent memorable–although unscientific–experiment by British author Ian McEwan in a London park saw almost all of the people willing to accept the books McEwan and offered to give away taken by women, prompting the writer to say, “When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.”

Women read more novels, more often finish novels they start, more often have opened the books on their shelves, and are more likely to tell the truth about having read a book they say they have read.

It seems that women are also writing more of the most popular novels. A recent New York Times best-seller list contained 11 novels written by women, and four by men.

By Heidi Woolf

International Arms Trade Treaty Finally Reaches 50 Ratifications–Arms Trade Treaty Will Become Law

September 25, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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Amnesty International has received the 50th ratification to its Arms Trade Treaty, and the treaty will now become law. The law will be the first of its kind, and will prohibit sales of conventional weapons and munitions to nations when there is knowledge that the weapons could be used to commit human rights abuses.

War crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are among the rights abuses that will constitute grounds for prohibition of arms sales to a country.

In addition, the law will require that states must conduct objective assessments to avoid risks of human rights abuses.

The Arms Trade Treaty began as an idea in 1993. It was hoped that such an idea might stop human rights abuses by stopping the weapons from reaching people who use those weapons to commit abuses.

Currently, sales in conventional arms amounts to nearly USD$100 billion per year. This amount is steadily rising. Over half of the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) 193 member states make and supply conventional weapons, and the five UN security Council (UNSC) members are the world’s largest arms traders.

Currently, there is no international control of the trade.

It is estimated that approximately 500,000 people are killed annually with firearms. A large percentage of this figure are those killed in battlefields.

In the past year, conflicts in many areas–most notably South Sudan, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine–have already claimed many thousands of lives.

The largest importers of arms are India, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. Large amounts of arms are also purchase by several other Asian and Middle Eastern countries.

Amnesty International needed 50 ratifications of the Arms Trade Treaty in order for the treaty to become legally binding. The 50th ratification happened Thursday. The ATT enters into force 90 days after its 50 ratification, so the treaty will be international law December 25, 2014.

“This week we have reached the magic 50 ratifications so the treaty will soon become international law,” wrote Amnesty International’s arms expert Brian Wood.

Argentina, the Bahamas, Czech Republic, Portugal, Saint Lucia, Senegal and Uruguay were the most recent states to ratify.

The treaty is legally binding for all nations that have ratified. Ratification included incorporation of the treaty rules into national laws and submitting official paperwork to the UN consenting to abide by treaty rules.

Many UN members have not yet signed the treaty, however, including top arms exporters China, Israel, Canada and Russia.

Amnesty has pointed out that China is involved in ongoing irresponsible arms transfers, including supplying conflict zones such as Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Libya and Zimbabwe. China also sells to countries with poor human rights records such as Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Guinea, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

France likewise supplies Singapore, UAE, Greece, Middle Eastern, North African and other Francophone countries. France cooperates with Russia on defense and naval equipment. France in the past has supplied conflict zones such as Libya, Israel, Egypt, Chad and Syria. These conflicts were supplied between 2005 and 2009, and France has shown itself generally supportive of strict arms trade transfer criteria.

Russia is believed by Amnesty to be the largest arms supplier of Syria. Russia also supplied Sudan, and is preparing to supply Egypt. Russia also supplies India, Algeria, Myanmar, Venezuela, and many African states.

The UK is believed to have supplied arms to Sri Lanka, Libya Bahrain and Yemen, which may have been used to commit human rights violations. It has, however, supplied Iraq, Israel, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen with weapons that may have been used to commit human rights abuses.

The United States–the world’s largest arms trader–supplies 170 countries with arms. The US has respected UN arms embargo’s, as well as restricted arms trade on its own to Myanmar, Chad, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and South Sudan.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctbc9kw1oHA”][su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ctbc9kw1oHA”][/su_youtube]

Amnesty International