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Germany has decided to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia because of “instability in the region,” German daily Bild reported on Sunday. Weapons orders from Saudi Arabia have either been “rejected, pure and simple,” or deferred for further consideration, the newspaper said, adding that the information has not been officially confirmed. The decision was taken on Wednesday by the national security council, a government body that includes Chancellor Angela Merkel, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and seven other ministers, it said. …

… Since 2009, when President Obama took office, the United States has led a surge in global arms deals, accounting for nearly a third of the roughly $30 billion in weapons transfers completed last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. […] Top administration officials credit a coordinated effort by the White House and active participation by Secretary of State John F. Kerry with helping American companies ink more weapons contracts. Officials also are lowering regulatory barriers to companies looking to export arms. […] One of the biggest beneficiaries has been Waltham-based Raytheon Co., the largest employer in...

Russia announced that arms exports for 2009 would be $8.5 billion. That's less than two percent more than last year's $8.35 billion. This is not good. Increasing these sales is very important for the government. The defense industry employs nearly three million people and accounts for about 20 percent of industrial jobs in Russia. At the end of the Cold War in 1991, defense work was more than three times as large as it is now. It was the large size of the defense industry that played a major role in bankrupting the Soviet Union. The Russians were never quite...

The globalisation of the arms industry has opened up major loopholes in all current arms export regulations, allowing sales to human rights abusers and countries under arms embargoes, according to a new report by the Control Arms Campaign. The report, Arms without Borders, is launched today as the United Nations opens its annual session on arms control, in the run up to a landmark vote at the UN to start work on an Arms Trade Treaty. The report reveals that US, EU and Canadian companies are among those able to circumvent arms regulations by selling weapon components and subcontracting arms...

09.02 / 20:43 | 12 Russia's military exports to grow by 2007 MOSCOW-ASTANA, February 9, 2006. KAZINFORM. - Russia's military exports are planned to exceed seven billion dollars in 2007, Director of the Russian Federal Service for military-technical cooperation with foreign countries Mikhail Dmitriyev told journalists on Thursday. "Since the year 2007 the portfolio of military orders will be growing," Dmitriyev said. " No heroic efforts from Russia will be needed, the work has been done and we should merely go ahead," Dmitriyev said. Over the past three years Russia's military exports were to reach 4.5 billion dollars, he said,...

Russia has every right to sell arms to Iran, its defense minister said on Wednesday, responding to mounting criticism of a $1 billion deal announced last week. The United States, calling Iran a "state sponsor of terror", said selling weapons to the Islamic Republic did not help the Middle East. "This deal, this contract is absolutely legitimate. Like it or not, it's our affair. There are plenty of things we don't like either," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in comments shown on NTV television.

Iraqi-born Finnish citizen held Finland's National Bureau of Investigation - the country's central criminal police - have arrested a man suspected of illegal arms sales to Iraq. An Iraqi-born Finnish citizen was remanded in custody on Friday. The suspect, an architect by profession, was charged with aggravated violation of trade restrictions. In a brief statement issued on Tuesday, the NBI did not mention the country that the suspect was believed to have sold weapons to, but Helsingin Sanomat has learned that it was Iraq. According to the statement, the charges involve "possible illegal trade or preparation of such trade with...