Amnesty International USA: Midwest

A Toast to Freedom via Amnesty Australia

10 KILLER FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Before you get started on your activism, here are 10 killer facts you need to know about the international arms trade and its consequences:

1. Irresponsible arms transfers and abuse of arms contribute to the deaths of at least 500,000 people on average every year and facilitate the majority of the world’s human rights violations, including unlawful killings, sexual violence, recruitment of child soldiers, and forcing of millions of people to flee their homes.

2. Most of the arms trade is not subject to international standards. At present the only international standards that apply to the global arms trade are the UN Charter, including UN Security Council arms embargoes, and the UN Firearms Protocol.

3. About 60% of the human rights violations documented in a study by Amnesty International involved the use of small arms and light weapons.

4. 26 million people worldwide were internally displaced as a result of armed conflict at the end of 2008.

5. All of the top six countries of origin of refugees in 2008 are locations of armed conflict.

6. There are some 250,000 child soldiers in the world today, engaged in wars of adults making.

7. Child soldiers have been actively involved in armed conflict in government forces or non-state armed groups in 19 countries or territories since 2004.

8. The five permanent members of the Security Council - Russia, China, United States of America (USA), France, and the United Kingdom (UK) - collectively account for 88% of the global arms trade.

9. The United States is the major world arms exporter (over 40%).

10. One person every minute dies as a result of armed violence, with thousands more injured and abused every day.

Tunisian Authorities Must Take Chokri Belaid’s Death Seriously

The revolution has not ended in Cairo. Two years later and protesters are still frustrated.

newsweek:

Grim news from Syria, as seen on the Times and The Huffington Post this am, per Reuters: “At least 65 people, apparently shot in the head, were found dead with their hands bound in a district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, a pro-opposition monitoring group said.” It’s unclear as to who did it, or why they were shot.

“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?”

-Mahatma Gandhi