Archive for the ‘News and Opinion’ Category

Pax Christi International recognises the links between peace and sustainability. Pax Christi International is increasingly aware of the links between environment and peace building work, and therefore seeks to encourage more dialogue and cooperation between these two fields at the international level. There is an urgent need for global action to address our current ecological [...]

British campaigners will demonstrate outside the parliament building in London on April 15 to call on the government to cut military budget on the Global Day of Action on Military Spending. Britain’s annual military budget is a massive £39 billion, which is the fourth largest in the world and the country is planning to replace [...]

LONDON (Reuters) – Asia’s defense spending overtook Europe’s for the first time last year, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said on Thursday, reflecting China’s military rise and shrinking European economies. In its annual report on the world’s militaries, it said China’s defense spending in real terms rose 8.3 percent between 2011 and 2012, [...]

China will increase military spending by 10.7 per cent this year to 720.2 billion yuan (US$115.7 billion), the government announced on Tuesday, building on a nearly unbroken succession of double-digit rises in the defence budget across two decades. The government also announced that the domestic security budget would rise 8.7 per cent to 769.1 billion [...]

China has defended its booming military spending saying vast investments in the armed forces have contributed to global peace and stability, despite concerns among the US and Beijing’s Asian neighbours over sharpening territorial disputes. However, in a break with previous years, no figure for this year’s defence budget was presented on the eve of the [...]

China’s national legislature declined to announce the country’s 2013 defence budget at a press conference on Monday, in a departure from normal practice the day before its annual session opens. Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the National People’s Congress (NPC), which begins on Tuesday, responded with frustration when she was asked about military spending at a [...]

  A minister has revealed that the government is planning to purchase more tanks and fighter jets during the current administration’s last 18 months in office. Only Rp 57 trillion of the Rp 150 trillion allocated for the 2010-2014 budget has been used to meet Indonesia’s minimum defense capability, according to Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, [...]