Ploughshares Monitor articles from December 1998

Ploughshares Monitor archives from December 1998

Candles of hope (progress in efforts to ban landmines and reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons is encouraging).
December 1, 1998... In the spirit of the season's tribute to light that penetrates pervasive darkness, we can say that 1998 was not without its candles of hope. One such flickered to light in mid-November when Canada and a surprising number of NATO allies defied...

Small arms issue: achieving sustainable disarmament.
December 1, 1998... The relationship between disarmament and development like the old choice between "guns" and "butter" has preoccupied nation states from time immemorial. The world community created both the League of Nations and the United Nations largely to...

Landmines treaty: one year later.
December 1, 1998... In early December the news media reported that areas of Nicaragua, already devastated by flooding from Hurricane Mitch, had become too dangerous to allow reconstruction because the floods randomly redistributed and buried thousands of...

Hague appeal for peace.
December 1, 1998... The Hague Appeal for Peace (HAP) 1999 is a worldwide civil society conference scheduled for 11 to 15 May 1999, the centennial anniversary of the First Hague Peace Conference. That conference, in 1899, laid the foundations for the International...

UN resolution a breakthrough for nuclear abolition.
December 1, 1998... The movement for the early abolition of nuclear weapons received a major boost this fall with the approval of a UN resolution calling on nuclear weapon states (NWS) to undertake "speedy and total elimination" of their nuclear arsenals. It was...

Towards a nuclear weapon free world: the need for a new agenda.
December 1, 1998... The General Assembly, PP1 Alarmed by the threat to the very survival of mankind posed by the existence of nuclear weapons, PP2 Concerned at the prospect of the indefinite possession of nuclear weapons, PP3 Concerned at the...

Is mediation alien to Africa?
December 1, 1998... What is mediation but a process of restoring broken relationships, between individuals, communities, ethnic groups or nations? Conflicts often erupt when relationships break down. This is what Africa has witnessed for the greater part of this...

Canada reports drop in overseas military exports.
December 1, 1998... In a report released in November, the Canadian government documented a 35 per cent decline in overseas military exports, from $465 million in 1996 to $304 million in 1997. (1) A reduction in military sales to Saudi Arabia (from $195 million to...

Spotlight on Canadian military exports: Canadian ADATS offered to Greece.
December 1, 1998... The deal With Department of National Defence cooperation, Oerlikon Aerospace has spent more than two years promoting the sale of Air Defence Anti-Tank Systems (ADATS) for a Greek armed forces requirement for short range air defence...

Canada's largest military contractors.
December 1, 1998... In contrast to the consolidation of the military industry in Europe and especially the US, where post-Cold War mergers and acquisitions have produced fewer, larger military conglomerates, the list of the largest Canadian military contractors in...

Civil (NGO) - military cooperation: lessons from Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda.
December 1, 1998... In this decade we have witnessed extensive human rights abuses, massive refugee movements, and the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians as a result of the civil wars in Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. The international...

NATO should adopt no-first-use policy.
December 1, 1998... Despite all the changes since the end of the Cold War, NATO continues to insist that its members need the "right" to use nuclear weapons first in the event of conflict. Supporters of this policy maintain that the likelihood of NATO resorting to...