The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) stated that the global supply of major weapons has increased to 14% in the last four years.
Amid controversy that bombs have targeted civilians, the US and UK supplied more than three-fourths of major weapon imports to Saudi Arabia, the second biggest importer of global weapons, and said to supply weapons to Syrian rebels.
While in Asia, India was the biggest importer of major global weapons. Compared to the 25% imports for the Middle East, Asia and the Oceania region accounted 46% of global weapon imports.
As reported, the US supplied major global weapons up to 33% to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Turkey, while Russia supplied 25% global weapons to India, China and Vietnam.
One can observe that the more the production and supply of major weapons the more terrorism thrived or vice versa.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) also recognized the clear link between terrorism and drug trafficking.
The Paris based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) reported that only 36 countries have ever convicted someone for terrorism financing and only 40 have used targeted financial sanctions.
The Task force call for more countries to respond in arresting terrorism financing and money laundering.
Disappointingly, FATF said, some government responses are still deficient in the fight against terrorism financing, money laundering, and drug trafficking.
UNODC Senior Terrorism Prevention Officer Kuleshnyk said, “Illicit drug traders and terrorists are usually groups and networks that operate in ways that can be understood, identified, tracked and ultimately disrupted.â€
The Financial Action Task Force heads are determined to do more measures to combat the loopholes and defects in the system.
Governments Authorities need to combine their works in order to build up more effective and efficient networks to defeat these illegal networks that spread so much destruction throughout the world.
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Tidbits:
An Afghan refugee in Europe: ‘All I can do is pray.’ The police took one look at my papers and said: “You have no right to cross the border.” All our lives we have seen nothing but war. Our lives were never safe. Our children couldn’t go to school. You couldn’t even safely go for a walk. Life in Afghanistan was hell.
I am at my wits end now. What are we going to do? We can’t go back. All I can do now is to pray to God to save me and my children.
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All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
Benjamin Franklin
By Edgar Allan J. Tac-an