Major arms imports in the Middle East rose by 86 percent between the periods of 2007-2011 and 2012-2016 and by 7.7 percent in Asia and Oceania.
Nicaragua held elections Sunday that look certain to hand another term to popular President Daniel Ortega, and make his wife Rosario Murillo vice-president, but which the opposition said was marked by “massive” voter abstention and the US Department has described as “rigged”.
Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) on Sunday has seized copies of three daily newspapers from the printing house without stating reasons. Press sources in Khartoum said that the newspapers were likely confiscated for publishing news reports criticizing the government decision to raise fuel and electricity price.
Police killings of Kenyans are on the rise, a Kenyan newspaper said on Sunday, as it published the country's first comprehensive database detailing hundreds of such alleged killings in the past two years.
Guatemalan prosecutors began presenting evidence on Tuesday to bring charges against over 50 defendants, including former President Otto Perez Molina and former Vice President Roxana Baldetti, for a massive multi-million dollar government corruption scandal involving a slew of crimes including money laundering, bribery, and illegal campaign financing.
A hearing will be held by the House Committee on Armed Services to discuss the Department of Defense's financial management system. Witnesses will testify from the Financial Management and Comptroller and the Department of Defense.
As the humanitarian situation in Yemen continues to deteriorate, the international community is increasingly questioning the involvement of external government actors there. Particularly under the microscope is the U.S. government, whose support to Yemen over the past decade has largely been in the form of military and police aid to fight al-Qaeda.
In Pakistan alone, the U.S. has carried out 391 air strikes since 2008, according to The Long War Journal. In Yemen, U.S. strikes targeting al-Qaida commanders total 145 since 2002. The figures are based on press reports. Human rights groups have long called for hard numbers when it comes to counterterrorism strikes that until recently the administration refused to even confirm. “Saying ‘just trust us, we have high standards, we are doing the best we can’ really isn’t enough and that they need to be disclosing more,” said Rita Siemion of Human Rights First.
The United States is on track to spend more than $600 billion on the military this year -- more, that is, than was spent at the height of President Ronald Reagan’s Cold War military buildup, and more than the military budgets of at least the next seven nations in the world combined.
Since September 11, the U.S. government has overseen a massive expansion in Pentagon-funded aid to foreign security forces, moving from $800 million in FY 2001 to more than $10.8 billion in FY 2015. However, a string of reports and articles over the past year have highlighted serious concerns with these efforts.
Security Assistance Monitor is made possible by support from the Open Society Foundations.
