U.N. Says Taliban Raised $400 Million Last Year

The Taliban raised about $400 million last year from sources that included donations, taxing local economies and extorting money from such targets as drug dealers, cellphone operators and aid projects, a U.N. report on the militant Islamist group said.


The report to the U.N. Security Council by the sanctions monitoring team said that about $275 million of that income reached Taliban leadership and the rest was collected, spent or misappropriated at the local level.

UN Launches International Small Arms Control Standards

More than a decade after Member States agreed on a comprehensive programme of action aimed at eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, the United Nations this week launched international standards to provide further impetus to that work.

The International Small Arms Control Standards (ISACS) were launched during a global meeting in New York that is examining how well States are implementing the action programme they agreed in 2001, formally known as the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

About 526,000 people lose their lives every year due to armed violence, which is commonly fuelled by illicit weapons. That is the equivalent of one person dying violently every minute.


At the launch, Hannelore Hoppe, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, noted that “UN entities that provide advice and support to Member States on effectively controlling small arms and light weapons, as well as those entities whose work has been directly impeded by the illicit trade, proliferation and misuse of such weapons, came together under the Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA) with the goal of strengthening the UN’s collective response to these challenges”. She added that “ISACS is a product of collaboration between CASA and a diverse range of international partners, including Government experts, international and regional organizations, civil society and the private sector”.

“Armed conflict, often fuelled by illicit weapons, destroys communities and extinguishes any hope of eliminating poverty for millions of people,” said Stan Nkwain, Chief of Policy and Planning at the United Nations Development Programme’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery. “It is generally accepted that there are approximately 875 million firearms in existence — one for every eight people on the planet. When these weapons fall into the hands of criminals, combatants and terrorists, they destroy economic stability, undermine the rule of law and subvert legitimate Governments,” he added. “Also, armed violence and violence against women are tragically interlinked, as having weapons in the hands of abusers increases the risk of domestic violence.”

The main purpose of the standards is to enable all agencies of the United Nations to work together to support States in putting effective controls in place over the full life cycle of small arms and light weapons under their jurisdiction. They will be used by agencies working on issues as diverse as child protection, crime, development, public health, counter-terrorism and humanitarian relief. It is also hoped that they will be of use to policymakers and practitioners outside the United Nations system, for example in Governments, regional organizations, civil society and even the private sector.

The standards provide guidance in such areas as managing weapons stockpiles, marking and keeping records of them, tracing illegal weapons back to their last legal owner, and collecting and destroying illicit and unwanted arms.

In United Nations parlance, “small arms” are firearms that can be used by one person, assault rifles, for example, and “light weapons” are larger systems that require two or three people to operate (e.g. heavy machineguns).

The United Nations has made the standards publicly available at www.smallarmsstandards.org.


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UN Department of Public Information
News and Media Division / Office for Disarmament Affairs

Russia to Back Pakistani Draft on Syria Monitor Mission

Russia will support a draft resolution on a technical extension of the UN observer mission in Syria for 45 days, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said.
The draft was submitted on Thursday by Pakistan after the UN Security Council came to a deadlock over ways to resolve the current political crisis in Syria.
“The Pakistani text [of the draft resolution] is definitely good and we will support it,” Churkin said.
Britain has also drafted a new resolution to extend the UN mission in Syria "for a final period of 30 days."
The UN Security Council is expected to vote on both drafts on Friday.
Russia on Thursday withdrew its draft resolution on Syria, which backed UN special envoy Kofi Annan’ six-point peace plan and, together with China, vetoed a Western-backed draft over fears that it could lead to foreign military intervention in the violence-wracked Middle East country.
Latest global media reports of spiraling violence in Syria say that the opposition forces have torched and looted the main police headquarters in the heart of old Damascus. The rebels have also captured a number of crossings on the country's borders with Turkey and Iraq.
According to UN data, based on reports by Syrian rights activists, some 16,000 people have died in Syria since the start of the revolt against President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime 17 months ago.

Spain to withdraw half its troops from UNIFIL in Lebanon

Spain has had about 1,100 troops in Lebanon since 2006 as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Spain will withdraw up to half of its military contingent in Lebanon by the end of the year, Defense Minister Pedro Morenes said Tuesday, justifying the decision partly on budget cuts demanded by the country's economic crisis.

Spain has had about 1,100 troops in Lebanon since 2006 as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). That outfit was originally created in 1978 to restore peace and security after Israel's withdrawal from the country.

A large part of the mission's goals had been achieved, Morenes said. He also justified the withdrawal on Spain's economic constraints, which forced the government to "rationalize" defense costs.

The initial plan had been to pull out half of the troops in 2013.

Morenes did not exclude the possibility of withdrawing Spanish troops from Afghanistan earlier than planned, if the situation there allowed for it. Spain is currently due to pull out of Afghanistan gradually by 2014.

The army budget has been slashed by a quarter over the past four years, the daily El Pais reported Tuesday.

The Defense Ministry was now planning to cut 15,000 military and 5,000 civilian staff out of a total of 130,000 over the course of 13 years, according to the daily.

The report also mentioned plans to close military installations and air bases. The idea was the create a smaller but better equipped army, the report said.

The Spanish government has cut spending across the board in an attempt to trim its budget deficit in agreement with the European Union. The government last week announced budget cuts worth 65 billion euros (80 billion dollars).