Sweden Breaks Arms Agreement, Saudi Arabia Recalls Ambassador
Source: Voice of America
Jamie Dettmer
March 11, 2015 9:35 AM
ISTANBUL, TURKEY—
Sweden has torn up a decades-old, multimillion-dollar arms agreement with Saudi Arabia in a diplomatic dispute sparked by Swedish criticism of Riyadh's human rights record. In response, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Sweden.
The spat between Stockholm and Riyadh was triggered Monday when the Saudis blocked Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom from speaking about women’s rights to a summit of Arab leaders in Cairo. Saudi delegates objected to her condemnation of harsh treatment meted out in 2014 to Saudi blogger and activist Raef Badawi.
He was sentenced to 1,000 lashes, to be administered over 20 weeks this year, and received the first set of 50 in January. The next round has been postponed several times, partly as a result of international pressure.
Arab foreign ministers joined the Saudis in expressing irritation with Wallstrom, saying in a statement that her criticism was “Incompatible with the fact that the constitution of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia [law].”
Read more: http://www.voanews.com/content/sweden-breaks-arms-agreement-saudi-arabia-recalls-ambassador/2675704.html
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Purveyor
(29,876 posts)Mar 11, 2015 10:48 AM EDT
By Leonid Bershidsky
a
A
Americans often criticize Europe for its weakness and lack of principle on foreign policy, from its alleged softness on terrorism and Russian aggression, to its over-reliance on multilateral diplomacy. There are, however, some high-profile cases in which European governments stand up for their values even to their countries' economic detriment. They've recently done just that in the matter of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Sweden announced this week that it's canceling its 10-year-old military cooperation agreement with the Gulf monarchy, which brought Swedish companies more than half a billion dollars from 2011 to 2014. Germany, too, cut off arms exports to the Saudis this year, passing up hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenues for its defense industry.
Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest arms importer. This year, research company IHS predicts, it will account for every seventh dollar spent globally on defense imports, increasing its purchases by 52 percent to $9.8 billion. If European firms give up their slice of this huge and growing market, it may be impossible to ever get it back, because the U.S. is hungry for more Saudi orders. In 2014, according to IHS, the U.S. filled $8.4 billion worth of orders from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, compared with $6 billion in 2013.
No wonder the lobbying in Europe in favor of the arms deals is fierce -- but the German and Swedish governments have proved resistant to it so far.
Germany supplied 209 million euros ($225 million) worth of military hardware to the Saudis last year, a quarter of the country's total defense exports to the Middle East. Volker Kauder, head of the parliamentary faction of Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party, has argued that organizations like Islamic State -- which Saudi Arabia fights as part of a U.S.-led coalition -- "cannot be swayed by moral appeals," so military cooperation should go hand in hand with political partnership. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has recently flown to Riyadh to calm the troubled relationship with the Saudis, earning the nickname "Sigmar of Arabia" from the German press, and some parliament deputies who went with him openly voiced their disapproval of the arms sales suspension.
more...
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-11/europe-stands-up-to-saudi-arabia
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)That sounds like an excuse given for American Christian fundies and their "sincerely held religious beliefs."
Blow out your collective ass, misogynists.
erronis
(15,294 posts)And funded with our tax $s.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,174 posts)Like that is the be all and end all of the argument. Just as many Republican reps state so matter of fact that America was established as a "Christian Nation".
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)I wish our country had the balls to tell those money-hungry tyrannical bastards to GFY.
Dems to Win
(2,161 posts)Their values are more important than money. Imagine that!
Wish I could say the same about the US.
erronis
(15,294 posts)Something stinks in the nordic world - something that prevents Julian Assange from having a fair trial in Sweden. Something that prevents Snowden from traveling in peace and without harassment from Moscow to some "open" or "liberal" nordic country.
We all know where that stench comes from. The US/UK Five-Eyes that have rotten eggs on their faces after having been caught out.
Is it that maybe Assange might be found guilty of rape have anything to do with the fact that he won't leave the embassy? Not saying he is guilty, but.......
erronis
(15,294 posts)I would also think that it would be possible to have a "finding of evidence" that could serve as a type of "discovery" (U.S. legal term) that would set some of the facts straight.
Perhaps it's my untrusting nature, but I can't believe that Assange would actually make it to a court of law in Sweden, as a free man defending himself, without a lot of dark vans, unsmiling agents, and pre-ordained "solutions".
Why can't Sweden say outright that he will get a fair trial, without foreign intervention? Maybe I've missed that part.
was stalked by the two women. I read the entire history in Dagens Nyheter, the largest Swedish newspaper. He has good reason to avoid a trial as the charges are bogus. Plus, the Swedish government would turn him over to the USA in a minute. Remember this is the country that closed the National Railroad for four days to permit the Nazi Army to utilize the railroads to facilitate the occupy of Norway.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)
homegirl
(1,429 posts)The item in Dagens Nyheter was very extensive and included the number of times the two women had followed him, contacted him and a complete history of their claims and actions. I am fortunate to read and speak the language so I am sure nothing was altered in translation.
I am a feminist but I believe in a fair trial. Not every rape is reported and not every claim of rape is factual. The two women wanted contact with a man with money, celebrity and when he became notorious they saw an opportunity to get on the bandwagon.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)Few weeks back,the Swedes were on heightened alert when they uncovered some type terrorist plot that was traced back to funding from the Saudi Kingdom. Does not surprise as to their decision to stop military trade with the Saudi's. Got a hunch that after the Paris area bombings,the Euro Nations know more than they are letting that the Saudi's need to be taut a lesson.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Good typo! (at least I hope it's a typo.... good anyway)
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Now who else in the region uses a cult-like interpretation of Islam by extremist clerics?
Exposing the hypocrisy of Saudi dictstorship and it's enslaved population is long, long overdue.
All to be met by yet another news blackout by the American media.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)Eyeroll
erronis
(15,294 posts)Every branch/twig of every major religion (whatever that means) has its own idiosyncrasies. Personally, I'd want to empathize the "idio" root in that word.
Some prefer shunning, others gossiping,
Some are into stoning, others into beheading.
Protestants (all 10,000 branches) don't worship the pope and don't know what the holly trinity is all about. Catholics (upper case C) don't really care about the papal stuff either but they are so invested in it that they figure out they might as well find out how the end game plays out.
Shiites, Sufis, Sunis - as GWB and his illiterate friends thought - were all the same, right? They'd get along once we purged their countries of everyone that wasn't xian.
Don't know much about Hindus and Sikhs and sects in India or elsewhere, except my BIL was a refugee from the murders between them and documented his life as a young man during the partition extensively (the Raj was, once again the demon).
I'm sure the people in Burma, Tibet understand your "eyeroll". Even as they are being massacred because they wear the wrong garments, perhaps tied in the wrong way.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)I'll wait....
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)just re-read the OP. That is real Sharia, but some just don't want to admit it. Oh, and the teachings of the old testament aren't any better.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)Just like there is no real Biblical law.
Neither Mohammed nor Jesus is here to tell us what it all means so you can interpret it in different ways depending on your level of scholarship and understanding.
IIRC there is a good talk by Karen Armstrong on this topic.
There is also a lot of good scholarship done by some American muslim academics looking at all of this in depth. If you want to dig deeper you can also look into exoteric vs esoteric interpretations of religion.
The fundamentalist version of religion of Islam (and Christianity) are modern innovations and are only one narrow strand of possible interpretation.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e799
LiberalLovinLug
(14,174 posts)"After the diplomatic dispute broke, Social Democratic lawmakers called on Prime Minister Stefan Löfven to not renew the memorandum, and that prompted business leaders to warn that the country’s reputation as a trading partner would be at stake."
Bravo for Sweden, but they have to risk their economy for making a stand. Capitalism does not function well with silly emotional outbursts like this. *sarcasm*.
Too bad oil has such a strangle hold on the world. We let anything go on in that medieval torturous regime. You don't want to be on the outs with SA. I predict these Swedish business groups will soon bear down and force a reversal on this decision. Unless all western and a good number of middle eastern nations join in not only condemnation, but actual actions like this, they will continue to get a free pass. I mean, after they paid no price at all after 9/11, where the terrorists originated from...and instead their allies the US attacks their oil competitor neighbour country...you know something is rotten.