Cluster Bomb Trade Funded by World's Biggest Banks

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/29-1


Published on Thursday, October 29, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Cluster Bomb Trade Funded by World's Biggest Banks

HSBC earned more than £650m in fees from work for Textron, US manufacturer of cluster weapons
by Nick Mathiason

The deadly trade in cluster bombs is funded by the world's biggest banks who have loaned or arranged finance worth $20bn (£12.5bn) to firms producing the controversial weapons, despite growing international efforts to ban them.


HSBC, led by ordained Anglican priest Stephen Green, has profited more than any other institution from companies that manufacture cluster bombs. The British bank, based at Canary Wharf, has earned a total of £657.3m in fees arranging bonds and share offerings for Textron, which makes cluster munitions described by the US company as "leaving a clean battlefield".

Campaigners maintain the deadly weapons can explode years after combat, killing or maiming innocent people.

HSBC will face protests outside its London headquarters today. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan and UK-based Barclays Bank are also named among the worst banks in a detailed 126-page report by Dutch and Belgian campaign groups IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen.

Goldman Sachs, the US bank which made £3.19bn proft in just three months, earned $588.82m for bank services and lent $250m to Alliant Techsystems and Textron.

Of the banks named, only Barclays was prepared to comment. It said: "Barclays group provides financial services to the defence sector within a specific policy framework. It is our policy not to finance trade in nuclear, chemical, biological or other weapons of mass destruction.


..more..

[lib2DaBone]

1. Why am I not surprised? Cluster Bombs on their way to Iran...

Does Obama even know how many Blackwater goons are on the Tax Dole in Afghanistan? Does he even care? (DADT) Don't ask don't tell.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6919806

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. Death for profit

K&R

[Agony]

3. Why would I care?

helps the economy and no UXO in my backyard.

Since the antipersonnel mine-ban treaty went into force in 1999, the number of new victims each year has dropped, large tracts of land have been cleared, and the number of stockpiled mines has decreased by millions. The treaty has had a major impact on the global landmine problem. It has not, however, addressed another major problem: explosive remnants of war, which kill thousands of civilians annually.
"Explosive remnants of war" refer to abandoned explosive ordnance and unexploded ordnance, or UXO, such as cluster munitions that fail to detonate but remain volatile and dangerous, often threatening the safety of civilians. http://www.mineaction.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXVCYQ1qix8&NR=1
http://www.stoplandmines.org/slm/index.html

[G_j]

4. Children Main Victims of Cluster Bombs

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/study-says-almost-all-cluster-bomb-victims-are-children-422743.html

Study says almost all cluster bomb victims are children
By Kim Sengupta

Friday, 3 November 2006

As many as 98 per cent of victims of cluster bombs over the past three decades have been civilians, a third of them children, a report has disclosed.

The study of 24 countries and regions by the humanitarian pressure group Handicap International showed that the weapons, still being used by government forces including those of the UK, have killed or maimed 11,044 people.

This is the first attempt to collate data about cluster-bomb victims worldwide, and it warns that under-reporting of cases in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam means the real figure could be almost 10 times higher.

Around 27 per cent of the victims were children, mainly boys who were working or playing in areas where the munition had been used.

Angelo Simonazzi, Handicap International's director general, said: "For 30 years, governments have failed to address the disproportionate, long-term harm these weapons cause to civilian populations. Cluster munitions are imprecise weapons designed to strike a large surface area. They indiscriminately kill and injure."

Cluster bomblets - or submunitions - are packed into artillery shells or bombs dropped from aircraft. Up to 600 bomblets are typically scattered over an area the size of a football field from a single cluster-bomb canister fired to destroy airfields or tanks and soldiers.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0419-05.htm

Children Main Victims of Cluster Bombs
A family from al-Nasiriyah find out first-hand of a new danger

[Agony]

5. My kids are in no danger but my 403(b) is looking up!

snip
Today, a group of cluster munition victims from all over the world, known as the Ban Advocates, call on all States to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions. They also call on States that have not yet done so to sign and ratify the Convention.
During their week-long conflict in August 2008 over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, both Russia and Georgia used cluster munitions that resulted in the deaths of at least 16 civilians and injured at least 54 more. During the final 72 hours of its month-long war in 2006 with Hezbollah, Israel attacked South Lebanon with over 1000 recorded cluster bomb strikes - many in populated areas - that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deadly duds and more than one hundred casualties in the first six weeks following the ceasefire alone. In Lebanon and Georgia, unexploded submunitions still continue to render tracts of farmland hazardous and pose a daily threat to local inhabitants.
snip

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/228178/125007055370.htm

If the US signs the Convention surely my retirement fund will suffer.

In,
Agony

[G_j]

6. "over 1000 recorded cluster bomb strikes"

war crime!