German weapons exports double

This video from the USA says about itself:

Noam Chomsky – German Weapons Exports to Israel & Saudi Arabia and the Refugee Crisis

7 April 2016

In this video MIT professor, anarchist, political philosopher and renowned linguist, Noam Chomsky, discusses the impacts of arms and weapons exports into Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also talks about the refugee and Syrian crisis that is engulfing neighbouring states as well as the European continent.

How does the military industrial complex of Germany affect the security of the populations of the countries in the Arab world?

Do military and arms exports promote stability in the region?

What are the roots of the refugee crisis that the European Union as well as neighbouring countries to Syria and Iraq are facing?

All of these questions and more are addressed in this video.

From teleSUR:

Dirty Dealing? German Arms Sales Double in 2015

3 July 2016

German arms exports flooded conflict zones in Qatar and Saudi Arabia last year.

Despite a pledge to reduce its weapons sales, Germany last year sold US$8.7 billion in arms to foreign militaries, nearly doubling its munitions sales from 2014, according to a 180-page German Economic Ministry report. Among the buyers of German weapons was Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Gulf state of Qatar, which German opposition politicians say is a key source of funding for the Islamic State militia, or ISIS.

The German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, which received an advanced copy of the report scheduled to be released later this week, said the sales figures represents the highest pricetag for German weapons sales in more than 15 years. Qatar alone purchased nearly $1.8 billion in ammunition, combat tanks and other heavy artillery from Germany in 2015.

With human rights officials already complaining that Germany was helping militarize an unstable Middle East, Germany’s Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who is the leader of Germany’s Social Democrats, had tried to stop the delivery to Qatar but was overruled by other ministers in Germany’s Federal Security Council.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s previous ruling coalition, which was comprised of her fellow conservatives and pro-business liberal Free Democrats (FDP), had already approved the deal in 2013.

The Federal Office for Economics and Export Control, known by the German acronymn, BAFA, a subsidiary of the economy ministry, is responsible for licensing arms export deals. Nongovernmental organizations last year had already criticized Germany’s mid-year sales totals to Saudi Arabia, prompting Gabriel to promise that he would take a much more cautious approach to licensing arms sales, especially as it pertains to the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia is widely considered by human rights experts and activists to be one of the most repressive in the world. Earlier this year, the kingdom executed 47 people it said were terrorists, including a popular Shiite cleric who was a vocal critic of the kingdom’s Sunni rulers.

Germany is one of the world’s main arms suppliers to the European Union and NATO countries, and in recent years has been reducing its sales of light weapons to countries outside of those alliances.