Videos of the Green Party conference last weekend are now just coming out. This one is Caroline Lucas' full speech.- - she has just been named MP of the year in the Scottish Widows & Dods Women in Public Life Awards - just 16 months after she was elected as the first Green to enter the UK Parliament! Well done indeed.
You can also see Darren on DSEI Arms Fair in London here. Incidently Caroline is primary sponsor for an EDM in to ban the UK sales of weapons to authoritarian regimes. Cameron supported the Libyan uprising, yet last year the UK issued over £200 million worth of equipment requiring export licences to the country, providing Colonel Gaddafi with resources including tear gas, crowd control equipment, and ammunition for wall and door-breaching projectile launchers - we must put an end to selling arms to repressive regimes.
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Green MP calls for DSEi to be shut down.
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas today found cluster munitions openly being promoted by both the Pakistan Government and Pakistan companies at the Defence System and Equipment International Exhibition (DSEi) being held in London, in breach of UK law.
At the same time as such products are being promoted in London, States are participating in the “Second Meeting of States Parties to the
Convention on Cluster Munitions” in Lebanon, to decide on further action
to be taken to eliminate cluster munitions.
Despite explicit acknowledgments on the DSEi website that the sale of “All cluster and non-unitary munitions (containing 10 or more
submunitions)” are prohibited, brochures obtained from Pakistan Government companies clearly list cluster munitions including a 155mm
artillery ammunition containing 88 submunitions.
The brochures were obtained from the Pakistan Government's Pakistan Ordnance Factories stand, listing the 155mm base bleed DPICM (an
artillery ammuniton containing submunitons) and from the Defence Export Promotion Organization of Pakistan, listing the 155mm M483A1 artiller
ammunition which contains 88 submunitons, and the 'Programmable SubMunition Dispenser - 1'.
Caroline Lucas said, “ I’m shocked that the British Government seems unable or unwilling to police arms sales happening here on its own soil. This is the second breach this week of the UK export control act 2002, and who knows how many others are happening.
Since the government has demonstrated that it is unable to control arms sales in this country, this exhibition should be shut down.”
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