Flood Archives

European gun-makers flood the US with firearms but tightly regulated at home

March 14, 2018 by administrator

European gun-makers flood the US

While Europeans decry America’s gun obsession, European gun-makers have no qualms about selling firearms to the US that are tightly regulated at home. It comes as no surprise to discover where those guns pop up.

What links some of the deadliest massacres in US history?

That they were carried out with guns imported from Europe or produced by European-owned companies in the US with firearms that are either heavily regulated or banned in Europe.

The gun used in the June 2016 mass shooting in a gay night club in Orlando that left 49 people dead — at the time the worst massacre in US history — was a Sig Sauer MCX rifle. SigSauer is owned by Germany’s Lüke and Ortmeier Holding Gruppe.

Assault-type weapons like these are either banned or heavily regulated in Germany where they can only be purchased with a special license.

Guns by Austrian arms maker Glock and Germany’s Sig Sauer were used in the December 2012 massacre in a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school that left 28 people dead — until the recent shooting in Parkland, Florida, the worst high school shooting in US history.

A Glock gun was also used in the shooting spree inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012 in which 11 people were killed.

A semiautomatic weapon by the Austrian gun producer again featured in the January 2011 massacre in Tucson, Arizona in which six people were killed and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously injured.

Guns by Italian manufacturer Beretta were used in the April 2009 shooting in an immigration services center that left 14 people dead in Binghamton, New York.

A German Walther and an Austrian Glock gun were used in the June 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech University that left 33 people dead — at the time the worst mass shooting in US history.

European guns swamp US market

All guns used in these mass shootings were bought legally in the US.

This list of European guns featuring in US massacres is not exhaustive, just exemplary.

European gun-makers have doubled their exports into the US civilian market between 2010 and 2016, according to US government data compiled for DW by small arms trade expert Nicholas Marsh of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

In 2010, European-origin guns accounted for two million of the estimated eight million US civilian gun market.

In 2016, European-origin guns accounted for four million of an estimated 16 million US civilian gun market.

It shows that European gun-makers have kept pace with the market and ratcheted up their sales to Americans accordingly.

While European gun-makers have doubled their exports into the US firearms market in less than a decade in part by marketing guns to Americans that are banned or regulated in their home countries, there has been little public knowledge or discussion about the role of European firearms in America’s gun violence epidemic. “There is no debate about this in Europe really,” said Marsh. Similarly, the significant role of European guns has also not featured in the US debate about gun violence.

Turkey’s Erdogan threatened to flood Europe with migrants: Greek website

February 8, 2016 by administrator

A migrant pushes a wheelbarrow in a muddy field at a camp of makeshift shelters for migrants and asylum-seekers from Iraq, Kurdistan, Iran and Syria, called the Grande Synthe jungle, near Calais, France, February 3, 2016. REUTERS/Yves Herman

BRUSSELS

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan threatened in November to flood Europe with migrants if European Union leaders did not offer him a better deal to help manage the Middle East refugee crisis, a Greek news website said on Monday.

Publishing what it said were minutes of a tense meeting last November, the euro2day.gr financial news website revealed deep mutual irritation and distrust in talks between Erdogan and the EU’s two top officials, Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk.

The EU officials were trying to enlist Ankara’s help in stemming an influx of Syrian refugees and migrants into Europe. Over a million arrived last year, most crossing the narrow sea gap between Turkey and islands belonging to EU member Greece.

Tusk’s European Council and Juncker’s European Commission declined to confirm or deny the authenticity of the document, and Erdogan’s office in Ankara had no immediate comment.

The account of the meeting, in English, was produced in facsimile on the website. It does not state when or where the meeting took place, but it appears to have been on Nov. 16 in Antalya, Turkey, where the three met after a G20 summit there.

“We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses … So how will you deal with refugees if you don’t get a deal? Kill the refugees?” Erdogan was quoted in the text as telling the EU officials.

It also quoted him as demanding 6 billion euros over two years. When Juncker made clear only half that amount was on offer, he said Turkey didn’t need the EU’s money anyway.

The EU eventually agreed a 3 billion euro fund to improve conditions for refugees in Turkey, revive Ankara’s long-stalled accession talks and accelerate visa-free travel for Turks in exchange for Ankara curbing the numbers of migrants pouring into neighboring Greece.

In heated exchanges, Erdogan often interrupted Juncker and Tusk, the purported minutes show, accusing the EU of deceiving Turkey and Juncker personally of being disrespectful to him.

The Turkish leader was also quoted as telling Juncker, a former prime minister of tiny Luxembourg, to show more respect to the 80-million-strong Turkey. “Luxembourg is just like a little town in Turkey,” he was quoted as saying.

The tense dialogue highlighted the depth of mutual suspicion at a time when the EU is banking on Turkish help to alleviate its worst migration crisis since World War Two.

The EU says the flow of people from Turkey, which hosts more than 2.5 million Syrian refugees, has not decreased in any significant way since the bloc’s joint summit with Ankara in November, when they had agreed the fund for refugees there.

The report prompted a member of the European Parliament from the Greek centrist party To Potami to ask the European Commission to confirm the purported talks.

“If the relevant dialogues between the EU officials and the Turkish President are true, it seems that there are aspects of the deal between Ankara and the EU which were concealed on purpose,” Miltos Kyrkos said in the question he submitted to the Commission.

“We want immediately an answer on whether these revelations are true and where the Commission’s legitimacy to negotiate, using Turkey’s accession course as a trump card, is coming from,” Kyrkos said.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas in Athens, Orhan Coskun in Ankara and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; Editing by Paul Taylor and Tom Heneghan)

Yerevan offers its help to Tbilisi in flood relief efforts

June 15, 2015 by administrator

YEREVAN, June 15. /ARKA/. Armenia’s premier Hovik Abrahamyan told his Georgian counterpart Irakly Garibashvili on the phone on Sunday that Armenia could provide assistance in the flood relief efforts.

Abrahamyan instructed the minister of territorial administration and emergencies Armen Yeritsyan to continue cooperation with his Georgian colleague to provide help if required, the government press office reported.

Garibashvili thanked Armenia’s premier for the condolences and the readiness to help, according to the report.

A huge flood in the Georgian capital devastated the city on Saturday night leading to some 12 casualties. The floods also hit the city’s zoo and left beasts roaming the streets.

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Refugees from Syria flood Iraqi Kurdistan because Turkey close border on us.

December 1, 2014 by administrator

Around 2,000 Kurdish refugees have recently arrived in Iraq’s Kurdistan region from the militant-besieged Syrian city of Kobani, Press TV reports.

Speaking to Press TV, Syrian refugees at the Galiwan refugee camp, west of Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi region, said they had no choice but to leave.

“ISIL attacked our villages…,” said one man, referring to the terrorist group, which has been wreaking havoc upon the city. “We had to escape for the sake of our children,” he added.

“ISIL was firing at us with heavy weapons and we started running out of food and medicine because we were isolated. ISIL was in our villages and the Turkish borders were closed,” said a female.

“When ISIL reached Kobani, we had to leave everything behind and run towards Turkey, but we found ourselves in an even worse situation. The Turkish authorities were firing teargas at us and pushed us back forcefully from the borders,” said another male refugee.

Kobani has been the scene of a bloody war between ISIL terrorists and Kurdish forces, known as Peshmerga, since mid-September.

The ISIL terrorists control some parts of Syria and Iraq. They are engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control.

Since late September, the US and its allies have been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

Washington has also been carrying out similar air raids against ISIL positions in Iraq since August. However, the raids have so far failed to dislodge the ISIL.