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World military expenditure reaches new record
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STOCKHOLM - Total global military expenditure increased by 3.7 per cent in real terms in 2022, to reach a new high of $2240 billion. Military expenditure in Europe saw its steepest year-on-year increase in at least 30 years. The three largest spenders in 2022—the United States, China and Russia—accounted for 56 per cent of the world total, according to new data on global military spending published today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Invasion of Ukraine and tensions in East Asia drive increased spending
World military spending grew for the eighth consecutive year in 2022 to an all-time high of $2240 billion. By far the sharpest rise in spending (+13 per cent) was seen in Europe and was largely accounted for by Russian and Ukrainian spending. However, military aid to Ukraine and concerns about a heightened threat from Russia strongly influenced many other states’ spending decisions, as did tensions in East Asia.
‘The continuous rise in global military expenditure in recent years is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world,’ said Dr Nan Tian, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘States are bolstering military strength in response to a deteriorating security environment, which they do not foresee improving in the near future.’
Cold war levels of military expenditure return to Central and Western Europe
Military expenditure by states in Central and Western Europe totalled $345 billion in 2022. In real terms, spending by these states for the first time surpassed that in 1989, as the cold war was ending, and was 30 per cent higher than in 2013. Several states significantly increased their military spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, while others announced plans to raise spending levels over periods of up to a decade.
‘The invasion of Ukraine had an immediate impact on military spending decisions in Central and Western Europe. This included multi-year plans to boost spending from several governments,’ said Dr Diego Lopes da Silva, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘As a result, we can reasonably expect military expenditure in Central and Western Europe to keep rising in the years ahead.’
Some of the sharpest increases were seen in Finland (+36 per cent), Lithuania (+27 per cent), Sweden (+12 per cent) and Poland (+11 per cent).
‘While the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 certainly affected military spending decisions in 2022, concerns about Russian aggression have been building for much longer,’ said Lorenzo Scarazzato, Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘Many former Eastern bloc states have more than doubled their military spending since 2014, the year when Russia annexed Crimea.’
Russia and Ukraine raise military spending as war rages on
Russian military spending grew by an estimated 9.2 per cent in 2022, to around $86.4 billion. This was equivalent to 4.1 per cent of Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, up from 3.7 per cent of GDP in 2021.
Figures released by Russia in late 2022 show that spending on national defence, the largest component of Russian military expenditure, was already 34 per cent higher, in nominal terms, than in budgetary plans drawn up in 2021.
‘The difference between Russia’s budgetary plans and its actual military spending in 2022 suggests the invasion of Ukraine has cost Russia far more than it anticipated,’ said Dr Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, Director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.
Ukraine’s military spending reached $44.0 billion in 2022. At 640 per cent, this was the highest single-year increase in a country’s military expenditure ever recorded in SIPRI data. As a result of the increase and the war-related damage to Ukraine’s economy, the military burden (military spending as a share of GDP) shot up to 34 per cent of GDP in 2022, from 3.2 per cent in 2021.
US spending rises despite high inflation
The United States remains by far the world’s biggest military spender. US military spending reached $877 billion in 2022, which was 39 per cent of total global military spending and three times more than the amount spent by China, the world’s second largest spender. The 0.7 per cent real-terms increase in US spending in 2022 would have been even greater had it not been for the highest levels of inflation since 1981.
‘The increase in the USA’s military spending in 2022 was largely accounted for by the unprecedented level of financial military aid it provided to Ukraine,’ said Dr Nan Tian, SIPRI Senior Researcher. ‘Given the scale of US spending, even a minor increase in percentage terms has a significant impact on the level of global military expenditure.’
US financial military aid to Ukraine totalled $19.9 billion in 2022. Although this was the largest amount of military aid given by any country to a single beneficiary in any year since the cold war, it represented only 2.3 per cent of total US military spending. In 2022 the USA allocated $295 billion to military operations and maintenance, $264 billion to procurement and research and development, and $167 billion to military personnel.
China and Japan lead continued spending increase in Asia and Oceania
The combined military expenditure of countries in Asia and Oceania was $575 billion. This was 2.7 per cent more than in 2021 and 45 per cent more than in 2013, continuing an uninterrupted upward trend dating back to at least 1989.
China remained the world’s second largest military spender, allocating an estimated $292 billion in 2022. This was 4.2 per cent more than in 2021 and 63 per cent more than in 2013. China’s military expenditure has increased for 28 consecutive years.
Japan’s military spending increased by 5.9 per cent between 2021 and 2022, reaching $46.0 billion, or 1.1 per cent of GDP. This was the highest level of Japanese military spending since 1960. A new national security strategy published in 2022 sets out ambitious plans to increase Japan’s military capability over the coming decade in response to perceived growing threats from China, North Korea and Russia.
‘Japan is undergoing a profound shift in its military policy,’ said Xiao Liang, Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘The post-war restraints Japan imposed on its military spending and military capabilities seem to be loosening.’
Other notable developments:
- The real-terms increase in world military spending in 2022 was slowed by the effects of inflation, which in many countries soared to levels not seen for decades. In nominal terms (i.e. in current prices without adjusting for inflation), the global total increased by 6.5 per cent.
- India’s military spending of $81.4 billion was the fourth highest in the world. It was 6.0 per cent more than in 2021.
- In 2022 military spending by Saudi Arabia, the fifth biggest military spender, rose by 16 per cent to reach an estimated $75.0 billion, its first increase since 2018.
- Nigeria’s military spending fell by 38 per cent to $3.1 billion, after a 56 per cent increase in spending in 2021.
- Military spending by NATO members totalled $1232 billion in 2022, which was 0.9 per cent higher than in 2021.
- The United Kingdom had the highest military spending in Central and Western Europe at $68.5 billion, of which an estimated $2.5 billion (3.6 per cent) was financial military aid to Ukraine.
- In 2022 Türkiye’s military spending fell for the third year in a row, reaching $10.6 billion—a decrease of 26 per cent from 2021.
- Ethiopia’s military spending rose by 88 per cent in 2022, to reach $1.0 billion. The increase coincided with a renewed government offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the north of the country.
For the full publication, visit: https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/2304_fs_milex_2022.pdf
Over 200 bodies dug up amid Kenya cult case
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NAIROBI - Kenyan police have exhumed the highest number of bodies in a single day from a forest in Kilifi, Kenya’s coastal region, which is linked to a controversial doomsday cult.
Twenty-nine more bodies were exhumed on Friday.
So far, over 200 people, believed to be members of the Good News International Church, are confirmed to have died either of starvation, strangulation or blunt force trauma.
The more forensic teams dig, the more bodies they find. One shallow grave had 12 bodies huddled together.
The Kenya Red Cross says 609 people who are reported to be members of the doomsday cult allegedly led by Paul Mackenzie are still missing.
Pastor Mackenzie said he closed down his church four years ago after nearly two decades of operation.
But the BBC has uncovered hundreds of his sermons still available online, some of which appear to have been recorded after this date.
In an interview with Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper a few weeks ago, Pastor Mackenzie also denied he had forced his followers to fast.
The number of missing cult members has tripled since the extensive rescue and exhumation operation began in late April.
Kenya’s Attorney General has admitted that the state failed to protect the alleged victims.
The cult leader is still in police custody. He is yet to be charged.
Sudan crisis forces South Sudanese refugees back to troubled home
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By Denis Elamu
RENK, South Sudan - The last place Lina Mijok wanted to go as she fled fighting in Sudan was back to her own country, South Sudan, which she had left as civil war erupted in 2013.
But when Sudan's army started battling the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the streets around to her home last month, South Sudan was the only place she and her two young children could reach.
"I would not have come back to South Sudan. I would have gone anywhere, but I had no choice," the 26-year-old said.
She had managed to carve out a new life for herself as a housemaid in the city of Omdurman, across the River Nile from Sudan's capital Khartoum.
Then the shots started ringing out and her family had to pack up and leave that behind them - all of them apart from Mijok's husband.
He had to stay behind as they did not have enough money to pay for his place on the trucks and buses that carried Mijok, their son and their daughter to the border, a nerve-wracking two days on bush roads.
They are now among thousands camping out in South Sudan's Renk County, in a dilapidated university campus, its buildings pockmarked by bullets from fighting a decade ago.
The refugees have made basic shelters out of sticks and pieces of fabric. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, and other aid groups are distributing food, water, buckets, blankets and mats.
"The heat is killing us and some people have gone four days without eating, and there is no place to sleep, and the children are getting sick," Mijok said. She hopes the United Nations will help her move to another country.
'WHAT SHOULD WE DO? WE DON'T KNOW'
The fighting has turned the humanitarian situation on its head.
Up to last month, more than 800,000 South Sudanese refugees lived in Sudan, refugees from decades of conflict.
Since the fighting erupted in Khartoum, the UNHCR has registered more than 30,000 people crossing into South Sudan, more than 90% of them South Sudanese. The true number is likely much higher, it says.
Aid agencies fear the influx will worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis in South Sudan where more than 2 million people are displaced and three quarters of the 11-million-strong population need aid.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after two decades of north-south conflict. Civil war broke out there barely two years later, killing an estimated 400,000 people.
"South Sudan is one of UNHCR’s most underfunded crises already and we are now mobilising to support this new influx," agency spokesperson Charlotte Hallqvist said. "We urge the international community not to forget about South Sudan."
Like Mijok, Suzan William, 36, fled the civil war in 2013 and rebuilt her life in Sudan, working as a nurse in Khartoum. Now she is back in her homeland, camping in Renk with her four children.
"People say there is no stability in South Sudan, so we decided to build houses in Sudan. But now also there is no stability in Sudan. What should we do? We don’t know."
Kenya cult deaths hits 90 as authorities expand operation
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By EVELYNE MUSAMBI
NAIROBI, Kenya — The death toll at a ranch in coastal Kenya that is owned by a pastor who is accused of leading a religious cult and ordering his followers to starve themselves reached 90 on Tuesday, as the country’s interior minister announced an expanded operation at the site.
The new figure came after police exhumed 17 more bodies. The total number of those rescued while starving at the ranch now stands at 34.
The Kenya Red Cross Society’s latest figure on the number of missing is 213.
Pastor Paul Makenzi, who heads the Good News International Church, is accused of luring his followers to the ranch near the town of Malindi. He allegedly told them to fast to death in order to meet Jesus before burying them in shallow graves spread across his land. He was arrested after police raided the property earlier this month, and he remains in police custody.
Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said that the security team will “upscale search and rescue missions to save as many lives as possible.”
“The entire 800-acre (320-hectare) parcel of land that is part of the Shakahola ranch is hereby declared a disturbed area and an operation zone,” Kindiki said while visiting the area.
The minister said there would be a turning point on how the country handles threats caused by religious extremism and was looking into another suspected cult in the same Kilifi county.
“We have cast the net wider to another religious organization here in Kilifi. We have opened a formal inquiry on this religious group and we are getting crucial leads that perhaps what was being done by Makenzi is a tip of the iceberg,” Kindiki said.
The teams digging at the site have been finding decomposed bodies buried in mass and single graves marked with a cross.
Those believed to be living in mudwalled houses inside the ranch have been fleeing from rescue teams, and mostly those who can’t walk or talk have been rescued so far.
The Mombasa-based Muslims for Human Rights Group called on the government “to consider the option of using aerial surveillance by use of helicopters to rescue more people and make the process quicker.”
The autopsies on the bodies are set to begin on Thursday with local media reporting that government morgues in Kilifi are filled to capacity.
These are Kenya’s worst recorded cult deaths.
The broadcast regulator, Kenya Film and Classification Board, sounded the alarm in 2017 on radicalization-like content by Makenzi on television. The board’s former chairperson, Ezekiel Mutua, told local media that the content was taken off air at the time and law enforcement agencies were notified.
The pastor had been arrested twice before — in 2019 and in March of this year — in relation to the deaths of children. Each time, he was released on bond, and both cases are still proceeding through the court system.
The interior minister likened the cult deaths to one run by U.S. preacher Jim Jones, whose 900 followers took poison in a mass suicide in 1978.
Other cult activities that ended up in mass deaths include Uganda’s Kanungu cult massacre that killed 700 followers in 2000.
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