Trump rejects UN arms trade treaty
INDIANAPOLIS: President Donald Trump announced that the US would not abide by a UN treaty aimed at regulating the global arms trade, calling it “misguided” and an encroachment on US sovereignty.
The US Senate never ratified the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty after former president Barack Obama endorsed it.
Trump said he was revoking his predecessor’s signature.
“We will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone,” Trump said in a speech to the National Rifle Association in Indianapolis.
“We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom,” he said, referring to the constitutional right to bear arms.
“And that is why my administration will never ratify the UN arms trade treaty.”
“I am officially announcing today that the US will be revoking the effect of America’s signature from this badly misguided treatment (sic).
“We’re taking our signature back.”
The treaty, which entered into effect in December 2014, seeks to regulate the flow of weapons into conflict zones.
It requires member countries to keep records of international transfers of weapons and to prohibit cross-border shipments that could be used in human rights violations or attacks on civilians.
While 130 countries originally signed the treaty, only 101 have ratified and joined it.
Those include major powers like France, Germany and the UK.
The world’s largest arms traders, the US, China and Russia, have not joined.
Asked about Trump’s announcement, the UN praised the arms trade treaty as a “landmark achievement” in efforts to ensure responsibility in international arms transfers.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the ATT is “the only global instrument aimed at improving transparency and accountability in the international arms trade.”
He said the treaty was “particularly important in present times, when we witness growing international tensions and renewed interest in expanding and modernizing arsenals.”
In a statement the White House said the treaty “fails to truly address the problem of irresponsible arms transfers, while providing a platform for those who would seek to constrain our ability to sell arms to our allies and partners.”
It also claimed that some groups are trying to use the treaty to overturn “sovereign national decisions” on arms exports – pointing to one effort to block the British government’s sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
“The ATT is simply not needed for the US to engage in responsible arms trade,” the White House said. — AFP MINNEAPOLIS: A former US police officer on trial for fatally shooting an Australian woman told a Minneapolis court that he fired to protect his partner, but never saw a gun – only a blonde woman in a pink T-shirt with her right arm raised.
At issue in the trial of Mohamed Noor, the 33-year-old officer who killed Justine Damond in the Midwestern city in July 2017, is whether the use of deadly force was justified.
Prosecutors have insisted that the shooting was unreasonable and contrary to police department training policy.
“I had to make a split-second decision to protect my partner,” Noor said in testimony that began Thursday.
He said he believed there was an imminent threat after he saw a cyclist stop near their police cruiser, heard a loud bang and saw partner Matthew Harrity’s “reaction to the person on the driver’s side raising her right arm.”
Noor added when he reached from the cruiser’s passenger seat and shot Damond, 40, through the driver’s side window, it was because he thought his partner “would have been killed.”
He said that after Damond aapproached the cruiser, his partner screamed “Oh, Jesus!” and began fumbling to unholster his gun.
“I fired once, she took a couple of steps back and was falling to the
We will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone. — Donald Trump, US President
ground,” Noor said, describing how Harrity immediately began exiting the cruiser.
Determining that he had “stopped the threat,” Noor said, he also got out, holstered his gun and joined Harrity in assisting Damond as she fell.
Damond, a yoga instructor, had approached the cruiser after calling twice to report a possible rape in the dark alley behind her home.
No such assault was ever found to have occurred.
She had moved to the Midwestern city to marry her American fiancee Don Damond.
She had changed her name from her maiden name. Closing arguments are expected next week in the month-long trial. — AFP