Erstellt am: 3. 4. 2013 - 15:34 Uhr

A farewell to (some) arms

Reality Check: Global Arms Trade Treaty; North v. South Korea; Aryan Brotherhood; Venezuela election campaign; weird bodily funtions.

The Global Arms Trade Treaty

The international arms trade is estimated to be worth 70 billion dollars a year. Human rights groups have for years been campaigning for international rules to stem the flow of weapons and equipment into the hands of those who use them to commit war crimes, unlawful killings, torture and other human rights abuses. Now those rules have come a big step closer to becoming reality with the vote in the United Nations General Assembly approving the global arms trade treaty.

The official U.N. tally showed 154 voted in favour of the treaty, 23 abstainted and 3 countrie – Iran, Syria and North Korea – voted against. From June 3rd, the treaty will be open for signature and it will enter into force 90 days after the 50th signatory ratifies it, which it has been suggested will be in the next two to three years.

Amnesty International

Human rights groups have been pushing for a global arms trade treaty

The Austrian human rights expert Manfred Nowak was the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on torture from 2004 to 2010. We ask for his reaction to the news:

North Korea

The Kaesong Industrial Complex located inside North Korea is home to more than 100 factories. 50,000 North Koreans work there, as well as several hundred South Korean managers. It is an unusual point of cooperation between North and South Korea, which otherwise exist side by side in a hostile relationship, but now the North is blocking the entry of South Korean workers into the joint industrial zone. Korea expert John Swenson-Wright explains the significance of the Kaesong project and the latest developments:

Aryan Brotherhood
Two state prosecutors have been killed in two months. Some say it could be a case of targeted assassinations of justice officials. The investigation is focusing on a group known as the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. We ask our Washington correspondent Simon Marks who they are and what are they about:

Venezuela
Official campaigning is now well underway in Venezuela's presidential election - a month after the death of Hugo Chavez. Vice-president Nicolas Maduro faces opposition leader Henrique Capriles in the April 14th poll. Latin America expert Celia Szusterman examines to what extent the late leader is dominating Maduro's campaign:

Bodily functions
Why do we yawn, break wind and why can’t we tickle ourselves? We speak with Robert Provine's whose book is called Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond:

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