06 Mar 2001

Facts on International Relations and Security Trends (FIRST)
SIPRI, Stockholm, Sweden
Self-description:"A free-of-charge service for politicians, journalists, researchers and the interested public. FIRST is a joint project of the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)."
Site contents: A common interface to a series of integrated online databases dealing with all countries of the world - Membership, agreements and events (Membership of international organizations, Membership of multilateral weapons and technology export control regimes, Arms control and disarmament agreements, Chemical and biological weapons conventions, Chronology of events); Conflicts and peace keeping activities (Multilateral peace missions, Major armed conflicts, Violent and non-violent conflicts, Crisis Watch: News on Current Conflicts and Peace Negotiations, Guide to internet sources on conflicts, Political violence indicators); Arms production and trade (The largest arms-producing companies, Transfers and licensed production of major conventional weapons, International arms embargoes, National conventional arms export controls); Military expenditure (Government military research and development expenditure, Military expenditure); Weapons of mass destruction (Nuclear forces, Nuclear explosions); Armed forces and conventional weapon holdings (Armed forces, weapons holdings and employment in arms production, CFE ceilings and holdings, Planned notifiable military activities, Armed forces indicators); Political system and country indicators (World Development Indicators, National parliament, electoral system and recent elections, Government stability indicators, Ethnic and religious diversity indicators, Human rights indicators, Crime/terrorism indicators, Environmental indicators, Human security indicators, Trade profile/exposure indicators); Other reference data (Security Watch: Latest News on security policy in the Euro-Atlantic region, Links to governmental and related establishments Internet sites, Map).
[For unknown reasons the interface generates only partial answers to the queries - ed.]
URL http://first.sipri.org/
Link reported by: Scout Report (scout-report@cs.wisc.edu)
* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]: Study
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]: rating not available