Posted by Patrick Allen on 17 Jun 2013 in Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran, Mining, Pakistan, Political Risk, South Asia, Taliban
As the end of NATO-ISAF operations in Afghanistan draws ever-nearer, the important role played by underlying regional power dynamics in defining the future of the region is becoming increasingly clear. Whilst existing diplomatic or military ties are now being challenged and redefined throughout the wider Asian political arena, it is the new set of relationships between India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran that is the most interesting in terms of its potential for wider geopolitical impact.
One of the most widely reported stories on this subject has been that of the Indo-Afghan-Iranian rapprochement and the subsequent agreements regarding the extension of trade routes from Eastern Afghanistan to the Iranian port of Chabahar. Relying on an Indian investment, these improvements would see rail assets extended from the main trunk of the Trans-Iranian Railway to link up the port facilities with the border town of Bam. From here, freight for Afghanistan would transfer to road transport, taking the Indian built road to join up with Afghanistan’s ‘garland highway’ that links all of the country’s major cities.
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Posted by Christian Earl on 14 Jun 2013 in Africa, Business Risk, Egypt, Ethiopia, Middle East, Military Activity, Political Risk, Sudan, Water Conflict
Will increased rhetoric over control of the Blue Nile’s critical water resource lead to eventual conflict?
The twenty-first African Union (AU) Summit was held in Ethiopia’s capital between 19 – 27 May 2013. The event has based itself in Addis Ababa since 1963 because of its regional and continental role. Ethiopia also benefits from the perception across Africa that the state has institutional stability and a history of successfully repelling colonial occupations. Ethiopia may possibly feel that the gravitas this event affords can enable it to push forward with a grander and further reaching foreign policy including its plans for the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERM) project; despite the fact the GERM project will attract the significant ire of Cairo. A day after the AU Summit ended, Ethiopian authorities formally began to divert a stretch of the Blue Nile in preparation to construct a 6, 000-megawatt hydroelectric dam and power plant. The move caused instant controversy with nations downstream of the Nile, such as Sudan and its larger northern neighbour and regional barometer Egypt. Egypt has chosen to be the most vocal opponent. Although the plans for the GERM have been known for several months as part of a US$12 billion investment project to boost power exports, the political sensitivities around Ethiopia’s agreement to put the GERM project into action still remain. The GERM project has the potential to continue to raise regional tensions. Talk of all out war between the neighbours in the short term has even begun.
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Posted by Maximilian Hess on 14 Jun 2013 in Lebanon, Middle East, Military Activity, Political Risk, Syria
Over the past weeks, Lebanon has continued its slow slide into the Syrian Civil War. Despite regular denials from officials in the Lebanese caretaker government that it had violated its principle of neutrality in the conflict, it has become increasingly clear that Lebanon tacitly supports the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. As has been well reported in international media, Hezbollah, the third largest party in the Lebanese Parliament, has repeatedly voiced its support for Assad. Hezbollah has been supplying logistical and military assistance for some time now. Without the assistance of Hezbollah forces, it is unlikely the Syrian Army would have been able to re-take the strategically vital town of Qusayr on 05 June 2013. Yet, it has long been clear that Hezbollah, which is almost exclusively Shi’a, has not been the only force sending supplies and fighters to Lebanon – various Sunni groups have been doing so as well. Throughout Lebanon, not just in the Syrian border areas but from Tripoli to Beirut, Sunni – Shi’a tensions have reached a fever pitch with gun battles, protests and counter-protests becoming every day occurrences. However, the Syrian Army’s firing of rockets into the Lebanese town of Arsal on 12 June 2013 was the first time the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) were directly drawn into the Syrian conflict. As expected, however, they took no action, instead issuing a statement claiming they would “immediately respond” to any further violations of the border. Yet following this latest incident and the clear involvement of so many Lebanese in the conflict already, three questions must be posed: does the LAF have the military capability to intervene in Syria? Is there the political will in Lebanon for intervention? Would Lebanese intervention in Syria lead to a wider conflict in the region?
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Posted by Rachel Hooper on 14 Jun 2013 in Business Risk, Female Travel Safe (FTS), Political Risk, UK, United States
Businessmen and women are split: are gender quotas beneficial? This debate is becoming ever more prolific. In November 2012, the European Union (EU) adopted Viviane Reding’s proposal for a 40% female quota for director’s positions within EU companies. The largest trading bloc, and 100 countries around the world, considers quotas for female employees beneficial, then why is this subject so contentious? Can quotas have an overall negative impact on women in the workplace?
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Posted by Joseph Glick on 13 Jun 2013 in Bahrain, Business Risk, Egypt, Elections, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Military Activity, Political Risk, Saudi Arabia, United States
The thirteen-tonne bunker-busting bomb recently developed by the US could be the game changer in Middle Eastern politics. In a region stalked by bloody sectarian wars and the constant threat of future conflicts, military developments can be crucial. The diplomatic cables leaked in 2010 showed that central to almost every international discussion was the question of Iranian nuclear proliferation. With the elections commencing on 14 June 2013, time is running out for the US and Israel to act.
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Posted by Cassie Blombaum on 10 Jun 2013 in Africa, Business Risk, Elections, Energy, Exploration, Kenya, Military Activity, Political Risk, Somalia, United States
For many armchair analysts, East Africa appears to have enough problems. Plagued by pirates riding the waves of the Indian Ocean, and bullied by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants that threaten the very foundation of Somalia, the region has been a constant focal point for insecurity. To be fair, the pirates are starting to let up. Moreover, the latest reports paint a picture of an al Shabaab on the decline – at least for now. However, a looming fight over oil and gas could threaten to undo any transition toward stability in the region, particularly when it comes to Somalia’s relationship with Kenya.
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Posted by Maximilian Hess on 3 Jun 2013 in Eastern Europe, Middle East, Political Risk
The Turkish protests, which have spread so rapidly from Istanbul’s Taksim Square since Friday 31 May 2013, may prove the most destabilising threat of any protest movement to the wider Islamic world. While Turkish democracy is unlikely to be threatened if the situation further deteriorates, any such developments could prove an unshakeable blow to pro-democracy movements in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While such a statement may seem counter-intuitive at first, any potential disruptions to Turkey’s image as an economically successful Muslim democracy may extinguish the leading light which Turkey has provided to the region in recent years.
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Posted by Cassie Blombaum on 28 May 2013 in Africa, Algeria, America, Central Asia, Energy, Exploration, IEDs, Iran, Libya, Mali, Middle East, Military Activity, Mining, Political Risk, United States
Niger is becoming a new battleground of sorts for competing international powers and terror groups alike, thanks in part to the French-led war on neighbouring Mali’s militants. Despite making significant gains in Mali, France’s Operation Serval has also forced armed groups in their hundreds to migrate throughout the Sahel, many of which are now wreaking the very same havoc in Niger. In particular, Jamat Tawhid Wal Jihad Fi Garbi Afriqqiya (also known as the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO), has already been blamed for a number of high-profile attacks across the border in Niger. To that end, on 23 May 2013, MUJAO militants reportedly planted a series of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) beneath two vehicles located in opposite ends of the country. The first IED-laden vehicle exploded outside a military barracks in Agadez, which resulted in the deaths of twenty-four soldiers and one civilian. Meanwhile, approximately 240 kilometres north in Arlit, more explosive devices detonated inside a vehicle parked near a uranium mine facility. Whilst zero fatalities were reported at the site of the second bombing, at least thirteen employees of the French-run nuclear firm, Areva, were left seriously injured.
Both bombings have been described as proof that the overused social science phrase, the “balloon effect”, is more than just a theoretical concept. In this case, military pressure applied against armed Salafists in northern Mali has clearly pushed militants toward other less resistant areas, namely the remote, mountainous region along the border with Niger. But the two attacks have also shed light on another interesting development: the growing role of Niger as a “playground” for global power politics.
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Posted by Maximilian Hess on 22 May 2013 in Political Risk
Despite its recent infamy as home of the Tsarnaev brothers, and its tragic role in the Boston Marathon Bombings, Watertown, Massachusetts is actually home to a very different community from the Caucasus: Armenians. Watertown is one of the epicentres of the Armenian diaspora worldwide, and home to to Armenian Library and Museum of America. Despite the understandable media preoccupation with the area’s small Chechen and Dagestani population, it is the town’s Armenian population that has been immeasurably more politically active in the past few months. Over the last year, Massachusetts, and the neighbouring states of Rhode Island and Maine, have all either recognised or called on the federal government to recognise Nagorno-Karabakh (used interchangeably with the region’s Armenian name, Artsakh), a little heard of, but de-facto independent, Caucasian entity carved out of southern Azerbaijan and populated almost exclusivly by Armenians. The lobbying for these votes has all been based out of Watertown, where Armenians make up roughly one-quarter of the population and where one can attend a “Talk on Karabakh Repopulation,” where not one, but two Armenian newspapers are published, and where K-9 police dogs are even trained to respond to commands in Armenian.
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Posted by Cassie Blombaum on 13 May 2013 in Africa, Business Risk, Corruption, Elections, Military Activity, Political Risk
All eyes are on Zimbabwe this month as the African nation enters the home stretch of its high-profile, if predictable, election season. Indeed, perhaps the only ‘unpredictable’ facet of the Zimbabwean polls is when, exactly, voters are slated to cast their ballots. Despite repeated promises from President Robert Mugabe and his allies to have the contest take place in June 2013, Zimbabwe’s media outlets are now variously reporting that the election will take place anywhere between July and November of this year.
The uncertainty of the actual date aside, for most observers it would appear that the poll should result in, at the very least, the nominal win of the eighty-nine-year-old familiar face of Mugabe and his polarising Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). This is because for all the supposedly positive intentions of the recently passed constitution, ZANU-PF still has the upper hand and its members seem unwilling to concede to even the slightest loosening of their grasp on power.
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Posted by Cassie Blombaum on 24 Apr 2013 in Africa, Business Risk, Energy, Exploration, IEDs, Libya, Military Activity, Political Risk, Revolution
(Image provided by Inkerman personnel)
A sense of anxiety permeates the air in Libya, with citizens and foreign nationals expressing unease over the Maghreb nation’s deteriorating security condition. As can be expected, Libyans remain apprehensive with regard to the ability of the government to safeguard residents following another high-profile attack in a major city. This time, however, the attack did not occur in terror-prone Benghazi. It occurred in the comparatively safer capital of Tripoli, leading worried foreign interests to reconsider whether they should maintain a presence in Libya at all.
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Posted by Christian Earl on 19 Apr 2013 in Bahrain, Business Risk, GCC, IEDs, Middle East, Military Activity, Political Risk, Revolution
As a massive popular protest begins in the west of Bahrain’s capital Manama on 19 April 2013, the Bahrain International Circuit Chairman Zayed Alzayani claimed that this weekend’s Grand Prix will take place in safety, despite an uptick of protest action that has greeted Formula One’s arrival in the Gulf kingdom since 12 April 2013. “I personally think it’s safe to do the race, there is no problem… We have 5% who don’t like it but the majority do–and we cater for the majority” he told reporters at the Manama circuit. Alzayani’s claims came after Bahrain riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades at protesters during the evening of 18 April 2013, after some elements of a violent protest hurled Molotov Cocktails at security lines during protests against the staging of the race. The Formula One race has become a significant event in the Bahraini uprising after it was cancelled following the first large scale protests in 2011. In the lead up to the 2012 race, protesters even threw petrol bombs at mechanics from Force India, a Formula One racing team. According to the Bahraini opposition, numerous opposition leaders have also been arrested, or detained without charges in the past week all in what they term is an attempt by the government to avoid the negative publicity that surrounded last year’s race. However, the protests have continued nonetheless and demonstrations have turned increasingly violent. All of which has increased tensions ahead of this race and cast a further negative light on a kingdom struggling to come to terms with a new future after the deaths of eight people in unrest since February 2011.
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