Representatives from almost 190 countries have met in Washington DC for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These events, the pinnacle of the IMF/World Bank calendar, bring the world’s finance ministers and central bank governors together with representatives of business, civil society...

Two years ago at a Security Summit in New York City attended by Chief Information Security Officers, Ginni Rometty, the IBM Corporation’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, delivered a stark warning about the threat from cybercrime stating: “We believe that data is the phenomenon of our time. It...

Despite developing ever increasingly sophisticated responses to counter-terrorism, successful terrorist attacks continue to occur with alarming regularity; which includes the sudden surge of terrorist attacks across Europe. On the afternoon of 17 August, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub drove a van into pedestrians on La Rambla in Barcelona, Spain, killing 15...

A Global Problem in a Regional Context Global climate change phenomena itself is less threatening than the sum of the spin-off consequences. It is the interactions between issues and events that amplifies threats. Issues such as extreme and costly weather events, droughts, heat waves, rising sea levels and ocean...

Whether by outside help from Russia and Pakistan, or by native Korean “stick-to-it-iv-ness” the North Korean regime has developed nuclear weapons that are small enough to fit onto missiles that are powerful enough to reach its arch-enemy, the United States, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.  Thus, the world is...

The physical defeat of Daesh and the removal of the so-called “Caliphate” from the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria is inevitable. Mosul was liberated from Daesh in early July by the Iraqi security forces and supported by local tribes and the International Coalition. In other parts of...

It is not very clear where the Gulf region stands on the European foreign policy agenda.  There stands a number of factors preventing the EU from taking a more defined stance in relation to the GCC.  There is a fundamental matter of norm divergence where the EU’s stance on...

French President Emmanuel Macron, elected on 7 May 2017, came into office with little experience in foreign policy or military affairs. As his political movement, La République en Marche, claimed to be neither on the right nor on the left of French politics, it was unclear at the time...

Four Arab states have imposed a range of unilateral measures on Qatar in response to that country’s support for terrorist groups and for allowing the funding of terrorist organizations to take place on its territory. For years, Qatar has been known to provide sanctuary, material and financial support to...

Cities across Europe remain under siege from recent terrorist events fuelled by the extremist ideology espoused by Daesh. The UK has witnessed four terror attacks in as many months, three of them occurring in London, including incidents outside the Finsbury Park Mosque, on Westminster Bridge and London Bridge. The...

On 7 June, ISIS/Daesh carried out attacks in Tehran, targeting the Iranian parliament and the burial shrine of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini.  These attacks mark a major turning point in Iran’s internal struggle with terrorism and militancy. The dual terror attacks also underscore the evolution of...

This Insight in the TRENDS Terrorism Futures Series focuses on the heightened concerns expressed over the smuggling of explosives hidden in laptops by Al Qaeda, and now Islamic State/Daesh, operatives for civil aviation bombing purposes. It will provide an overview of ongoing radical Islamist airliner explosive device targeting approaches...