Striving for peace in Yemen
The war in Yemen has lasted for well over a year. Yemeni government forces, supported by Saudi Arabia, have been fighting Houthi rebels. The scale of death and destruction is significant. Press coverage has been minimal while global attention has been focused elsewhere. The conflict has stoked tensions between Sunni heavyweight Saudi Arabia and its Shiite rival Iran, which has been accused of smuggling weapons to the rebels.
read moreEgypt’s Currency Crisis – Crippling the Economy?
Egypt’s currency crisis continues to stifle growth, as the IMF estimates that GDP growth will slow to 3.3% for 2016, down from 4.2% during 2015. The well-publicized ‘dollar shortage’ is partially to blame, yet is an imprecise summary of the problem.
The country does not suffer from a ‘shortage’ of dollars so much as a restriction of supply through official channels. The Central Bank is only gradually changing the exchange rate to a more realistic level, while dollar income from traditional sources such as the Suez Canal, hydrocarbons, foreign aid and tourism is either stagnant or in decline.
read moreModern Slavery Act 2015 – what are the risks and what should companies do?
Even though companies have had six months to comply voluntarily with the new disclosure rules of the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA), which came into force last October, recent research shows that 35 percent of the public statements published by firms on those websites surveyed gave no details of their risk assessment processes; and that over 65 percent failed to identify priority risks in terms of business relationships and supply chains.
read moreCompanies’ data easy pickings as rising cyber crime stays under the radar
A government backed report published this month claims that that two-thirds of big UK businesses have been hit by a cyber attack in the past year. A quarter of these firms experienced a cyber breach at least once a month. In some cases the internet-linked attacks cost millions of pounds. But more alarming, according to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2016, was that that seven out of 10 attacks could have been prevented.
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