The Great Debate UK
Now is the time to not only maintain pressure on Iran, but increase it
By Charles Guthrie, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, Kristen Silverberg and Dr August Hanning. The opinions expressed are their own.
On May 23, 2012, the chief negotiators of the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany will meet their Iranian counterparts in Baghdad to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme. This follows last April’s meeting in Istanbul, when negotiations were resumed after more than a year’s inaction. This summit will test whether Iran is serious and whether concrete results can be achieved.
The strengthening of the sanctions regime over the last six years has unquestionably triggered Iran’s return to the negotiating table. Although the main measures of the new packages are not coming into force until July, their economic consequences have already made themselves felt within the country. The devaluation of the Iranian currency, the Rial, caused by years of economic mismanagement, has accelerated dramatically. The new measures against the Iranian financial system and the oil and gas industry has led to a significant drop in state revenue.
To that end the sanctions regime must be reinforced by the international community. It would be totally counterproductive to give way to political pressures to soften or end any of the sanctions that are already in place unless Iran takes steps to prove conclusively that it is not developing nuclear weapons. It is of course essential that Iran limit its nuclear enrichment program to the needs of civilian reactors.
from Business Traveller:
Thailand in July?
Thailand goes to the polls on July 3 and no one can predict the precise outcome of the country’s divisive political battle. How carefully should business travellers tread, pre- and post-election?
Since populist former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was deposed in a military coup in September 2006, the world has watched Thailand and its capital Bangkok – a long-stable travel and business hub – grapple with political and civil conflict.
from Business Traveller:
Fear of flying
Seventy-four percent of UK citizens believe that airports and aeroplanes are vulnerable to a malicious or terrorist attack.
So finds the latest Unisys Security Index*, announced today, a global survey that seeks to provide insights into consumers’ general perception of security. Unisys says that UK public anxiety has reached its peak since they began the bi-annual review in 2007, and it is driven by concerns about terrorism, financial issues and identity theft.
from Business Traveller:
The corporate card game
You work for a boutique-sized firm. For want of a better term, you’re in middle-management. You don’t have a corporate credit card but are on the road quite a bit. Sometimes you’re away for over a fortnight and need to shell out a couple of thousand pounds for flights and hotel rooms and rental cars and expensive dinners. That all goes on your personal credit card.
You have access to a whizzy online expense tool, but repayments are not instant. Your credit card direct-debits your current account and your overdraft function can’t take that kind of hit. Your credit card company hits you for interest.
from India Insight:
Going global in India’s chaotic way
India is globalising, but not the way much of the world wants.
That rather contradictory thought nagged at me one morning during the chaotic Commonwealth Games here in New Delhi.
On the road to the media venue's gate, I trudged past a squatter's family living in a tarpaulin. The mother was helping her son pee on my left. Rubbish, the smelly, sickly kind, lay to my right. My shoes sunk in mud from an unfinished pavement.
from Global News Journal:
Security: Never safer, or close to the civil liberties abyss?
As an air crash survivor I know how long jitters about safety can last. Eighteen years ago I crashed in an old Dakota in a remote corner of Africa, where such tragedies are sadly still not that rare.
The worst moment was when I was trapped for 20 seconds in the burning fuselage before being rescued by a fellow journalist. My physical injuries cleared up within months and I resumed flying, but mentally it was difficult. It took me about four years to recover my composure on planes.
from Afghan Journal:
The price of greater Indian involvement in Afghanistan
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is heading to India, and one of the things Washington is looking at is how can regional players such as India do more in Afghanistan. "As we are doing more, of course we are looking at others to do more," a U.S. official said, ahead of the trip referring to the troop surge.
But this is easier said than done, and in the case of India, a bit of a minefield. While America may expect more from India, Pakistan has had enough of its bitter rival's already expanded role in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Indeed, Afghanistan is the new battleground on par with Kashmir, with many in Pakistan saying Indian involvement in Afghanistan was more than altruistic and aimed at destabilising Pakistan from the rear. Many in India, on the other hand, point the finger at Pakistan for two deadly bomb attacks on its embassy in Kabul.
from The Great Debate:
American intelligence and fortune-telling
-- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --
Hot on the heels of what President Barack Obama called a potentially disastrous "screw-up" by the civilian intelligence community, here comes a devastating report on shortcomings of military intelligence in Afghanistan, by the officer in charge of it. He likens the work of analysts to fortune-telling.
from The Great Debate:
Why we must profile airline passengers
Philip Baum is the editor of Aviation Security International and the managing director of Green Light Limited, an aviation security training and consultancy company based in London. The opinions expressed are his own.
Whenever an individual manages to circumvent the security system designed to protect our airports, airlines and the people who use them, we ask why our countermeasures failed. And yet the real problem lies in our determination to screen everybody in exactly the same way using technologies that are not fit for purpose.
from Global News Journal:
Russia’s security proposals – about much more than security
Western responses to President Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal for a new European-Atlantic security body that stretches from Vancouver to Vladivostok have ranged from dismissive to lukewarm. None have been enthusiastic.
But some inside and outside Russia argue it would be unwise for Europe and the United States to reject the proposal out of hand, not least because, as one Russian official put it, this is one of the few occasions where Russia isn’t disagreeing but coming up with something constructive.
