CiCountries on Political Risk Map
Aon Risk Solutions, the global risk management business of Aon plc, has just issued its latest political risk map, which gauges the level of risk for international business in more than 200 countries. Aon said “37 countries were downgraded in the Aon 2012 Terrorism & Political Violence Map, largely due to civil unrest.”
The principle reason for the downgrades is linked to the “continued effects of the global economic crisis,” Aon said, “as austerity measures and spending cuts took hold, civil unrest, riots, strikes and student protests were witnessed across large parts of Europe.”
As a result 43 percent of the downgrades in Aon’s 2012 map were due to economic conditions. They included the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, which were all “downgraded from low risk to medium risk.”
The political upheaval across the Arab world “continued to cause aftershocks in that region and beyond,” Aon said. “Authoritarian governments in Africa and Asia took measures to protect themselves from similar challenges as civil unrest, property damage and localized protests continued in the Middle East and North Africa.”
However, terrorism hasn’t disappeared as a major concern; it ranks just below the economic crisis in terms of threats to “the security of businesses, with 46 percent of all countries assessed possessing the risk of terrorist incident icon.”
Aon explained that the “death of Osama bin Laden last year signified the decline of a truly globalized radical Islamist terrorism capability, but regionally active groups continue to be inspired by al-Qaida’s ideology. While South Asia and the Middle East remain as focal points for Islamist terrorist groups, Africa has shown the most dramatic shift in terrorism threat in the last year. The ratings of six African countries have been downgraded with Senegal receiving a double downgrade from low to high risk.”
The map is produced by Aon in collaboration with global risk consultancy The Risk Advisory Group. It “reflects data recorded by: Terrorism Tracker, which monitors global indicators of terrorism threat, including attacks, plots, communiqués and government countermeasures; Aon WorldAware, which provides country risk information for business travelers; and an expert assessment of the security situation in more than 200 countries.”
Aon explained that each country is “assigned a threat level, starting at negligible, and rising through low, medium, high and severe. The map acts as a gauge for the intensity of the threat of political violence to international business in each country and three icons indicate the forms of political violence:
• Terrorism and sabotage
• Strikes, riots, civil commotion and malicious damage to property
• Political insurrection, revolution, rebellion, mutiny, coup d’état, war and civil war
Neil Henderson, head of terrorism in Aon Risk Solutions’ Crisis Management Practice, commented: “As can be seen from the number of downgrades, risks continue to grow. Companies that operate internationally have to keep up to date with potential risks around the world to enable them to protect their employees, physical assets and ultimately, their bottom line.
“Businesses need to identify the threats they face and implement a comprehensive risk management program to protect themselves. As the insurance market for political violence is very mature and can cope with complex international risks, it should be considered as part of a business’ sound risk management program.”
Dr. David Claridge, managing director of Risk Advisory, added: “Once again the map highlights the challenges businesses face in ensuring the security and continuity of their global operations.
“For the first time since the map’s inception, we have recorded significant negative ratings in Western Europe that reflect civil disorder in economies traditionally seen as stable. With further austerity measures still to be imposed and the euro zone crisis only in remission, economic and social degradation are likely to be important drivers of future unrest.
“The Arab Spring features heavily in our assessments, both for its contribution to civil unrest, and also as post-uprising states fail to guarantee local and regional security. Weapons proliferation and unchecked growth of radical groups in Libya, Yemen and the Sinai Peninsula are of particular concern.”
A replay of the conference call introducing map findings can be accessed by dialing +1.203.280.0229. Access to Aon’s 2012 Terrorism & Political Violence Map can be requested via http://www.aon.com/terrorismmap
Former Barclays chairman Marcus Agius faced the Parliamentary Treasury Select Committee on the LIBOR scandal in London in July. Photo by Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Workers rally to protest EU austerity
Occupy protesters make comeback in US
BY DANIEL WOOLLS
The Associated Press
MADRID – Banging drums and waving flags, hundreds of thousands of workers marked May Day in European cities Tuesday with a mix of anger and gloom over austerity measures imposed by leaders trying to contain the eurozone’s intractable debt crisis.
Taking the baton from Asia, where unions demanded wage increases as they transformed the day from one celebrating workers rights to one of international protest, workers turned out in droves in Greece, France and Spain — the latest focus of a debt nightmare that has already forced three eurozone countries to seek financial bailouts.
In the United States, demonstrations, strikes and acts of civil disobedience were planned, including what could be the country’s most high-profile Occupy rallies since the anti-Wall Street encampments came down in the fall.
Under a gray, threatening Madrid sky that reflected the dark national mood, 25-year Adriana Jaime confided she turned out because she speaks three foreign languages and has a masters degree as a translator — but last worked for what she derided as peanuts in a university research project that was to last three years but was cut to three months. Jaime has been unemployed for six months, and sees her future as grim at best.
“I am here because there is no future for the young people of this country,” she said as marchers walked up the city’s main north-south boulevard, protesting health care and education spending cuts and other austerity measures. Many carried black and white placards, with the word NO and a pair of red scissors pictured inside the O.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is trying desperately to cut a bloated deficit, restore investor confidence in Spain’s public finances, lower the 24.4 jobless rate, and fend off fears it will join Greece, Ireland and Portugal in needing a bailout.
Ana Lopez, a 44-year-old civil servant, said May Day is sacred for her but this year in particular, arguing the government is doing nothing to help workers and that the economic crisis is benefiting banks.
“Money does not just disappear. It does not fly away. It just changes hands, and now it is with the banks,” Lopez said. “And the politicians are puppets of the banks.”
In France, tens of thousands of workers, leftists and union leaders rallied ahead of a presidential runoff election Sunday that a Socialist is expected to win for the first time since 1988 — a potential turning point in Europe’s austerity drive.
Anger has emerged during the campaign at austerity measures pushed by European Union leaders and conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy. Many voters fear Sarkozy will erode France’s welfare and worker protections, and see him as too friendly with the wealthy. Challenger and poll favorite Francois Hollande has promised high taxes on the rich.
“This May Day is more than ever very political ... Mr. Sarkozy has allowed himself for too long to manhandle the lower classes of the population, the working classes,” said Dante Leonardi, a 24-year-old at a march in Paris. “Today we must show ... that we want him to leave.”
In debt-crippled Greece, more than 2,000 people marched through central Athens in subdued protests. Minor scuffles broke out in Athens when young men targeted political party stands, destroying two and partially burning another. There were no injuries.
Italian Labor Minister Elsa Fornero insisted on the need to reform labor market laws that make it virtually impossible for employers to fire workers in some situations, discouraging hiring. Because of that gridlock and the lack of work in Italy, she said, “It’s not a nice May 1st.”
The German economy is churning and unemployment is at a record low, but unions held May Day rallies anyway. The DGB umbrella union group sharply criticized Europe’s treaty enshrining fiscal discipline and the resulting austerity measures across the continent. The group called instead for a “Marshall Plan” stimulus program to revive the depressed economies of crisis-hit eurozone nations.
Around 100,000 people in Moscow — including President Dmitry Medvedev and President-elect Vladimir Putin — took part in the main May Day march through the city center, though not to protest the government.
Television images showed the two leaders happily chatting with participants on the clear-and-cool spring day. Many banners and placards criticized the Russian opposition movement that has become more prominent in Moscow over the past half-year.
One read “spring has come, the swamp has dried up,” referring to Bolotnaya (Swampy) Square, the site of some of the largest opposition demonstrations in recent months.
Communists and leftists held a separate May Day rally in Moscow that attracted a crowd of about 3,000. Police arrested 22 people at the rally who were wearing masks and refused to remove them during document checks. Police said those arrested were self-styled anarchists.
Earlier, thousands of workers protested in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and other Asian nations, with demands for wage hikes amid soaring oil prices a common theme. They said their take-home pay could not keep up with rising consumer prices, while also calling for lower school fees and expressing a variety of other complaints.
An unemployed father of six set himself on fire in southern Pakistan in an apparent attempt to kill himself because he was mired in poverty, said police officer Nek Mohammed. Abdul Razzaq Ansari, 45, suffered burns on 40 percent of his body but survived.
In the Philippine capital, Manila, more than 8,000 members of a huge labor alliance, many clad in red shirts and waving red streamers, marched under a brutal sun for 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to a heavily barricaded bridge near the Malacanang presidential palace, which teemed with thousands of riot police, Manila police chief Alex Gutierrez said.
Another group of left-wing workers later burned a huge effigy of President Benigno Aquino III, depicting him as a lackey of the United States and big business.
In Indonesia, thousands of protesters demanding higher wages paraded through traffic-clogged streets in the capital, Jakarta, where 16,000 police and soldiers were deployed at locations including the presidential palace and airports.
There were also protests in Taiwan, Malaysia and Hong Kong.