Publications

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was established by the G7 in 1989 to combat money laundering and terrorism finance.

Being on the FATF "high-risk" country list may not sound terrible but, in some circles, it is akin to being labelled a financial pariah.

Tomorrow, the United States and its fellow members of the “P5+1” (Russia, China, France, England and Germany) will sit down once again with Iran for what has been billed as the Islamic Republic’s “last chance” to come to terms with the West regarding its nuclear ambitions. The likely outcome of those talks, however, is already within view—and it is far from encouraging.

Though news reports generally give a very different impression, Russia is actually playing a constructive role in dealing with the multifaceted issue of Iran's nuclear program. One hint came last month, when Russia's second-largest financial institution closed the accounts of Iran's embassy in Moscow. While given little attention by the media on either side of the Atlantic, this move signals the Kremlin's willingness to confront Iran on its march toward nuclearization.

Since the start of the year, mounting concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions has translated into a serious economic offensive on the part of the European Union. Back in January, the European Commission voted on a series of punitive economic measures against Iran, chief among them a pledge by member states to cease imports of oil from the Islamic Republic by mid-summer.

MTN has a corporate responsibility to cease doing business with Iran and colluding with a state sponsor of terror that uses its technology to track, silence and kill its people. The South African government should take immediate action to prevent this abuse of the telecommunications industry.

In the aftermath of the landmark U.S.-India nuclear deal passed in 2008, Washington and New Delhi have deftly navigated the periodic irritants that plague all great power relations.

History, they say, has a funny way of repeating itself.

During the decades of the Cold War, it became something of an article of faith within the Washington Beltway that strategic arms control with the Soviet Union was a key guarantor of global security. This was so despite ample evidence that the intricate “balance of terror” erected between Moscow and Washington as a result of a quarter-century of arms control actually had made America considerably less safe—and that catastrophic crisis had been narrowly avoided on a number of occasions.

Relations between Ankara and Iran had until recently been growing increasingly warm. Expanding trade between the neighbors, including Turkey’s reliance on Iran to meet much of its energy needs, has been a factor -- as has Ankara’s ‘zero problems with neighbors’ foreign policy. However, growing international pressure on Tehran over its nuclear ambitions has been putting strain on ties between Turkey and its neighbor, tensions exacerbated by the two counties’ jockeying for a more prominent regional role in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. As Turkey’s efforts to balance its relations between East and West draw Iranian ire, the benefits of close ties with Tehran are becoming increasingly uncertain.

Talk to civilian and military officials who've recently served in Afghanistan and you will be hard-pressed to find a single optimistic assessment of our current strategy there.

On March 9, following Russia’s presidential election, President Obama telephoned President-elect Vladimir Putin to re-establish contact with someone he once publicly described as a man of the past but who will run Russia for the remainder of Mr. Obama’s presidency. Mr. Putin genuinely believes Washington orchestrates Russia’s domestic opposition in order to remove him from power and thereby weaken Russia. That’s certainly not an ideal basis for bilateral cooperation.

Huawei Technologies has an aggressive plan to become the No 1 provider of telecommunications services, Down Under and across the globe, in less than five years.

Unfortunately, in the recent past, this Asian giant has played a key role in helping the Iranian government, the world's most dangerous state sponsor of terror, to monitor, track, and kill those who oppose it.

Does Iran pose a direct threat to the U.S. homeland? For years, more than a few policymakers in Washington have taken quiet comfort in the notion that, no matter how vexing a challenge Iran and its nuclear ambitions might be, the Islamic republic remained a distant adversary — one not yet capable of putting America at risk.

These days, there is a growing sense—both within the Washington Beltway and beyond—that Israel could soon strike Iran to prevent it from going nuclear.

Is an Israeli attack on Iran in the offing? Recent weeks have been rife with renewed speculation about the possibility of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear program. Most famously, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported recently that no less senior an official than Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta thinks Israel could bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities by this summer.