Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of falling oil and commodities prices on resource-exporting countries. Earlier this month, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced he was cutting the national budget by 3 percent due to falling oil prices. In an email interview, Christian Gómez, an international development professional, discussed the impact of falling commodities prices on Colombia’s economy. WPR: How has the relative significance of oil and commodities exports to Colombia’s economy evolved in the recent past, and what effect have falling commodities prices had on the economy and public spending and [...]
In 2016, Kuwait faces a combination of domestic and regional challenges arising from looming uncertainty over succession, the decline in international oil prices and the threat from radical groups such as the so-called Islamic State. Each of those issues has the potential to bring an end to the relative political stability that Kuwait has enjoyed since its most recent legislative election in July 2013. The risk for Kuwait’s ruling officials is that the intervening years of political calm have masked, but not resolved, many of the underlying socio-political and economic triggers of discontent that surfaced in 2011 and 2012 and [...]
In recent years, the issue of lone-actor or so-called lone-wolf terrorism has risen as a national security priority across Europe following the attacks carried out in Oslo in July 2011 and Toulouse and Montauban in March 2012. In the aftermath of the Paris attacks last November, fears of lone-wolf terrorism have only grown, as officials worry that the self-proclaimed Islamic State and its extensive propaganda may inspire more individuals to carry out acts of violence on the continent. In September 2014, the Countering Lone Actor Terrorism (CLAT) project, funded by the European Commission and led by the Royal United Services [...]
