With Libyan leader Muammar al Qadhafi stepping up his anti-Western rhetoric, there are growing fears that what Mark Mobius recently called ‘the ideal frontier market’ is turning its back on the reformist experiment it has been pursuing for the last few years. Mark Schaltuper speaks to Liz Martins, Head of Middle East and North Africa [Read more...]

 

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Having just returned from my latest business trip to Dubai, I have to report that confidence in general remains very subdued. For sheer tragic parade-raining, bubble-bursting symbolism, you can’t beat the Burj Khalifa tower (renamed at the last minute to appease the neighbours and then closed soon after opening for ‘technical reasons’ – for three [Read more...]

Regular readers of this blog will know that my colleagues and I have recently been discussing the growing possibility of Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear programme (I highly recommend listening to Business Monitor’s Podcast on this subject). However, let us now do a little thought experiment: flash forward five years, and imagine that Iran [Read more...]

On this week’s Business Monitor Podcast, BMI’s Head of Middle East Analysis Elizabeth Martins and Middle East Analyst Andrew Fargus discuss rising political risks in Iran concerning the nuclear situation. With diplomatic tensions escalating, Fargus assesses the implications of a potential Israeli strike on Iran, and discusses the latter’s retaliatory options. At home, the Iranian [Read more...]

 

 Standard Podcast [10:43m]
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With the announcement on February 11 by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to 20%, the Islamic Republic has moved a step closer to being able to produce a nuclear weapon. Tehran insists that its nuclear programme has no military applications, and that the 20% enriched uranium will [Read more...]

There are growing indications that the Iranian banking system is in crisis, weighed down by a proliferation of non-performing loans. Although there is no timely financial reporting to speak of in Iran, a number of recent news stories suggest to me that the country’s banks are in a great deal of trouble.

Central Bank of [Read more...]

There was a time when audio or video messages issued by Osama bin Laden would be front-page news, and we’d all wonder if a new al-Qaeda terror attack was imminent.

However, in recent years, a widespread belief has developed that bin Laden is irrelevant, and that the real terror threat to the West comes [Read more...]