Good morning, and welcome to the last Monday of 2024.

Some weekend headlines and stories that might have slipped by over the last week.

Russia admitted that an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on December 25th was hit by Russian anti-aircraft fire. The Azeri President has accepted that this was an accident, but it highlights the danger for airlines operating near conflict zones, even where there is no official airspace warning in place. [SOURCE - Bloomberg]

Despite threats from incoming US president Trump, Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino has rejected proposed talks concerning the future of the Panama Canal. “…there’s nothing to talk about….The canal is Panamanian and belongs to Panamanians. There’s no possibility of opening any kind of conversation around this reality”. [SOURCE - Al Jazeera]

America’s Republican Party is embroiled in an internal fight over skilled worker visas (H1B) with respect to immigration and entrepreneurship. The program allows skilled workers to enter the US outside of normal quotas and channels and is cited as a big reason for the success of many major American firms, particularly in the tech sector. However, this apparent exemption is anathema to immigration hard-liners like Steve Bannon, who wants all immigration stopped. While a seemingly obscure issue, the H1B visa arguments highlight that for some in the GOP, the immigration fight isn’t just about closing the border and stopping illegal immigration but clamping down on all immigration to the US, including currently legal routes. This would significantly hinder US business and tourism, making this a much more larger fight than it appears. [More in Axios]

Some grim statistics from some end-of-the-year reporting.

• UNICEF published its ‘State of the Child’ report, which estimated that one in six children — about 470 million — live in a conflict zone. This statistic illustrates how many modern conflicts ignore the traditional distinction of combatant / non-combatant and how force is applied indiscriminately in civilian areas by both state actors and militias. [Full UNICEF report]

• An Oxfam report from October estimated that 21,000 die daily due to conflict-induced hunger, either due to lack of access to food due to conflict or deliberate withholding of food in conflict areas. [Oxfam report summary].

• ALCED assessed Gaza as the world’s most dangerous conflict for civilians while Ukraine was the deadliest overall. [ACLED]

Former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter died at 100. [Obituary in the Washington Post]

Unsure of how these events affect your businesses or struggling to keep your risk assessment up to date?

Dynamic Risk Tracking in the Decis Platform

Make the risk assessment update you, not the other way around

As risk managers, we spend weeks, maybe months, each year updating our risk assessment. It’s a key part of the job.

But the problem is 1) these become snapshots in time, unresponsive to events, and 2) the risk assessment takes up so much time and energy that the real work — the mitigation and risk management — is often rushed and under-resourced.

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a very long time so I am very pleased to announce that dynamic risk tracking is now part of the Decis platform.

The original demo tour

Best of all, it’s very simple to set up.

1️⃣ You set up your exposure profile (i.e. countries that affect your operations), impact metrics and limits.

2️⃣ Decis dynamically recalculates your risk as the country stability ratings (or your impact metrics) change.

3️⃣ The dynamic risk profile immediately lets you see your overall exposure and when anything is hitting your pre-defined limits

The result: better, faster risk-based decisions.

Key Metrics

WTI is $70.38 (Down)

Low |--- < ----------------| High

Wheat is $185.735 (Down)

Low |------ < -------------| High

EuroDollar is $1.04 (Down)

Low | < -------------------| High

YuanDollar is $0.14 (Unchanged)

Low |---------- < > ---------| High

Graphs are illustrative to show comparative price over last 180 days

Metrics via AlphaVantage updated Dec 30 2024 08:05 UTC

Global Stability Ratings

Here are the complete global stability rankings for all countries and territories covered by Decis Intelligence.