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19 Jan 18. Russia to create bank for defence industry. Russia will create a state-owned bank to finance its defence industry which has encountered difficulties in obtaining financing due to US sanctions, the Russian Ministry of Finance (MoF) announced on 18 January.
The MoF said the bank would specialise in conducting operations related to state defence orders and large state contracts.
Russian media have presented the opening of such a bank as a means to protect the country’s other lenders from Western sanctions on Russia’s military-industrial complex over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, including recently tightened US measures.
At the end of December 2017, Russian private bank Alfa said it would stop working with firms in the defence sector because of the US sanctions.
Russian media have said the bank could be created on the base of an existing medium-sized bank. The MoF said the bank would soon become the property of the state. (Source: Shephard)
19 Jan 18. Qatari minister defends acquisition of three fighter types. Qatar’s decision to buy three different types of advanced fighter jets will not create additional financial and manpower burdens, according to Dr Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah, the emirate’s minister of state for defence.
“If we said this 20 years ago, I would believe you,” he told journalists in London on 17 January. “But with this new generation [of fighters], they don’t have this complication. Most of them will have a common system [and] common weapons, even if they are from different countries.”
Qatar currently has 36 Boeing F-15, 36 Dassault Rafale, and 24 Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighters on order to replace 12 Mirage 2000s. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
18 Jan 18. In 2017, militants conducted 22,487 attacks worldwide, down 7.1 percent from 24,202 in 2016, according to the annual Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre (JTIC) Global Attack Index released today by IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.
“While the 2017 attack figure decreased only slightly compared to 2016, the resultant 18,475 non-militant fatalities represented a much more significant 33 percent decrease year on year, and an even larger 45 percent decrease from the average fatality total over the preceding five years,” said Matthew Henman, head of Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre (JTIC) at IHS Markit.
“These trends were largely driven by downturns in violent militant activity in countries experiencing high levels of violence, alongside significant decreases in fatalities – such as a 44 percent decrease in fatalities in Syria and a 60 percent decline in Iraq,” Henman said. “Indeed, of the top 10 most violent countries in 2017, attacks decreased in six countries, and fatalities decreased in eight.”
These figures are from the annual Global Attack Index produced by JTIC. JTIC uses open source data to build a global database of politically- and ideologically-motivated violence by non-state armed groups and individuals, archived to 1997. The annual report highlights key data and global trends from the database. Key findings from the 2017 report
Attacks worldwide decreased slightly from 2016 to fewer than 23,000 in 2017, while resultant fatalities decreased by one-third to just over 18,000.
-More than 700 suicide attacks were conducted in 2017, causing almost 4,000 fatalities – a slight increase in attacks from 2016 but a more than one-third decline in fatalities.
−Attacks in Syria accounted for more than one-third of all attacks worldwide – almost surpassing the five next most violent countries in total attacks – increasing slightly to reach more than 8,000, but fatalities fell by almost half from 2016.
−In Iraq, 2017 attacks fell by more than one-third and fatalities fell by almost two-thirds.
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