Conflict

Please see below key recent developments concerning trade:

August 2018

• The recently announced tariffs that the US is imposing on Mexico, the EU, and China are expected to affect companies across multiple industries, from food production to motor vehicles to construction and more. Executives around the world are discussing what the trade war means for their companie - CB Insights analysed what they're saying.
• Figures released by the OECD report that a large repatriation of earnings by US parent companies has contributed to a substantial fall in global foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows. These figures show that in the first quarter of 2018 global outflows fell by 44% from $US242bn to $US136bn. 

July 2018

During these dark days of worsening refugee crises, can we still imagine reaching a state of "xenophilia"...overcoming our "homophily", i.e. the love of that which is like us, and reaching the love of that which is different?

Indeed, if we're ever going to care enough about conflict, genocide, poverty, hunger etc. enough to act on them properly, then we need to try much harder to avoid conflict with people we might not yet fully understand.

Please see below recent megatrends-related change.

June 2018

• EY released its latest report on megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond – “What’s after What’s next – the upside of disruption”. The report looks at disruption through a framework that highlights four distinct kinds of change: primary forces, megatrends, future working worlds and weak signals. These elements occur at different times, and with different levels of uncertainty and scales of impact. Most meaningfully for corporate decision-makers, they demand different kinds of responses.

Halcyon curates the most significant conflict-related content from carefully selected sources. Please contact us if you'd like our help with conflict-related challenges.

It will cost $300 billion to rebuild Syria, according to the UN. Even as the carnage continues, Iran and Russia are already quietly waging an uncivil war to get in on those lucrative construction contracts, argued Eurasia Group in February 2018.

In 20 Forecasts for 2011-2025, World Future Society identified breakthroughs most likely to affect work, investments, and family life over the next 15 years.

Living, as I have done for the past 14 years, just 5km or so from the battlefields of Waterloo, means that I have visited the site often.

Only now, however, following last year's commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the battle, and a visit in March 2016 to the excellent new visitor centre, does its full ongoing significance become clearer to me, not least the suffering of the wounded and dead, many of whose final resting places have never been discovered...RIP all who fought there.

See also:

During October 2013, we listened to and would recommend the following podcasts: