THREAT REPORTS
The skinny on virtual kidnappings
The growth of interconnectivity – especially low or no-cost communication around the world has led to many efficiencies. For example, individuals can work on projects with team members that spread all over the world and families with a loved one serving in military can video chat using a service such as Skype of Google Hangouts. The growth, however, is not all positive. As individuals found with e-mail as it matured, scammers and other criminal perpetrators take advantage of new technologies to expand their scope of operations and to seduce unwitting individuals into sending them money. A new dark trend, virtual kidnapping, has emerged and authorities are cautioning the public as it has already ensnared some who have been left poorer and emotional distraught at the experience.
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Cameroon Anglophone crisis
Cameroon has been struggling with increasingly violent crisis between the country’s two linguistic communities. Despite the current conflict only being active since 2016, the roots of the conflict go back to decisions made by the country’s linguistic communities and the international community, both leading up to independence and immediately afterward. The aftermath of World War I resulted in Germany Cameroon’s original colonial ruler, losing its possession, and the League of Nations splitting the colony and giving mandates to both France and the United Kingdom. Each new ruler proceeded, during the mandate period, to pursue integrating their possession into their colonial holdings; thus, the legal and educational systems were separated and, most importantly, as a cultural signifier, Cameroon became split along linguistic lines
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The Coronavirus Travel & Business Interruption Risks
On January 30, as widely expected, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the China novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak as a global emergency as the virus quickly spared throughout China and beyond. Authorities are reasonably sure that the coronavirus originated in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and has since spread to multiple countries via person-to-person contact. As of January 30, 2020, there have been over 9800 cases in China, 213 of which resulted in death, and more than 100 cases were reported in 24 other countries around the globe.
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