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South Africa has a lot to do to improve its regulatory oversight and more effectively tackle money laundering, which its FIU, the Financial Intelligence Centre, readily admits, as the country addresses shortcomings highlighted in its latest Financial Action Task Force (FATF) mutual evaluation report (MER).…

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has called on financial institutions and virtual currency operators to take a special look at the AML/CFT risks associated with stablecoins before they release them, because of they may be widely acquired and spent. Because stablecoins’ value is supposed to be linked to a fiat currency value, most likely USD, and hence be more popular than floating virtual assets whose fiat value varies widely, FATF has said that virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and other AML/CFT obliged entities be careful.…

With its complex supply and distribution chain, the international knitwear sector fosters innovation, with commercial partners cross-fertilising technical and design ideas that span digitisation and mechanical smarts, as well as consumer-focused creativity.

One key area of innovation in the past year has been warp knitting – for instance by leading northern Italian warp seamless knitwear manufacturer Cifra (1), which last December (2020) launched an innovative and sustainable garment concept for women, spanning beachwear, athleisure bodywear and lingerie.…

The Twentieth Century was the age of ideologies in the Arab world, with governments wedded to socialism, nationalism, Islamism and liberalism to a greater or lesser degree. However, today, except Islamism (which is itself failing to deliver on its early promises), these once apparent dominant ideologies are withering – ageing shells of ideas that once commanded loyalty and pride.…

Istanbul is gearing up for its second fashion week of 2021, with the expectation of repeating the success of previous virtual events that reached some 25 million viewers worldwide.

With a physical Mercedes-Benz Istanbul Fashion Week (IFW) not feasible in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the organisers pivoted to a virtual event.…

Only a foolish person would deny the importance of culture and historical consciousness on the present behaviour of humankind, and that counts maybe double for the Arab world, where citizens often view society through a more ideological or religious lens than – say – in the west.…

A key political question emerging from the Coronavirus pandemic has been how the disease might readjust relations between this world’s two largest powers – the United States and China. The two countries have had two very different experiences of Covid-19, which reflect their contrasting social and political systems.…

A friend from Syria once told me of a 20-year-old man, an only child, who left his country, having been ordered to emigrate by his father in fear of the frenzy and killing in his country’s civil war. He moved to the comparative calm of Beirut, Lebanon.…

While the Arab world certainly has a political culture of its own, there are many universal human truths that its politics shares with the rest of the globe, even if – perhaps – tensions can be more intense in this region than others.…

Cryptocurrency innovation is moving fast, with AML/CFT-oriented financial institutions and law enforcement struggling to keep up as criminals exploit the system through newer technology such as decentralised finance and anonymous privacy coins.

The use of cryptocurrencies is surging, and is increasingly being adopted in more, often unregulated, markets.…