Homeland Security Watch

Russia is hosting the “Global Forum for Partnerships between Government and Businesses to Counter Terrorism” this week in Moscow, an event created in conjunction with their chairing of the G8 this year. This press statement on it describes some of the topics of discussion at the forum:

“For example, international trafficking in precious metals and diamonds in estimated in astronomical sums. Part of these illegal funds are used to finance terrorism. Companies working in this sector have announced an initiative to combine the possibilities of government and business to create an effective global system for preventing the smuggling of precious metals. I repeat, the objective is not only to stop the financing of terrorism, but also to cut short the criminal possibilities of this business.”

“Another promising idea was proposed by Finmeccanica and provides for setting up a public/private consultative board to ensure protected and effective communication between critical infrastructures, in particular in the energy sector. The initiative on insuring against terrorism has been advanced as part of the objective to protect the rights of terrorism victims. These are only a few of the multitude of ideas the forum will discuss,” the minister writes.

This latter idea is already well-developed in the United States through ISACs and other tools, but in many countries this framework for public-private partnership on infrastructure issues is less mature. And the first idea is an an intriguing one, building on activities such as the Kimberley Process.

More on the event in this Defense News story.