A

DOCUMENTORY REPORT AND PRESENTATION

ON

Global terrorism and its effect on uncertainty in

Business
ON
Chemical Terrorism

Subject
Seminar on Contemporary Issues in Management
Module – 3

Submitted to

INDUKAKA IPCOWALA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT (I2IM)

M.B.A PROGRAMME
Constituent of Charotar University of Science and Technology
(CHARUSAT)

Presented by
Vaibhav S. Shah
M.B.A Semester – I
ROLL. NO. 09MBA47

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 DECLARATION

I, Vaibhav S, Shah, hereby declare that the DOCUMENTORY

REPORT on “Global terrorism and its effect on
uncertainty in Business” on “CHEMICAL TERRORISM AND
ITS IMPACT ON BUSINESS” is results of my own work and my
indebtedness to other work publications, if any, have been duly
acknowledged.

Place: Changa
Date: 07-12-2009 Vaibhav S. Shah

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 INTRODUCTION

Terrorism is the use of force or violence against persons or property for

purposes of intimidation, coercion or ransom.

Threats often used to create fear among the public, to try to convince citizens
that their government is powerless to prevent terrorism, and to get immediate
publicity for their causes.

The word "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged and this greatly
compounds the difficulty of providing a precise definition. Studies have found
over 100 definitions of “terrorism”. The concept of terrorism is itself
controversial because it is often used by states to delegitimize political or
foreign opponents, and potentially legitimize the state's own use of terror
against them. A less politically and emotionally charged, and better defined,
term (used not only for terrorists, and not including all those who have been
described as terrorists) is violent non-state actor.

The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as “the calculated

use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear;
intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of
goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.

Chemical terrorism is the intentional use of a toxic chemical agent to cause

physical and psychological damage to an adversary’s population. The terrorist
seeks to attack the basic sense of well being of the general public by inflicting
physical injury, loss of life, and destruction of property. A chemical attack may
be overt, with the terrorist announcing the release, or it may be covert, where
the attack becomes clear only after people become ill and require emergency
care.

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A chemical attack is the spreading of toxic chemicals with the intent to do
harm. A wide variety of chemicals could be made, stolen, or otherwise
acquired for use in an attack. Industrial chemical plants or the vehicles used
to transport chemicals could also be sabotaged. Harmful chemicals that could
be used in an attack include:

• Chemical weapons (warfare agents) developed for military use.

• Toxic industrial and commercial chemicals that are produced, transported,
and stored in the making of petroleum, textiles, plastics, fertilizers, paper,
foods, pesticides, household cleaners, and other products.
• Chemical toxins of biological origin such as ricin.

The toxicity of chemicals varies greatly. Some are acutely toxic (cause
immediate symptoms); others are not very toxic at all. Chemicals in liquid or
vapor form generally lead to greater exposures than chemicals in solid form.

Facts and issues of Chemical Weapons

• First used in World War I, chemical weapons drew from existing industrial
chemicals (chlorine, phosgene).

• The Chemical Weapons Convention was ratified by more than 160 nations in
1997 with the goal of eliminating state production, storage, and use. The
United States is actively destroying its stockpile of chemical agents and has
successfully eliminated over 25% to date.

• The 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway by the cult Aum Shinrikyo
proves that fabrication and use of chemical weapons by non-state groups is
possible. Twelve people died and more than 5,000 were injured.

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Potential delivery methods of toxic chemicals include:

• Ventilation systems of a building.

• Misting, aerosolizing devices, or sprayers.
• Passive release (container of chemical left open).
• Bombs, mines, or other explosive devices that contain chemicals other than
those used to create the explosion.
• Improvised chemical devices that combine readily available chemicals to
produce a dangerous chemical.
• Sabotage of plants or vehicles containing chemicals.
• Introduction of toxins in the food and water supply

THREAT DUE TO CHEMICAL TERRORISM

The potential of terrorist attacks against human targets (chemical terrorism) is

defined as the deliberate introduction of an animal or plant disease with the
goal of generating fear, causing economic losses, and/or undermining
stability.

• Live animals, grain, and processed food products are routinely

transported and commingled in the production and processing system.
These factors circumvent natural barriers that could slow pathogenic
dissemination.

• The presence (or rumor) of certain chemical attacks or diseases in a

country can quickly stop all exports of a commodity, and can take
months or years to resume.

• Food or water can carry diseases, poisons and to people, causing

illness or death. All chemical terrorism will cause significant
psychological impact.

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 EFFECT OF TERRORISM ON INDUSTRIES

As the chemical terrorism is the one part of terrorism, generally it is used for
warning of big attacks, but it will make same effect on economy, financial and
insurance sector as of general terrorist attack. So, the impact on business is
same as on terrorist attack. Here I want to clear one point that the terrorist
attack of 26/11 on Mumbai, and 9/11 on WTC, USA. Is the part of chemical
terrorism, because the high frequency of chemicals is used in both attacks.

• Crash in stock market: Tremendous fall in the stock market has been
observed after every terrorist attack. Indian stock market is closely
related to the emotions of investors. People start loosing their
confidence from the stock market after any terrorist attack. Though it
could be for a short span. This causes lack of liquidity in the market.
Due to emotional attachment, any instability in the environment directly
affects Indian stock market. As after 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack,
Indian stock market collapsed for a moment.

• Concentration of fund in security sector and primary sectors will

suffer: Increase frequency of terrorist attack requires government to
invest more money in security and defense sector than in other
sectors. This may result in less fund allocation to infrastructure and
agriculture sectors. Hence financial sector suffers in such situation.
And if the investment in primary sectors, that is infrastructure,
agriculture and education are fall down, that sectors are also suffer a
lot.

• Indian investors move for foreign investments: This terrorist attack

creates instability in the countries environment. Due to these our own
big investors move towards other foreign countries for their investment,
where they can get surety for their money. This indicates clear
downturn for Indian financial sector.

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• Foreign institutional investors: The behavior of foreign investors is
difficult to predict and depends on a number of factors, including
conventional wisdom, prior experience, perception and tolerance of
economic and political risk, and long-term objectives. When our own
investor doesn’t believe in our economy then we can not predict
positive response from foreign investors.

• Hotel and Tourism industry: Due to environmental and political

instability foreign investors could move their investment areas. As the
recent terrorist targets hotels and tourists which results in decrease in
investments towards hotel and tourism industry.

• No new project (IT sector suffers): our IT software sector more

depends on foreign projects, but due to terrorist attack they might stop
giving their projects to our country. This also creates jobless situation
for our employees. No new technologies come up for implementation.
We can not hire foreign skill people, due fear in their mind about our
countries political and social environment.

• Impact on export-import: this continuous instability also harms

countries import-export. While exporting our goods to foreign countries
they demand for more checking and security due to terrorist attack on
our country. Same case for importing goods from other country.

• Mirror image of economy: stock market is considered as mirror face

of Indian economy. Terror attack impacts negatively on stock market.
This result in slow economic growth and development.

• Economic Impact: Such impacts might involve disruption to lives and

livelihoods as the contaminated area is being cleaned up. An attack on
a food or agricultural crop could result in long-lasting economic impact
for suppliers and their communities as well as consumers.

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 • Impact on insurance sector: Insurance sector has to bare losses for
those insured people who suffered due to terrorist attack. Size of such
a loss is not predictable by any insurance company. Many insurance
companies got bankrupted after 9/11 terrorist attacks on united state.

CONCLUSION

In recent years, terrorism has shown new patterns, shifting increasingly from
military targets to civilian targets, including individuals and business activities.
Business facilities have represented, by far, the preferred target of
international terrorist attacks since 1998. A primary goal of terrorism is to
disrupt society by causing widespread psychological damage and social
disruption Secondly, the purpose of terrorism is to provoke social, political and
economic fall-out

The chemical attacks are high causes oriented then others; they are cause a
serious physical victim. Generally chemical attacks are the warning alarms for
the big attacks, but now a day they are using as serious attacks. It will make
big impact on the economic, financial, sectors of a particular country.
Chemical agents kill or incapacitate people, destroy livestock or ravage crops.
Some agents are odorless and tasteless. They can have an immediate or a
delayed effect, so, if they are cause the problem then also its effect will
measure after a long period of time.

Planning for chemical terrorism has been based on mass casualty, military
frameworks and scant historical cases. Paradigm shift to small scale incidents
using readily available industrial chemicals.

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 SOURCES

www.akprepared.com/.../chemical/.../Chemical%20Table%20Top%20Power
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www.slh.wisc.edu/outreach/audioconf/.../Chemical%20Terrorism-

https://njlmn.rutgers.edu/lrn/docs/Module04-chemical_agents.

https://practice.sph.umich.edu/.../Chemical.../Chem_Terror_
%20Assess_Threats

https://practice.sph.umich.edu/.../Chemical.../ChemTerror101MResponsCapa
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www.pitt.edu/~super7/6011-7001/6651

web.mhanet.com/userdocs/articles/chemical_terrorism.

www.public-health.uiowa.edu/icphp/ed_training/ttt/.../terrorism.