JANE’S, THE DEFENCE, aerospace, transport and security media outfit, today launched a new online Terrorism and Insurgency Centre Events Map, which it reckons provides "up-to-the-minute interactive visual mapping of terrorist groups and events".

The new mapping resource was built to "reveal worldwide geographic patterns and trends" according to Jane’s which also boasts of having a comprehensive and authoritative database that contains detailed profiles of more than 240 global terrorist groups.

The point, Jane’s says, is that the new map will let execs at big multinationals, as well as politicians, and anyone with vested global business interests, see a wider intelligence picture, as they scour the globe looking for more oil to dig up or more blood diamonds to mine.

Using software called ESRI’s ArcIMS Geographical Information System (GIS), which apparently is the thing to use if you want dynamic maps on the Internet, Jane’s says it has built “an integrated intelligence picture by exporting events and geospatially fusing them to third party content".

The resource, however, isn’t a free service and to use it, one has to subscribe.

So if the company you work for is planning to ship you off to Colombia, or Nigeria in the near future and is unwilling to pay for a subscription, you might want to either cough up the cash yourself, or find yourself a free Global Incident map somewhere else. µ