General Awareness

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - October 2014

Oct 2014

Jan 21, 2021

Conte Wins Crucial Senate Vote to Stay in Power

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has won a crucial vote to stay in power - days after former PM Matteo Renzi pulled his party out of the coalition.
The vote in the Senate - 156-140, with 16 abstentions - means, however, that Mr Conte does not have an absolute majority in the upper chamber.
Opposition parties say they plan to ask President Sergio Mattarella to intervene to force him to resign.
Mr. Conte, a law professor, has led a centrist coalition since 2018.
The main parties in his coalition are the anti-establishment Five Star (M5S) and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
The prime minister told the Senate it was vital to maintain political cohesion faced with the historic challenge" of the pandemic.
Speaking in the Senate debate, Mr Renzi told Mr Conte to make bolder reforms, saying "Italy is wasting its biggest opportunity since the Marshall Plan" - a reference to the US aid for war-shattered Europe in 1948. He accused Mr Conte of being preoccupied with distributing government posts.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Make History

Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States and Kamala Harris took the oath as the first woman US Vice President in a historic but scaled-down ceremony. The event took place under the unprecedented security umbrella of thousands of security personnel, who transformed the Capitol into a fortress to prevent any breach by pro-Donald Trump extremists.
Biden, the 78-year-old veteran Democrat leader was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice John Roberts at the West Front of the Capitol - the traditional location for presidential inaugural ceremonies where the deadly violence took place just two weeks ago.

Jan 20, 2021

Seven Nations Lose Right to Vote in UNGA

Seven countries including Iran have lost their right to vote in the UN General Assembly because of upaid dues.
The UN charter calls for such a voting rights suspension for countries whose arrears equal or surpass the amount of the contributions due from them to UN coffers in the previous two years.
The other six countries are Niger, Libya, the Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.
The letter spells out an amount each country can pay, short of their total debt, to recover their right to vote.

Qatar Says it's Time Gulf Arab Nations Start Talks with Iran

Qatar has urged Gulf Arab nations to enter a dialog with Iran, saying the time was right for Doha to broker negotiations now the neighbors have begun to patch up their own differences.
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who's long called for a summit between leaders of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council and the Islamic Republic, said that his government was hopeful that this would happen, and we still believe this should happen.
The comments come days before Joe Biden moves into the White House with a promise to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and roll back the "maximum pressure" campaign that won the support of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He's already named a series of diplomats who helped forge the original agreement to top policy posts.

Jan 19, 2021

US Designates UAE and Bahrain as 'Major Strategic Partners'

The United States has designated the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain as its major strategic partners, the White House announced, amid preparations for a transition from the Donald Trump administration to that of President-elect Joe Biden.
The announcement was made by White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
This decision demonstrates a new level of partnership between the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and the Kingdom Bahrain, and represents an enduring commitment to economic and security cooperation. It also reflects their extraordinary courage, determination, and leadership in entering into the Abraham Accords.

PM Giuseppe Conte Wins Lower House Confidence Vote

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte won a crucial confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies, hanging on to power after a junior partner quit his coalition and opened a political crisis amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Had he lost the vote, Conte would have been forced to resign.
After his appeal to opposition and non-aligned lawmakers to back him following last week's walk-out by former premier Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva party, Conte's government won the lower-house vote by 321 to 259.
The margin was wider than expected and gave the government an absolute majority in the 629-seat chamber.
Conte will face a tougher test in the Upper House Senate, where the government had only a slim majority even when Italia Viva was still part of the coalition.

Jan 18, 2021

United States National Rifle Association

The United States National Rifle Association filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. The association filed for bankruptcy in order to avoid being investigated by New York Attorney General.
The New York Attorney General had sued the National Rifle Association in August 2020 based on allegations that the association top executives diverted millions of dollars for their personal trips.
United States National Rifle Association is a non-profit organisation formed by the civil war veterans General George Wingate and Colonel William C Church in 1871. The organisation was formed to promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis. It is considered as the most influential pro-gun organisation in the US. The critics believe that the organisation is an enabler of gun violence in the country.

South Korea's President Urges Biden to Learn from Trump's North Korea Diplomacy

South Korea's President urged the incoming Biden administration to build upon the achievements and learn from the failures of President Donald Trump's diplomatic engagement with North Korea.
A dovish liberal and the son of northern war refugees, Moon Jae-in had lobbied hard to help set up Trump's three summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but their diplomacy stalemated over disagreements over easing crippling US-led sanctions for the North's disarmament.
Biden has accused Trump of chasing the spectacle of summits rather than meaningful curbs on the North's nuclear capabilities. North Korea has a history of staging weapons tests and other provocations to test new US presidents, and Kim vowed to strengthen his nuclear weapons program in recent political speeches that were seen as aimed at pressuring the incoming Biden administration.

UN Rights Body Elects Fiji in First Ever Presidential Vote

The UN Human Rights Council elected Fiji's ambassador as its 2021 president in an unprecedented secret ballot after a diplomatic stand-off blocked the usual consensus decision. Fiji's ambassador in Geneva, Nazhat Shameem Khan, who served as the council's vice president in 2020 and is considered a rights champion, won with 29 out of 47 votes.
She ran against two other candidates from the UN's Asia-Pacific regional group of countries: Bahrain's ambassador Yusuf Abdulkarim Bucheeri and his counterpart from Uzbekistan, Ulugbek Lapasov, who received 14 and four votes respectively.
The president mainly oversees council meetings but is also in charge of appointing the independent experts who investigate countries' alleged rights abuses and can determine how hard to crack down on cases of state intimidation against those who cooperate with the body

UK Invites PM Narendra Modi for G-7 Summit

The United Kingdom has extended an invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the G7 summit to be held in the country's Cornwall region in June, 2021.
Like India, Australia and South Korea to have been invited to what would be the G-7 summit's first in-person meeting in two years.
The annual G-7 gathering of leaders from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union will start on June 11 at the English village on the coast of Cornwall. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will use the June event to promote a green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jan 17, 2021

Biden Taps Former Deputy CIA Director Cohen for Spy Agency

President-elect Joe Biden named former Deputy CIA Director David Cohen to reprise his role at the US intelligence agency as he continued to fill out top roles for his administration.
Cohen previously served as the deputy director for the Central Intelligence Agency from 2015 to 2017 under Democratic then-President Barack Obama, when Biden served as vice president. Cohen would serve under longtime US diplomat William Burns, Biden's nominee for CIA director.
The former lawyer also previously served as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the US Treasury Department, where he dealt with terrorism financing and oversaw sanctions against countries such as Iran, Russia and North Korea.
Biden also picked one of his closest confidants from his presidential campaign, Anita Dunn, to join the White House as a senior adviser.

Dutch Government Resigns

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his entire Cabinet resigned to take political responsibility for a scandal involving investigations into child welfare payments that wrongly labelled thousands of parents as fraudsters.
In a nationally televised speech, Rutte said that he had informed King Willem-Alexander of his decision and pledged that his government would continue work to compensate affected parents as quickly as possible to battle the coronavirus.
The move was seen as largely symbolic; Rutte's government will remain in office in a caretaker mode until a new coalition is formed after a March 17 election in the Netherlands.
The resignation brings to an end a decade in office for Rutte, although his party is expected to win the election, putting him first in line to begin talks to form the next government. If he succeeds in forming a new coalition, Rutte would most likely again become Prime Minister.

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