General Awareness

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - March 2017

Mar 2017

Jan 31, 2022

Which Country has the Most Islands?

Various countries around the world can boast of having the most of something. The most lakes is an accolade belonging to Canada — it has around 879,000 — while the country with the most trees is Russia, where around 45% of the landmass is considered forest.
But when it comes to the number of islands, which country tops the list?
The winner, by quite some margin, is Sweden. This Northern European nation is home to a whopping 221,800 mostly uninhabited islands, according to Statista, a German company that provides statistics.
Finland, the runner-up, has an estimated 188,000 islands, while Norway, which rounds out the top three, is a long way behind, with around 55,000.

Sergio Mattarella Re-elected as Italy's President

Italian President Sergio Mattarella was elected to a second term, Lower House Speaker Roberto Fico announced, after the parliament gathered in a joint session and concluded its eighth round of voting.
Mattarella was reconfirmed with a broad majority, namely 759 votes in favor from a total of 983 lawmakers and regional representatives actively taking part in the ballot.
Mattarella's candidacy emerged prominently at the end of a tense week in which the two major political blocs, the center-left and the center-right, failed to agree on a different common candidature.

Portugal PM Antonio Costa Re-elected With Absolute Majority

Portugal's ruling centre-left Socialists won an outright parliamentary majority in a snap general election, securing a strong new mandate for the Prime Minister, Antonio Costa.
The result, boosted by a higher than expected turnout despite the coronavirus pandemic, came as a surprise after the Socialists had lost most of their advantage in recent opinion polls.
The Socialists received 41.7 percent of the vote giving it 117 seats in the 230-seat parliament, up from 108 in the outgoing assembly.

Pakistan's Upper House of Parliament Passes Law for Central Bank's Autonomy

Pakistan's upper house of parliament put the seal on a law backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to give the central bank more independence in decision-making.
The new legislation, passed by 43-42 votes and with immediate effect, was among the most important of conditions by the IMF for revival of a stalled $6 billion funding. The lower house had earlier this month also passed the law.
The bill gives the bank independent powers to control price stability and monetary policy, plus guaranteed tenure for its governor.
It also stops the government borrowing from the bank.

Kazakh President Tokayev Takes over as Ruling Party Leader

Kazakhstan's ruling Nur Otan party elected President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as its chairman, finalising the transfer of political power from his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Nazarbayev, who resigned in 2019, had retained sweeping powers until this month as the chairman of the Security Council and the head of Nur Otan, which dominates parliament. Tokayev took over the Security Council position at the peak of violent unrest in January.

Jan 30, 2022

Amid Pressure, Lanka to Amend Anti-terror Law

Sri Lanka will amend a controversial anti-terror law that gives police sweeping powers to arrest suspects without trial to fully align it with international standards, amid mounting pressure from the EU and the UN Human Rights Council.
The government issued a gazette notification, saying the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) would be amended. Enacted in 1979, the PTA allows authorities to make warrantless arrests and searches if a person is suspected of involvement in a "terrorist activity". The move comes ahead of the March session of the UNHRC in Geneva, where Sri Lanka's rights and progress accountability has come under review. The Bill proposes a number of amendments and ensures the suspects are allowed to approach the Supreme Court on grounds of violation of their fundamental rights and seek relief, officials said. It proposes to allow for legal access to the person in custody and also permits relatives to communicate with the detainee.

Jan 29, 2022

Argentina Reaches Agreement with IMF to Refinance $40 bn Debt

Argentina reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund to refinance more than USD 40 billion in debt.
Since 2020, Argentina has been in an arduous negotiation with the IMF to refinance the debt contracted in 2018 during the government of conservative Mauricio Macri in the midst of a currency crisis.
Argentina had spent three years trying to renegotiate repayment terms with the IMF and considered a deal vital to stabilising an economy whose lengthy crisis has been hit as well by the pandemic.

World's Largest Canal Lock Unveiled in Netherlands

The world's largest canal lock was inaugurated at Ijmuiden, a small port city, in the Port of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The sea lock was inaugurated by Dutch King Willen-Alexander. The Ijmuiden sea lock is 500-meter (1,640-feet) long and 70-meter wide. Construction on the massive infrastructure project began in 2016 and was meant to be done by 2019. It also went over the initially planned budget by around €300 million ($338 million).
The Ijmuiden lock was designed to allow large, modern cargo ships to reach the port of Amsterdam. The structure is also deep enough that ships will no longer have to wait for a favourable water level to enter the canal. With almost nine meters above the sea leave, the structure is also a defence against the threat of flooding.

Jan 28, 2022

Xiomara Castro: Honduras' First Female President Sworn In

Xiomara Castro was sworn in as Honduras' first female President, amid a political crisis that threatens her plans for the impoverished nation.
She took the lead of a broken" country - but vowed to pursue social justice and transparency.
Ms. Casto promised to tackle powerful drug trafficking gangs and liberalise strict abortion laws.
But her agenda was undermined by a feud in her Libre (Free) Party.
Ms. Castro's husband, Manuel Zelaya, ruled the country from 2006 until 2009, when he was ousted by a coup. She ran for office twice in the years following his removal from power, before her victory in the election in November 2021.

Jan 27, 2022

Iran Signals Willingness to Engage Directly with US on Deal

As per reports, Iran signaled a willingness to engage directly with the United States in ongoing discussions over the nuclear deal with world powers if it is necessary to reach a good agreement.
In 2018, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, banned any negotiations with the U.S. saying negotiations with the U.S. would harm Iran.
Earlier this month Khamenei indirectly gave the green light to the Iranian negotiation team to talk with the U.S. and said that negotiating and interacting with the enemy does not mean surrender.
Iran and world powers have begun another round of nuclear talks in Vienna, Austria aimed at salvaging the tattered 2015 nuclear deal. The meetings include all the deal's remaining signatories Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.

Italy's Third President Vote Fails

Italy's lawmakers failed to elect a new head of state for a third day, with no consensus candidate emerging to replace outgoing President Sergio Mattarella.
The race for the prestigious, seven-year role is wide open and on paper neither the centre-right nor the centre-left bloc have enough votes to ram through their candidate, meaning some sort of compromise deal will probably be needed.
A fourth round of voting may prove less predictable because the threshold required for election is considerably lower.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi remains in the frame but worries that his promotion to president might cause his coalition government to disintegrate and trigger an early parliamentary election have clouded his prospects.

Pakistan Slips Further on Corruption Perceptions Index

Pakistan dropped 16 spots on the global Corruption Perceptions Index for 2021 and was ranked 140th out of 180 countries, according to Transparency International report released in January 2022.
The report released by the Berlin-based non-profit organisation formed to combat global corruption said that corruption levels remain at a standstill worldwide, with 86 per cent of countries making little to no progress in the last 10 years.
In its 2021 edition, the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), drawing on 13 expert assessments and surveys of business executives.
In 2020, Pakistan's CPI was 31 and it was ranked 124 out of 180 countries.
According to the report, the top-performing countries are Denmark, Finland and New Zealand — all having a corruption perceptions score of 88 — followed by Norway, Singapore and Sweden, all of them scoring 85.
In contrast, the worst-performing countries were South Sudan with a corruption perceptions score of 11, followed by Syria (13), Somalia (13), Venezuela (14) and Afghanistan (16).

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