General Awareness

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - May 2017

May 2017

Mar 09, 2019

Finland Government Resigns

Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipilä's centre-right government resigned after failing to push through a flagship social and health care reform package, just five weeks ahead of a legislative election.
There has been a hard fought struggle for the wide-reaching reform for over a decade, dividing successive governments.
He has since 2015 headed a coalition made up of his Centre Party, the conservative National Coalition, and the Eurosceptic Blue Reform Party, a moderate faction spun off from the far-right.
The three parties were unable to agree on the package, which Mr. Sipilä had made one of his top priorities in office.
He had repeatedly threatened to resign if the reforms did not go through.

Mar 08, 2019

U.K. Offers All Assistance to Fight Terror

A week after the Indian Air Force targeted a Jaish-e-Mohammad training camp at Balakot in Pakistan, the U.K. has offered India all assistance in counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing. The offer was made during a telephone call between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and his British counterpart, Mark Sedwill.
Sedwill said that all assistance in dealing with any form of terrorism will be extended to India bilaterally through counter-terrorism cooperation, intelligence sharing and by bringing the perpetrators of terrorist attacks to justice.

India Excluded again from Student Visa Relaxation List

As per reports, India is, once again, not included in an expanded list of countries from where students applying for visas will be subject to less stringent documentation requirements.
This follows last year's controversy when the failure to include India triggered much criticism, particularly after the U.K. sought to suggest that the exclusion related to New Delhi's decision to pull out of a Memorandum of Understanding on the return of illegal migrants.
Among the new countries to which the streamlined documentary requirements apply are Peru, Kazakhstan, Mauritius and Oman. This change will not only benefit students but also help to ensure that the U.K.'s world-leading education institutions remain competitive internationally.

Dissolution of Key Thai Party

A key party linked to Thailand's powerful Shinawatra clan was dissolved by a court, just weeks before a general election, over its ill-starred bid to front a Princess as a candidate for Premier.
Thai Raksa Chart, which is tied to ex-Premiers Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra, proposed Princess Ubolratana as its prime ministerial candidate if its bloc emerged with a Lower House majority after the March 24 election.
The Election Commission alleged that Thai Raksa Chart had committed an act "hostile to the constitutional monarchy" and called for its dissolution.

Mar 07, 2019

North Korea Restoring Facilities at Rocket Site

According to foreign experts, North Korea is restoring facilities at a long-range rocket launch site that it dismantled last year as part of disarmament steps.
The finding follows a nuclear summit last week between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service provided the assessment about the North's Tongchang-ri launch site to lawmakers during a private briefing.

Diplomacy to Ease India-Pakistan Tensions

China has stepped up its diplomacy to ease tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama attack by sending its special envoy to Islamabad.
Vice-Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou is in Islamabad to establish an enabling atmosphere that would help Pakistan to cooperate with other parties.
Mr. Lu said Mr. Kong's mission is to promote dialogue between India and Pakistan by persuading both sides to exercise flexibility.
India has made it plain that it would start a dialogue only if Pakistan takes visible and verifiable steps to eliminate terrorism that targets India from its soil.

Immigration from India is Unpopular in the U.K.

A new research in the U.K. has found that Britons don't want higher levels of immigration from India and many other non-EU countries even if it comes at the price of not securing a free trade agreement.
Only higher levels of immigration from the U.S., Canada and Australia would be tolerated in exchange for trade arrangements, polling carried out on behalf of the Henry Jackson Society, a neo-Conservative think tank, found.
The research points to one of the tensions at the heart of Brexit: while the British government pushes its vision of a global Britain, reaching out beyond Europe, with public opinion stacked against immigration from beyond the EU as well as from within it, the government could struggle to reach deals to boost trade with these nations.

Mar 06, 2019

NSA Surveillance Programme to Be Shut

The National Security Agency has quietly shut down a system that analyses logs of Americans' domestic calls and texts, halting a programme that has touched off disputes about privacy and the rule of law since the September 11 attacks.
The agency has not used the system in months, and the Donald Trump administration might not ask Congress to renew its legal authority, which is set to expire at the end of 2019.
President George W. Bush's administration started the programme as part of its intense pursuit for al-Qaeda conspirators in the weeks after the 2001 terrorist attacks, and a court later secretly blessed it.
Intelligence contractor Edward Snowden disclosed the programme's existence in 2013.

Mar 05, 2019

China and U.S. close to Reaching Deal

The Trump administration is close to a trade deal with China that would roll back tariffs on both sides of the Pacific but may do little to achieve the substantive changes to China's economy that the U.S. initially set out to win.
Significant details remain unsettled and the deal is still being discussed but so far, the two sides have agreed on a pact that would largely require Beijing to make big purchases of U.S. agricultural and energy goods and to lower some barriers that prevent U.S. companies from operating in China.

Congress Set to Overturn Trump's Emergency

U.S. President Donald Trump's national emergency to build a border wall with Mexico could be overturned by Congress with Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, saying that he would vote in favour of a resolution passed by the House and now being considered by the Senate.
Three Republicans Senators, Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina), have already said they will vote to overturn the emergency.
Assuming that none of the 47 Senate Democrats (includes independents who vote with Democrats) defect, Mr. Paul's vote will provide the required simple majority of 51 to get the resolution through.

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