General Awareness

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - October 2017

Oct 2017

Dec 13, 2022

Karen Bass Becomes First Black Woman to be Elected Los Angeles Mayor

Karen Ruth Bass, a former physician assistant who shattered glass ceilings with her rise to a leadership post in the California legislature and later a prominent spot in Congress, took a ceremonial oath of office as mayor of Los Angeles.
A progressive Democrat, Bass became the first woman and second black person to hold the city's top job and assumed her duties amid multiple crises in the nation's second most populous city.
She was sworn in ceremonially by Vice President Kamala Harris, a longtime friend and former California attorney general. The formal oath was administered privately by the city clerk.

US Prints First Banknotes with Women's Signatures

The Treasury (United States of America's Finance Ministry) printed the first US banknotes (currency notes) with two women's signatures. The new currency notes of $1 and $5 value carry the signature of the Secretary of Treasury (American Finance Minister) Janet Yellen and Lynn Malerba. The United States currency notes are popularly called as Greenback.
Lynn Malerba is Native American and is the chief of the Mohegan Tribe, who holds the position of Treasurer of the United States within the Department of Treasury, United States government.
Janet Yellen is a former chairman of the United States Central Bank, Federal Reserve of New York. She was the first female head of the Federal Reserve.

Two Indian-Americans in Money Magazine's Top 50 Change Makers

Two Indian-Americans were among Money magazine's 50 influential figures from entertainment, media, business, investing, politics, etc, who are shaping Americans' finances.
Rohit Chopra, head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Gaurav Sharma of New York-based fintech firm Capitalize, were recognised for offering "unique perspective on the gaps within the financial systems - and how they're working to improve the future for everyday consumers.
As the director of the government's CFPB, Chopra is tasked with protecting families from deceptive and abusive financial practices.
Appointed by US President Joe Biden in 2021, Chopra has already made an outsized impact on the wallets of Americans by helping overhaul how medical debt affects our credit, reduce 'junk fees' charged by banks, and more.
An Australian by birth, Gaurav Sharma is the CEO and Co-Founder of Capitalize -- a venture-backed fintech company in New York focused on the retirement savings market. Before founding Capitalize, Sharma worked for JP Morgan, UBS, Morgan Stanley, and Greenlight Capital.

Dec 12, 2022

President Xi Rocks the Arab World, Alarms QUAD and the West

The Middle-East leadership showed the mirror to the Joe Biden administration last week as Chinese President Xi Jinping was feted in Saudi Arabia with even arch-rival Qatari Emir Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani leaving the ongoing World Cup soccer festival in Doha to meet the Middle Kingdom emperor in Riyadh.
The four-day visit of President Xi Jinping to oil-rich Saudi Arabia with virtually every Middle-East ruler in attendance as part of the GCC and Arab summit at that time was a message to the US and its allies that China increasingly is the alternate pole in an unstable world. Clearly Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman show-cased President Xi's four-day visit to the oil-rich kingdom as a comeback to his testy relationship with US President Joe Biden over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The Islamic countries on their part ask no questions to China over the treatment of Sunni Muslims in the restive Xinjiang province.
The line-up to meet President Xi included Bahrain's King Hamad, Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamin, Fujairah, UAE ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammed, Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sheikh Meshal Al Sabah and Deputy Prime Minister of Oman Sayyid Fahd Al Said for the China-GCC summit. Other middle-east leaders who joined for the China-Arab summit were: Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El Sisi, Sudan Sovereign Council head Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al Sudani. The message from Saudi Arabia was that the world's biggest oil exporter was the leader of the Sunni Muslim world and had the support of the world's largest oil importer China and the two were more than willing to do business as a first step towards future military cooperation.

Hurun Global 500 Rankings: India Ranks 5th in the List of Valuable Companies

India, with 20 of the most valuable companies in the world, moved into the fifth position among countries that are home to the world's top 500 firms. Last year, it ranked ninth with eight companies. The US continued to top the chart, according to the 2022 Hurun Global 500 list. The list, released by the Hurun Research Institute, is a compilation of the 500 most valuable non-state-controlled companies in the world. Companies were ranked according to their market capitalisation (for listed companies) and valuations for non-listed companies.

Indian-origin Nihar Malaviya is Interim CEO of Penguin Random House

Nihar Malaviya, an Indian-origin publishing executive, was named interim CEO of New York-based international publishing group Penguin Random House after its current Chief Executive Officer Markus Dohle announced he was stepping down from the role.
Malaviya, who has been President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the publisher's American division Penguin Random House US since 2019, will assume the role of Interim CEO of Penguin Random House starting January 1, 2023.

Pakistan Ranks Atop List of 82 Nations most Influenced by China

According to reports from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a new study that measures Beijing's expanding global sway revealed that Pakistan is the country in the world which is most influenced by China.
The China Index, a database re-launched by DoubleThink Labs, a Taiwan-based research organisation ranked Pakistan atop a list of 82 other nations around the world and said that its links and dependency on China with regard to foreign and domestic policy, technology, and the economy make it particularly susceptible to Chinese influence.
Following Pakistan, Cambodia and Singapore are listed at the second spot while Thailand at third position, as per the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) report. The Philippines is listed at the seventh spot while Malaysia lies in the 10th position. South Africa and Peru are tied at the fifth spot on the index.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are at the eighth and ninth spots on the index. These two countries share a border with China's Xinjiang Province and are the Central Asian countries most influenced by Beijing.

Dec 11, 2022

Pakistani Passport Ranks 4th Lowest in World

Pakistan was ranked 94th, sharing the slot with Somalia, in terms of passport strength while the UAE topped the list of the world's most powerful ones.
According to the list issued by Arton Capital, a Pakistani passport mandates travel to only 44 countries without a visa.
Below Pakistan were Iraq (ranked 95th), Syria (96th) and Afghanistan (97th).
In comparison, the passports of Yemen (93rd), Bangladesh (92nd), North Korea, Libya and Palestine (91st) and Iran (90th) were declared more powerful than that of Pakistan.
However, the passport of the UAE has been declared the most powerful across the world.
UAE nationals can travel to 180 countries without a visa.
Citizens of countries, including the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and others do not require a visa to visit 173 countries.
Pakistan was the lowest ranked country among South Asian countries.

Dec 10, 2022

Nirmala Sitharaman, 5 other Indians among World's 100 Most Powerful Women

Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women is a list collated by assessing the contributions and reach of women from around the world. The list featured six Indian women this year (2022), including the Finance Minister of the country.
The Indian women noted by Forbes include Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, HCLTech Chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra, Securities and Exchange Board Of India (SEBI) Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch, Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar, and Steel Authority Of India Chairperson Soma Mondal.
Ranked at the 36th position, Sitharaman made it to the list for the fourth time after marking her spot consistently since 2019. She was appointed as India's Finance Minister in May 2019, and in the same year, she was ranked as one of the world's most powerful women. Before stepping into the ministerial shoes, she was known to have handled important roles at the UK-based Agricultural Engineers Association, BBC World Service, and the National Commission for Women.

Sushmita Shukla, Indian-origin First Vice President of New York Fed

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York appointed Indian-origin Sushmita Shukla as its First Vice President, and Chief Operating Officer (COO), making the insurance industry veteran its highest-ranked official after President and CEO, John C Williams.
She has served in leadership roles in the insurance industry. In a career spanning more than twenty years, she has primarily led operations, technology, and enterprise-wide transformation efforts.
Since January 2018, she has been working with Chubb, which is based in New York, and is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. She is its Senior Vice President, and Chief Operations Officer (International Accident and Health).

Dec 09, 2022

Peru Gets its First Female President after Pedro Castillo is Impeached

The South American country, Peru, saw a significant political upheaval. Pedro Castillo was impeached and arrested and Dina Boluarte, became the country's first female President. For the markets, the crisis in Peru may be important because it makes for nearly 15% of the world's copper exports as per 2020 data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The latest political crisis in Peru is a continuation of a series of events that have led to four Presidents since 2020. Castillo, a left-wing former school teacher, was elected in June 2021 and since then, he's mired in charges of corruption. He has survived two impeachment proceedings in the last 18 months and a third one was due when he decided to make a dramatic move.
Earlier this month Castillo declared a state of emergency in Peru, and that the Congress, which is controlled by his rivals, will be dissolved. Many of his own ministers resigned in protest. The sequence of events that followed ended in Castillo's ouster and Boluarte taking over as the country's President.

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