General Awareness

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - August 2018

Aug 2018

Feb 28, 2021

Australia First in Asia-Pacific Region to Lift Ban on Boeing 737 MAX

Australia's aviation regulator said on Friday it would lift a near two-year ban on flights to and from the country that use the Boeing Co 737 MAX aircraft, making it the first nation in the Asia-Pacific region to do so.
The regulator has accepted the comprehensive return-to-service requirements set by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as state of design for the 737 MAX.
No Australian airlines operate the 737 MAX, but Fiji Airways and Singapore Airlines Ltd operated them on flights with Australia before the craft were grounded in March 2019 after two deadly crashes.
Fiji Airways and Singapore Airlines, which will also need to receive approvals to fly from their national aviation regulators, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Xi Jinping Declares Complete Victory in Eradicating Poverty in China

President Xi Jinping declared that China has scored a complete victory in its fight against poverty by lifting over 770 million people out of it in the last four decades, calling it another miracle created by the country that will go down in history.
China has a population of around 1.4 billion. With this, China has achieved the U.N. goal of poverty eradication 10 years ahead of the 2030 deadline.

Yellen Supports New Allocation of IMF's SDR Currency

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen threw her support behind a new allocation of the IMF's own currency, or Special Drawing Rights (SDR), but said that broad parameters were needed to boost transparency on how the reserves are used and traded.
Reversing the opposition of the Trump administration, Yellen told G20 finance officials in a letter that a new SDR allocation could boost liquidity for poor countries, which have been particularly hard hit by the global coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S. Treasury chief gave no specific size for possible allocation of SDRs, which can be converted to hard currency by IMF members. Italy, which holds the presidency of the G20 this year, and other members of the group of rich and emerging economies have backed a $500 billion allocation, but the United States had been guarded about its view until now.

Feb 27, 2021

France Extends Operational Lifetime of Its Oldest Nuclear Reactors

France's nuclear safety authority agreed to extend the operational lifetime of the country's 32 oldest nuclear reactors by a decade to as much as 50 years.
The public electricity company that operates the nuclear plants, EDF, is in charge of ensuring the safety of the reactors, which had previously been intended to run for 40 years.

Pakistan to Stay on FATF Grey List

Indicating the status quo of being on FATF's 'grey list', the global body against money laundering and terror financing said that Pakistan will remain on the increased monitoring list as there are serious deficiencies in checking terror financing and the country lacks an effective system to deal with it.
After its meeting, Marcus Pleyer, president of Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), said that the deadline given to Pakistan has already expired and asked Islamabad to address their concerns as quickly as possible.
To date, Pakistan has made progress across all action plan items and has now largely addressed 24 of the 27 action items. As all action plan deadlines have expired.
There is serious deficiency on the part of Pakistan in checking terror financing and the country is yet to demonstrate taking action against the UN designated terrorists and their associates.

Biden Approves US Airstrike on Iran-backed Militias in Syria

The US military has carried out an airstrike targeting Iran-backed militias in Syria, the Pentagon says.
The attack destroyed "multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups", it said.
President Joe Biden approved the action in response to recent attacks against US and coalition personnel in Iraq.
A civilian contractor was killed in a rocket attack on US targets in Iraq earlier this month.
A US service member and five other contractors were injured when the rockets hit sites in Irbil, including a base used by the US-led coalition.
Rockets have also struck US bases in Baghdad, including the Green Zone which houses the US embassy and other diplomatic missions.

Feb 26, 2021

Australia Passes Landmark Law Requiring Tech Firms to Pay for News

Australia's parliament passed landmark legislation requiring global digital giants to pay for local news content, in a move closely watched around the world.
The law passed easily after a last-gasp deal that watered-down binding rules Facebook and Google had fiercely opposed in return for the tech giants agreeing to pay local media companies.
The new law paves the way for Google and Facebook to invest tens of millions of dollars in local content deals, and could prove a model for resolving the firms' tussles with regulators worldwide.
Google will now pay for news content that appears on its "Showcase" product and Facebook is expected to pay providers who appear on its "News" product, which is to be rolled out in Australia later this year.

Oli Refuses to Quit as PM, Prachanda Seeks Consensus Candidate

Nepal Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli has signalled that he has no intention of resigning his post, a day after the country's Supreme Court reversed his decision to dissolve Parliament.
Instead, Oli mocked his opponents, Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' and Madhav Kumar Nepal who jointly head a rival faction of the ruling Nepal Communist Party, for distributing sweets after the court verdict.
His rivals have, however, already begun exploring the formation of an alternative government, assuming that Oli's exit is unavoidable.
Prachanda and Madhav Nepal had a meeting with Sher Bahadur Deuba, chairman of the Nepali Congress party and leader of the Opposition, with a proposal to form the government jointly.

Jasmine Harrison from UK Becomes Youngest Woman to Row Atlantic Ocean

A British woman, Jasmine Harrison of England has become the youngest woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. The 21-year-old from Thirsk, North Yorkshire in the UK, achieved the feat by finishing top in the 2020 Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, organized by Atlantic Campaigns.
Harrison, who is a swim instructor and bartender by profession, travelled 3,000 miles (4,828 km) across the Atlantic Ocean in 70 days, 3 hours and 48 minutes. Harrison began her journey in Spain's Canary Islands in December 2020, and arrived in Antigua in February 2021.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Appeals for Rejection of UN Rights Body Resolution

A top Sri Lankan minister has made a fervent appeal to the member states of the UNHRC to reject the impending resolution on the island nation's human rights accountability and reconciliation, terming it a "pure political move" against the country.
Addressing a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session virtually, Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena urged that the resolution be rejected by the council and brought to a closure.
The minister described the impending resolution as unsubstantiated and a pure political move against Sri Lanka.
Gunawardena's remarks followed the country's rejection of the UN rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet's report which had called for drastic measures such as targeted sanctions and international criminal court procedure against those allegedly responsible for rights violations during the last phase of the armed conflict with the LTTE in 2009.

Feb 25, 2021

Iran Stops Sharing Nuclear Site Footage

Iran said that it would stop handing over footage of nuclear sites to the UN's nuclear watchdog in response to a US refusal so far to lift sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump.
Iran's move underlines the task facing US President Joe Biden as he tries to reverse Trump's decision to withdraw from a historic 2015 deal.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Tehran would stop the daily and weekly handover of recordings.
Tehran's civilian nuclear agency the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has promised to preserve the tapes for three months.
The AEOI said that it would then hand the recordings over to the AEOI – but only if Iran is granted sanctions relief. Otherwise, the recordings will be deleted – narrowing the possibility of any diplomatic breakthrough.

FATF Commends Mauritius for Progress on Action Plan

Mauritius has provided clarifications to the queries posed by the assessors of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body which sets anti-money laundering standards.
The assessors commended the island nation for the sustained progress made in implementing the FATF action plan despite the pandemic. This has raised hopes that the country will be able to come out of the grey list sometime this year.
The observations were made during a virtual meeting held last month between Mauritius and the FATF African Middle East Joint Group.
The next FATF plenary session will be held this month during which the second progress report will be considered along with the report of the assessors.

Feb 24, 2021

Japan Appoints Minister of Loneliness

Japan has appointed a Minister of Loneliness to take try and reduce loneliness and social isolation among its residents.
The decision has been taken by the government as the country is now dealing with rising suicide rates.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, earlier this month, appointed Tetsushi Sakamoto as the Minister of Loneliness to tackle the rising suicide rates for the first time in 11 years.
Sakamoto is already a minister in charge of dealing with Japan's declining birthrate and promoting regional revitalisation, and will now also oversee government policies to deal with loneliness and isolation.

Nepal's Supreme Court Reinstates Dissolved House of Representatives

Nepal's Supreme Court reinstated the dissolved House of Representatives, in a setback to embattled Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli who was preparing for snap polls.
A five-member Constitution bench led by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JBR annulled the government's decision to dissolve the 275-member lower house of parliament and ordered the government to summon the House session within the next 13 days.
Nepal plunged into a political crisis on December 20 after President Bidya Dev Bhandari dissolved the House of Representatives at the recommendation of Prime Minister Oli, amidst a tussle for power within the ruling party.
As many as 13 writ petitions, including the one by the ruling Nepal Communist Party's Chief Whip Dev Prasad Gurung were filed at the apex court seeking the restoration of the lower house parliament.

Philippines Offers Nurses in Exchange for Vaccines from Britain and Germany

The Philippines will let thousands of its health-care workers, mostly nurses, take up jobs in Britain and Germany if the two countries agree to donate much-needed coronavirus vaccines.
The Philippines, which has among Asia's highest number of coronavirus cases, has relaxed a ban on deploying its health-care workers overseas but still limits the number of medical professionals leaving the country to 5,000 a year.
Alice Visperas, director of the labour ministry's international affairs bureau, said the Philippines was open to lifting the cap in exchange for vaccines from Britain and Germany, which it would use to inoculate outbound workers and hundreds of thousands of Filipino repatriates.

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