INTERNATIONAL JUNE 2013

INTERNATIONAL JUNE 2013

• The United States Senate on 27 June passed a landmark immigration bill that will adversely affect India in at least two ways. It will deal a body blow to Indian IT services firms using the guest worker visa (H1B program) to win contracts in the US as it legislates higher fees and salaries, robbing Indian companies of their competitive edge. The bill will also pave way for fast-track permanent residency (Green Card) for foreign students who graduate in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) subjects, which may be good news for those seeking to buy their way into American residency through the education route, but will leach elite Indian talent.
  
• Compounding this, separately, Washington is also gradually setting up other barriers against transfer of capital and knowledge, undermining the long-held argument in New Delhi that brain drain has its benefits for India. The Senate bill actually increases the H1-B visa cap from the current 85,000 to 1,95,000 but to placate opponents of the guest worker program, the bill has provisions to penalize companies that are primarily dependent on these visas, which happen to be the Indian IT majors such as Infosys, Wipro, TCS etc.
  
• The US lawmakers have primarily attempted to shield the American economy and its job creation by shutting the doors on from low-cost competition from them, while opening the doors to some 11 million illegal immigrants - mostly of Hispanic stock - who constitute a huge vote block.
  
• Negotiators at a United Nations-backed forum in Marrakesh on 27 June adopted a landmark copyright treaty to enhance access to books for millions of people who are blind or visually impaired. The treaty, approved after more than a week of intense debate among negotiators meeting under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is the culmination of years of work on improving access for the blind, visually impaired, and print-disabled persons to published works in formats such as Braille, large print text and audio books.
  
• “This treaty is a victory for the blind, visually impaired and print disabled, but also for the multilateral system,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 31.4 crore blind and visually impaired persons in the world, 90 per cent of whom live in developing countries.
  
• The treaty, called the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled, requires parties to adopt national law provisions that permit the reproduction, distribution and making available published works in accessible formats without having to seek permission from copyright holders in each case. The treaty also ensures authors and publishers that the system will not expose their published works to misuse or distribution to anyone other than the intended beneficiaries.
  
• On June 25, President Obama laid out his three-part plan to address climate change during a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Scientific measurements accumulated and reviewed over decades tell us our plant is changing in ways that will have profound impacts on all of human kind, he said. “The 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15 years,” Obama said.
  
• “Last year temperatures in some areas of the ocean reached record highs, and ice in the Arctic shrank to its smallest size on record, faster than most models had predicted it would. These are facts. Now, we know that no single weather event is caused solely by climate change. Droughts and fires and floods, they go back to ancient times, but we also know that in a world that is warmer than it used to be. All weather events are affected by a warming planet.”
  
• During his speech, Obama also noted that 97 percent of scientists—including some that have previously disputed climate change data—have now acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it. “The question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it is too late,” he continued. “How we answer will have a profound impact of the world we leave behind. “The first part of the three-part plan includes actions directed at cutting carbon pollution in America. The second component of the president’s action plan aims to prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, while the third calls for our nation to leads global efforts to address climate change.
  
• Thirty ninth G8 Summit was held at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland from 17-18 June 2013. The two-day summit was presided over by the David Cameron, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom.
  
• The two-day summit was attended by the leaders from G8 Nations namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the USA and UK. Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, and Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council also were a part of the meet.
  
• The Lough Erne Declaration from the G8 Summit 2013 sets out agreed principles for the future. The declaration focused on private enterprises which would drive growth, help in reduction of poverty and creation of jobs and prosperity for people around the world. It also sets out that governments have a special responsibility to make proper rules and promote good governance.
  
• In addition, fair taxes, increased transparency and open trade are vital drivers of this. The UK assumed the one-year Presidency of the G8 in January 2013 and thus David Cameron, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom was the presiding leader of the 39th Summit.
  
• Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister, on 26 June, had to step down from position as she last intra-party election to her long-standing rival Kevin Rudd. She was voted down to give Rudd the party premiership ahead of the forthcoming general election.
  
• The meeting, summoned at just a few hours’ notice, was the climax to months of in-fighting as Labour MPs faced up to the near-certainty of their party’s defeat in an election which Ms Gillard had declared would be held in September, Gillard, 51, who hails Wales and migrated to Australia had been at the centre of a long-running “gender war” in which she endured persistent mockery. She said that she would retire from politics and would not contest in the coming elections, which was the condition for the loser of the intra-party poll. She believed that she had suffered from the continuing sexist furore surrounding her leadership. “It has not been an easy environment to work in,” she said.
  
• Croatia has become the 28th member of the European Union, with crowds joining celebrations in the capital Zagreb. The membership became effective at midnight of 30 June, with President Ivo Josipovic describing the event as historic. It comes almost two decades after Croatia's brutal war of independence. But Analysts say enthusiasm for the EU in the country has been dampened by the euro zone crisis, and Croatia's own economic problems.
  
• Italy has ratified Istanbul Convention which aims to combat violence against women. The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) was opened for signature on May 11, 2011, in Istanbul, Turkey. The convention aims at prevention of violence, victim protection and “to end with the impunity of perpetrators”. It has been signed by 29 countries and on 12 March 2012 Turkey became the first country to ratify the Convention, followed by three countries in 2013 (Albania, Montenegro, Portugal).
  
• World Bank will provide $255 million (Rs 1,499.6 crore) loan to India for National AIDS Control Project to promote safe behavior among high risk groups. The closing date of NACP IV is September 30, 2017, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on 17 June. An agreement for loan of USD 255 million (equivalent) from World Bank for the 'National AIDS Control Project (NACP-IV)' was signed in New Delhi on 17 June, between India and the World Bank, it said. The Ministry said: "The objective of the project is to increase safe behaviors among high risk groups in order to contribute to India's national goal of reversal of the HIV epidemic by 2017."The project aims at scaling-up targeted prevention interventions, behavior change communications and institutional strengthening at the national, state and district levels.
  
• The World Heritage Committee of UNESCO decided on 20 June, to inscribe Mount Fuji on the U.N. agency’s prestigious World Heritage list. The 3,776-meter volcano straddling Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures was approved by the 21-member panel of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization during its 37th session in Cambodia’s capital. Japan’s highest and most celebrated peak was designated a “cultural” rather than “natural” site and registered under the title “Mt. Fuji: Object of Worship, Wellspring of Art.”It is Japan’s 17th site to make the list and the first since the historic Hiraizumi area in Iwate Prefecture and the Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific won approval in 2011.Fuji spans roughly 70,000 hectares, including Sengen Shrine at its foot, five major lakes, the Shiraito Falls and the Miho-no-Matsubara pine grove.
  
• Mali’s government has signed a peace deal with Tuareg rebels on 19 June, to help pave the way for elections next month. The planned elections on 28 July, will be the first in Mali since the military staged a coup in 2012, accusing the government of failing to end the conflict in the north. The deal was reached after nearly two weeks of talks brokered by Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore in the Burkina capital, Ouagadougou.The accord calls for an immediate ceasefire and for government troops to return to the last rebel-held northern town of Kidal. The rebels captured Kidal after a French-led offensive forced militant Islamists out of the town in January. The Tuaregs have been fighting for autonomy in the north since Mali gained independence from France in 1960. They say they are marginalized by the government in the capital, Bamako.
  
• Foreign ministers of the Friends of Syria group, who are meeting in Qatar on 22 June, have agreed to provide urgent support to rebels who are fighting President Bashar al-Assad. Qatar's PM Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani said "providing arms may be the only means of achieving peace". The group also condemned the Syrian government for its use of Iranian and Hezbollah fighters. More than 90,000 people have died in more than two years of conflict. The Syrian government says it is fighting foreign-backed "terrorists". The Friends of Syria group includes the US, Britain, France and Germany as well as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan. Hezbollah is a proxy for Iran... Hezbollah in addition to that is a terrorist organization. That is a very, very dangerous development “said, John Kerry US Secretary of State. Support would be channeled through the Western-backed rebel military command.The group also called on the immediate withdrawal of Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian fighters from Syria.The meeting in Qatar's capital, Doha, comes a week after the US announced it would provide Syrian rebels with "direct military aid". That decision followed what the US said was evidence of small-scale chemical weapon attacks by the government. The Friends of Syria group was set up in response to moves by Russia and China to block UN resolutions on Syria. 

• The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is a United Nations observance each June 17. Its purpose is to highlight ways to prevent desertification and recover from drought. Each annual celebration has a different theme. This year’s slogan, "Don’t let our future dry up" calls for everyone to take action to promote preparedness and resilience to water scarcity, desertification and drought. The World Day to Combat Desertification has been observed since 1995 to promote public awareness relating to international cooperation to combat desertification and the effects of drought. The goal of the 2013 World Day to Combat Desertification is to create awareness about the risks of drought and water scarcity in the dry lands and beyond, calling attention to the importance of sustaining healthy soils as part of post Rio+20 agenda, as well as the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. In 1994, the United Nations General Assembly declared June 17 the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought to promote public awareness of the issue, and the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in those countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa.
  
• Moderate cleric Hassan Rohani won Iran’s presidential election on 15 June, the interior ministry said, scoring a surprising landslide victory over conservative hardliners without the need for a second round run-off. Rohani’s resounding election mandate could provide latitude for a diplomatic thaw with the West and more social freedoms at home after eight years of belligerence and repression under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was legally barred from seeking a third consecutive term. Rohani will take up the presidency, the highest elected office in Iran’s hybrid clerical-republican system, in August. Though an establishment figure, Rohani is a former chief nuclear negotiator known for his nuanced, conciliatory approach. He has pledged to promote a policy of “constructive interaction with the world”, but no surrender to Western demands for a nuclear suspension, and enact a domestic “civil rights charter”. Rohani could act as a bridge-builder between hardliners around Khamenei who reject any accommodation with the West and reformers marginalized for the last four years who argue that the Islamic Republic needs to be more pragmatic in its relations with the world and modernize at home in order to survive. His wide margin of victory revealed a widespread reservoir of reform sentiment with many voters, undaunted by restrictions on candidate choice and campaign rallies, seizing the chance to rebuke the unelected power elite over Iran’s economic miseries, international isolation and crackdowns on secular lifestyles. In an apparent move to convey political continuity to both domestic and foreign audiences, Khamenei congratulated both the people of Iran for the high turnout in the polls and Rohani for his electoral success.
  
• Greece faced a new political crisis on 12 June, as the government was hit with a storm of public protest and a looming general strike over its shock decision to shut down state broadcaster ERT. The broadcaster's television and radio stations were abruptly pulled off air from 12 June and its nearly 2,700 staff suspended as part of the conservative-led coalition government’s deeply unpopular austerity drive. The administration quickly presented legislation creating a new broadcaster called New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television (NERIT) to replace the 60-year-old ERT. Greece is caught in a six-year recession which austerity critics say has been exacerbated by successive pay and pension cuts imposed at the behest of its EU-IMF creditors.
  
• A bridge opened on 14 June, between Bulgaria and Romania, the second on the 500-km stretch of the Danube River that forms the border between the Balkan neighbors, is touted as a key to boosting growth in one of Europe’s poorest regions. It is part of the Pan-European corridor IV, linking Dresden in Germany with the Aegean port city of Thessaloniki and Istanbul further east. The cable—stayed, steel and concrete bridge has two traffic lanes in each direction, a railway line, two pedestrian paths and a bicycle track. The only other bridge between the two countries was completed in 1954.
  
• World Day against Child Labour was celebrated on 12 June 2013. The theme this year was, “No to Child Labour in Domestic Work”.According to International Labour Organization, ILO, throughout the world, there are around 215 million children who work, many of them, full-time. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates 10.5 million children around the world are working as domestic workers in hazardous, sometimes slave-like conditions. The ILO report finds 6.5 million of the 10.5 million child domestic laborers are aged between five and 14 years. More than 70 percent are girls. The United Nation’s action plan has proposed that the ILO and its member states continue to pursue the goal of effective abolition of child labour by committing themselves to eliminate all its worst forms by 2016. The International Labour Organization (ILO) launched the World Day against Child Labour in 2002 to focus attention on the global extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. Each year on 12 June, the World Day brings together governments, employers and workers organizations, civil society, as well as millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child labourers and what can be done to help them.
  
• Dubai in the first week of June 2013 inaugurated the tallest twisted tower of the world called Cayan Tower at the cost of 272 million US dollar. Earlier it was called the Infinity Tower. It was inaugurated in Dubai Marina. With this, Dubai created yet another record of engineering marvels as well as skyscrapers. Cayan Tower is 310 metre or 1017 foot tall residential tower. It is 75 storey building which is twisted at 90 degrees from the top most position to the bottom most position.The developer of this tower is Cayan Real Estate Investment and Development Company.Construction of this tower started in 2006, but then it was delayed.The Cayan Tower has been designed by the masterminds of Burj Khalifa - Chicago-based Skidmore Owings and Merrill. Burj Khalifa is the tallest tower of the world with a height of 2717 foot. It broke all architectural and engineering records when it was inaugurated in January 2010. The Guinness World Records in May 2012 declared Princess Tower (the 1356 foot tower) of Dubai as the tallest residential building of the world. Also, in 2012, the tallest hotel of the world- JW Marriott Marquis Dubai was inaugurated.
  
• John William Ashe, the ambassador to the United Nations for Antigua and Barbuda in the month of June 2013 selected as the President of UN General Assembly for its 68th session.With his appointment, John Ashe stressed the importance of reflecting on new and emerging development challenges, with attention to two main goals: overcoming poverty and ensuring sustainable development. Also the New and revised partnerships are of vital importance in integrating economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly is going to open in September 2013.
  
• Norway will soon become the only country in Europe to extend its military conscription to women in peacetime, after Parliament reached agreement on the issue on 14 June. All the parties represented in Parliament, with the exception of the small Christian Democrat party, agreed to back a proposal by the centre-left government for a “gender neutral” military conscription. Norway’s mandatory one-year military service will be extended to women, probably as of 2015, according to the Defence Ministry’s proposal. A number of other European countries have gone in the opposite direction in recent years, moving away from conscription towards professional armies. Norway’s Parliament is expected to adopt the bill by a broad majority, but a date has yet to be set for the vote. It is not due to a lack of conscripts: only 8,000 to 10,000 Norwegians are called up each year, among the some 60,000 who are theoretically eligible. Norwegian women have been allowed to do military service on a volunteer basis since 1976. Even before the adoption of a “gender neutral” military service, the Defence Ministry had set a target of 20 per cent women in the armed forces by 2020.Outside of Europe; some countries such as Israel require both men and women to complete their military service.
  
• The United States of America on 14 June 2013 announced to supply military aid directly to the Syrian rebels. The President Barack Obama made the decision, after his administration concluded that the Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad were using Chemical Weapons. For the first time, US have made such an announcement. The US intelligence has suggested that about 150 people have been killed by due to the small number of chemical attacks in Syria. The decision to give direct military support to the Syrian rebels came up after President Obama’s discussions with the European leaders over the Syrian conflict. The decision to arm the Syrian rebels by US Government has been opposed by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. On the other hand, Syria has claimed the US claim as fabricated information over chemical weapons for justifying its aid to the rebels of Syria.
  
• The Government of Pakistan on 14 June 2013 decided to declare Panja Sahib as a holy city. The government will initiate steps for sorting out the issues related to the welfare of the Sikhs, who live at the pilgrimage site. It is believed that Panja Sahib is the house of a rock that has the handprint of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikh religion. This is a popular Sikh pilgrimage across the world. Panja Sahib is located near Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
  
• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on 13 June, that companies cannot patent parts of naturally-occurring human genes, a decision with the potential to profoundly affect the emerging and lucrative medical and biotechnology industries. The court’s unanimous judgment reverses three decades of patent awards by government officials. It throws out patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc. on an increasingly popular breast cancer test brought into the public eye recently by actor Angelina Jolie’s disclosure that she had a double mastectomy because of one of the genes involved in this case. Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the court’s decision, said that Myriad’s assertion that the DNA it isolated from the body for its proprietary breast and ovarian cancer tests were patentable had to be dismissed because it violates patent rules. The court has said that laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable. The company has used its patent to come up with its BRAC Analysis test, which looks for mutations on the breast cancer predisposition gene, or BRCA. Those mutations are associated with much greater risks of breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad sells the only BRCA gene test. Opponents of its patents say the company can use the patents to keep other researchers from working with the BRCA gene to develop other tests. Ms. Jolie revealed last month that she carries a defective BRCA1 gene and her doctor said the test that turned up the faulty gene link led Ms. Jolie to have both of her healthy breasts removed. Companies have billions of dollars of investment and years of research on the line in this case. Their advocates argue that without the ability to recoup their investment through the profits that patents bring, breakthrough scientific discoveries to combat all kinds of medical maladies wouldn’t happen. The court did rule that synthetically created DNA, known as cDNA, can be patented “because it is not naturally occurring”, said Mr. Justice Thomas.
  
• A German official source said on 13 June that the country plans to create an €8 billion ($10.6 billion) emergency fund to pay for damage caused by recent flooding. The Elbe, the Danube and other rivers overflowed their banks following persistent heavy rain, causing extensive damage over the past two weeks in southern and northeastern Germany. Fitch Ratings earlier this week estimated that the cost of damage in Germany would total about €12 billion.
  
• India will surpass China to become world's most populous nation around 2028, with its population crossing the 1.45 billion mark, according to latest report by the United Nations. The report named “World Population Prospects” says the world's population will hit 7.2 billion mark next month and is projected to reach 10.9 billion by 2100, with the growth mainly occurring in developing countries, with more than half in Africa. But, with the number of future global dwellers linked to fertility, the number at the end of the century could be as high 16.6 billion or even fall to 6.8 billion, it adds.
  
• The report says India is expected to become the world's most populous country, overtaking present China’s position around 2028, when both countries will have populations of 1.45 billion each. After that, India's population will continue to grow and that of China is expected to start dwindle.
  
• India ranks 141st out of 162 in this year’s (2013) Global Peace Index (GPI). Iceland tops the list and Afganistan ranks at bottom.The major indicators that bring down India’s ranking are militarization, domestic and international conflicts, and corruption. According to the 2013 GPI, key drivers in making the world a less peaceful place are: rise in the number of homicides and countries increasing their military expenditure as a percentage of GDP.110 countries have seen their score deteriorate while only 48 became more peaceful, The GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace. The list was launched first in May 2007, then continued yearly. It is claimed to be the first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness. It gauges ongoing domestic and international conflict, safety and security in society, and militarization in 162 countries by taking into account 22 separate indicators. IEP is an international think tank dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress.
  
• The notion of “historic” links between India and Britain may have acquired a whole new meaning following claims that Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge and the second line to the British throne, has Indian lineage. A British genetics expert has claimed that Prince William’s “great-great-great-great-great grandmother”, Eliza Kewark, who was until now thought to be an Armenian may have been “half-Indian”. It is said to be based on a DNA test of saliva samples taken from his relatives.
  
• Nawaz Sharif, elected Pakistan’s Prime Minister to an unprecedented third term, took office on 5 May. Speaking to Parliament after he was elected, Mr. Sharif (63) says, “I will do my best to change the fate of the people and Pakistan”. He had received 244 votes in the 342-seat Parliament and was sworn in by President Asif Ali Zardari. Mr. Sharif emphasized that fixing the economy was his top priority. He listed the problems facing Pakistan, including nonperforming assets, unemployment, disillusioned youth, extremism, lawlessness, and widespread corruption. Over the last five years of the previous administration, power outages — some as long as 20 hours — have plagued the country.
  
• Malnutrition is responsible for nearly 45 % of deaths in children under-five, according to new research report published as part of the Lancet Series on maternal and child nutrition. The research shows that malnutrition is responsible for the death of around 3.1 million children under five annually. Results estimate that stunting (retard growth of body) affected at least 165 million children worldwide in 2011 while at least 52 million children were affected by wasting (low weight for height), and another 100 million children were underweight.
  
• Over 90 per cent of these children were in Asia or Africa, with Africa the only major world region where the number of children with stunting increased. A study based on a survey of the height and weight of more than one lakh children across six States in India last year had found that as many as 42 per cent of under-fives were severely or moderately underweight and that 59 per cent of them suffered from moderate to severe stunting. The findings — contained in the Hunger and Malnutrition Report by the Naandi Foundation— were described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a “national shame.”
  
• Under nutrition affects development of a child, with consequences ranging from poorer school performance to increased susceptibility to infectious disease. The authors, led by Professor Robert Black of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA, performed a comprehensive new analysis of the different causes of maternal and childhood malnutrition to arrive at these conclusions.
  
• Studies were done on breastfeeding practices and deficiencies of vitamins and minerals such as vitamin A, zinc, iron and calcium. They also analyzed the consequences of malnutrition, including stunting, wasting and underweight (low weight for age), all of which result in increased risk of death and illness for both pregnant women and children. Deficiencies of vitamin A and zinc result in deaths; deficiencies of iodine and iron, together with stunting, can contribute to children not reaching their developmental potential. The Lancet reports that under nutrition reduces a nation’s economic advancement by at least eight per cent because of direct productivity losses, losses via poorer cognition and losses via reduced schooling.
  
• The U.N.’s food agency has said obesity and poor nutrition weigh heavily on the global economy and told governments that investing in food health would bring big economic as well as social returns. Lost productivity and spiraling health care bills linked to obesity cost the world economy around $1.4 trillion a year, said the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Improving nutrition would boost earnings, “with a benefit-to-cost ratio of almost 13 to 1”, it said, adding that some 1.4 billion people in the world are now overweight and a third of them are obese. The FAO underlined that while there had been some progress in reducing hunger rates around the world, the problem of improving nutrition was still treated as a low priority by many countries.
  
• In its yearly report, the Rome-based agency found 12.5 per cent of the world’s population — or 868 million people — are still undernourished, while 26 per cent of children are stunted by malnutrition. A rapid rise in obesity is being seen in the associated costs in low- and middle-income countries, it said, pointing out that the highest obesity rates in the world were now in Mexico.FAO said rising urbanization, sedentary lifestyles and the increased availability of packaged foods meant policy-makers faced significant challenges in bettering nutrition and reversing obesity. The costs of under nutrition are estimated at two-three percent of global GDP, equivalent to $1.4 to $2.1 trillion per year, the FAO said. The agency urged global leaders to enhance nutrition — in part through agricultural policies — and promote behavioral change through education.
  
• The United States on 6 June, exempted India and eight other countries from having to adhere to its sanctions on importing oil from Iran, noting that these nations had significantly reduced their dependence on Iranian oil in the last six months. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said India, China, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Taiwan had qualified for being granted an exemption from rules under America’s Iran Sanctions Act, based on additional significant reductions in the volume of their crude oil purchases from the middle-eastern nation and for having reduced such purchases to zero and maintained it. Reiterating the U.S.’s stand against the Iranian nuclear programme, Mr. Kerry said the international community stood shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. in maintaining pressure on Iran till it fully addressed prevailing concerns “Today’s determination is another example of the international community’s strong and steady commitment to convince Iran to meet its international obligations,” he said.
  
• China has, for the first time, attempted to spell out its strategy — and plans — to secure its interests in the Indian Ocean in its first “blue book” on the region, released in Kunming on 8 June. The blue book makes a case for China to deepen its economic engagements with the Indian Ocean Region’s (IOR) littoral states, but stresses that Beijing’s interests will be driven by commercial — rather than military — objectives. However, it warns that the Indian Ocean could end up “as an ocean of conflict and trouble” if countries like India, the U.S. and China failed to engage with one another more constructively as their interests begin to overlap. In a frank assessment of China’s role in the IOR so far, the book laments that Beijing has trailed behind New Delhi and Washington in securing its interests. The 350-page book’s introduction says candidly that China “has no Indian Ocean strategy,” while India has put forward its own “Look East” policy and the U.S. has put in place its “pivot” or “rebalancing” in Asia. The book calls for China to be more proactive in securing its economic interests in the region. Official Chinese think tanks release “blue books,” which are policy documents that put forward recommendations to the government, on a range of subjects every year. The authors of the book, published by the official Social Sciences Academic Press, say it does not represent the government’s official position. The book was launched only two days after China opened its first South Asia Exposition, a trade push led by Yunnan and backed by the central government. The book includes chapters on India’s “Look East” policy, the expansion of India’s interest eastward in an interlinked “Indo-Pacific.” and lessons for China on “the decline of U.S. and U.K. hegemony” in the region.
  
• World leaders on 8 June in London, signed a global agreement to fight malnutrition in children and made commitments of up to USD 4.15 billion to tackle the global menace. The participants, who signed a Global Nutrition for Growth Compact, committed their countries and organizations to reduce the number of children under five who are stunted by an additional 20 million in developing countries like India by 2020. Stunting affects around 165 million children worldwide and nearly 50 per cent of children in India. The World Health Assembly recently agreed a new global target of a 40 per cent reduction in the number of stunted children by 2025. Hosted by Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, the central London summit saw the participation of two presidents and four prime ministers from Africa, philanthropist Bill Gates, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Unilever chief executive Paul Polman, the Guardian reported.
  
• Top secret documents obtained by The Guardian claimed that US National Security Agency (NSA) has obtained direct access to the systems of Facebook, Google, Apple and other US internet giants. All this was done under the secret program of US to search the data potentially linked with terrorism, espionage or nuclear proliferation. The US agency tapped into the central servers of different internet giants under the six-year old programme, code-named PRISM. Under this program, the FBI and NSA searched for the emails, videos, photographs, search history, the content of emails, file transfers, live chats and other documents. Existence of the program PRISM was confirmed by James Clapper, US Director of National Intelligence. As per Clapper, the information accessed under the programme is among the most valuable intelligence information collected by the agency and has been helpful in protecting US from a wide range of threats. The IT companies which were directly into surveillance of the US Agency were Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Face book, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple and all these companies denied the knowledge of surveillance despite the of the claims that the programme was assisted by them.
  
• Over 60 countries signed the Arms Trade Treaty on 3 June. The Arms Trade Treaty intended to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade. Signing the treaty will start the first crucial international campaign in order to curtail the illicit trade in weapons.
  
  The US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that US was the largest dealer of arms in the world and that it will sign the treaty soon, but the strength of the treaty was dependent on support by major arms importers and exporters.
  
  The Arms Trade Treaty was approved by the UN General Assembly on 2 April 2013. Signing of the treaty is first step of its ratification and it will take only be effective after ratification by 50 countries.
  
  The co-sponsors of the Arms Trade Treaty United Kingdom, Finland, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Kenya and Costa Rica announced at a conference on 3 June 2013 that on first day that the treaty was signed by a good number of countries.
  
• Bangladesh approved the draft law meant for the development of Hindu religious properties as well as for protection of these properties from land grab and encroachment on June 3rd. The Cabinet gave its final approval to the draft law.
  
  The Government decided to prepare a list of the Hindu charitable endowments also known as Devottar property. A management board will also be constituted once this law will be passed by the Parliament.
  
  A Hindu law expert Advocate Rana Dashgupta explained that since the British era, there is a law meant for protection as well as management of the Muslim Wakf sites. But no such laws have been designed for the Hindu sites. Over the past 10 years, thousands of land pieces of Hindu religious properties were encroached. Therefore, there have been increasing demands of the Hindus for curtailing the incidents of grabbing or encroachment of Devottar property.