INTERNATIONAL MARCH 2014

INTERNATIONAL MARCH 2014

• A court in Egypt on 23rd March sentenced 528 supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to death. They were convicted of charges including murdering a policeman and attacks on people and property. The group is among some 1,200 Muslim Brotherhood supporters on trial, including senior members. Authorities have cracked down harshly on Islamists since Mr Morsi was removed by the military in July. Hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested. They are expected to appeal. The final trial session will not be held until 28 April, so there is some time left before the sentence is confirmed and there will be time to appeal in that period, says the sources in Cairo. The Muslim Brotherhood has denounced death sentences and U.S expressed shock and concern. The court in Minya, south of the capital, Cairo, issued its ruling after only two sessions in which the defendants' lawyers complained they had no chance to present their case. The attacks took place in August after security forces broke up two camps of pro-Morsi supporters in Cairo, killing hundreds of people. Mr Morsi was ousted by the military last July following mass street protests against his government. He is facing four separate trials. There has since been a severe crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood group, as well as on other activists seen as hostile to the military-backed interim government. The Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist organisation and authorities have punished any public show of support for it.
  
• The G8 group of top economic powers on 25th March, suspended Russia for annexing Crimea, and has threatened to impose far-reaching sanctions if Moscow continued its incursion into Ukraine. The U.S. and six other economic powers also scrapped the G8 summit to be hosted by Russia in Sochi in June to build pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. At an emergency summit in the Hague on 24 March, the leaders of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Japan also decided to convene in Brussels without Russia.
  
• The UN General Assembly on 27th March adopted a resolution declaring Crimea's breakaway referendum illegitimate and refusing to recognise Russia's annexation of the peninsula. The non-binding resolution passed with a majority in the 193-member body, with 100 votes in favour and 11 votes against. Ukraine, which drafted the resolution, had urged the international community to back the text, hoping an overwhelming show of support would ward off further Russian moves against it. Western diplomats wanted a strong majority vote to press home what they say is Russia's isolation, but there had been fears that a high number of countries would abstain. The resolution repeats that the March 16 referendum in Crimea has "no validity" and asks countries not to recognise any alteration of the status of the Black Sea peninsula. It calls on all states to refrain from any attempts to modify Ukraine's borders through the threat or use of force or other unlawful means and calls for dialogue to resolve the crisis. Ukraine said that a vote for the resolution was a vote for the UN charter, while a vote against or an abstention equalled undermining it.
  
• The United States has said it is increasing its humanitarian aid to South Sudan to $411m, funnelling it through UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The State Department said Washington was adding an extra $83m in aid to address the needs of South Sudanese affected by an armed conflict that has been raging since December 15.Sources said with this new funding, the United States humanitarian assistance is nearly $411m for fiscal years 2013 and 2014 to aid victims of the conflict in South Sudan, including internally displaced persons and refugees in South Sudan, as well as those South Sudanese who have fled to neighbouring countries. The aid will be channelled through UN agencies like the World Food Programme, UNICEF and the High Commission on Refugees as well as NGOs. About 250,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries including Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, and more than 700,000 have been displaced internally by the fighting, according to US and UN estimates. The warring parties resumed a second round of talks on 25 March in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where both sides have been urged to revive a moribund cease-fire signed on January 23. Fighting initially broke out within the South Sudanese army between soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to former vice president Riek Machar. It then spread, leaving several thousand dead and nearly a million South Sudanese homeless he fighting has been accompanied by ethnic massacres, with the political rivalries between Kiir and Machar intensified by antagonism between the Dinka and Nuer people, and the legacy of a long civil war against Sudan which ended with South Sudan's independence in July 2011.The US, the country that has worked hardest to bring about South Sudan's creation, has stepped up pressure on the warring factions to avoid breaking up the young country. Washington’s involvement in South Sudan dates back to its support for the separatist South Sudanese forces of John Garang, who died in 2005. Analysts say the US has both humanitarian and strategic interests in the country.
  
• Guinea's government told on 22nd March that the death toll raised in the Ebola epidemic raging through its southern forests to 59. Sources said the Ebola fever epidemic raging in Southern Guinea, including the prefectures of Gueckedou and Macenta, since February 9 has left at least 59 dead out of 80 cases identified. Till date, no treatment or vaccine is available for Ebola, which kills between 25 and 90 percent of those who fall sick, depending on the strain of the virus, according to the World Health Organisation. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said a total of 86 suspected cases, including 59 deaths, had been reported in south-eastern Guinea near the border with Sierra Leone and Liberia. The disease is transmitted by direct contact with blood, faeces or sweat, or by sexual contact or unprotected handling of contaminated corpses. Medical aid group Doctors without Borders (MSF) said in a statement it would strengthen its team of 24 doctors, nurses, logisticians and experts in hygiene and sanitation already in Guinea. The organisation has set up isolation units for suspected cases in the southern region of Nzerekore and is looking for people who may have had contact with the infected. Ebola, one of the world's most virulent diseases, was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1976 and the country has had eight outbreaks. The most recent epidemic, in the DRC, infected 62 people and left 34 dead between May and November 2012, according to the country's health ministry. There are fears it could be used in a biological weapons attack. According to researchers, the virus multiplies quickly, overwhelming the immune system's ability to fight the infection.
  
• Former Norwegian premier Jens Stoltenberg was named the next NATO chief on 28 March, stepping in to take over from current Secretary- General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. “Mr. Stoltenberg will assume his functions as Secretary General as from 1 October 2014, NATO said in a statement. An economist by training and a radical opponent of the defence alliance in his youth, Mr. Stoltenberg takes the helm of the 28-nation transatlantic alliance (NATO) as Europe worries over a Russian build-up on its eastern fringe after Moscow’s takeover of Crimea. In almost a decade leading the government, Mr. Stoltenberg, who is the head of Norway’s Labour Party, became known as a consensus maker, giving him some of the right credentials to maintain good relations with Russia.
  
• France’s foreign minister on 17 March says that leaders of the G-8 world powers have suspended Russia’s participation in the clubamid tensions over Ukraine and Russia’s incursion into Crimea. The other seven members of the group had already suspended preparations for a G-8 summit that Russia is scheduled to host in June in Sochi. France’s Laurent Fabius said that they had decided to suspend Russia’s participation, and it was envisaged that all the other countries, the seven leading countries, would unite without Russia. The U.S. and European Union on 18 March announced new sanctions against Russia over its actions in the Crimean Peninsula.
  
• South Korea said on 22 March, that North Korea had test fired dozens of short-range rockets. Analysts say the launches are Pyongyang's way of protesting against joint military drills between the US and South Korea. Some 16 rockets were fired into the sea early on 16 March. North Korea claims its rocket tests are routine, self-defence exercises. But the North has bitterly criticised the annual war drills by Washington and Seoul, labelling them invasion preparations. The isolated state often makes a show of force at the same time as the drills. But this year there have been an unusually high number of rockets launched. Experts say some 70 missiles have been fired so far this month, including the 46 from this weekend. The South Korean military says that the North appears to be firing Frog rockets, which are unguided Soviet-developed devices that Pyongyang has had in its armoury since the 1960s.Both South Korea and the US have criticised the North's missile tests. Also in early March the US asked the UN Security Council to take "appropriate action" against North Korea's missile launches, which it said "clearly used ballistic missile technology”. Under UN resolutions, North Korea is required to abandon its ballistic missiles programmes.
  
• The Russian Parliament on 20 March, approved a treaty making Crimea part of Russia. The State Duma, the Russian Parliament’s lower house, ratified the treaty signed only two days ago on reunification of Crimea with Russia. The upper house is expected to endorse the pact on 21 March. The Ukrainian Parliament adopted a declaration stating that “the Ukrainian people will never, under any circumstances, stop fighting for the liberation of Crimea from the occupants.” Ukraine’s Security Council has called for introducing a full-scale visa system for Russians and pulling out of the Commonwealth of Independent States, an amorphous association of former Soviet states. Ukrainian lawmakers have also drafted a raft of bills that should protect Ukraine against “expansionist” Russia. One of the bills would “restore” Ukraine’s nuclear status. In 1994, Ukraine handed over to Russia the nuclear weapons left over after the breakup of the Soviet Union in exchange for international guarantees of its security and territorial integrity. Other bills call for joining NATO, expelling Russia from the United Nations and declaring wartime mobilisation.
  
• Thailand announced on 18 March, the end of a nearly two-month-old state of emergency in Bangkok and surrounding areas, hoping to lure back foreign visitors following an easing of deadly political protests. The use of emergency rule dealt a heavy blow to Thailand’s key tourism industry during what is usually peak season, and also raised fears of a drop in foreign investment. The state of emergency will be replaced by another special law, the Internal Security Act, with effect from 19 March until April 30, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s office announced. Ms. Yingluck has faced more than four months of political protests aimed at ousting her elected government and installing an unelected “people’s council” to oversee reforms. The state of emergency was introduced in the run-up to a February 2 general election called by the premier in an unsuccessful attempt to calm the crisis. Political bloodshed, often targeting protesters, has left 23 people dead and hundreds wounded in recent months. However, attendance at the demonstrations has fallen sharply in recent weeks while the introduction of emergency rule failed to prevent protesters disrupting the February election. The February election has not been completed in some areas because of disruption by the protests, leaving Ms. Yingluck’s government in a caretaker role with limited powers. Pro-Thaksin parties won every previous election for more than a decade, helped by strong support in the northern half of the kingdom.
  
• The United States and its European allies stepped up their pressure on Russia to end its intervention in Ukraine by imposing the most comprehensive sanctions against Russian officials since the Cold War. Acting in concern with Europe, the United States on 17 March, froze the U.S. assets of seven Russian officials, including top advisers to President Vladimir Putin, for their support of Crimea’s vote to secede from Ukraine, while similar sanctions were imposed on four Ukrainian officials for instigating Crimean referendum. Although the threat of sanctions has failed thus far to persuade Mr. Putin to drop support for Crimea’s secession and potential entry into the Russian Federation or to pull back from threatening military moves near Ukraine’s south and east President Barack Obama said failure to step back now would draw more severe consequences. Residents in Crimea, a strategic Black Sea peninsula, voted overwhelmingly on 16 March in favour of the split, and Crimea’s parliament declared the region an independent state on 17 March. The United States, European Union and others say that splitting off Crimea from Ukraine violates the Ukrainian constitution and international law and has taken place under duress from the Russian military. Mr. Putin maintains that the vote was legal and consistent with the right of self-determination. The U.S. announcement of sanctions came shortly after the European Union (EU) announced travel bans and asset freezes on 21 people the EU has linked to the unrest in Crimea. U.S. officials say there is some overlap between the U.S. list and that of the Europeans, which wasn’t immediately made public. The sanctions freeze any assets the targeted individuals have under U.S. jurisdiction, make it illegal for Americans to do business with them and discourage international banks and financial institutions from having relationships with them, administration officials said. The officials, however, would or could not say if those targeted actually have assets in U.S. jurisdictions. Japan has also announced a set of sanctions against Russia for its recognition of Crimea as an independent state. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said in a statement that Japan does not recognize the outcome of Crimea’s referendum to split from Ukraine, saying it violates the Ukrainian constitution. Japan’s sanctions involve suspension of talks on relaxing visa requirements between Japan and Russia as well as planned talks on investment, space and military.
  
• The Libyan parliament voted on 10 March, to oust Prime Minister Ali Zeidan amid anger at his government's failure to stop eastern rebels from independently exporting oil. Zeidan was replaced temporarily by the defence minister Abdallah al-Thinni. Deputies scheduled the vote after rebels in eastern Libya said a tanker loaded with oil from a port under their control escaped the navy and moved into international waters. Zeidan's government has been repeatedly criticized for its failure to rein in the myriad of former rebel militias which have carved out their own fiefdoms since the NATO-backed uprising that ended the 42-year dictatorship of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.The prime minister was himself briefly abducted by former rebel militia in the heart of the capital last October.
  But in a new humiliation for his government, the North Korean-flagged tanker laden with oil from a rebel-held terminal in the east slipped the warships deployed to intercept it and escaped to sea recently. Zeidan's government had threatened armed action, even an air strike, to prevent the tanker getting away with its cargo of oil bought from the rebels' self-declared autonomous regional government without the authorisation of the state-owned Libyan National Oil Corporation. .
  
• Officials from some of the world’s top fishing powers signed a declaration in Greece on 14 March, to promote sustainable management of fish stocks. The signatories — the EU, United States, Japan, Philippines, Colombia and Indonesia — pledged to support measures to address fishing overcapacity. These include developing international fishing vessel records, limiting the number of licenses and vessel tonnage and eliminating fisheries subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing. The event was organised in Thessaloniki under Greece’s rotating EU presidency. According to the European Commission, the EU imports 70 per cent of its fish intake. Overall, the bloc accounts for a fourth of the world’s seafood resources. Some progress has been made. In 2013, 25 stocks were fished sustainably in the North Sea and Atlantic, five times more than in 2009, the European Commission says. This is expected to increase to 31 stocks in 2015.But environmental group Greenpeace stressed that more action is needed. “EU countries should start by scrapping the largest and most destructive industrial fishing vessels, initiating a shift towards small-scale low-impact fishing, which is more environmentally sustainable, creates jobs and supports local communities,” it said.
  
• The Philippines and Muslim rebels are to sign a treaty on March 27 to end one of Asia’s longest and deadliest rebellions, sources close to President Benigno Aquino said on 14 March. The terms of the deal, completed in January after drawn-out talks, would see the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) disband its 12,000-member guerrilla force and share power with Manila in the Muslim south of the mainly Catholic nation. After 17 long years of arduous negotiations, we are finally arriving at a political settlement that will seal enduring peace and progress in Mindanao. The decades-old rebellion has claimed 150,000 lives according to official estimates, and condemned large swathes of the south to poverty and violence. The insurgency also gave rise to smaller groups of Islamist militants, some allied to Al-Qaeda. The Philippines’ Muslim population of around five million people regard the south as their ancestral homeland, and the MILF has led the armed quest for independence or autonomy since the early 1970s.After the peace deal signing, Aquino is to ask parliament to pass a “basic law” creating a Muslim self-rule area covering 10 percent of the country’s land, with its own police force, parliament and power to levy taxes. The political entity would replace one created after a 1996 peace treaty with a rival Muslim guerrilla faction called the Moro National Liberation Front, but which the Aquino government deemed a failure. The law will be ratified in a regional referendum, and the region would then elect its own parliament in May 2016, coinciding with the next presidential election to elect Mr. Aquino’s successor.
  
• Parents in one of Pakistan’s most troubled provinces are to be paid to vaccinate their children against polio, the crippling disease the world is tantalisingly close to eradicating. It is hoped some two million children from some of the most disadvantaged areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the north-western province wracked by Taliban violence, will benefit from the scheme. Parents will be entitled to claim 1,000 rupees (almost £6) for each child who completes a 15-month programme of vaccinations that will protect them against a number of diseases including measles, hepatitis and polio. It is the first time the country has resorted to monetary incentives, which are rarely used around the world. Public health officials battling childhood diseases face immense challenges in KP, where militant attacks are a daily routine, poverty is entrenched and many people are deeply suspicious of programmes enthusiastically backed by western powers. The historic frontier city is one of the last remaining redoubts of polio, the virus that cripples and kills children and which has been eradicated in every country except Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Cases from around the world, including China and Syria, have been genetically matched to the Peshawar strain. Last month the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Peshawar, the “largest reservoir of endemic poliovirus in the world”, a problem caused in part by the city’s open sewage channels and broken water pipes. Polio is spread through contact with human faeces. Within the neighbouring tribal areas, Peshawar acts as a central exchange and an “amplifier” for a disease carried in and out of the city by the tens of thousands of people who pass through every day, including a huge population of refugees who fled Afghanistan in the 1980s.The WHO says more than 90 per cent of cases around the country and in neighbouring Afghanistan are genetically linked to the city. Of the world’s three polio-endemic countries, Pakistan is the only one where the situation is getting worse and cases are increasing. The latest push in Peshawar is an attempt to give polio vaccine drops to almost every child under the age of five every weekend for three months.
  
• Former leftist rebel commander Salvador Sanchez Ceren has won the presidential election in El Salvador by slight margin, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said on 13 March. Mr. Ceren of the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front won 50.11 percent of the votes.
  
• The Parliament in pro-Russian Crimea on 14 March, declared independence from Ukraine as a first step towards joining Russia. Lawmakers overwhelmingly adopted a “declaration of independence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea” that will take effect if voters say “yes” to Crimea becoming part of Russia in a referendum which has to be held on 16 March. The referendum will ask the people of Crimea to choose between joining Russia and staying with Ukraine as a self-governed autonomy. The declaration referred to Kosovo’s secession from Serbia, which was endorsed by the United Nations International Court of Justice. Crimean Parliament Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov said the declaration was needed “to make the upcoming referendum legitimate and transparent.” The United States appears to have abandoned hope to persuade Russia to back off on Crimea. Secretary of State John Kerry declined a Russian invitation to visit Moscow this week for talks with President Vladimir Putin. Washington wants Moscow to stop the Crimea referendum and open direct talks with the new government in Kiev. Russia has refused to recognise the new authorities and insisted on rolling back the situation to February 21, when President Viktor Yanukovych signed a West-brokered peace accord with the opposition. The deal fell through the same day as armed protesters stormed government offices and Mr. Yanukovych fled Kiev. Moscow made its point again on, when Mr. Yanukovych reaffirmed that he was still Ukraine’s legitimate President and that power in Kiev had been grabbed by a “band of ultra-nationalists and neo-fascists” bent on starting a “civil war.”
  
• Nepal is considering a plan to lease Himalayan peaks to private tourism companies, an official said on 10 March, in a bid to ease traffic on Mount Everest and help jumpstart the economy. The proposal would involve hiring out some of the 326 Himalayan peaks that are currently open, in an attempt to lure climbers away from the main draw card of Everest amid fears of congestion. In one of several new measures -- including lower mountaineering fees, designed to attract more climbers to the impoverished country, which counts tourism as a key revenue earner. The proposal would need to be passed by cabinet to get the green light and if agreed may take several months before it is implemented. The Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), a national body representing tourism promoters, welcomed the proposal, saying it would be "a very good step"." "Private sector professionals have good networks worldwide and can bring more climbers and tourists to Nepal. In recent weeks, Nepal has introduced a draft of measures to boost tourism and also allay concerns of overcrowding on Mount Everest. Officials have slashed mountaineering fees for a range of other peaks, while requiring each climber scaling Everest to bring back eight kilograms (17.6 pounds) of garbage in a bid to clean up the "roof of the world."
  
• Michelle Bachelet, 62, on 10 March, sworn in as the president of Chile, her second time in office. Ms Bachelet is the first Chilean president in over half a century to return for a second term. President of the Senate Isabel Allende placed the presidential sash around Ms Bachelet's neck - the first time it was passed from one woman to another in Chile's history. She campaigned on a promise to spend $15bn (£9.2bn) on reforming education, improving health care and reducing income disparity. She also wants to increase taxes to offer free university education and reform political and economic structures dating from the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen Pinochet. Chile is one of the richest countries in Latin America, but tens of thousands have staged protests over the past few years to push for a wider distribution of wealth and better education. Ms Bachelet already served one term as president from 2006 to 2010.Under Chile's constitution she was banned from running for a second consecutive term, even though her popularity ratings remained high.
  
• Parliamentarians in the Ukraine's autonomous region of Crimea on 5th March voted to formally become part of the Russian Federation, with the verdict going for a referendum likely. If the parliament's request is granted, the decision would be put to the Crimean people for their verdict in a referendum on March 16.The announcement from Crimea's parliament came as European Union leaders were meeting in Brussels to discuss how to respond to Russian troop deployment on Ukrainian soil. Crimea, having a mostly ethnic Russian population, has been at the centre of tensions following the fall of Ukraine's pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich. Pro-Russian and Russian forces have been for several days in de facto control of the peninsula, which already enjoys a degree of autonomy from Kiev. Crimea region, a peninsula on Ukraine's Black Sea coast, has 2.3 million people. Most of them identify themselves as ethnic Russians and speak Russian. Russia has been the dominant power in Crimea for most of the last 200 years, since it annexed the region in 1783. The region was, however, transferred by Moscow to Ukraine - then part of the Soviet Union - in 1954. Some ethnic Russians see that as a historical wrong. In 2010, the Crimea region voted heavily for Yanukovych during the presidential election. Many people here today believe that he is the victim of a coup -- leading to attempts by separatists in Crimea's parliament to push for a vote on whether it should leave Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine's new Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on 5th March, called on Russia to pull back its forces and fix the deteriorating political situation in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, reaffirmed Russia's position that an EU-brokered agreement signed Feb 21, which foresaw constitutional reform that would take into account the wishes of all Ukraine regions, should be the basis for stabilising the situation.
  
• According to Afghan government statistics released on 4 March, more than 13,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers have been killed during the war. Most of these losses occurred during the past three years as Afghan forces took over a growing share of the responsibility for security in the country, culminating in full Afghan authority. A statement released by President Hamid Karzai’s Cabinet, the Council of Ministers, put the total number of people in the Afghan security forces killed during the past 13 years at 13,729, with an additional 16,511 Afghan soldiers and police officers wounded. Previously, Afghan ministries in charge of police officers and soldiers had released incomplete information on death tolls, and in the past year had stopped doing so entirely. Known fatalities for the army had been estimated at 3,546, and for the police at 6,890, up through June 2013.While there was as yet no complete breakdown year by year, there is little doubt that most of the increase in Afghan casualties occurred during the past three years. Before 2010, both police and military casualties were relatively few, reflecting the small size of the Afghan security forces. The Afghan death toll is four times higher than that of the international coalition, which has lost 3,425 soldiers — 2,313 of them Americans — during the 13-year conflict.
  
• Saudi Arabia on 7 March 2014 declared Muslim Brotherhood, al-Nusra Front, Hezbollah and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) jihadist group as Terrorist Groups. The move is expected to curb the activities of terror outfits and prevent the people from taking part in the conflict directly. The ban was described as a sign of the kingdom’s resolve to fight terrorism and to avoid direct consequence in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi interior ministry has also issued a 15-day ultimatum to its citizens fighting abroad to return to the kingdom or face imprisonment. The declaration mean any Saudi citizen accused of taking part in pro-Muslim Brotherhood rallies, possession of the group's literature, or supporting the group verbally or in writing could be held for punishment. Under the previous decree, Saudi citizens fighting abroad could face up to 20 years in jail. Similar punishments will be applied to extremist religious and ideological groups, or those classified as terrorist groups, domestically, regionally and internationally.
  
• Third BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Summit was held from 1 March to 4 March 2014 in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. The Third BIMSTEC summit was attended by the heads from six countries and Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Thailand, namely Prime Ministers of India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Myanmar. Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) was established in 1997 in Bangkok. It was a new sub regional grouping, named BISTEC (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation).Myanmar (1997) and Sri Lanka (1998) joined the group who were observers earlier and they joined the group later. The First BIMSTEC Summit was held in 2004 in Bangkok and the Second Summit was held in 2008 in New Delhi. During this summit, enhancing regional cooperation in energy sector, the Third BIMSTEC Energy Ministerial Meeting will be held in Nepal in 2014 and also the Fourth BIMSTEC Energy Ministerial Meeting will be held in 2015 in Bhutan. The members recognised the threat that terrorism poses to peace, stability and economic progress and agreed for closer cooperation in combating all forms of terrorism and transnational crimes. The members agreed to explore collaborative initiatives amongst the Member States towards addressing the adverse impacts of climate change in the BIMSTEC region. The members decided to move forward towards finalization of the draft Agreement on Trade in Goods with agreed General Rules of Origin and Product Specific Rules. It was also decided to work in the direction of signing an agreement on dispute settlement procedures and the Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Customs Matters under the Framework Agreement on the BIMSTEC Free Trade Area. The members agreed to set up the BIMSTEC Network of Policy Think Tanks and agreed to cooperate and coordinate for organizing activities like workshops and seminars, which includes audio-visual programmes to create public awareness on BIMSTEC. Earlier during the second BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting on Poverty Alleviation summit in Nepal in January 2012 the Poverty Plan of Action was adopted and in this summit the heads agreed to implement the Poverty Plan of Action. Sri Lanka is going to host the Third Ministerial Meeting on Poverty Alleviation during the first half of 2014. The following three pacts were signed during this summit-
  • Memorandum of Association on the Establishment of the BIMSTEC Permanent Secretariat.
  • Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of the BIMSTEC Cultural Industries Commission (BCIC) and BIMSTEC Cultural Industries Observatory (BCIO).
  • Memorandum of Association among BIMSTEC Member Countries Concerning Establishment of a BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate.
  
  
• Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that flight MH370 had disappeared at 02:40 local time on 8 March after leaving Kuala Lumpur. It had been expected to land in Beijing at 06:30 (22:30 GMT).Malaysia's transport minister said there was no information on wreckage. The plane went off the radar south of Vietnam, according to a statement on the Vietnamese government website. Its last known location was off the country's Ca Mau peninsula although the exact position was not clear. The Boeing B777-200 aircraft was carrying 227 passengers, including two children, and 12 crew members. Malaysia's military said a second wave of helicopters and ships had been despatched after an initial search revealed nothing. Territorial disputes over the South China Sea were set aside temporarily as China dispatched two maritime rescue ships and the Philippines deployed three air force planes and three navy patrol ships. Vietnam also sent aircraft and ships while Vietnamese fishermen in the area were asked to report any suspected sign of the missing plane.
  
• Iran and six world powers held "substantive and useful" expert-level talks over Tehran's nuclear programme this week, sources said on 7 March, ahead of a new round of political negotiations later this month. Seeking to build on an interim agreement reached late last year in Geneva, Iran and the major powers aim to hammer out a final settlement of the decade-old dispute over the Iran’s atomic activities by late July. Both sides have made clear their political will to reach a long-term accord and have scheduled a series of meetings in the coming months. But they also acknowledge that there are still big differences over the future scope of Iran's nuclear programme and that success is far from guaranteed. The March 5-7 talks at the United Nations complex in Vienna, were to prepare for the next meeting of chief negotiators due to start on March 18, also in the Austrian capital. In Brussels, a spokeswoman for European Union foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton said: "I can confirm that the technical talks are over, they were substantive and useful." Ashton is coordinating negotiations with Iran on behalf of the powers - the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China - and EU experts took part in the meeting.