INTERNATIONAL MAY 2014

INTERNATIONAL MAY 2014

• The UN's weather agency- World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 26 May said in a report that the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have reached new heights. For the first time in April, the mean monthly CO2 concentration in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million (ppm) throughout the northern hemisphere, which pollutes more than the south. The report highlights the urgency of curbing manmade greenhouse gases. Spring values in the northern hemisphere had previously reached over the 400 ppm level, but this was the first time the monthly mean concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere exceeded the threshold. According to the WMO, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 393.1 parts per million in 2012, or 141 percent of the pre-industrial level of 278 parts per million. 
  • The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 191 Member States and Territories. ·
  • Established in 1950, WMO became the specialised agency of the United Nations for meteorology (weather and climate), operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences. ·
  • It has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. ·
  • The current Secretary-General is Michel Jarraud. The current president is David Grimes.
    
• State Bank of India Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya and ICICI Bank Managing Director Chanda Kochhar are among five from India on Forbes’ 100 most powerful women in the world list.Bhattacharya is ranked 36th and Kochhar 43rd. Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is 92nd. PepsiCo's India-born Chief Indra Nooyi is 13th; Cisco Chief Technology and Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior is 71st on Forbes' list. Forbe’s releases the list with the headline-"definitive annual guide to the extraordinary icons and leaders, groundbreakers and ceiling crashers who command the world stage." German Chancellor Angela Merkel has topped the list. Angela Merkel is followed by Chair of the US Federal Reserve Janet Yellen, philanthropist(2), Melinda Gates (3), former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (6), General Motors' first woman CEO Mary Barra (7), First Lady Michelle Obama (8) and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (9).
  
• Research firm eMarketer said on 27 May India would account for the third-largest user base on micro-blogging site Twitter at 18.1 million by the end of this year. The research firm eMarketer conducted the first forecast of Twitter users worldwide. It said Asia-Pacific will account for 32.8 percent of Twitter users, compared with 23.7 percent in North America in 2014.The research firm said growth for Twitter is heavily weighted in emerging markets, with India and Indonesia to see the most consistent growth patterns. India and Indonesia will rise to have the third and fourth-largest Twitter populations in the world in 2014, with 18.1 million and 15.3 million users, respectively, both surpassing the UK for the first time this year for the number of users. By 2018, Asia-Pacific will more than double North America's share, breaking the 40 percent mark in terms of worldwide market share. Overall, Twitter's user base will increase 24.4 percent to 227.5 million users in 2014 from 182.9 million last year. The firm projected that by 2018, Twitter will grow 10.7 percent to reach almost 400 million users globally.
  
• World No Tobacco Day is observed around the world on May 31.The member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) created World No Tobacco Day in 1987.In the past twenty years, the day has been met with both enthusiasm and resistance across the globe from governments, public health organizations, smokers, growers, and the tobacco industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) designates a theme for the day every year to create a more unified global message for WNTD. For World No Tobacco Day 2014, WHO is calling on countries to raise taxes on tobacco as research shows that higher taxes are especially effective in reducing tobacco use and preventing young people from starting to smoke.
  
• Dalia Grybauskaite, on 25 May 2014 won the Presidential elections of Lithuania for consecutive second term. She served the first term as President from 2009 to 2014. She is a former EU Budget Head. She fought the Presidential election as an independent candidate and focused her campaign on national security.
  
• Petro Poroshenko (48) won the Ukrainian Presidential Election held on 25th May 2014.Poroshenko is a businessman who is often dubbed as Chocolate King of Ukraine. He runs a Company named Roshen which is one of the largest producers of chocolates and confectionaries in Europe. He was a Foreign Minister during the pro-Western presidency of Viktor Yushchenko and sometime as Economy Minister under Yanukovych. However, Poroshenko allied himself with protesters shortly after Yanukovych rejected a deal in November 2013 to move toward integration with the European Union.
  
• Former army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has won a landslide victory in the Egyptian presidential election. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was an Egyptian military commander who was Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, as well as Minister of Defence, from 12 August 2012 until 26 March 2014.El-Sisi resigned from the military on 26 March 2014, announcing he would run for president in the 2014 presidential election. The poll, held between 26 and 28 May 2014. Abdel Fattah el-Sis has secured 93.3 percent of the votes cast whereas his only rival, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, got only 3 percent of the votes. The Brotherhood, which has been designated a "terrorist" organisation by the military-installed interim government, boycotted the voting.
  
• US President Barack Obama on 27th May announced to keep 9800 troops in Afghanistan till the end of 2016. The final withdrawal of US combat forces should be in December 2014 but US extended it for two years to withdraw the troops from Afghanistan fully. Sources says that the US till then will only focus on supporting counter-terrorism operations and training Afghan security forces, and will not be engaged in combat missions. At present, there are 32000 US troops in Afghanistan and over the course the number of troops will be draw down to half about 4900 troops by 2015. The troops are consolidated in the Kabul and Bagram Air Field, the main US base in Afghanisthan.
  
• Russia's President Vladimir Putin has signed a multi-billion dollar, 30-year gas deal with China in Shanghai on 21 May. The deal was signed during the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China. The deal has been done between Russia's Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).As per the agreement, Gazprom will supply 38 billion cubic metres of gas annually to China National Petroleum Corp. Russia has been keen to find an alternative energy market for its gas as it faces the possibility of European sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine. No official price has been given but it is estimated to be worth over $400bn.
  
• Thailand's armed forces on 20 May declared martial law. They said that the move was intended to curb the country's sometimes violent political conflict and wasn't a coup d'état. Army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha said that martial law was necessary across the country to address the worsening security situation. The army later said it would censor media it deemed inflammatory. Thailand is bitterly divided between supporters of its populist government and its conservative opponents who have been massing on the streets for more than half a year in a bid to topple the administration. In a statement, the army said it would prohibit the broadcast or publication of "distorting" information that could instigate public disorder or compromise security measures. The army said it would suspend social media and online services for inflammatory messages. Earlier, the army ordered the suspension of 10 satellite television channels run by pro- and antigovernment groups. Acting Prime Minister Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan urged the army to follow the rules of the country's constitution. 
  • Thailand Army chief is Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha.
  • Acting Prime Minister Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan
    
• African leaders on 19th May, held a summit in Paris and agreed on a regional plan of action to combat Boko Haram, the Islamist group that has abducted more than 200 girls in Nigeria and threatened to sell them into slavery. The leaders of Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin pledged cooperation including joint border patrols and sharing intelligence to find the girls, snatched from Nigeria more than a month ago. Nigeria has faced criticism for not having done enough to protect its people, particularly the girls, and for its slow response to the kidnappings. The country’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, described Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation and said it was part of an al-Qaeda operation. The mini-summit was hosted by France. It brought together Presidents in the region to discuss how to come up with a united response to combat Boko Haram.
  
• Georgia and Moldova on 13th May 2014 agreed to sign European Union (EU) Association Agreement on 27th June 2014. The President of the European Council revealed this in Tbilisi which is the capital of Georgia. The signing of the Association Agreement will help strengthen the trade and political ties between the EU and the two countries. In November 2013, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia agreed to sign the EU Association Agreement. However, Ukraine under pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych backed away from signing the Agreement triggering the protests in Ukraine. 
  • European Council president is Herman Van Rompuy.
  • E.U. has the membership of 28.
    
• Leaders of Donetsk and Luhansk (in Ukraine) on 12th May 2014 declared Donetsk and Luhansk region in the Eastern Ukraine as sovereign and independent State. The declaration was made after the referendum in Donetsk and Luhansk which was held on 11th May 2014.Both the regions now plans to ask the United Nations to recognize its independence. Donetsk is an industrial city in Eastern Ukraine on the Kalmius River. Donetsk is a major economic, industrial and scientific centre of Ukraine with a high concentration of companies and a skilled workforce. Luhansk is the administrative centre in the easternmost Ukraine. The Russia annexed Ukraine's southern autonomous republic of Crimea after a disputed referendum in March 2014 and Ukraine now fears that Russia may repeat the same in Donetsk, Luhansk and parts of southern Ukraine.
  
• African National congress (ANC) won the national elections of South Africa for the fifth successive term. The ANC won the elections with 62.2 percent of votes. This was the fifth national elections held in South Africa after apartheid ended in 1994.This is the first National Assembly in Parliament in South Africa after the Nelson Mandela‘s death in December 2013. Jacob Zuma is the presidential candidate of ANC. With this win, he will assume the office of President for second five-year term. 
  • South Africa has a parliamentary representative democratic republic with multi party system.
  • The president of South Africa is head of the government who is elected by parliament. Executive power is exercised by the government.
    
• UN Envoy on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi on 13th May 2014 submitted his resignation. He expressed regret for his inability to forge a coherent international response to the world's worst humanitarian crisis. He was also the League of Arab States Special Representative on the Syrian crisis. He was appointed as the peace-facilitator in Syria on 17th August 2012 to replace the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Brahimi is to quit at the end of May. Syria is now embroiled in a fully-fledged war that has drawn in foreign forces and support on both sides. The UN has described this as the world's worst humanitarian crisis in modern times. Under Brahimi tactful diplomacy, the Geneva Conference on Syria got underway resulting into Geneva Communique in 2012. The Communique was the first international conference on the conflict, which called for a transitional government to lead to free and fair elections. However, the first two rounds of talks, first in January 2014 and second in February 2014 yielded only modest results in the form of cooperation on a humanitarian issue. According to the latest figures, more than 150,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against the backdrop of the Arab spring. As many as 2.5 million people have fled abroad and 9 million people inside Syria need help.
  
• A coal mine in Soma of western Turkey collapsed after an explosion in which around 274 miners were killed on 14th May 2014. Soma is located 450 kilometres from Ankara. As per the officials, about 100 more miners are unaccounted. Official sources said around 787 people were at work in the mine at the time of the accident in the mine, in which 363 have been rescued. The incident took place due to electrical fault. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey announced three days of mourning for one of the most deadly mining disaster in Turkey.
  
• United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) on 6th May told in its report that -by the end of 2014, the world is going to have nearly 3 billion internet users. Two-thirds of the internet users are from the developing world. Other highlights are—
  • The mobile-cellular subscriptions will reach almost 7 billion by the end of 2014.
  • 44 per cent of the world’s households will have internet access by end of 2014.
  • Mobile-cellular subscriptions will go roughly 7 billion by end-2014, and 3.6 billion of these will be in the Asia-Pacific region.
    
• Thailand's Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and nine cabinet ministers were dismissed on 7th May from office by the Constitutional Court. The court found her guilty in an abuse of power case. This episode drags the already crisis-hit country in to a fresh political turmoil. The Constitutional Court ruled that Ms Shinawatra had a part in the transfer of Thawil Pliensri from the position of National Security Council secretary general and it was done in an unusual haste. It said the transfer was done in only four days and there was discrepancy in dates of documents related to the transfer hence the process was irregular.
  
• Saudi Arabian health authorities announced on 7th May that the death toll from the MERS coronavirus has reached 115 since the respiratory disease first appeared in the country in 2012. Sources said that the country's number of MERS infections has risen to 414 which is the world's highest tally. Last week, Egypt recorded its first infection after a person who had arrived from Saudi Arabia tested positive. American health authorities on 2nd May confirmed the first case of MERS in the United States, a health care provider who had travelled to Riyadh for work.
  • MERS-CoV refers for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV).
  • MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible than the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.
  • There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for MERS .MERS is a disease with a mortality rate of more than 40 percent that experts are still struggling to understand.
  • Some research has suggested that camels are a likely source of the virus.
    
• Representatives of the five recognised nuclear weapon states signed the Protocol to the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone (CANWFZ) Treaty in New York on May 6th .It leads to the major positive development in the global non-proliferation efforts. Diplomats from China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States signed the document on the margins of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee Meeting at the United Nations. The CANWFZ Treaty was signed on September 8th, 2006 in Semipalatinsk by the five Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It entered into force on March 21st, 2009.Since 2012, as chair of the CANWFZ Treaty; Kazakhstan has led the negotiations with the five major nuclear nations on behalf of its Central Asian neighbours. The signing of the Protocol is seen as a significant achievement of multilateral diplomacy. For the nuclear-weapon free zone to be recognised internationally, it also has to receive the so-called negative guarantees from the five nuclear weapon states, meaning guarantees not to use nuclear weapons against the states parties of the treaty and not to use the threat of the use of nuclear weapons against them. The Protocol signed on May 6th in New York provides such guarantees. The Protocol still has to be ratified by the parliaments of the signing states to enter into effect.
  
• China plans to build an ambitious 13,000 km rail line to operate bullet trains to America through Russia passing through a tunnel underneath the Pacific Ocean to reach the U.S. continent via Alaska and Canada. The proposed line begins from China’s north east. It could go through Russia’s eastern Siberia-the Bering Strait- Alaska- Canada and then reach the contiguous U.S. Once the line is put to use, bullet trains can run at 350 km per hour, enabling passengers to travel from north-eastern China to the US in less than two days.
  
• A new United Nations report called “the Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation-2014” released in Geneva on 9th May states that- India still has the largest number of people defecating in open in the world. Globally India has the highest number of people (597 million people) practising open defecation. The report was jointly prepared by the WHO and the UNICEF. The report says that eighty-two per cent of the one billion people practising open defecation in the world live in just 10 countries. The report states that Bangladesh and Vietnam are among the top 10 countries that have achieved the highest reduction in open defecation since 1990.According to the UN- countries where open defecation is most widely practised have the highest number of deaths of children under the age of five, as well as high levels of under nutrition, high levels of poverty and large disparities between the rich and poor.
  
• South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and rebel chief Riek Machar on 9th May signed a ceasefire agreement. It results ending the nearly five months of civil war, under international pressure to resist bloodshed and avert famine and genocide. The two leaders agreed that all hostile activities will stop immediately within 24 hours from the signing of this agreement. The new peace deal was signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ethnically targeted violence in South Sudan broke out in December, 2013 killing thousands of people and forcing more than 1.3 million to flee their homes. Kiir and Machar have agreed to establish a transitional government of national unity that will lead to new elections. The South Sudan deal comes after weeks of growing international concern. A new U.N. report said gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have been committed. Much of the violence has been ethnic in nature and carried out by troops loyal to Kiir, and rebels loyal to former Vice President Machar. 
  • The deal recommits to an earlier ceasefire which was signed in January.
  • The rivals agreed that a transition government offers the best chance to the people of South Sudan with the promise of fresh elections, without giving a date.
  • Both sides also agreed to open humanitarian corridors and to cooperate with the UN to ensure aid is delivered to the more than five million people in need.
  • The war has claimed thousands of lives, with over 1.2 million people forced to flee their homes. Aid agencies are warning that South Sudan is now on the brink of Africa's worst famine since the 1980s.
  • South Sudan seceded from the Republic of Sudan in 2011.Capital of South Sudan is Juba.
    
• Archaeologists of China on 9th may said that, over 1,000 ancient Buddha statues that could date back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), have been found in north China's Shanxi Province. The Buddha statues were found in three stone caves in a cliff in Yangqu County. The stone statues carved into the cave walls are 12 to 25 centimetres long. Sources said that the discovery would contribute to the research on the development and change in religious art in northern ancient China.