INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2009

INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2009

• Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was re elected as the President of Tunisia consecutively for the fifth time. He has secured 89% votes.
  
• The 15th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits were held on 23-25 October 2009 in Cha-am Hua Hin, Thailand. Cha-am Hua Hin declaration on strengthening cooperation on education to achieve an ASEAN caring and sharing community was released. 7th India – ASEAN meeting too was held. The next summit will be held at New Delhi.
  
• Senior Environment Officials of SAARC met in New Delhi. The meeting has decided to start 50 environment centers in Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan to study Climate Change.
  
• International Diabetes Federation (IDF) World 20th Diabetic Congress was held at Montreal, Canada. It warned India that 9% of the population would suffer with diabetes by 2033. Currently India is in the first place with 50.8 million diabetic patients followed by China. It also said that 258 million people (7% of the population) in the world are diabetic patients.
  
• World Health Summit took place in Berlin from October 14th to 18th. Modern diseases like asthma and obesity were concentrated. 700 members from 60 countries participated in this summit.
  
• Iran’s Nuclear Talks with USA, UK, China, Russia, France and IAEA was held in Vienna.

• Maldives Cabinet held the world’s first underwater meeting to highlight the danger posed to low-lying nations by global warming.
• Bosnia, Lebanon, Gabon, Brazil and Nigeria will join UN Security Council from January 2010 for a period of 2 years.
• The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that 105 million more people are suffering from hunger as a result of the current economic crisis. Ensuring food security in a time of crisis is the theme of this year's World Food Day, marked on October 16th. Among them 642 million people are from Asia Pacific region and 265 million from Sub Sahara region.
• Angela Merkel was re-elected as the Chancellor of Germany. She forms the government with her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and Social Union and Free Democratic Party.
• Iran test fired Shaheb-3 and Sajjal missiles with a range of 1300 to 2000km. They can carry payload of 100kgs.
• The 10-member countries and observers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, met in Beijing. They pledged to work together on combating terror and improving financial co-operation among Asian nations to combat the financial crisis.
• Greek socialists achieved resounding win in elections. George Papandreou-led Pasok swept elections with 43% of vote after five years of New Democracy government.
• UNDP has announced Human Development Index (HDI) rankings for the year 2009. Norway (.971) stood first followed by Australia and Iceland. India (.612) dropped to 134th rank from 128th (2008). USA was ranked 13th (12th in 2008) and China 92nd (99th in 2008).