clataffairs

Ebrahim Raisi has been declared the winner of Iran's 13th presidential elections. Iran’s president oversees the civilian arm of the country’s government.  The president sets domestic policy. THE CONTROVERSIAL ELECTIONS The reformists, a powerful constituency, have pushed for gradual reforms by rallying behind leaders like Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, the conservatives always pushed back. There were allegations that the June 18 election was rigged in favour of Mr. Raisi even before the first ballot was cast. The Guardian Council, which vets potential candidates, had rejected almost all major reformists, leaving him the only prominent figure on the ballot.  This led to opposition activists calling for an election boycott, which seems to have had an impact on the voting — the turnout was 48.8%, an all­-time low. A significant number of people did not cast their votes this time because they believe that the elections are rigged and do not trust the election watchdog calle...

U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin concluded their summit meeting at Geneva, Switzerland.  This is the first such bilateral meeting after Donald Trump and Putin met in Helsinki on July 16, 2018.  NEW START TREATY   Putin said he and Biden agreed to begin negotiations on nuclear talks to potentially replace the New START treaty limiting nuclear weapons after it expires in 2026.  It is a treaty between the America and the Russia for further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms.  It came into force on 5th February, 2011 and successor to the START framework of 1991. Washington broke off talks with Moscow in 2014 in response to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and its military intervention in support of separatists in eastern Ukraine.  Talks resumed in 2017 but gained little traction and failed to produce an agreement on extending the New START treaty during the Trump administration. RETURN OF AMBASSADOR...

Naftali Bennett was sworn in as Israel's new prime minister, after winning a confidence vote with the narrowest of margins, just 60 votes to 59.  His victory ends a 12-year grip on power by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader.  THE COALITION Under a coalition deal, Bennett will be replaced as prime minister by centrist Yair Lapid in 2023, who will serve as Foreign Minister for the time being. His party is the biggest in the coalition but he agreed to share power with Bennett to secure a parliamentary majority. Benny Gantz is the defence minister. The eight-party coalition has 62 MKs among themselves. NAFTALI BENETT After four elections in two years, Bennett's incoming government breaks a long political deadlock and ushers in the most diverse coalition Israel has ever seen, including the first Arab party to serve in the government.  In his speech before the Knesset confidence vote, Bennett celebrated the diversity and warned...

The Indian Prime Minister addressed the 47th G7 Summit 2021 through video conferencing. Earlier, the Finance Ministers from the G7 nations reached a landmark accord setting a Global Minimum Corporate Tax Rate (GMCTR). This year’s summit was hosted by the UK.  The theme was ‘Build Back Better. The last G-7 summit was in France in 2019, with last year’s event in the US canceled due to the pandemic.  4 PRIORITIES BY UK The UK has outlined four priority areas for its presidency this year: Leading the global recovery from coronavirus while strengthening resilience against future pandemics, Promoting future prosperity by championing free and fair trade, Tackling climate change and preserving the planet's biodiversity, Championing shared values and open societies. BUILD BACK BETTER FOR THE WORLD PROJECT It is aimed squarely at competing with China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. BRI was joined by G7 member Italy, in 2019. The G-7 project will collectively c...

Following NASA’s footsteps,  European Space Agency (ESA) announced a new mission- EnVision mission to Venus. The mission will have contributions from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It is likely to be launched sometime in the 2030s.  Once launched on an Ariane 6 rocket, the spacecraft will take about 15 months to reach Venus. It will take 16 more months to achieve orbit circularisation. AIM The mission will carry a range of instruments to study the planet’s atmosphere and surface, monitor trace gases in the atmosphere and analyse its surface composition. At the core of the ESA’s mission is the question of how Earth and Venus evolved so differently from each other considering that they are roughly of the same size and composition.  EnVision will follow another ESA-led mission to Venus called ‘Venus Express’ (2005-2014) that focussed on atmospheric research and pointed to volcanic hotspots on the planet’s surface.          ...

Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives has won an election as the next president of the United Nations General Assembly, succeeding Turkey’s Volkan Bozkir. Shahid pledged to push for equal access to coronavirus vaccines, a stronger and greener economic recovery and stepped-up efforts to tackle climate change.  He defeated a former Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul. MAIN ORGANS OF THE UN   General Assembly  Security Council.  Economic and Social Council  Trusteeship Council  International Court of Justice  Secretariat. UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It serves as the main deliberative, policy-making, and representative organ of the UN.  It was formed in 1945 (first session in 1946). Voting in the General Assembly on certain important questions—namely recommendations on peace and security; budgetary concerns; and the election, admission, suspe...

El Salvador, a small coastal country in Central America, became the first in the world to make Bitcoin, a digital currency, legal. Bukele’s New Ideas party enjoys a supermajority in the El Salvadorian legislature, and thus the El Salvador Parliament approved the move by a supermajority of 62 out of 84. President Nayib Bukele, however, clarified that the dollar will continue to remain the dominant currency in the country and Bitcoin would exist side by side. El Salvador has not had its own monetary policy since 2001, when a right-wing government made the US dollar the official currency. WHY BITCOIN AS AN OFFICIAL TENDER? El Salvador depends heavily on remittances sent by Salvadorians from abroad.  Around a quarter of the country’s citizens live in the US, and in 2020 they sent home more than $6 billion in remittances despite the pandemic– making up more than 20% of the GDP. Addressing the issue, Bukele said that currently “a big chunk of those 6 billion dollars is lost to inte...

The Group of Seven (G7) countries have backed the proposal to impose a common global corporate tax. It would be aimed at preventing multinational businesses from evading taxes and also squeeze the havens which attract tax evaders due to the low-rate jurisdictions.  The consensus to adopt a common tax rate was reached at the G7 finance ministers' meeting held in Buckingham (London) on June 5.  THE PROPOSAL The tax proposal endorsed by the US, the UK, France and other G7 countries has two parts.  The main part of the proposal states that countries around the world should tax their home companies' overseas profits at a rate of at least 15%.  The companies have multiple branches spread across various jurisdictions, they transfer the bulk of their profit in accounts set up in countries that offer the lowest tax rate.  Often, these tax havens are the Caribbean Islands such as Bahamas or British Virgin Islands, or at times, countries like Ireland where the corp...

A 41-year-old man in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu has been confirmed as the first human case of infection with a rare strain of bird flu known as H10N3.  The man is a resident of the city of Zhenjiang. WHAT IS INFLUENZA? Influenza — also known as the flu — is a contagious viral infection that attacks your respiratory system.  Influenza viruses that infect humans can be classified into three main groups: A, B, and C.  Type A influenza infection can be serious and cause widespread outbreaks and disease. INFLUENZA A The influenza A virus has two proteins on its surface – hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). Both H & N have 18 and 11 different subtypes respectively, leading to different combinations such as H3N2 and H7N9.  There are some strains which only infect birds, while others can infect birds as well as mammals such as pigs, dogs, horses and also humans. Influenza have many strains as Influenza A virus mutates constantly.  This is be...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced two new robotic missions to Venus: DaVinci Plus and Veritas.  Both missions are part of the space agency’s Discovery Program.  The program began in 1992 to give scientists the chance to launch some missions that use fewer resources and have shorter developmental times.  The two selections are a part of the ninth Discovery Program and were made from proposals submitted in 2019. Taken together, both missions are expected to tell scientists more about the planet’s thick cloud cover and the volcanoes on its surface. DAVINCI+ DaVinci Plus will be the first of the two. DAVINCI+ is short for ‘Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging’ It will try to understand Venus’ composition to see how the planet formed and evolved. This mission also consists of a descent sphere that will pass through the planet’s thick atmosphere and make observations and take measurements of noble gases and ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced a new naming system that it devised for so-called variants of interest and variants of concern, the forms of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with important mutations.  HOW AND WHY? Each variant will be given a name from the Greek alphabet, in a bid to both simplify the public discussion and to strip some of the stigma from the emergence of new variants.  A country may be more willing to report it has found a new variant if it knows the new version of the virus will be identified as Rho or Sigma, rather than with the country’s name, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s coronavirus lead, said. A plan to simplify the nomenclature of the variants has been in the works for several months, led by the WHO’s Virus Evolution Working Group. THE NAMES Letters of the Greek alphabet to refer to the variants.  Under the new scheme, B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in Britain, will be known as Alpha. B.1.351 (South Africa): Beta.  P.1 (Brazil...

The United Nation's top human rights body will launch an international investigation into potential "war crimes" committed during an 11- day conflict between Israel and militant group Hamas in Gaza.  The resolution calls for the creation of a "Commission of Inquiry" to report on rights violations in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. The commission will also investigate "underlying root causes" for recurring tensions in the region. China and Russia supported the resolution while some Western and African countries voted against it. UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nations. It works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.  The office was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 December 1993 in the wake of the 1...

An enormous iceberg 'A-76' has calved from the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf, lying in the Weddell Sea, in Antarctica. It measures around 4320 sq. km in size – currently making it the largest berg in the world.  The newly calved berg 'A-76' was spotted in recent satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission. Sentinel-1 is one of the missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) under Copernicus initiative (an earth observation programme). It has surpassed the now second-place A-23A, about 3,380 sq km in size and also floating in the Weddell Sea. ICERBERGS An iceberg is ice that broke off from glaciers or shelf ice and is floating in open water. Icebergs travel with ocean currents and either get caught up in shallow waters or ground themselves. The US National Ice Center (USNIC) is the only organisation that names and tracks Antarctic Icebergs. Icebergs are named according to the Antarctic quadrant in which they are spotted. CALVING Calving is the gl...

A ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas has come into effect.  The ceasefire was brokered by Egypt. This was after the U.S. pressed Israel to wind down the offensive. The ceasefire began early on 21st May, bringing to an end 11 days of bombardment in which more than 240 people have died, most of them in Gaza.  Both Israel and Hamas have claimed victory in the conflict.  COST OF THE RECENT CONFLICT Gaza’s housing ministry said that 16,800 housing units had been damaged.  Residents were estimated to be getting 3-4 hours of power versus 12 hours before the hostilities.  The Hamas media office estimated the bombardments had caused $40 million in damage to factories.  The United Nations and aid groups said Palestinians now had limited or no access to water facilities. ANALYSIS OF THE CLASH AND CEASEFIRE The last major fighting between Israel and Hamas ...

The cryptocurrency market saw a major correction with prices of major currencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, among others crashing as much as 30% within 24 hours.  Virtual currencies are retreating so broadly and sharply, it’s testing the durability of the cryptocurrency boom.  This has come in the backdrop of the Chinese regulators announcing a crackdown on cryptocurrencies. However, the Chinese announcement was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Bitcoin and Ethereum were on a decline since last week when Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the electric carmaker won’t be accepting Bitcoin as payment — a reversal of an earlier decision. As Bitcoin's fortunes turned for the worse, other cryptocurrencies did not fare well either.  Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world, is down 40%. Dogecoin, the meme crypto popularised by Musk, lost 45% WHAT HAS CHINA ANNOUNCED?   China has barred financial institutions and payment companies...

India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, T S Tirumurti, made a carefully crafted statement at the UN Security Council “open debate” on the escalating Israel-Palestine violence. He strived to maintain balance between India’s historic ties with Palestine and its blossoming relations with Israel. BALANCING The statement, the first India has made on the issue, appears to implicitly hold Israel responsible for triggering the current cycle of violence by locating its beginnings in East Jerusalem, referring to the clashes in the Al-­Aqsa compound and East Jerusalem’s neighborhood, rather than from Gaza.  This means, India doesn’t see Hamas’s rocket firing on May 10 as the trigger of the conflict. The request that both sides refrain from “attempts to unilaterally change the existing status quo including in East Jerusalem and its neighbourhoods” seems to be a message to Is...

TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) was negotiated in 1995 at the WTO.  TRIPS Agreement requires all its signatory countries to enact domestic law, which guarantees minimum standards of IP protection.  India and South Africa’s has sought waiver of IPR regulations suggesting that vaccine manufacturing process is complex and exercising all exsiting flexibilities in TRIPS will still be insufficient to enhance production.  US has now supported IP waiver proposal by India and South Africa. IPR waiver proposal has received strong support from other developing countries, such as Bolivia, Kenya, Mongolia, Pakistan and Venezuela.  However, developed nations, especially the EU, Switzerland, Australia, the UK and Japan have been opposing the waiver, saying it impedes innovation.  All 164 WTO members must agree on the draft of IPR waiver, and any one member can veto it.  THE PROBLEMS A waiver will do nothing to fillthe urgent shortfall...

China successfully landed the Zhurong rover on Mars, making it China’s first landing on another planet.  China became the 3rd country to perform a successful soft landing successfully on Mars, after the former Soviet Union and the USA.  The rover is a part of the Tianwen-1 mission, which entered the orbit around Mars in February.  The rover performed its landing with a similar “seven minutes of terror”, as had the NASA landers, when the autonomous landing worked itself out in its most crucial stage nearly 350 million km away, with an 18-minute delay in signal reception and no human intervention.  TIANWEN-1 MISSION Tianwen-1 is an interplanetary mission by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) to send a robotic spacecraft to Mars. It consists of 1. of an orbiter, 2. deployable camera, 3. lander and 4. the Zhurong rover. Landing Site: Utopia Planitia.  The lander, with the rover attached, touched down in Utopia Planitia, in the northern hem...

The Iron Dome aerial defence system intercepted a Hamas Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that crossed from Gaza into Israel.  IRON DOME Iron Dome is a multi-­mission system capable of intercepting rockets, artillery, mortars and Precision Guided Munitions like very short range air defence (V­SHO-RAD) systems as well as aircraft, helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) over short ranges of up to 70 km.  It is an all-weather system and can engage multiple targets simultaneously and be deployed over land and sea. Iron Dome is manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems. It has been in service with Israeli Air Force since...

The irony in the ongoing conflict is that Hamas, whose founding members were encouraged by Israel in the 1970s and 80s against Yasser Arafat’s secular national movement, has turned out to be Israel’s biggest rival in the Palestinian territories. HAMAS Hamas was established after the first intifada broke out in 1987, as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.  Intifada was the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  The first intifada lasted from 1987 to 1993, and the second began in 2000. As strife between Israel and Palestine continued to soar as the latter resorted to the First Intifada, or uprising, in December 1987, Hamas as an organisation led by Sunni-Islamic fundamentalists, began to take shape.  Hamas could gain immediate and immense popularity within the protesting Palestinians because it was ...