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India,
China sign 16 MoUs during Xi Jinping's visit
World
> India -
China > September 18
India and China have
signed 16 Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs), including one on
enhancing cooperation in railways and customs.
The MoUs were signed
after delegation-level talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and
Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The first MoU was
signed between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her
Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on opening a new route for Indian
Pilgrimage (Kailash Mansarovar Yatra) to the Tibet Autonomous Region
of the People's Republic of China.
Three MoUs were signed
for strength cooperation in railways.
The fourth MoU was
signed between Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala
Sitharaman and China's Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng over the five
year Trade and Economic Development Plan.
The fifth MoU called
the agreed Minutes of the Tenth Session of India-China Joint Economic
Group was also signed between Nirmala Sitharaman and Gao Hucheng.
Scottish
referendum: Scotland votes 'No' to independence
World
> Scotland > September 19
Scotland has voted to
stay in the United Kingdom after voters decisively rejected
independence. With the results in from all 32 council areas, the "No"
side won with 2,001,926 votes over 1,617,989 for "Yes".
Scotland's First
Minister Alex Salmond called for unity and urged the unionist parties
to deliver on more powers.
David Cameron said the
three main unionist parties at Westminster would now follow through
with their pledge of more powers for the Scottish Parliament. He also
announced that Lord Smith of Kelvin, who led Glasgow's staging of the
Commonwealth Games, would oversee the process to take forward the
commitments, with new powers over tax, spending and welfare to be
agreed by November, and draft legislation published by January.
Background:
The Scottish
independence referendum, 2014 was a referendum on Scottish
independence that took place in Scotland. The independence referendum
question, which voters answered with "Yes" or "No",
was "Should Scotland be an independent country?" The "No"
side won, with 55.3% voting against independence. The turnout of
84.6% was unusually high for a ballot in the United Kingdom.
The Scottish
Independence Referendum Bill, setting out the arrangements for this
referendum, was passed by the Scottish Parliament in November 2013,
following an agreement between the Scottish and the United Kingdom
governments, and was enacted as the Scottish Independence Referendum
Act 2013. To pass, the independence proposal required a simple
majority. With some exceptions, all European Union (EU) or
Commonwealth citizens resident in Scotland aged 16 or over could
vote, a total of almost 4.3 million people.
Country
running out of anti-HIV drug stock, NHRC sends notice to health
ministry
Science
and Technology > Anti
- HIV drugs > > September 22
Members of HIV-positive
people’s networks in the country have warned of an impending
shortage of the anti-retroviral drugs that keep the virus in check.
Any break in consumption of the drugs could lead to the virus gaining
higher resistance to them and, thereby, to a resurgence of the AIDS
epidemic in the country.
The National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the health ministry
following a report that HIV patients were suffering due to shortage
of medicines at government centres. The commission has also asked the
ministry secretary to submit a separate report on the measures
proposed for preventing such shortages in the future. According to
the commission, treatment and control of HIV, including dispensing
drugs and testing, is handled by the government-run public health
programme through its centres.
Mars
Mission: India creates history as Mangalyaan successfully enters Mars
orbit in first attempt
India
> Mars
Mission > > September 24
Creating history,
ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) on Wednesday successfully entered
the orbit of the red planet. India joins the United States, Russia
and Europe in successfully sending probes to orbit or land on Mars.
Apart from India, none managed to succeed on their first attempt.
The mission also makes
India the first country in Asia to reach Mars, after an attempt by
regional rival China failed to leave Earth's orbit in 2011. ISRO's
MOM is also the cheapest such mission till now. The Mars Orbiter
Mission was achieved on a budget of $74 million, nearly a tenth of
the amount the U.S. space agency NASA spent on sending the Maven
spacecraft to Mars.
Others
Barack
Obama nominates Indian-American Richard Rahul Verma to be US envoy to
India
World
>USA > September 19
President Obama has
nominated Indian-American Richard Rahul Verma as the new ambassador
to India. Verma, a former assistant secretary of state, is currently
a senior counselor at the Steptoe & Johnson law firm and the
Albright Stonebridge Group, a business advisory company led by former
secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
The post has been
vacant since the departure of the previous ambassador Nancy Powell,
after a disastrous stint during which India and US hit a new low
following a bitter spat over diplomatic privileges and protocol.
Ukraine,
Poland, Lithuania sign agreement to form joint peacekeeping
brigadeWorld
> Ukraine,
Poland, Lithuania > September 20
Ukraine, Poland, and
Lithuania have agreed to launch a joint military force which is
expected to hold its first drill next year. The defense ministers of
the three states signed the agreement in Warsaw in the presence of
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.
Polish defense
officials told Reuters that LITPOLUKRBRIG
(Lithuanian–Polish–Ukrainian Brigade) could take part in
peacekeeping operations or, if necessary, form the basis of a NATO
battle group in the region.
Lithuania and Poland
are NATO members, while Ukraine’s recent appeal for a special
status outside the bloc was turned down by US president Barack Obama.
Tesco
starts accounting probe of inflated profit forecast
Corporate >Tesco > September 22
Corporate >Tesco > September 22
Tesco, the world's
second-largest supermarket chain after Walmart, has suspended four
executives and launched an accounting investigation after admitting
that its half-year profit was overstated by 250 million pounds ($407
million). The profit overstatement was brought to the CEO’s
attention by the company’s general counsel after a tipoff from a
member of Tesco’s finance department. The investigation is the
latest challenge for new Chief Executive Officer Dave Lewis, who was
brought in this month after the ousting of his predecessor Phil
Clarke. It’s the third time the company has lowered its profit
outlook in two months as Tesco has lost customers, particularly to
discounters Aldi and Lidl, loosening its grip on the U.K. grocery
market.
US
jury finds Arab Bank liable for backing terrorism
World
> US c > September 22
A federal jury found
Jordan-based Arab Bank liable for knowingly supporting terrorism
efforts connected to two dozen attacks in the Middle East, the first
time a bank has ever been held liable in a civil suit under a broad
antiterrorism statute. Arab Bank, a major Middle Eastern bank with
$46 billion in assets, was accused of knowingly supporting specific
terrorist acts in and around Israel during the second Palestinian
uprising of the early 2000s. The plaintiffs in this case, about 300
victims of 24 terrorist attacks, said the acts had been carried out
by Hamas, and accused Arab Bank of supporting the organization by
handling transfers and payments for Hamas members.
The case focused on
transactions Arab Bank handled during the second Palestinian
uprising. The plaintiffs accused Arab Bank of handling transactions
for a number of well-known terrorists, and helping to route
transactions for a charity called the Saudi Committee. That charity,
the plaintiffs argued, sent payments to the families of Hamas suicide
bombers, pointing to a Saudi Committee spreadsheet that included the
names of relatives of some of those bombers.
World
running out of carbon allowance: Report
World
>
Environment > September 23
According to a report
by the Global Carbon Project, an international consortium of
scientists who track the total accumulation of carbon annually, human
activities have added 1,430 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere from
1870 to 2013. That's 45 percent of the total carbon budget the world
has to maintain a rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees
Celsius. The strong rise in annual carbon dioxide emissions - of 2.5%
for 2013, taking the total emitted in the year to 40 billion tonnes -
means the global carbon budget, calculated as the total we can afford
to emit without pushing temperatures above the critical 2 degree
Celsius level, is likely to be used up within just one generation, or
in thirty years from now.
The biggest carbon
dioxide offenders are China, India, the United States and the
European Union. Data shows China's per capita emissions now outstrip
Europe's for the first time. However, the United States still has the
highest per capita consumption. Each person in the United States has
a carbon footprint of 18 tons (16.4 metric tons) per year, more than
twice that of a person in China and eight times that of someone in
India.
Euro-area
surveys show slowdown putting pressure on ECB
World
> Euro
Crisis > September 23
Euro-area manufacturing
and services growth unexpectedly slowed to the weakest pace this
year, increasing pressure on the European Central Bank to add
stimulus to the economy. According to London-based Markit Economics,
Purchasing Managers Indexes for both industries fell and a composite
gauge dropped to 52.3 in September from 52.5 in August.
The central bank has
cut interest rates to record lows and said it will buy asset-backed
securities and covered bonds.
Ebola
virus cases may hit 1.4 million by January, U.S. warns
World
>Ebola > September 23
Two leading
public-health agencies issued dire warnings about the Ebola epidemic
in West Africa, estimating that the number of cases could grow
exponentially unless measures to tame the outbreak are implemented on
a large scale soon.
The U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention said that from 550,000 people to as
many as 1.4 million people when underreporting of cases is taken into
account could be infected by mid-January in Liberia and Sierra Leone,
in a worst-case scenario generated by a computer modeling tool the
agency constructed. Around 21,000 cases would occur by Sept. 30.
Experts from the World Health Organization and Imperial College,
London, also predicted that the number of cases in West Africa would
climb exponentially, saying more than 20,000 people would have been
infected by early November.
The differing numbers
illustrate the range of scenarios that could occur—and the
difficulty of predicting what might happen over the next several
weeks and months.
Officially, 5,864
cases, including 2,811 deaths, have been reported in five West
African countries, according to the WHO. But the United Nations
agency says that toll is vastly underestimated.
U.S.,
allies destroy ISIS targets, kill al-Nusra Front leader in 'powerful
message to the world'
World
> ISIS
Attacks > September 23
The U.S. and a group of
five Arab nations began airstrikes against Islamic extremist targets
in Syria, following through on President Barack Obama’s promise to
expand the war against the Islamic State group while also targeting a
separate insurgent network there believed to be a direct threat to
the U.S. homeland. A mix of American fighters, bombers and drones,
along with ships operating in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf
bearing Tomahawk cruise missiles, began targeting key Islamic State
group strongholds in Syria, including Raqqa, Dayr az Zawr, al Hasakah
and Abu Kamal late Monday. In all, 14 strikes were conducted by
aircraft from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. The USS Arleigh
Burke and USS Philippine Sea launched 47 Tomahawks.
Also participating in
the strikes were the militaries of Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Arab participation was a key
component in the plan Obama first outlined earlier in September to
fight the Islamic State group, which he said would only be successful
if other predominantly Muslim countries denounced the group’s hard
line brand of Islam and shared the burdens of war with the U.S.
Amnesty:
Chinese trade in torture tools fuels human rights abuses
According to Amnesty
International, UK-based rights campaign group, More than 130 Chinese
firms now produce electric shock stun batons, spiked batons, weighted
leg cuffs and other “potentially dangerous law enforcement
equipment”, up from 28 in 2003.
The report says that
trade in what it calls tools of torture is flourishing, with 130
Chinese companies engaged in the production and trade of potentially
dangerous law enforcement equipment, compared with 28 companies a
decade ago.
Most of the companies
highlighted in the report are state owned and openly promote their
products at international trade shows and online.
Chinese officials have
questioned the report's credibility.
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