Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Starred Articles

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
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
World > China  > September 24
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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