International (Political & Economy)
Content:- What is the issue between Google and China?
- Drug menace: Hillary heads for Mexico
- Zoffany's The Last Supper to be restored
- Agenda for road safety
- Eastern Europe, Central Asia warned of energy crunch
- U.N. recognises Russia-led bloc
- Marital trouble for Bullock, Winslet
- Narrow lead for Maliki
- U.S., Pakistan to hold dialogue
- Zuma wins trust vote
- Accord to cancel Afghan debt
- Head of Irish Church apologises for coverup
- Left-green revival in France
- Ban goes ahead with Sri Lanka panel
- Washington-Tel Aviv row escalates
- 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES, in Doha
- Shortest man dead
- india-born MP found dead
- Youngest solo across the Atlantic
- Saudi Arabia not to influence China on Iran
- Panic over fake news in Georgia
- A fraud of an election
- Surging global weapons transfers raise concerns
- Panel to study cause of conflict in Sri Lanka
What is the issue between Google and China?
- Google has been operating google.cn, a search engine meant for Chinese speaking people since 2006.
- China requires Internet operators to block words and images the ruling Communist Party deems unacceptable.
- China demands that Google should respect its censorship laws. But Google accuses China of hacking its sites with an intent to bully the search engine giant.
- Google in January said it may exit China pending talks with the government on a plan to stop censoring search results in its Google.cn site, after claiming it was targeted by cyber attacks from within the country.
- The height of this tiff is that China demands that Google should respect its censorship laws even if it exits China.
- At a time of heightened concern over drugs-related bloodshed in Mexico — some of it affecting American citizens — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced plans to hold discussions with authorities there next week.
- The talks come close on the heels of the killings in Ciudad Juarez, by suspected drug gangs, of three persons associated with the U.S. consulate there. Last weekend, an employee of the consulate, her husband and the husband of a Mexican employee were gunned down.
- A 10x12 feet canvas depicting The Last Supper that took German neoclassical painter Johann Zoffany six weeks to paint, will take a team of six conservators five months to tend to the 47 tears and holes it has suffered in the 223 years since its creation.
- Started in February, the project will cost about Rs.15 lakhs.
- The painting, acknowledged to be among the finest representations of the Biblical scene in India, was presented to the St. John's parish on June 24, 1787, for the consecration of the first church built by the British.
- The resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly urging all nations to launch a decade of action on road safety from 2011 resonates with India's vulnerable road users.
- The Global Status Report on Road Safety, published by the World Health Organisation in 2009, reveals that the country leads a group of 10 countries with an appalling record.
- Eastern Europe and Central Asia may face an energy crunch by 2030 due to rising consumption unless massive investments are made to unlock capacity, the World Bank has warned in a report released.
- A Russia-led defence bloc of ex-Soviet states signed a cooperation pact with the United Nations that is likely to pave the way for the alliance's greater involvement in Afghanistan.
- U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon signed the document in Moscow along with General Nikolai Bordyuzha, head of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). The CSTO includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
- The agreement amounts to a recognition of the CSTO as a full-fledged international security organisation. Two years ago the U.N. signed a similar pact with NATO. The Atlantic Alliance has consistently refused to sign a cooperation agreement with CSTO, which is often described as a counterbalance to NATO in Central Asia.
- Just days after celebrating her first Oscar win, Sandra Bullock's marriage to Jesse James seems to be nearing an end as she has moved out of the family home after reports of infidelity on his part.
- It looks like Ms. Bullock will join the long line of Oscar-winning women actors whose marriage ended soon after they won the coveted award, including Kate Winslet, Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, Hillary Swank and Kim Bassinger.
- Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition is facing a stiff electoral challenge from Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc as counting for the Iraq's tightly fought parliamentary elections enters its final phase.
- Trailing behind the Iraqiya bloc on Tuesday by 9,000 votes, Mr. Maliki's State of Law (SOL) formation has recovered to establish a narrow lead. With nearly 85 per cent of the votes counted, the State of Law had recorded 2,260,483 voted against Iraqiya's 2,220,443.
- Mr. Allawi, riding on strong nationalist agenda has managed to draw the Sunni and secular votes, analysts say. However, Mr. Maliki backed by the Shia vote bank may in the end triumph if his coalition is joined by another Shia formation, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), which is running third in the contest.
- Observers, however, caution that in the numbers game that lies ahead, the Kurdish vote coalesced under the Kurdistania Alliance could also be significant.
- In the last elections, the Kurds had sided with the Shia formations, and the Shia-Kurdish alliance had decisively outflanked the Sunnis and their allies.
- Some analysts are of the view that if the present trend continues, Mr. Maliki's SOL and the Iraqiya bloc could each end up with 85 to 90 seats in the 325-member Parliament.
- The INA could manage around 67 seats, while the Kurdistania alliance could notch up around 38.
- The United States and Pakistan will hold their first strategic dialogue at the ministerial level in Washington DC on March 24, it was announced here. The talks will be co-chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
- Additionally, deputy spokesman at the State Department Mark Toner, said: “Obviously, we're talking about … Afghanistan, the situation there, the spill-over into the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] and how to really better engage. And in fact, we've seen some successes on that front in recent weeks on terrorism.”
- South Africa's ruling party says it used its overwhelming majority in Parliament to throw out a no-confidence vote in President Jacob Zuma.
- The African National Congress says the motion was baseless. Supporters of the motion say Mr. Zuma, who has three wives, recently acknowledged fathering an illegitimate child and his behaviour set a poor example, particularly in the fight against HIV/Aids.
- The United States and other countries belonging to the Paris Club of creditors agreed to cancel Afghanistan's debt.
- While the U.S. said lifting the debt burden inherited by the Afghan government marked a crucial step in Afghanistan's road to economic sustainability, the Paris Club added that Afghanistan had committed to allocating resources freed by the debt relief to priority areas identified in the country's poverty reduction strategy and to achieve Millennium Development Goals.
- With the accord signed, Afghanistan, a member of the enhanced Heavily-Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, would see the implementation of “completion point treatment,” said the State Department. This implies the cancellation of an estimated $1.6 billion in debt from the Paris Club, as well as the IMF, World Bank and other creditors. As per the debt relief plan, this process will ultimately result in a “96 per cent reduction of the debt inherited by Afghanistan's government,” which was estimated at $11.6 billion in 2006.
- The breakthrough for Afghanistan comes after years of careful debt and macroeconomic management — since 2002 technical advisors have been working with the Afghan Ministry of Finance to streamline the budget process, improve the payment system for government employees, restructure Afghanistan's debt, and establish a Debt Management Unit within the Ministry of Finance, according to official reports.
- The Paris Club was formed in 1956 as an informal group of industrialised countries.
- Head of Irish Catholic Church Cardinal Sean Brady was under growing pressure to resign after he was forced to apologise for his role in the child abuse scandal that has hit the church.
- His apology came after victims' groups said he had “unclean hands” following revelations that as a priest in 1975 he tried to hush up cases of sexual abuse involving another priest, Brendan Smyth, who then went on to commit more offences and was finally convicted many years later.
- Cardinal Brady acknowledged that he was present at a meeting where two victims — aged 10 and 14 — were asked to sign oaths of secrecy while the offending priest was sent to another parish.
- The Church has failed to explain why the police were not informed.
- The first round of the elections for the 26 French regional assemblies, which took place on March 14, has resulted in a thumping win for the Socialist Party (PS), led by Martine Aubry, over the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative party.
- The UMP trails in almost all 22 regions of metropolitan France, namely the mainland plus Corsica. Interior Ministry figures show the PS as having gained 29.5 per cent of the vote, well ahead of the UMP's 26.2 per cent and the environmentalist Europe Ecologie's 12.5 per cent.
- The campaign was marred by acrimony and racist and sexist diatribes as Mr. Sarkozy's colleagues followed his lead (in previous elections) with tough positions on crime, immigration, and the national identity. Yet that strategy has been rejected by habitual conservative voters. It has even failed to attract support from Jean-Marie Le Pen's hard-right anti-immigrant National Front (FN), which tallied 11.55 per cent. The second round takes place on March 21; despite some confusion over the announcements, the PS and Europe Ecologie have announced that their party lists will be combined in all but three regions.
- United Nation's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is going ahead with his proposal for a panel of experts on Sri Lanka despite objections from Colombo that the panel would infringe on the country's sovereignty.
- The U.N. News Centre website quoted Mr. Ban as saying the panel was in line with a joint statement he issued with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his visit to the country in May 2009, days after the military defeat of the LTTE.
- Israelis and Palestinians have drifted further away from indirect talks after the special envoy of the United States to West Asia, George Mitchell decided to postpone his visit to the area and violence gripped parts of volatile East Jerusalem.
- The postponement is yet another step marking the sudden downslide in diplomatic interaction between the Americans and the Israelis. The deterioration began during last week's visit to Israel and the West Bank by U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden. During the course of his visit, Israel announced its decision construct 1,600 homes in East Jerusalem, illegally occupied by Israel during the 1967 war.
- European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, also said in Cairo that the Israeli decision had “endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks”.
- Notwithstanding the diplomatic row, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not budged from his position of constructing new homes in occupied territory. In an address to Parliament on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said that construction “will continue in Jerusalem as this has been the case for the past 42 years”.
- Meanwhile, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful U.S. based Israeli lobbying group, has gone on the offensive and asked the American administration “to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish state”.
- Amid escalation of the war of words, clashes have broken out in East Jerusalem over Israel's decision to restore the Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's walled Old City.
- The Palestinians have said the restoration endangered the revered Al-Aqsa mosque situated around 400 metres away.
- Efforts to control n trade have failed
- Governments across the world have “failed miserably and… are continuing to fail” to halt the growth of illegal poaching and trade in tiger body parts, says Willem Wijnstekers, Secretary-General, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
- At the Doha meet, representatives of nearly 150 nations will vote on over 40 proposals on restricting trade in endangered species.
- Pointing out that 2010 was the Chinese Year of the Tiger and the International Year of Biodiversity, Mr. Wijnstekers said the trend must be reversed this year.
- The World Bank, which leads the Global Tiger Initiative, has reportedly found that the trade is spurred by privately-run tiger farms in Asian countries such as China. Further, scientific studies in India have demonstrated that most wild tiger populations will not be able to withstand even small increases in poaching over time. While China banned trade in tiger bones and products in 1993, illicit sales continue. In a 2007 report titled Taming the Tiger Trade, the WWF said any easing of the Chinese ban would be a death sentence for the endangered cats. The report warned that Chinese business owners who stand to profit from tiger trade were pressuring the Chinese government to lift the ban.
- The world's shortest man has died in Italy.
- Guinness World Records said in a press release that he was born in 1988 with a form of primordial dwarfism. He was officially measured in March 2008.
- Mystery surrounds the “accidental'' death of an India-born Labour MP whose body was found in his home in Middlesbrough, north-east england.
- Police said Ashok Kumar (53), MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, suffered a “sudden accidental” death but declined to comment on a possible cause saying it was too early to say whether there was anything suspicious about it.
- Katie Spotz completed her mission becoming the youngest person to row an entire ocean solo, and the first American to row a boat without help from mainland to mainland. After 70 days five hours 22 minutes in the Atlantic, Ms. Spotz (22), arrived on Sunday in Georgetown, Guyana, in South America.
- American efforts to build momentum for a fresh round of sanctions against Iran have hit a snag following the visit to Riyadh by U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
- China has so far been firm in proposing that instead of sanctions, negotiations should be way forward in addressing concerns regarding Iran's nuclear programme.
- Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been assassinated, Russian tanks are advancing on Tbilisi, and opposition leaders have seized power in the country, a Georgian television station reported causing panic and then angry protests when people realised it was a fake report.
- In a brief announcement before airing the report, the Imedi Television said it was a “simulation” of what might happen if Georgian society is not consolidated against Russia's aggressive plans. However, many viewers missed the warning and watched in horror the 30-minute hoax report broadcast in the 8 p.m. prime time news bulletin.
- The Political Parties Registration Law, enacted by the military junta in Myanmar ahead of general elections to be held later this year, is aimed at keeping the popular leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi out of the electoral process.
- Only portions of the law have been released and they are outrageous. There cannot be a greater fraud on the electoral process, the sole aim of which is to keep the military junta in power.
- The international community, led by the United Nations, was hoping against hope that the military rulers would see some reason and make the forthcoming elections an inclusive process.
- Surging global weapons transfers are raising concerns about arms races in tension-fraught areas of the globe, a leading peace research group warned.
- New data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed that transfers of major conventional weapons rose by 22 per cent in 2005-2009, compared to the previous five-year period.
- The U.S. remains the biggest arms supplier, accounting for 30 per cent of weapons exports, while China and India are the biggest importers of conventional weapons, SIPRI said.
- It added that Singapore and Algeria had both made the top-10 list of major weapons importers for the first time.
- Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to appoint a “committee” to study the root cause of the ethnic conflict, lessons learnt since sections of Tamils took to militancy to gain their rights in the mid-seventies and challenges faced since the military defeat of the LTTE in May last year, said Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe here on Friday.
- Asked if the committee would cover the circumstances leading to the deployment of the IPKF and the 1989 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) second insurgency, the Minister said: “Yes, it would be a comprehensive study covering all aspects.”
- The announcement on the committee coincided with the controversy over the decision of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a panel of experts to advise him on Sri Lanka and the vociferous objections raised by Colombo to the proposal. In the course of a telephone conversation with Mr. Ban, Mr. Rajapaksa termed the move uncalled for and unwarranted.
- Mr. Samarasinghe pointed out that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) comprising 124 member states had condemned Mr. Ban's move.
- Since the defeat of the LTTE, the government has been countering demands for a commission to investigate alleged human rights violations in the 34-month long Eelam War IV and repeatedly pointed to the resolution by the Human Rights Commission lauding Sri Lanka on the issue.
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