(Study Notes) Current Affairs: International Issues: 09 - 16 Jan 2010 By Dialogue India

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(Study Notes) Current Affairs: International Issues: 09 - 16 Jan 2010 By Dialogue India

CAG Weekly
(Current Affairs & GK)
By Om Prakash (goldy sir) 

International

Don’t Pakistanise Yemen

• Yemen, a second-tier preoccupation for terrorism trackers in the west until Christmas day 2009, has now been elevated to the highest-risk category.
• According to John Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism advisor, it was Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who helped radicalise, train, and equip Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to attack Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit.
• Other terror attacks that are being attributed to the Yemen-based AQAP include the November 2009 killing of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, by United States Army major Nidal Malik Hasan; and the August 2009 assassination attempt on Prince Mohammed bin Nayef of the Saudi royal family.
• The most unmistakable sign of a spike in the perceived terror threat from Yemen was the temporary closure of the embassies of the U.S., Britain, and France in Sana’a this week. These threats to western interests have come on the back of the U.S.-Yemen allied offensive against AQAP in parts of Sana’a and in Abyan, al-Jawf, and Shabwah provinces.
  The joint military operations of December reflect a growing yet weak bond between Washington and Sana’a. Financial assistance is of course at the heart of the relationship. The U.S. is expected substantially to increase the $70 million in security aid it provided Yemen last year. Its development assistance is poised to reach $120 million over three years. But these levels pale into insignificance compared with the $2 billion that neighbouring Saudi Arabia provides. As the U.S. and Saudi Arabia pump and more funds into Yemen in pursuit of their own foreign policy goals, there is a risk that they will ignore an important fact:
• political power in the country is still significantly beyond the control of its government, headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
• Not only is the President embattled with conflicts involving Shia Houthi rebels in north Yemen and discontented secessionists of the south;
• his authority is further undermined by dwindling oil reserves and allegations of corruption against his administration.
• However, it is President Saleh’s occasional tolerance of Sunni jihadists and his past reliance on them in his fight against the northern Shiite rebels that must be most worrying for Washington.

In this fraught polity, ever-increasing surges of American aid will distort the domestic balance of power and deny Yemenis the political space they need to resolve these complex issues. In turn, the U.S. may itself pay a heavy price for the Pakistanisation of Yemen.

Marathon New Year holidays in Russia

• Believe it or not, but Monday, January 11, is the first day when Russians report to work after ringing in the New Year.
• Extended New Year holidays officially continue from January 1 to January 7, the Russian Orthodox Christmas, but with weekends added they run for about 10 days. Moreover, many Russians begin celebrating on December 25, the Catholic Christmas.
• Statistics for the marathon holidays read like reports of a natural calamity. The Russian economy has suffered losses of about $25 billion, as government offices, private businesses and printed media stay closed for nearly two weeks.
• Ever since the long winter holiday was legislated in 2004 it has been criticised as being harmful for people’s health and morale.

Russia ratifies European rights convention

• Russia has lifted its opposition to a long-delayed reform of the European Court of Human Rights in a major gesture towards the West and a step to improve the Russian legal system.
• The Russian Parliament’s Lower House, State Duma, overwhelmingly ratified Protocol 14 of the European Human Rights Convention, which will allow the court to process submitted cases more efficiently and help eliminate a massive backlog of cases in the court.
• Russian legislators said they endorsed the Protocol after the Council of Europe agreed to address their complaints, including a demand that Russian judges be involved in reviewing complaints against Russia.
• Russia was the only country in the 47-member Council of Europe that had refused to endorse the reform of Strasbourg Court for the past three years.

Panel to push Nepal peace process

• A three-member panel, headed by Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala; Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and CPN-UML chairman Jhalanath Khanal as members.
• It would focus on speeding up the peace process and writing the Constitution.
• Mr. Prachanda said the group would work on “ending of the peace process logically, writing of the Constitution in the stipulated time [May 2010] and to end the present political stalemate.”
• The differences between his party and the major ruling parties — the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML — had been growing as the three could not forge a consensus on the issue of restoring ‘civilian supremacy’ by correcting President Ram Baran Yadav’s move in May.
• 4 May when Pushpa Kamal Dahal resigned as the Prime Minister. he resignation was prompted by the President’s move to overrule the Maoist-led cabinet’s decision to sack Chief of the Army Staff Rookmangud Katuwal. The former Prime Minister asserted that the Army Chief had challenged civilian supremacy.

Japan calls off refuelling mission

• Japan on Friday terminated its non-combat mission of refuelling ships engaged in the U.S.-led “anti-terror war” in Afghanistan.
• Operating in the Indian Ocean area, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force vessels have carried out refuelling from December 2001, except for a short suspension from November 2007 to January 2008.
• The termination follows the expiry of a relevant Japanese law.

Jordan bomber said attack on CIA was revenge

• The Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan said in a video broadcast posthumously that all jihadists must attack U.S. targets to avenge the death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.
• The video showed Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi — whom the CIA had cultivated as an asset against the al-Qaeda — sitting with Mehsud’s successor at an undisclosed location. It confirmed the Pakistani Taliban’s claim of responsibility for one of the worst attacks in CIA history.

Zionist methods used o kill Iran scientist, ays Ahmadinejad

• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that "Zionist" methods were used in the attack on a leading nuclear scientist, who was killed in a bombing outside his Tehran home, a report said.
• "One can see the level of enemy's grudge in the way he was assassinated. The method of bombing was a Zionist one," the Mehr news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
• The scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, died when a bomb strapped to a motorbike was triggered by remote control as he was leaving his home on Tuesday morning.

Referendum’ violates Constitution, says Beijing

• China’s State Council, or Cabinet, on Friday said the so-called “five districts referendum” proposed by some social groups in Hong Kong would violate China’s Constitution and the region’s Basic Law.
• A statement released by a spokesman for the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office said the “referendum” had no legal basis in the country’s Constitution and violates the special administrative region’s (SAR) Basic Law.

Israel to fence Egypt border

• Israel has approved the construction of fences on its southern border with Egypt to prevent people from illegally crossing into the Jewish state.
• Israel is a popular refuge for Africans fleeing war-torn and impoverished countries who enter through its porous, 250-km southern border with Egypt. Israeli police say 100 to 200 Africans enter illegally through Egypt each week.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the construction of two sections of fence: one opposite the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah in the southwest and another near the Red Sea.

Concern over mistreatment of Baha’is in Iran

• Prominent Indians have expressed deep concern over the continued persecution of the Baha’is in Iran and called upon the government to take up the issue with Tehran.
• The plea for their protection comes days before the trial of the seven former leaders of the Iranian Baha’i community. The seven Baha’is – two women and five men – were arrested in the spring of 2008 and official Iranian news accounts have said that they are to be accused of “espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities, and propaganda against the Islamic republic.” Some of these charges carry the death penalty.

Colombo, U.N. in fresh spat

• Less than three weeks ahead of the January 26 presidential election, a fresh dispute has broken out between Sri Lanka and the United Nations .
• U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon conveyed to Colombo that he is considering appointing a Commission of Experts to assist the Sri Lankan government in addressing possible violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the last days of Eelam War IV (July 2006 to May 2009).
• Reacting sharply to the reports, President Mahinda Rajapaksa told that the U.N. had to inform the Sri Lankan government before issuing statements since Sri Lanka was also a member of the world body and was an independent country.
• Charges of “war crimes” have been a recurrent since the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009.
• In a controversial interview to English weeklySunday Leader on December 13, General (retired) Sarath Fonseka, the opposition consensus candidate in the upcoming presidential polls, had said Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had instructed a ground commander in the battle zone to shoot all LTTE leaders who came out to surrender. But the next day, the General went back on his comments.

N. Ireland leader under pressure to quit

• Northern Ireland, normally in the news for sectarian and political tensions, was on Friday struggling to deal with the fallout of a sex and financial scandal involving its “first” couple.
• Peter Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and head of Northern Ireland’s coalition government, was under growing pressure to quit after his wife, Iris — an MP and a local councillor — confessed to an extra-marital affair and was then accused of breaking parliamentary rules by not declaring £50,000 she reportedly raised from two property developers to help her former lover start a business. Rules require members to declare their business interests in an official register.

Kathleen Rogers

• President of Earth Day Network,has worked more than 20 years as an environmental attorney and advocate
• She was Chief Wildlife Counsel for National Audubon Society and has held senior positions with the Environmental Law Institute, Piedmont Environmental Council and the United Nations Conference on Women.
• Earth Day on April 22 marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

Bail for Tissainayagam

• Editor and veteran Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam, who has been sentenced to 20 years rigorous imprisonment by the High Court of Colombo, was granted bail pending appeal by the Appeal Courts.Sri Lankan government informed a court that it had no objection if bail was given to
• Mr. Tissainayagam, the first journalist in the island nation to be convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
• Mr. Tissainayagam was convicted on three counts, including editing, printing and distributing the North Eastern Monthly magazine between June 1, 2006 and June 1, 2007.

Courtesy:- Dialogue India and Career Plus

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