Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 16 August 2014

India, Singapore decide to scale up trade ties

India and Singapore decided to scale up ties in key areas of investment and trade which has witnessed a huge surge from $4.2 billion to about $19.4 billion in the last one decade.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Singaporean counterpart K. Shanmugam held extensive talks on entire gamut of bilateral relations and discussed ways to speed up air and maritime connectivity and coastal development.
During their talks spread over a working lunch hosted by Mr. Shanmugam, the two leaders agreed to work towards a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong at the earliest possible opportunity.
Singapore being the largest foreign investor last year, the visit by Ms. Swaraj, who arrived on Friday night, is aimed at further enhancing investment to India in various infrastructure projects including the new government’s ambitious 100 smart cities venture. In the budget, the new Indian government had proposed to develop 100 ‘smart cities’ as satellite towns of larger cities and allocated Rs 7,060 crore for the ambitious project.

Responding to the growing terrorist threat in Iraq and Syria, the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on six men for recruiting or financing foreign fighters and threatened additional sanctions against those supporting terrorist groups.
The U.N.’s most powerful body, in a resolution adopted unanimously, also demanded that the Islamic State extremist group and all al-Qaeda-linked groups end violence and disarm and disband immediately.
The British-drafted resolution follows the recent offensive by the Islamic State group, which has taken control of a large swath of eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, brutalising civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee, as well as increasing terrorist activity by other al-Qaeda-linked groups including Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria.
The six men now subject to a global travel ban and asset freeze include four who either recruited or helped finance al-Nusra — Abdelrahman Mouhamad Zafir al Dabidi al Jahani, Hajjaj Bin Fahd Al Ajmi, Said Arif and Abdul Mohsen Abdallah Ibrahim al Charekh.
Another man, Hamid Hamad Hamid al-Ali, was blacklisted for helping finance both al-Nusra and the Islamic State group. Abou Mohamed al Adnani was blacklisted for financing and perpetrating acts supporting the Islamic State group.
al Jahani and al Ajmi are already subject to U.S. sanctions.

The phone with a battery life of one hour was developed by IBM and the American cellular company BelSelf and went on sale in 1994.The first ever smartphone — a $900 clunky IBM Simon mobile phone —turned 20 .
The phone with a battery life of one hour was developed by IBM and the American cellular company BelSelf and went on sale in 1994.
At around 23 cm long and weighing half a kg, it was about half the size of a house brick. “It was called Simon because it was simple and could do almost anything you wanted,” the Irish Times reported.
With its green LCD screen, Simon had touch screen technology. Its software allowed users to write notes, draw, update their calendar and contacts and send and receive faxes, as well as allowing calls.