(Current Affairs) International Events | April + May: 2014

International Events

Rajapaksa slams US

  • Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa criticised a US decision to table a resolution criticising Colombo’s post-war reconciliation at the UN Human Rights Council, saying such actions undermine his country’s hard won peace.

  • The US has said it would table a resolution against Sri Lanka over its human rights accountability and slow pace of reconciliation, putting new pressure on Colombo to address war crimes allegations.

  • The UN has already asked Sri Lanka to punish army personnel responsible for atrocities during the civil war against the LTTE that ended in 2009.

  • Mr. Rajapaksa said that the powerful nations failed to fully understand the challenge faced by the country in combating the LTTE.

  • Mr. Rajapaksa urged powerful nations not to be swayed by information coming from defeatist forces meaning the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora.

  • Sri Lanka encountered similar UN resolutions both in 2012 and 2013, moved by US and supported by India.

A new Afghan law

  • A new Afghan law will allow men to attack their wives, children and sisters without fear of judicial punishment, undoing years of slow progress in tackling violence in a country plagued by honour killings, forced marriage and vicious domestic abuse.

  • The small but significant change to Afghanistan’s criminal prosecution code bans relatives of an accused person from testifying against them. Most violence against women in Afghanistan is within the family, so the law — passed by parliament but awaiting the signature of the president, Hamid Karzai — will effectively silence victims as well as most potential witnesses to their suffering.

  • “Honour” killings by fathers and brothers who disapprove of a woman’s behaviour would be almost impossible to punish. Forced marriage and the sale or trading of daughters to end feuds or settle debt would also be largely beyond the control of the law in a country where prosecution of abuse is already rare.

  • It is common in western legal systems to excuse people from testimony that might incriminate their spouse. But it is a very narrow exception, with little resemblance to the blanket ban planned in Afghanistan.

  • The change is in a section of the criminal code titled “Prohibition of Questioning an Individual as a Witness”. Others covered by the ban are underage children, doctors and defence lawyers for the accused.

US visa reform

  • India has warned the United States of consequences for its companies if lawmakers tighten visa rules on high-tech firms as part of an immigration overhaul.
  • India would see a decision to restrict certain temporary visas for skilled workers as a sign that the US economy is becoming less open for business.
  • The Republican leadership of the House of Representatives recently laid out general principles for an overhaul of immigration — whose main goal would be to give legal status to the estimated 11 million undocumented foreigners in the United States.
  • The Senate bill, while increasing the overall number of H-1B visas available, would hike fees and restrict additional H-1B visas for companies considered dependent on such foreign workers. The move came after complaints by US companies and labor groups that Indian tech firms bring in their own, lower-paid employees rather than hiring Americans.

Anti-gay google doodle

  • With the Winter Games underway in Sochi, Google Inc. quietly but vibrantly added its voice to the chorus of U.S. companies speaking out against Russia’s law restricting gay-rights activities by updating its iconic search page logo to depict illustrations of athletes skiing, sledding, curling and skating against a rainbowcoloured backdrop.

  • The company declined to comment on the new Google Doodle that appeared on its home pages worldwide, saying it wanted the illustration to speak for itself.

  • But the logo clearly was meant as a show of support for gay rights and a rebuke of the law that bans pro-gay “propaganda” that could be accessible to minors- below the updated logo appears a twosentence section of the
    Olympic charter that reads, in part, “The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind.”

  • Although Google is not an Olympics sponsor, its action came a day after three sponsors of the U.S. Olympic Committee AT&T, DeVry University and yogurt maker Chobani issued statements explicitly speaking out against the Russian law.

Children’s Nobel Prize

  • Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai has been nominated for the World Children’s Prize in Sweden for her crusade for education rights for girls.

  • Malala was last year nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and won the European Union’s Sakharov human rights prize for her fight for the right of all children to education.

  • The 16-year-old, who lives in Britain following extensive medical treatment, was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for her outspoken views supporting education for girls in Pakistan.

  • The World Children’s Prize, also known as the ‘Children’s Nobel Prize’, was founded in 2000 and aims to raise awareness of children’s rights in 60,000 schools in 110 countries through educational programmes.

  • UN Conference on Population and Development Beyond 2014.”

  • According to an U.N. report, since the adoption of the Cairo Programme of Action at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, the status of women has improved worldwide . But , it also says that growing inequalities is likely to undo the significant gains made in health and longevity.

  • Maternal mortality has come down by half; skilled birth attendance has increased by 15 per cent since 1990; more women have access to education, work and political participation; and fewer adolescent girls are having
    babies, says the report “United Nations International Conference on Population and Development Beyond 2014.”

  • The report is the first truly global review of progress, gaps, challenges and emerging issues in relation to the landmark Cairo ICPD. It gathers data from 176 countries, alongside inputs from civil society and comprehensive academic research.

World’s longest underwater tunnel

  • China plans to build the world’s longest underwater tunnel beneath the Bohai Sea by 2026, connecting the port cities of Dalian in Liaoning province and Yantai in Shandong province.
  • The blueprint of the ambitious project is expected to be submitted to the State Council of the People’s Republic of China in April.
  • The 123-km underwater tunnel will cost around 220 billion yuan ($36 billion).
  • The length of the tunnel will be more than the combined length of the world’s two longest underwater tunnels – Japan’s Seikan Tunnel and the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.

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