(Current Affairs) International Events | March: 2016

International Events

WHO declares end to Ebola

  • The World Health Organisation declared an end to the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever after no new cases emerged in Liberia, though health officials warn that it will be several more months before the world is considered free of the disease that claimed more than 11,300 lives over two years.
  • Success comes after a harrowing toll: nearly 23,000 children lost at least one parent or caregiver.
  • Some 17,000 survivors are trying to resume their lives though many battle mysterious, lingering side effects. Studies continue to uncover new information about how long Ebola can last in bodily fluids.
  • Liberia, which along with Sierra Leone and Guinea was an epicentre of the latest outbreak, was first declared free of the disease last May, but new cases emerged two times forcing officials there to restart the clock.

Joint forces will attack IS in Mosul and Raqqa

  • The U.S. defence chief has said that 2016 will be the year the American-led coalition assaults the Islamic State in its strongholds of Raqqa and Mosul
  • U.S. defence secretary said the campaign against IS will expand beyond Syria and Iraq, indicating that the drone strikes that have become a fixture in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan will now target the militant group beyond declared battlefields.
  • Thus far, U.S. efforts against IS in Syria have been limited to airstrikes — at a lower tempo than those launched in Iraq — and infrequent special-operations raids, as the outgoing commander of U.S. forces in West Asia has pursued an “Iraq first ” strategy.
  • A concerted push on Raqqa would inaugurate a new phase of the war, perhaps featuring direct U.S. involvement in combat.

U.S. President gave four point agenda for the future

  • U.S. President Barack Obama has outlined a four-point agenda that he said was about focusing on the future beyond the next year — making the economy work for everyone, making technology work for everyone, retaining American leadership in the world “without becoming its policeman,” and overcoming the current hostility in U.S. domestic politics.

  • In his last State of the Union address, Mr. Obama said despite the growth in manufacturing and employment, the nature of the global economy allowed workers less leverage for a raise and encouraged companies to “put quarterly earnings over long-term returns.”

  • Outlining his idea of America’s global leadership in the coming decades, which he said would be of instability in West Asia, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia, Mr. Obama said: “We can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis.”

  • Mr. Obama said, listing the new opening with Cuba, the nuclear deal with Iran, the Trans Pacific Partnership that would limit China and establish U.S. leadership in Asia as examples of his internationalism.

  • Repudiating the anti-immigration, anti-trade and anti-Muslim rhetoric of the Republican candidates’ campaign, Mr. Obama wondered: “Will we respond to the changes of our time with fear, turning inward as a nation, and turning against each other as a people?”

  • Mr. Obama said for the American leadership to sustain, the country had to fix its internal politics.

Terrorist attack in Istanbul

  • Syrian suicide bomber struck the heart of Istanbul’s busiest tourist district, killing 10 people, eight of them Germans, in the latest deadly attack blamed onIslamic State jihadists
  • Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber of Syrian origin, while Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said he belonged to the Islamic State extremist group
  • Ms. Merkel said the latest attack would deepen German resolve to combat international terrorism.
  • The explosion took place at around 0820 GMT by the Obelisk of Theodosius, a monument from ancient Egypt which was re-erected by the Roman Emperor Theodosius and stands just outside the Blue Mosque.
  • Long accused by its Western al-lies of not doing enough in the fight against IS, Turkey is now hosting aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition engaged in deadly attacks on IS strongholds.

Afghan peace talks

  • Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States held talks to resurrect a stalled Afghan peace process and end nearly 15 years of bloodshed, even as fighting with Taliban insurgents intensifies.
  • Senior officials from the four countries are meeting in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, to launch a process they hope will lead to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, who are fighting to reimpose their strict brand of Islamist rule and are not expected at talks.
  • Renewed peace efforts come amid spiraling violence in Afghanistan, with last year one of the bloodiest on record following the withdrawal of most foreign troops at the end of 2014.
  • Peace efforts last year stalled after the Taliban announced that their founder,Mullah Mohammad Omar,had been dead for two years,throwing the militant group into disarray as rival factions fought for supremacy.
  • The Taliban, who were ousted in 2001, remain split on whether to take part in talks. Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour's faction has shown signs of warming to the idea of eventually joining peace talks, and other groups are considering negotiating,senior members of the movement

China revamping its nuclear and conventional missile forces

  • The superiority of arch-rival United States in the air and sea may have driven China to revamp its nuclear and conventional missile forces and bring about sweeping changes to its military command and control architecture.
  • A write-up in China Military Online, the website of thePeople’s Liberation Army(PLA), quoting an in-house military expert, points out that the Second ArtilleryForce (SAF) — the institution that had exercised operation-al control over the country’s nuclear forces — had been upgraded as the PLA RocketForce (PRF).
  • The PRF has now been up-graded into a full-fledged new service on a par with the Army, Air Force and the Navy.Mr. Song explained that un-like its predecessor, the SAF,which was an independent arm in China’s military system, the emergence of a full-fledged service would imply having “several arms and special troops” apart from having“academies, research institutes and logistic support system
  • The new service, as it evolves, is expected to deploy its nuclear assets on land, sea and air. Mr. Song pointed out that after incorporating theNavy’s strategic nuclear sub-marine and the Air Force’s strategic bomber, the PRF would become the first independent service with land,sea and air nuclear forces in the world, more integrated than the nuclear forces in theU.S., Russia, Britain andFrance.
  • the U.S. and the former Soviet Union had signed an agreement in 1987to cut their ground-to-ground missiles, with ranges from 500to 5,500 km. As a result, America’s Pershing II and land-based Tomahawk, and the for-mer Soviet Union’s SS-4,SS-12, SS-20 and SS-23 missiles were all destroyed. TheRussian army has only two types of short-range tactical missiles.

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