Yemen Insurgency

 

Yemen as of April 2015

• EverNote Link1
• EverNote Link2 

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthis are followers of the Shia Zaidi sect, the faith of around a third of Yemen’s population. Officially known as Ansarallah (the partisans of God), the group began as a movement preaching tolerance and peace in the Zaidi stronghold of North Yemen in the early 1990s.

After some protests pitted it against the government, the group launched an insurgency in 2004 against the then ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh that lasted till 2010. Their opponents view them as a proxy of Shia Iran. The group is hostile to the United States but has also vowed to eradicate al-Qaeda. They participated in the 2011 Arab Spring inspired revolution in Yemen that replaced Saleh with Abdrahbu Mansour Hadi.Shia rebels and their allies have captured the presidential palace in Aden following heavy clashes in the commercial centre of this southern coastal city. 

Who are fighting whom?

› Houthis:
The rebel group controls nine of 21 provinces as of Apr 2015

› Saudi-led coalition:

Saudi Arabia:
UAE:
Bahrain:
Kuwait:
Qatar:
Jordan:
Sudan:
Egypt: 

› Yemeni security forces:
The military is now split as units that support Mr. Hadi, units that support the Houthis, and units that support a still-influential Saleh, who is in the Houthi camp for now.

› Popular Resistance 

• Committees:Militia loyal to Hadi in his stronghold of south Yemen. 
• AQAP: Mr. Hadi and Houthis are fighting al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has staged several attacks in the country and is strong in the south. Active since 2009. 
• IS: A new group of militants inspired by the Islamic State group has claimed major attacks. 
• U.S : CIA drones have continued to target top AQAP leaders, but the campaign has suffered from Mr. Hadi’s absence.

Ukraine Crisis

Reason : 

• Public protests started in December 2013 over President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to abandon a deal with the European Union in favour of aid and natural gas agreements with Russia.

Effects

• Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov tendered his resignation in order to facilitate “peaceful settlement” of the political crisis even as the Parliament repealed the harsh anti-protest laws that triggered violent anti-government protests in Jan 2014

President took Steps : 

• Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych has signed into law repeal of anti-protest laws and a controversial amnesty for protesters.
• The opposition supported the bill scrapping harsh anti-protest laws which had triggered violent clashes with police last week, but rejected the amnesty bill because it was conditional on protesters vacating government offices they seized in the capital Kiev and other cities.
• Mr. Yanukovych has softened his position by putting an amnesty for protesters through Parliament and by offering the prime ministership and deputy prime ministership to the respective opposition leaders, Arseny Yatsenyuk and Vitali Klitschko. But the opposition parties are furious that the amnesty requires the protesters to vacate the occupied buildings, and the offer of political posts has been rejected. 

Violence : South Sudan

• Initially Vice President rebels were successfully take over some of the oil-rich areas of the country which then intensify the violence in capital Juba and other provinces.
• This full fledged was has now turned out to be ethnic conflict.
• President Salva Kiir : from Dinka Tribe ,largest tribal group.
• Vice Prez : Riek Machar : from Nuer Tribe.
• Soldiers are also divided based on ethnic lines.

G-20

• The Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (also known as the G-20, G20, and Group of Twenty) is a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 major economies: 19 countries plus the European Union, which is represented by the President of the European Council and by the European Central Bank.


• Annual Meeting : The G-20 heads of government or heads of state have also periodically conferred at summits since their initial meeting in 2008


• History : The G-20 was proposed by former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin^[4] as a forum for cooperation and consultation on matters pertaining to the international financial system. The group was formally inaugurated in September 1999, and held its first meeting in December 1999.


• Chaired By : Russia currently holds the chair of the G-20, and will host the eighth G-20 summit in September 2013 at Saint Petersburg. Earlier in June 2012 it was hosted by Mexico at Los Cabos.

Russia

Chechen Insurgency

1. For more than a decade now, the lethal reach of Chechen separatist commander Shamil Basayev’s Riyad ul-Saliheen Martyrs Brigade has been repeatedly demonstrated.
2. In 2004, it seized control of a school in the town of Beslan, sparking a siege that claimed 334 lives, 186 of them children. In 2002, the Brigade took 800 people hostage at the Nord-Ost theatre in Moscow, leading to the death of 129 of them. In 2009, 29 were killed when the group bombed a Moscow-bound high-speed train. In 2010, a similar attack claimed the lives of 39 commuters.
3. In October 2013, Naida Asiyalova, 30, killed six persons and wounded 32 others in a suicide-bombing on a bus in Volgograd — almost identical to Dec 2013 attack where Volgograd railway station was bombed.
4. The Chechen battle against a great power has, however, inspired jihadists across the world.
5. History : 
1.  In the 1700s, as imperial Russia expanded into territories until then controlled by Iran and Turkey, it faced resistance from local Muslim rulers. Then, in 1940, central Asian Islamists allied with the Nazi Germany in an effort to gain independence from the Soviet Union. The historian, Ian Johnson, has documented the United States’ subsequent sponsorship of these jihadists, seeking to use them against the Soviet Union.
2. Even as the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, a war for independence broke out between Russia and the newly formed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Basayev was appointed vice-prime minister of the Chechen Republic by President Aslam Maskhadov in an attempted peace deal.
3. In 1999, though, he attempted to stage a coup in neighbouring Dagestan, and fighting broke out again. President Vladimir Putin’s troops laid siege to Grozny in 1999-2000, reducing it, the United Nations reportedly said, to “the most destroyed city on earth.”
6. Present : From the mid-2008 though, the jihadist movement in Chechnya began to gather momentum again. In November that year, Mr. Umarov declared himself the Emir of the so-called Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus. For the past decade, Mr. Umarov has faced a determined adversary in the former warlord Ramzan Kadyrov. Helped by generous assistance from Moscow, Mr. Kadyrov has turned Grozny into an economic hub. But he has been alleged to be complicit in violence directed at human rights activists and political opponents — and criticised for shari’a laws that discriminate against women, introduced in a bid to outflank his Islamist opponents. 

China - Dec 2013

One Child Policy

• The one-child policy was introduced in 1979 in China. 
• Under the earlier family planning policy, couples could have two children only if both parents were from one-child families. In rural areas, couples can have two children if their first born is a girl.
• In Dec 2013 , loosened this policy to  allow couples to have a second child if either parent is an only child.
• The working population will fall by 8 million every year after 2023, with those above 60 years of age reaching 400 million and accounting for one-quarter of the population in the next two decades.

Labour Camps

• Initially introduced in 1950 for minor crimes.
• Under the reeducation through labour system, accused can be held for up to four years without a trial.
• China  formally abolished its controversial labour camps “re-education” system in Dec 2013

US Shutdown

Reasons :

• On Oct 1 2013 ,the US government has begun a partial shutdown after the two houses of Congress failed to agree a new budget.Under U.S. law ,a new bill to approve funding for the next financial year is required, which must have been approved by the House of Representatives, and the Senate, and the president
• The core problem is that the Republican party controls the lower house, or House of Representatives, while the Democrats control the Senate.The Republican-led House of Representatives insisted on delaying Democratic President Barack Obama's healthcare reform - dubbed Obamacare - as a condition for passing a bill.The Democratic-led Senate twice rejected bills from House Republicans that would have funded the government only if funding for President Obama's healthcare law was delayed for a year.ITS a DEADLOCK.
• More than 700,000 federal employees face unpaid leave with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock is over.
• It is the first shutdown in 17 years.The US government has not undergone a shutdown since 1995-96, when services were suspended for a record 21 days.

Who will be Impacted : 

•  State department will be able to operate for limited time
• Department of defence will continue military operation.
• Department of education will still distribute $22bn (£13.6bn) to public schools, but staffing is expected to be severely hit
• Department of energy - 12,700 staff expected to be sent home, with 1,113 remaining to oversee nuclear arsenal
• Department of health and human services expected to send home more than half of

East China Sea Conflcit

Setting up of ADIZ by China 

China announced to set up an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the Senkakau / Diayou islands in East China Sea and notified that Airlines passing by should give prior information to Chinese authorities.Non-compliance to this can result in "emergency defensive measures" i.e military measures.

Aftermath 

Raised tensions in East China sea region where there is raging dispute between China and Japan over the sovereignty of Senkakau / Diayou islands.China claims sovereignty over the uninhabited islands, while Japan has the administrative control over them. The South

Sri Lanka

1. President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his three brothers — Defence Secretary Gotabhaya, Basil, who controls politics and economic policies, and the soft-spoken Speaker of the Parliament, Chamal — are the arbiters of their country’s destiny.


2. It is clear from the policies the Rajapaksa brothers have pursued since the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009 that their principal objective has been to prevent forever the emergence of a similar organisation. Now, the surest way to ensure that objective would be to take steps to erode, if not eliminate, separatist sentiment among the Tamil

Ireland -Protection of Life During pregnancy Bill 2013

Protection of Life During pregnancy Bill 2013 :

1. Savita Halappanavar suffered a fatal miscarriage in October 2012 after being denied the abortion she requested.


2. Members of the Irish Parliament’s lower house, the Dáil Éireann, passed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, 2013, which allows medical practitioners to terminate a pregnancy if it poses a “substantial” or “immediate” risk to the mother’s life.


3. Nevertheless, the law is still some distance away from embracing a ‘pro-choice’ approach: an amendment introduced by women TDs that would have permitted the termination of pregnancies arising from rape or incest failed to win support in the Dáil.

Edward Snowden

1. Edward Snowden, an employee of defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton at the National Security Agency, arrives in Hong Kong from Hawaii. He carries four laptop computers that enable him to gain access to some of the U.S. government’s most highly-classified secrets.


2. The Guardian publishes its first exclusive based on Snowden’s leak, revealing a secret court order showing that the U.S. government had forced the telecom giant Verizon to hand over the phone records of millions of Americans.


3. A second story reveals the existence of the previously undisclosed programme Prism, which internal NSA documents claim gives the agency “direct access” to data held by Google,

Nitaqat

Nitaqat 

• The Nitaqat  is a new policy being placed by the Saudi government in order to reduce the unemployment rate among Saudi citizens.


• This policy makes it mandatory for Saudi Companies to reserve 10 percent of jobs for Saudi nationals.

Need

• Saudi Arabia’s economy depends heavily on the existence of a large proportion of expatriates working for various establishments in the private and public sector.

Land Swap Deal

LAND SWAP DEAL

Bill—the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement is again pending to be introduced in  parliament legislation.Such roadblocks hamper gaining trust of neighbors .India often suffers a “perception problem” in the eyes of its neighbors, which often view India with suspicion because of its size, economy and military might. That in turn encourages them to turn to

Nobel Prize 2013

Economics :

Economics Nobel Prize : Shared by Eugene Fama, Robert Shiller and Lars Peter Hansen. Their work ranges from the foundations of modern finance (Fama) to defects in the mainstream models (Fama and Shiller) and improvements in statistical methodology (Fama and Hansen).

Nobel Prize 2013

Medicine

• The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Dr. James E. Rothman, Dr. Randy W. Schekman and Dr. Thomas C. Südhof for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells.

Affordable Care Act

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare 

• United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010.


• The ACA aims to increase the quality and affordability of health insurance, lower the uninsured rate by expanding public and private insurance coverage, and reduce the costs of healthcare for individuals and the government.


•  The law also requires insurance companies to cover all applicants within new minimum standards and offer the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or sex.


•  The Congressional Budget Office projected that the ACA will lower both future deficits and Medicare spending

Opposed :

• Prominent conservative advocacy groups, Congressional and many state Republicans, certain small business organizations, and the Tea Party movement groups.


• The law will lead to disruption of existing health plans, increased costs from new insurance standards, and an increase in the deficit.

India-International

• After Kazakhstan’s promise of 2,000 tonnes of the mineral, Uzbekistan has now offered to provide a similar quantity for fuelling nuclear plants in India.

Japan

• Japan today is in a very different situation, with two decades of economic malaise, a shrinking, aging population, frighteningly high levels of government debt, a major nuclear disaster to its north, and tense relations with its neighbors.
• In a vote in Buenos Aires this weekend, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has granted Tokyo the right to hold the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.
• On the final day of trading 2013, Japanese shares closed with an annual gain of 57 percent  the highest ever since 1972. That this occurred this year is no coincidence – Shinzo Abe’s three-pronged strategy for Japan’s economy dubbed “Abenomics” is working.

Russia-India Ties

• Russia has lifted the ban on import of non-basmati rice and oilseeds from India

Russia-Iran Ties

• Russia has taken a “principled” decision to sell Iran an improved version of the S-300 air defence missiles and to build a second nuclear reactor at Bushehr,


• President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to prepare the two proposals for his meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in Sep 2013 on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Australia

• A new government prepared to take control of Australia ,with policies to cut pledges in foreign aid and to wind back greenhouse gas reduction measures in an effort to balance the nation’s books.Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbot's conservative Liberal party-led coalition won a crushing victory at elections against the center-left Labour Party.