(Current Affairs For SSC Exams) International |January 2015

January-2015

Zoho email difficult to crack for NSA

City-based Zoho Corp’s email and chat services are one of the handful of services, which the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has found it difficult to crack under its mass surveillance programme.
According to a report by German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, NSA has classified the encryption and security-breaking problems it encountered on a scale of 1 to 5, from ‘trivial’ to ‘catastrophic.’ Facebook chat, for example, was considered ‘trivial.’ The report was based on the documents obtained from former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA had major problem at the fourth level with Zoho, an encrypted email service, the report said. Encryption — the use of mathematics to protect communications from spying — is used for electronic transactions of all types, by governments, firms and private users alike.
This comes as a strong testimonial for Zoho, which competes with Microsoft and Google in the mail and office suite space. The firm has over 10 million users, and mainly focuses on small and medium enterprises in the U.S. and other global markets. Zoho declined to comment on this story.
In an August 2013 blog post, Zoho’s founder Sridhar Vembu noted that his company remained the only major email service provider that never displayed any ads. “In fact, there are no ads inside any of our products. We don’t have an incentive to look inside your data ourselves.
While Google has gone on record to say you can’t expect privacy from Google itself, we can assure you that we guarantee your privacy, at least from Zoho itself, if not from the government,” he added in the post.
Der Spiegel report also mentions Tor, the network and software that help users browse the Internet anonymously, which NSA found it difficult to crack.
Fiscal deficit at 99 percent of the target for entire year.
Reflecting a worrisome financial situation, the government’s fiscal deficit at the end of November touched almost 99 per cent of the target for the entire year.
The fiscal deficit—difference between the government’s expenditure and revenue—stood at Rs.5.25 lakh crore, just short of the Rs.5.31 lakh crore targets for the entire year.
According to data released by the Controller General of Accounts, the fiscal deficit during April-November was 98.9 per cent of the 2014-15 estimates. The main reason for the high fiscal deficit was subdued revenue realisation.
Continuing where former finance minister P. Chidambaram left, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech earlier this year, had set a target of restricting the fiscal deficit to 4.1 percent of the GDP.
In line with the Vijay Kelkar committee recommended roadmap for reducing fiscal deficit by 5 per cent annually, the government intends to bring the fiscal deficit down to 3.6 per cent of GDP by 2015-16 and to 3 per cent by 2016-17.
The Responsibility and Budget Management Act also sets the target of achieving a fiscal deficit of 3 per cent of the GDP by 2016-17.
According to official data, government’s net tax revenue, as on November-end, stood at Rs.4.13 lakh crore or 42.3 per cent of the Rs.9.77 lakh crore estimated for the entire fiscal.
The government’s plan and non-plan expenditure during the period stood at Rs.2.93 lakh crore and Rs.7.8 lakh crore respectively. The fiscal deficit in 2013-14 was 4.5 per cent of the GDP, while it stood at 4.9 per cent in 2012-13.

RBI relaxes External Commercial Borrowings norms

The Reserve Bank of India introduced changes in external commercial borrowings (ECB) norms under which authorised money changing banks had been allowed to create a charge on securities.
At present, the choice of security to be provided to the overseas lender or the supplier for securing ECB is left to the borrower.
The decision was taken “with a view to liberalising, expanding the options of securities and consolidating various provisions related to creation of charge over securities for ECB at one place,” the RBI said in a notification.
The relaxations are with immediate effect. “It has been decided that AD Category-I banks may allow creation of charge on immovable assets, movable assets, financial securities and issue of corporate and/or personal guarantees in favour of overseas lender/security trustee, to secure the ECB to be raised/raised by the borrower,” it added.
The underlying ECB must be in compliance with extant ECB guidelines, there should be a security clause in the loan agreement, requiring the ECB borrower to create charge, and a no objection certificate will have to be obtained from an existing domestic lender.
At least 12,282 Iraqi civilians killed in 2014 says UN
Violence in Iraq in 2014 killed at least 12,282 civilians, making it the deadliest year since the sectarian bloodshed of 2006-07, the United Nations said in a statement.
The majority of the deaths - nearly 8,500 - occurred during the second-half of the year following the expansion of the Islamic State insurgency in June out of Anbar province leading to widespread clashes with security forces.
"Yet again, the Iraqi ordinary citizen continues to suffer from violence and terrorism ... This is a very sad state of affairs," said Nickolay Mladenov, head of the U.N. political mission in Iraq, in a statement released.
Islamic State fighters still control roughly a third of Iraq. The army and Shi'ite and Kurdish militia continue to battle the insurgents.
The figures show that violence has not abated since 2013 when 7,818 civilians were killed, the U.N. said. The bloodshed remains below the levels seen in 2006 and 2007 when sectarian Shi'ite-Sunni killings reached their peak.
In December, the body said that a total of 1,101 Iraqis were killed in acts of violence, including 651 civilians, 29 policemen and a further 421 members of the security forces.

‘AirAsia’ tragedy over 30 bodies recovered

Indonesia Rescue officials said that they had recovered 30 bodies and identified three as the sixth day of search operations for the missing Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 continued but that stormy seas had prevented them from deploying sophisticated sonar equipment.
Marsma Supriyadi, director of operations for the National Search and Rescue Agency in Indonesia, said eight of the bodies that had been recovered were sent to Surabaya, the capital of East Java.
With luck we will find more, because search operations are continuing, he told reporters in Pangkalan Bun, close to the site where wreckage from the airliner was discovered on Tuesday.
The plane, en route to Singapore, crashed into the Java Sea about an hour after leaving Surabaya. Three bodies were positively identified after extensive forensic examination, including DNA and dental tests, Mr. Supriyadi said. The three were an AirAsia flight attendant and two passengers, he said.

Nepal will join ‘Silk Road’ Economic Belt

China has taken a firm step to extend the Silk Road Economic Belt to South Asia, by working out a blueprint of connecting Nepal with the Eurasian transport corridor.
Last month, Nepal formally signed a four-point document endorsing the Silk Road Economic Belt — a pet project of President Xi Jinping for connecting Asia with Europe along a land corridor, with China as its hub. The agreement was signed during a meeting in Beijing of the Nepal-China Inter-governmental Business and Investment Coordination.
A local media report in Nepal quoted an embassy official in Beijing as saying that Nepal and China “have agreed to revive the old Silk Road that runs from Lhasa to Kathmandu to Patna”.
Analysts point out that Nepal has joined a project that China has marshalled along with Russia as its core partner, to counter the Washington-led “Asia Pivot” doctrine, which has the containment of a rising China at its heart.
Under the new Silk Route blueprint, the Chinese want to open up the transportation channel from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea, from which would radiate rail and road routes, which would also connect with East Asia, West Asia, and South Asia.
China wants to connect with Nepal and South Asia through an extension of the Qinghai-Tibet railway. The rail line from Lhasa has already been extended to Shigatse, Tibet’s second largest city, 253 km away.
The Chinese plan to build two lines from Shigatse. One would lead to Kerung, the nearest Chinese town from Nepal, from where it would be extended to Rasuwagadhi in Nepal. The other line would head to Yadong on the India-Bhutan border.
The website ekantipur.com of Nepal reported that visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged his Nepalese hosts last week to conduct a feasibility study so that the railway could be extended to Kathmandu and beyond.

China’s 3 Gorges dam breaks record for hydropower

China’s Three Gorges dam has broken the world record for annual hydroelectric power production, more than a decade after it became the world’s largest power plant, its operator said.
The Yangtze river power station generated 98.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2014, the Three Gorges Dam Corporation said in a statement, topping the 2013 production from the Brazilian-Paraguayan Itaipu dam.
The amount of electricity generated by the Three Gorges plant is roughly equivalent to burning 49 million tonnes of coal, said thereby preventing 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. But Concerns have been raised about its environmental and human cost of the huge project.
Campaign groups say it has damaged biodiversity, threatening the critically endangered Yangtze river dolphin.

Pakistan has reined in LeT & JeM: U.S.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Pakistan this month, shortly after certifying the Pakistan government’s “action against” Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).
The authorisation is likely to spark outrage in India. Mr. Kerry is due to visit the Vibrant Gujarat summit, which begins in Gandhinagar on January 11, ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit on January 24.
Mr. Kerry will lead the Strategic Dialogue in Islamabad later in January, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry announced this week.
Despite the fact that both the LeT and JeM have resurfaced visibly in the past year in Pakistan and the founders of both, Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar, have held public rallies in Pakistan in 2014, the U.S. Secretary of State has signed off on a certification that the Pakistan government has “prevented al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad from operating in the territory of Pakistan” for the year.

Not any change in Afghan draw-down plans

The White House has ruled out any change in its draw-down plan from Afghanistan asserting that Afghans are now solely responsible for the security of their country.
“What the President has been really clear about is what our strategy in Afghanistan is; that after the end of the year, we are now in a situation where the combat mission in Afghanistan for U.S. military personnel has ended.
“The Afghans are now solely responsible for the security of their country,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.
Mr. Earnest was responding to questions on the statement made by the new Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, in which he said that the United States should consider re-examining its timetable for taking U.S. coalition troops out of Afghanistan.
There is an enduring U.S. military presence and NATO coalition military presence in Afghanistan to carry out two other missions, Mr. Earnest said. “The first is a counterterrorism mission. We continue to see remnants of al-Qaeda that do have designs on destabilizing the region and U.S. interests.
“We also continue to see a need for U.S. military personnel to play an important role in training and equipping Afghan security forces to continue to take the fight to those terrorist elements and to preserve the security situation in the country of Afghanistan,” he said.
Lauding the U.S. and coalition forces, Mr. Earnest said there are a lot of hard-won gains that have been made in Afghanistan as a result of the bravery of U.S. military personnel and our coalition partners.
“Much of that work — many of those accomplishments are due to the effective coordination between United States military and Afghan security forces, and we want to see that kind of coordination continue, even as Afghans take sole responsibility for their security situation,” he said.

America’s oldest time capsule opened

Boston residents in the newly-formed United States valued a robust press as much as their history and currency if the contents of a time capsule dating back to a decade after the Revolutionary War are any guide.
When conservators at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston gingerly removed items from the box, they found five tightly-folded newspapers, a medal depicting George Washington, a silver plaque, two dozen coins, including one dating to 1655, and the seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
While some of the coins appeared corroded, other items were in good condition and fingerprints could be seen on the silver plaque.
The capsule was embedded in a cornerstone of the Massachusetts Statehouse when construction began in 1795. It was placed there by Revolutionary-era luminaries, including Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, Governor of Massachusetts at the time.
The contents were shifted to what was believed to be a copper box in 1855 and placed back into the foundation of the Statehouse. The box remained there until it was rediscovered in 2014 during an ongoing water filtration project at the building.
The oldest coin in the box was a 1652 “Pine Tree Schilling,” made at a time when the colony didn’t have royal authority to create its own currency
The newspapers were folded in such a way that the names of the publications weren’t always visible, but one might have been a copy of the Boston Evening Traveller, a newspaper operation that was eventually absorbed into the current Boston Herald.
A portion of one of the papers that was visible showed a listing of the arrivals of whaling ships from various ports to Boston. Conservators didn’t try to unfold the papers.
Pam Hatchfield, the head of objects conservation for the museum, removed each item using a slew of tools, including her grandfather’s dental tool. Ms. Hatchfield said the paper in the box was in “amazingly good condition.”

Palestine will join ICC on April 1

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Palestine will join the International Criminal Court (ICC) on April 1, a high stakes move that will enable the Palestinians to pursue war crimes charges against Israel.
The Palestinians submitted the documents ratifying the Rome Statute that established the court, the last formal step to becoming a member of the world’s permanent war crimes tribunal.
In a statement posted on the U.N.’s treaty website, Mr. Ban said “the statute will enter into force for the State of Palestine on April 1, 2015.” He said he was acting as the “depositary” for the documents of ratification.
The Palestinian move has drawn threats of retaliation from Israel and is strongly opposed by the U.S. as an obstacle to reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

U.S. bullet train project started

California’s high-speed rail project reached a milestone as officials mark the start of work on the first U.S. bullet train, which is designed to whisk travellers at 200 mph (320 kmph) between Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours.
The ceremony in Fresno came amid challenges from Central Valley farmers and communities in the train’s path who have sued to block it and from Republican members of Congress who vow to cut funding for the $68 billion project.

US-China rivalry fuels tensions in South China Sea

China is set to step up investments in off-shore oil-fields, but its nuclear strategy towards the United States, rather than demand for energy security, maybe at the heart of its assertion in the South China Sea.
Shanghai’s National Business Daily is reporting that the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has accelerated oil exploration, especially in the western region of the South China Sea.
The goal is to construct a big off-shore oilfield that would have an output of 10 million tonnes. The focus on off-shore exploration follows the depletion of existing on-shore oilfields.
By 2020, yearly output from Daqing — China’s largest oilfield — is expected to drop to 32 million tonnes, 8 million tones lower than the current production level. Other fields are also expected to suffer a similar fate.
China’s burgeoning energy demand does appear to be a factor fuelling its assertion in South China Sea, and sharpening its disputes with littoral states, especially Vietnam and the Philippines, along with Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.
China claims a large maritime space, defined by the "nine-dash line" that stretches hundreds of kilometers south and east of its southerly Hainan Island, covering the strategic Paracel and Spratly island chains. China buttresses its claims by citing 2,000 years of history, when the two island chains were regarded as its integral parts.
But Vietnam rejects the Chinese argument, justifying its own claims, on the basis of written records, which, in its view establish its administration over the area since the 17th century. Beijing and Manila clash on account of their dispute over the jurisdiction of the Scarborough shoal, which is 160 kilometers from the Philippines.
Signalling its intent to hold on to its claims, China, set sail Sansha I, its latest supply ship, from Hainan for Yongxing Island (Woody island), the largest of the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China sea, which is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.
Countering the energy argument, several analysts assert that China’s long term strategic contest with the United States, based on its nuclear doctrine, rather than a grab for oil and gas, better explains Beijing’s maritime assertion in the South China Sea.
Protection of naval assets, especially a select group nuclear submarines, which give China its second strike capability and assured deterrence vis-à-vis the U.S. seem to be compelling Beijing to keep out rivals from the South China Sea.

Australian govt. warns of terror attacks in India

The Australian government has warned that terrorists were planning attacks in India, and urged its citizens to “exercise a high degree of caution” while travelling through the country.
“We continue to receive reports that terrorists are planning attacks in India and assess that attacks could occur anywhere at any time with little or no warning, including in locations frequented by Australians,” said a statement on smartraveller.gov.au, the Australian government’s travel advisory site.
The advisory asked Australians to “exercise a high degree of caution” in India. Australia’s department of foreign affairs and trade said the warning applied to all parts of India.
It pointed out that in mid-December 2014 Indian authorities increased security at Metro stations and other public spaces in New Delhi.
Australian women have been advised to take particular care in all parts of India and exercise caution even if they were travelling in a group. “There are several regions of India where we advise Australians to reconsider their need to travel, or avoid all travel,” said the statement.

Developing nations need to rebuild their fiscal buffers says WB

Faced with weaker export prospects, an impending rise in global interest rates, and fragile financial market sentiment, developing countries like India need to rebuild fiscal buffers to support economic activity in case of a growth slowdown, the World Bank has said in its latest edition of Global Economic Prospects.
“Many developing countries need to rebuild fiscal space over the medium term, at a pace tailored to country conditions. These include cyclical conditions and constraints to monetary policy, including elevated inflation or financial stability risks,” the report said.
Noting that fiscal policy in developing economies has become increasingly countercyclical (or less procyclical) during the 2000s, the report said this allowed developing economies to build fiscal space in the run-up to the Great Recession of 2008-09, which was then successfully used for stimulus.
In countries with elevated domestic debt or inflation, monetary policy options to deal with a potential slowdown are constrained; the report said adding that in the foreseeable future, these countries may need to employ fiscal stimulus measures to support growth.
But many developing countries have less fiscal space now than they did prior to 2008, having used fiscal stimulus during the global financial crisis. And in recent years, private debt levels have risen substantially in some developing countries, it added.
A key finding from the analysis in the report is that in countries where debt and deficits have widened from pre-crisis levels, each fiscal dollar spent on activities designed to boost consumption and national income will have roughly a third less impact than it did in the run-up to the global financial crisis.
Because the so-called fiscal multiplier effect is weaker now for many developing countries, they need to rebuild budgets in the medium-term, at a pace determined to country-specific conditions.
For a number of oil-importing countries, lower oil prices offer a chance to improve fiscal positions more quickly than might have been possible before mid-2014, it said.
“With oil likely to remain cheap for some time, oil-importing countries should lower or even eliminate fuel subsidies and rebuild the fiscal space needed to carry out future stimulus efforts.
On the policy front, both the size and the quality of fiscal deficits matter, as do spending decisions,” said Kaushik Basu, Senior Vice President and Chief