1. State mourning across the country on July 9 over the death of Shinzo Abe
Tags: International News
The government has decided to observe a one-day state mourning across the country on July 9 in honour of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He passed away on 8 July.
Important facts
Prime Minister Modi expressed deep grief over the incident and declared a day of national mourning on 9 July in the country as a mark of deep respect for him.
On the day of mourning, on all buildings where the National Flag is flown regularly, the National Flag will remain at half-mast.
Awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2021
In January 2021, the Indian government honoured Shinzo Abe with the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award.
Abe is considered to have played an important role in better relations between India and Japan.
Visited India most times while being the PM of Japan
Shinzo Abe visited India three times during his tenure as Prime Minister.
He was on official visits to India in January 2014, December 2015 and September 2017.
No other Prime Minister of Japan has made so many visits to India.
He was the first Japanese prime minister to be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in 2014.
India-Japan relations under Shinzo Abe
The foundation for the "Global Partnership between Japan and India" was laid in 2001, and the annual bilateral summit was agreed in 2005, with Abe accelerating the pace of relations with India since 2012.
In August 2007, during his first visit to India as Prime Minister, he delivered the famous "confluence of two seas" speech which laid the foundation for the concept of Indo-Pacific.
In September 2014, Modi and Abe agreed to upgrade bilateral ties to a "Special Strategic and Global Partnership".
During Abe's tenure, the two countries decided to hold a meeting of foreign and defence ministers (2+2).
In November 2019, the first 2+2 meeting was held in New Delhi.
An agreement for transfer of defence equipment and technology was also signed in 2015.
During his tenure, India and Japan came closer in the Indo-Pacific.
Abe had given the concept of Quad in 2007 and it was formed.
The Quad is a diplomatic network of four countries committed to supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific that is inclusive and resilient.
During Abe's visit in 2015, India decided to introduce a bullet train.
Under Abe's leadership, India and Japan formed the Act East Forum and it is important for development in Northeast India.
Kindly also see 8 July 2022 post
2. OPEC chief Mohammad Barkindo dies in Nigeria at 63
Tags: Person in news International News
Mohamed Barkindo, Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has died in Nigeria at the age of 63.
Important facts
Barkindo was on a visit to his home country of Nigeria to attend the Energy Conference where he passed away.
Born in April 1959 in Adamawa State in northeastern Nigeria, Barkindo assumed the position of Secretary General of OPEC in 2016.
His term was to end in July.
About OPEC
It is a permanent, intergovernmental organisation that was established in 1960 at the Baghdad Conference by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
The purpose of this organisation is to coordinate and integrate the petroleum policies of its member countries and to ensure the stabilisation of oil markets to ensure efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to the consumer.
Headquarters - Vienna (Austria)
OPEC has 14 member states (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of the Congo, Angola, Ecuador and Venezuela).
OPEC plus
It is a coalition of OPEC members and the world's 10 major non-OPEC oil exporting countries.
Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan and Sudan.
3. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shot dead in Nara
Tags: International News
Former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in Nara (Western Japan) on 8 July while campaigning for the upcoming election.
Important facts
The assailant shot Abe from behind with a shotgun with two bullets in the chest.
The 67-year-old world leader was taken to hospital in critical condition but could not be saved.
The incident happened around 11.30 am (8 am Indian time).
He was delivering an election speech on the street outside a railway station in the context of elections to the Upper House of Japan's parliament.
Abe was shot in the left side of his chest as the attacker fired multiple shots.
Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old man from the city of Nara, has been arrested on suspicion of shooting Abe with intent to kill.
Who was Shinzo Abe?
Early life
Abe was born in Tokyo on 21 September 1954, he was the son of Shintaro Abe, who served as Japan's foreign minister.
He got a bachelor's degree in political science from Seiki University in Tokyo in 1977.
He then went to the U.S. to study public policy at the University of Southern California.
In 1979 he began working at Kobe Steel as the firm was expanding its presence abroad.
He left the company in 1982 to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Political career
He was first elected as a Liberal Democratic Party legislator representing the southwestern prefecture of Yamaguchi in 1993.
Abe is seen as a conservative who was a member of the party's Mori faction, once led by his father, who died in 1991.
In 2005 Abe was appointed chief cabinet secretary under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
In the same year, he was elected head of the LDP, preparing him to take over as prime minister.
On September 26, 2006, Abe became Prime Minister of Japan for the first time, taking a tough stance on North Korea and implementing economic reforms.
After the electoral defeat in 2007 saw the LDP lose control of the legislature for the first time in 52 years, Abe resigned as prime minister.
In 2012 he was elected LDP president and became Prime Minister for the second time.
In 2013 seeking to boost growth, Abe launched his “Abenomics” policies featuring easy lending and structural reforms.
During 2014-2020 he was re-elected LDP leader and he served two additional terms as Prime Minister.
On August 28, 2020 he announced he will step down as Prime Minister due to health reasons.
Abe became Japan's longest-serving prime minister.
Abe served as prime minister for eight years between 2012 and 2020, and before that from 2006 to 2007.
On July 8, 2022, Abe was shot and seriously injured during an election campaign in the city of Nara, and later died.
Japan
Present Prime Minister - Fumio Kishida
Japan's Capital - Tokyo
Japan's Currency - Yen
4. Boris Johnson resigns as Prime Minister of Britain
Tags: International News
Boris Johnson resigned as Prime Minister of Britain on 7 July. He also announced his resignation as leader of the Conservative Party.
Earlier, more than 50 of Johnson's ministers and aides had resigned leaving his side.
It has become clear that the Conservative Party will have a new leader and Britain will have a new Prime Minister.
Johnson, 58, will remain in charge of 10 Downing Street (British Prime Minister’s residence) until the process of electing a new leader is completed at a Conservative Party convention.
The country's new Finance Minister Nadeem Jahavi had demanded Johnson's resignation.
Johnson had appointed him as the new finance minister, 36 hours after which he demanded his resignation.
Reason of resignation
Defeats of Conservative Party in by-elections for two parliamentary districts, Wakefield, and Tiverton.
The defeat was especially significant because it overturned the Conservative Party’s 24,000 majority in the district, the biggest ever majority to be overturned in a by-election.
On June 24, the co-chairman of the party resigned.
The elections for both the seats were due to the resignations of Conservative Party MPs facing sex scandals.
One of them had quit after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage boy, and the other was caught watching porn in Parliament.
The Pincher scandal - party colleague Chris Pincher had to resign as Deputy Chief Whip last week over allegations of sexual misconduct.
5. S Jaishankar attends G20 Foreign Ministers' meeting in Bali
Tags: International News
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Bali, Indonesia on July 7 and participated in the G20 Foreign ministers’ meeting.
Important facts
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia is organising this meeting within the framework of the Indonesia G20 Presidency.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and discussed pending issues related to bilateral ties, including the status of the border dispute in eastern Ladakh.
The meeting focused on pending issues related to bilateral relations, including the situation on the border.
Other issues including students and flights were also discussed between the two.
Jaishankar reiterated the need to restore peace and stability in the border areas.
It is noteworthy that since May 5, 2020, the armed forces of India and China have maintained tense relations along the border in eastern Ladakh.
India and China have so far held several rounds of talks at the military and diplomatic level to resolve the Eastern Ladakh dispute.
In this regard, the two ministers reaffirmed that military and diplomatic officials from both sides should maintain regular contact and look forward to the next round of senior commanders' meeting at the earliest.
The two Ministers also exchanged their perspectives on other regional and global developments.
About G-20
It is an informal group of 19 countries and the European Union.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are its representatives.
The G-20 group is the world's largest advanced and emerging economies.
It represents about two-thirds of the world’s population, 85% of global gross domestic product, 80% of global investment and over 75% of global trade.
Member countries - Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
It has no permanent secretariat or headquarters.
Italy will chair the G-20 in 2021, Indonesia will assume the role in 2022 and India will chair it in 2023.
6. 6th Deputy NSA level meeting of Colombo Security Conclave held in Kochi
Tags: International News
The 6th Deputy National Security Advisor-level meeting of the Colombo Security Conference is being held in Kochi, Kerala.
The seven-member Indian delegation is led by Deputy National Security Advisor Vikram Misri.
Apart from India, delegations from Maldives, Sri Lanka and Mauritius are participating in the meeting.
Representatives of Bangladesh and Seychelles are also attending the meeting as observers.
The delegates called for cooperation among member states on issues such as maritime defense and security, counter-terrorism, countering radicalization, smuggling and organized crime, as well as protecting critical infrastructure.
Colombo Security Conclave (CSC)
It started in 2011 as a trilateral maritime cooperation mechanism between India, Maldives and Sri Lanka.
The Secretariat of CSC is located in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The membership of the group was extended with the inclusion of Mauritius in March 2022.
So far five meetings of the CSC have been held at the level of National Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor.
Since 2011, the mandate of the CSC mechanism has been enhanced to cover other issues of mutual interest.
Five pillars for cooperation
Maritime Safety and Security
Countering Terrorism and Radicalization
Combating trafficking and organized crime
Cyber Security
Protection of critical infrastructure, technology, humanitarian aid and disaster relief
7. Australia is Killing Millions Of Bees To Save Its Honey Industry
Tags: International News
Australian authorities have killed millions of bees over the past two weeks in an effort to stop a devastating parasitic plague called the Varroa mite.
The parasite named Varroa mite has spread to the south-eastern part of the country.
Now because of this, the honey industry worth crores of rupees is under threat.
In view of this, an alert was issued for the beekeepers.
The decision to kill bees could adversely affect the development of many crops including almonds, macadamia nuts and blueberries that depend on bees for pollination.
Bees are the most important pollinators.
What is Varroa Mite?
It is a parasitic insect that infects and feeds on honeybees.
It is often known as the varroa destructor.
It is reddish-brown in color and is capable of destroying entire colonies of bees.
This organism can spread five types of viruses in the hive which can destroy the entire colony of bees.
After clinging to one bee, it reaches another and thus takes the entire hive under its control.
8. Finland, Sweden sign protocol to join NATO
Tags: International News
30 NATO allies have signed the protocol to make Sweden, Finland members.
It will allow them to join the nuclear-armed alliance once parliaments of all NATO countries ratify the decision.
It is the most significant expansion of the alliance since 1990.
The signing at NATO headquarters follows an agreement with Turkey at the NATO summit in Madrid last week.
The protocol means that Helsinki and Stockholm can participate in NATO meetings and obtain intelligence, but will not be protected by a NATO defence clause.
NATO defence clause means that an attack on one ally is an attack against all until ratification.
It is likely to take up to a year to become part of the NATO defence clause.
All 30 allies signed accession protocols for Sweden and Finland at a ceremony in Brussels on 5 July, making the countries formal invitees and allowing them access to almost all NATO meetings.
Russia warning
Moscow has repeatedly warned both countries against joining NATO.
On 12 March, the Russian Foreign Ministry said there would be "serious military and political consequences".
Turkish warning
Turkey is threatening to veto NATO membership for Sweden and Finland.
Turkey will not ratify membership of the NATO for these countries if they don’t fufill their promises to combat terrorism and extradite suspects under a memorandum of understanding reached at an alliance summit in Madrid last week.
About North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
NATO is an intergovernmental military alliance consisting of 30 member states belonging to Europe and North America (28 European states, the US and Canada).
NATO aims to guarantee the security of its members through political and military means.
According to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, an armed attack against any NATO member in Europe or North America shall be deemed an attack against all NATO members.
Article 5 has been invoked only once so far after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the US.
The last country to join NATO was North Macedonia in 2020.
Headquarters- Brussels, Belgium
Kindly also see 23 May 2022 post
9. Ukrainian mathematician becomes second woman to win Fields Medal
Tags: Science and Technology International News
On July 5, a jury of the International Mathematical Union awarded the prestigious Fields Medal to four mathematicians, including Ukraine's Marya Vyazovska.
Marya Vyazovska
Wiazowska is the head of number theory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.
Wiazowska is the second woman to win the award in its 80-year history.
She is known to be an expert in solving spherical packing problems.
She was awarded the prize for solving a version of a centuries-old mathematical problem where she proved the densest packing of equal regions in eight dimensions.
Wiazowska was born in 1984 in Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union, and has been a professor at the cole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland since 2017.
The other three winners are -
James Maynard - number theorist at the University of Oxford, UK
June Huh - specialist in combinatorics at Princeton University in New Jersey
Hugo Duminil Copin - studies statistical physics at the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies (IHES) near Paris.
35-year-old James Maynard was presented this award for his contribution to "analytical number theory".
June Huh, 39, was awarded the prize for "changing" the field of geometric combinatorics.
Duminil-Coppin was awarded for solving "long-standing problems in the probabilistic theory of phase transitions".
First women winner
The first woman to win the prize was Mariam Mirzakhani in 2014, an Iranian-born mathematician who died of cancer three years later in 2017.
Indian-origin winners
Two of the winners are of Indian origin.
Akshay Venkatesh of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton – was awarded the award in 2018.
Manjul Bhargava of the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University was honored in 2014.
About Fields Medal
Fields Medal is often described as the Nobel Prize in mathematics.
This highest honours in mathematics is conventionally awarded to people aged under 40.
The medal, along with $15,000 Canadian dollars ($11,600), is awarded every four years to between two to four candidates for “outstanding mathematical achievement”.
Of the 60 mathematicians who won the Fields Medal earlier this year, 59 were men.
The prizes are normally announced at the opening of the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM).
This year’s congress was scheduled to begin on 6 July in St. Petersburg, Russia, but the plan was scrapped following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The award ceremony was held in Helsinki and the Congress concluded as a virtual event.
International Mathematical Union
It is an international non-governmental and non-profit scientific organization.
Its purpose is to promote international cooperation in mathematics.
It is a member of the International Science Council (ISC).
founded - in 1920 and has existed in its current form since 1951
Location - Berlin, Germany
President - Carlos E. Kenig
10. UK Parliament honours Tanuja Nesari with Ayurveda Ratna award
Tags: Awards International News
All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) Director Tanuja Nesri has been conferred with the Ayurveda Ratna Award by the UK Parliament.
The UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Indian Traditional Science (ITSappg) presented the award in recognition of his contribution to promoting the development of Ayurveda in India and abroad.
The award was presented on the occasion of International Day of Yoga (June 21).
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Indian Traditional Science was formed in 2014 with the aim of spreading the knowledge of Ayurveda, Yoga, Astrology, Vastu, Unani and Sangeet to the United Kingdom and abroad.
About All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA)
Establishment - 2017
Headquarters - New Delhi
