Junior Digest

Jan 21,2022:China and Russia delayed a US bid to impose UN sanctions on five North Koreans on Thursday, diplomats said, as Pyongyang suggested it may resume tests of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
The move by China and Russia came ahead of a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on North Korea later on Thursday – the second in two weeks – after Pyongyang fired tactical guided missiles on Monday.

The test on Monday was North Korea’s fourth in 2022, with two previous launches involving “hypersonic missiles” capable of high speed and manoeuvring after lift-off, and another test using a pair of short-range missiles fired from train cars.
The United States last week imposed unilateral sanctions over the missile launches. It blacklisted six North Koreans, one Russian and a Russian firm, accusing them of procuring goods for the programmes from Russia and China.
It then proposed five of those individuals also be subjected to a UN travel ban and asset freeze. The request had to be agreed by consensus by the Security Council’s 15-member North Korea sanctions committee.

Jan 18,2022:Indonesia’s parliament has passed a bill to relocate the nation’s capital from Jakarta to a jungled area on Borneo island.

The new state capital law, approved on Tuesday, provides a legal framework for President Joko Widodo’s ambitious $32.5bn megaproject and stipulates how its development will be funded and governed.

The president chose the new city’s name – Nusantara, a Javanese name for the Indonesian archipelago.

“The new capital has a central function and is a symbol of the identity of the nation, as well as a new centre of economic gravity,” Planning Minister Suharso Monoarfa told parliament following the bill’s passage.

‘Super hub’
Plans to relocate the government from Jakarta – a bustling metropolis of 10 million people that suffers from chronic congestion, floods, pollution, and is sinking because of over-extraction of groundwater – have been floated by multiple presidents, but none have made it this far.

Jokowi, as the president is widely known, first announced the plan in 2019, but progress was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
His government envisions the new capital as a low-carbon “super hub” that will support the pharmaceutical, health and technology sectors and promote sustainable growth beyond Java Island, the country’s most densely populated area.

Currently, 54 percent of Indonesia’s nearly 270 million people live on Java.

The site of the new capital, some 2,000km (1,250 miles) northeast of Jakarta, will straddle the regencies of North Penjam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara in Kalimantan Province on Borneo, which are home to 900,000 people. It is situated in the centre of Indonesia, in one of the areas least prone to the natural disasters that regularly hit the vast archipelago of 17,000 islands.

The government has set aside 180,000 hectares (445,000 acres) of land for the planned city, and Jokowi has previously said moving the administrative centre would take up to a decade. The state will fund 19 percent of the $32.5bn cost, with the rest coming from public-private partnerships and private investment.

The price tag includes new government offices and homes for about 1.5 million civil servants.

But critics say there has been limited public consultation on the plan, while environmentalists fear the move will hasten the destruction of forests that are home to orangutans, sun bears and long-nosed monkeys, as well as increasing pollution already on the rise from coal mining and palm oil industries.
Nusantara – which follows the creation of new capitals in countries such as Brazil and, more recently, Myanmar – will be led by a chief authority whose position is equivalent to a minister, according to Saan Mustofa, deputy chair of the bill’s special committee.

Jan26,2022:On the eve of Republic Day, the Andhra Pradesh government has issued a new official gazette notification for carving out 13 new districts in the state under the AP Districts Formation Act, Section 3(5). These have been carved out from the existing 13 districts, bringing the number of districts in the state to 26.

The new names of the new 13 districts are as follows, Manyam, Alluri Sitharama Raju, Anakapalli, Kakinada, Kona Seema, Eluru, NTR District, Bapatla, Palnadu, Nandyal, Sri Satyasai, Annamayya and Sri Balaji district.

The names of the existing 13 districts include Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Nellore, Anantapuram, Kadapa, Kurnool and Chittoor were also carried while forming the new districts.

Jan 20,2022: The Indian drug regulator’s subject expert committee on Wednesday recommended full approval for Covishield and Covaxin, the two COVID-19 vaccines that have dominated the country’s inoculation drive.

Covishield, developed by the University of Oxford and Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L), is produced in India by the Serum Institute of India. Covaxin, India’s first home-grown coronavirus shot, was developed by privately owned Bharat Biotech.

The committee advised that the Drugs Controller General of India upgrade the status of the two shots from restricted use in emergencies for adults, the regulator said on Twitter.

Covaxin and Covishield received emergency use authorisation in India in January 2021, with more than a combined 1.5 billion doses having been administered so far, according to government data.

Jan 25,2022: Meta has completed the first phase of a new AI supercomputer. Once the AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) is fully built out later this year, the company believes it will be the fastest AI supercomputer on the planet, capable of “performing at nearly 5 exaflops of mixed precision compute.”
The company says RSC will help researchers develop better AI models that can learn from trillions of examples. Among other things, the models will be able to build better augmented reality tools and “seamlessly analyze text, images and video together,” according to Meta. Much of this work is in service of its vision for the metaverse, in which it says AI-powered apps and products will have a key role.
“We hope RSC will help us build entirely new AI systems that can, for example, power real-time voice translations to large groups of people, each speaking a different language, so they can seamlessly collaborate on a research project or play an AR game together,” technical program manager Kevin Lee and software engineer Shubho Sengupta wrote in a blog post.

RSC currently has 760 Nvidia DGX A100 systems with a total of 6,080 GPUs. Meta believes the current iteration is already among the fastest AI supercomputers on the planet. Based on early benchmarks, it claims RSC can, compared with the company’s older setup, run computer vision workflows up to 20 times faster and the NVIDIA Collective Communication Library more than nine times faster.

Meta says RSC can train large-scale natural language processing models three times faster as well. As such, AI models that determine whether “an action, sound or image is harmful or benign” (for example, to root out hate speech) can be trained more quickly. According to the company, that research will help protect people on current services like Facebook and Instagram, as well as in the metaverse.

Along with creating the physical infrastructure and systems to run RSC, Meta said it needed to ensure there were security and privacy controls in place to protect the real-world training data it uses. It says that by using real-world data from its production systems, instead of publicly available data sets, it can more effectively put its research to use by, for instance, identifying harmful content.

This year, Meta plans to increase the number of GPUs in RSC to 16,000. It says that will boost AI training performance by more than 2.5 times. The company, which started working on the project in early 2020, wanted RSC to train AI models on data sets up to an exabyte in size (the equivalent of 36,000 years’ worth of high-quality video).

“We expect such a step function change in compute capability to enable us not only to create more accurate AI models for our existing services, but also to enable completely new user experiences, especially in the metaverse,” Lee and Sengupta wrote.

Other exascale systems are being built in the US. The delayed Aurora supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is expected to hit 2 exaflops, while the El Capitan supercomputer, which will manage the country’s nuclear stockpile, is expected to top 2 exaflops when it arrives next year.

Jan 20,2022: Kashmiri Pandits observed 19 January as the 32nd year of their exodus from the Valley. Pandits call their displacement a “holocaust” and demand their return “Ghar Wapsi.” This day is observed as a black day by Kashmiri Pandits living outside Valley and they list several grievances that date back to January 1990.
The protesters held several placards, which read ‘Hang our killers’. They demanded justice for the victims who sacrificed their lives and severe punishment for those responsible for the exodus.

Virji Kachroo, a Kashmiri Pandit expressed his resentments against the Central government and asked why is this government not sending us to back our homes in Kashmir valley.

Jan 22,2022:The Saudi-led coalition has denied reports that it bombed a prison in the northern Yemeni city of Saada, as the United Nations condemned the deadly coalition air strikes in the country.

An official from Yemen’s Houthi rebel group and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) said on Friday that dozens of people were killed in a dawn bombing of a temporary detention centre in the northern city.

The Houthis released footage showing rescue workers pulling bodies from the rubble, and Taha al-Motawakel, health minister in the Houthi government that controls the country’s north, told The Associated Press news agency that 70 detainees had been killed.

Al-Motawakel accused the Saudi-led coalition of deliberately targeting civilians.

Jan 19,2022:Tehran, Iran – Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has said his visit to Moscow could mark a “turning point” in bilateral relations between the two countries ahead of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Before departing for the Russian capital on Wednesday for a two-day trip, the Iranian president described Iran and Russia as strong, independent and influential nations in the region who could boost their security and trade through maintaining close dialogue.

Jan 17,2022: A suspected drone attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeting a key oil facility in Abu Dhabi killed three people and started a separate fire at Abu Dhabi’s international airport, police said.

Police in the United Arab Emirates identified the dead as two Indian nationals and one Pakistani.
“Small flying objects” were found as three petrol tanks exploded in an industrial area and a fire was ignited at the airport, police said, as Houthi rebels announced “military operations” in the UAE.

The UAE which had largely scaled down its military presence in Yemen in 2019, continues to hold sway through the Yemeni forces it armed and trained.
Drone attacks are a hallmark of the Houthis’ assaults on Saudi Arabia, the UAE ally that is leading the coalition fighting for Yemen’s government in the grinding civil war.

Jan 19,2022: A conservative Maltese lawyer who opposes abortion has been elected president of the European parliament, the first woman in 20 years to lead the assembly.

Roberta Metsola, who is celebrating her 43rd birthday on Tuesday, is the youngest-ever president of the European parliament, winning a comfortable majority to serve a two-and-a-half-year term.

A former civil servant first elected in 2013, she is the first person from Malta, the smallest member state, to lead any EU institution.
As the favourite to succeed Sassoli since her candidacy was announced last autumn, Metsola’s victory was never in doubt after the parliament’s three largest groups made a pact to support her on the eve of the vote.

Geneva, Switzerland, January 18,2022: Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio called for a new form of liberal democratic capitalism, balancing economic growth and distribution, in a special address to business, government and civil society leaders taking part in the World Economic Forum’s virtual event, the Davos Agenda 2022.

“A key focus of my administration will be the revitalization of Japan through a new form a capitalism,” he said. Unfettered state capitalism without adequate checks and balances produces problems such as widening income gaps, rural-urban disparities and social tensions, he added.
Kishida emphasized that the time has come for “historic economic and social transformations”. He said Japan will pioneer a new form of public-private partnership, with leaders of government, industry and labour all working together to develop paradigm-shifting policies. “There has been an overreliance on competition and self-regulation to constrain the excesses of market forces,” he added. “This must change.”

These reforms will build on emerging strength shown by Japan’s economy. However, he reiterated that current policies are not sufficient to ensure that growth is sustainable and inclusive.

The prime minister called for Japan to lead the world in green transformation. He said investment in green technology “will be more than doubled” and become an engine of growth. He also announced that a carbon pricing system will be introduced as soon as possible and Japan will continue to support the Asian emissions trading market.

“Japan remains committed to the Paris Agreement and will achieve carbon neutrality by 2050,” he said. Private and public sector leadership will work tightly together on the demand and the supply side to support the transformation. One focus for Japan’s clean energy strategy is to reform the energy sector, which accounts for more than 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. Smart grids, upgraded power and distribution networks as well as low-carbon energy sources like solar and wind energy are all part of the solution, he said.

Another important pillar for Japan’s transformation is digitization. “While Japan has traditionally lagged in digital uptake, COVID-19 has given Japan a chance to leap-frog its digitization efforts,” Kishida said. To support this, the government will invest heavily in next-generation networks, optical fibre and 5G-related infrastructure – extending it to 90% of the population over two years.

Kishida also laid out plans for increased corporate disclosure to encourage investment in human capital. “Investment in people is often regarded as a cost, but it is a source of medium to long-term corporate value,” he said.

Jan 19,2022:Three sailors died of injuries and another 11 were hurt after an explosion on board Indian Navy’s destroyer ship INS Ranvir on Tuesday.

“In an unfortunate incident today at Naval Dockyard Mumbai, three naval personnel succumbed to injuries caused by an explosion in an internal compartment onboard INS Ranvir,” the Indian Navy’s statement noted.

According to sources, as per an NDTV report, the explosion occurred around 4:30 pm and had nothing to do with weapons or ammunition explosion.

INS Ranvir is a Soviet-era destroyer — commissioned in April 1986 — and among the oldest warships in the Navy.

“It was on cross-coast operational deployment from the Eastern Naval Command since November 2021 and was due to return to the base port shortly,” the Navy said.

Following the incident, the ship’s crew responded immediately and quickly brought the situation under control owing to which no major material damage has been reported.

Authorities have set up a Board of Inquiry to investigate into the cause of this incident.

The names of the killed sailors will be released at a later stage after informing the families of the affected, said authorities.

New Delhi, Jan 17,2022: The Supreme Court on Monday junked an appeal filed by Devas Multimedia challenging an order to wind up the company.

A bench comprising Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice V Ramasubramanian dismissed the appeal filed by Devas Multimedia Pvt Ltd.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLAT) had upheld the earlier order of the Bengaluru bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which had on May 25, 2021 directed winding up of Devas Multimedia and appointed a provisional liquidator for the purpose.

The NCLT’s direction came over a petition filed by Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The NCLT had said Devas Multimedia was incorporated with a fraudulent motive to collude and connive with the then officials of Antrix Corporation to get bandwidth from it by entering into an agreement in 2005, which was subsequently cancelled by the government.

Jan 24,2022:The United States is unlikely to strike a deal with Iran to save the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement unless Tehran releases four US citizens Washington says it is holding hostage, the lead US nuclear negotiator told the Reuters news agency on Sunday.

US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley repeated the long-held US position that the issue of the four people held in Iran is separate from the nuclear negotiations. He moved a step closer, however, to saying that their release was a precondition for a nuclear agreement.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.

Rights groups have accused Iran of taking prisoners to gain diplomatic leverage, while Western powers have long demanded that Tehran free their citizens, who they say are political prisoners.

Tehran denies holding people for political reasons.

Jan 19,2022:NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has invited Russia to more talks on the Ukraine crisis as fears mount over a possible breakout of conflict in Europe, but Moscow says it wants answers from the West over its sweeping wish list of security demands before engaging in further discussions.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin on Tuesday, Stoltenberg said he had proposed a series of meetings in the NATO-Russia council to address both Moscow and the West’s concerns and “try to find a way forward to prevent any military attack against Ukraine”.
He did not give an exact date for when the talks would take place, but said the discussions had been suggested for the “near future”.

“The main task now is to make progress on the political way forward,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference following talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “The risk of a conflict is real.”

He did not give an exact date for when the talks would take place, but said the discussions had been suggested for the “near future”.

Last month, Moscow unveiled a wish list of security demands it argues needs to be met to calm the existing tensions.

However, many of the proposals are seen as non-starters in the West, in particular a call for NATO to give up military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine and never embrace the latter as a new member.

A bout of diplomatic talks between Russia, the US, NATO and other Western powers held in various European capitals last week failed to produce a breakthrough in the crisis.

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow wanted answers on its security proposals from the military alliance and Washington before continuing talks over Ukraine.

“We are now awaiting responses to these proposals – as we were promised – in order to continue negotiations,” he said at a joint press conference with visiting German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
“Let’s hope these talks will continue,” he added.

US President Joe Biden’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was scheduled to fly to Kyiv on Tuesday ahead of a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday. Blinken will then head to Berlin to meet with officials from Germany, France and the United Kingdom on Thursday.

He will “discuss recent diplomatic engagements with Russia and joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine, including allies’ and partners’ readiness to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia,” the US State Department said in a statement on Tuesday.

Ahead of his trip, Blinken spoke with Lavrov by telephone on Tuesday and urged de-escalation, the department said in a separate statement.
In an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, US envoy to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield stressed that talks with Russia have not broken down, and that Washington is “continuing to engage” with Moscow.

“We’re still talking to the Russians. But we’re also watching their actions, and we’re watching their actions very, very closely,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

But hopes for any imminent defusing of the crisis appeared slim, with the announcement of his trip coinciding with Russia and Belarus launching snap military exercises.

The Belarusian defence ministry said it was hosting the combat readiness drills because of the continuing “aggravation” of military tensions “including at the western and southern borders of the Republic of Belarus”.

WASHINGTON, Jan 20,2022: The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to block the release of White House records sought by the Democratic-led congressional panel investigating last year’s deadly attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters.

The decision means the documents, held by a federal agency that stores government and historical records, can be disclosed even as litigation over the matter continues in lower courts.
Trump’s request to the justices came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Dec. 9 ruled that the businessman-turned-politician had no basis to challenge President Joe Biden’s decision to allow the records to be handed over to the House of Representatives select committee.

Jan 22,2022: More than 12.79 crore balance and unutilized COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with States and Union Territories, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Saturday.

“More than 160.58 crore (1,60,58,13,745) vaccine doses have been provided to States, UTs so far through Government of India (free of cost channel) and through direct state procurement category,” stated the press release by the ministry.

Over 12.79 crore (12,79,45,321) balance and unutilized COVID vaccine doses are still available with the states, UTs to be administered, said the health ministry.

The Union Government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of COVID-19 vaccination throughout the country. The nationwide COVID-19 vaccination started on January 16, 2021.

Jan23,2022:The two-time Olympic medallist eased past her young compatriot in the final that lasted 35 minutes. Playing in a depleted field due to multiple COVID-19 cases, top seed Sindhu hardly broke her sweat to beat Bansod 21-13 21-16 in a lop-sided title clash.

It was former world champion Sindhu’s second Syed Modi title after having annexed the BWF World Tour Super 300 event in 2017.

Before that, seventh seeded Indians Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto clinched the mixed doubles title with a straight game win over compatriots T Hema Nagendra Babu and Srivedya Gurazada.

Bhatnagar and Crasto inflicted a 21-16 21-12 on the unseeded Indian duo in the summit clash that ended in 29 minutes.

Earlier, the men’s singles final between Arnaud Merkle and Lucas Claerbout was declared a ‘No Match’ after one of the finalists tested positive for Covid-19.

MOSCOW,Jan23,2022: Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has tendered his resignation on Sunday, according to a statement on his official website.
Sarkissian was in a standoff with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan last year over a number of issues, including the dismissal of the head of the armed forces.
A corresponding statement was published on his official website.
“I thought for a long time and decided to leave the post of President of the Republic after active work for about four years.

This decision is not at all emotional, it follows a certain logic, ”the text of Sargsyan’s address says.

In his address, he noted that, as president, he does not have the necessary tools “to influence the radical processes of domestic and foreign policy.”

Sargsyan thanked the citizens of the country “for their steadfastness, endurance, patience and courage in these difficult times for the country”, as well as the Armenian army and his colleagues.