Focus Merit

Category: International Current Affairs

ADB starts $9 bn “APVAX” for Developing Countries

December 12, 2020
Asian Development Bank (ADB)
  • The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) has started an initiative called, the Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility (APVAX), for its developing member countries. The bank has allocated USD 9 billion for APVAX.

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris jointly entitled Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ 2020

December 12, 2020
time
  • US President-elect, Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have been together named Time magazine’s 2020 “Person of the Year”.
  • The TIME magazine releases the annual list since 1927, to recognize a person or organization who affected the news or influenced the country and world the most, for better or worse, during the calendar year.

Romanian PM Ludovic Orban resigns

December 11, 2020
Ludovic Orban
  • The Prime Minister of Romania, Ludovic Orban has resigned from his post after his ruling National Liberal Party (PNL) lost in the 2020 parliamentary election.
  • Following this, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis designated the Minister of National Defense, Nicolae-Ionel Ciuca as the interim prime minister of the country.

Kuwait emir reappoints Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid as prime minister

December 10, 2020
Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad-al Sabah
  • Kuwait Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has re-appointed Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah as their prime minister.
  • The move appears two days after Sheikh Sabah submitted his government’s resignation in a procedural step following parliamentary polls.

China becomes the second nation to plant flag on the Moon

December 7, 2020
China
  • China has become the second country in the world to plant its national flag on the moon’s surface.
  • Earlier this feat was done only by the USA when it planted its flag on the Moon during the Apollo mission in 1969.

Bangladesh inks maiden Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA)

December 6, 2020
Bangladesh
  • Bangladesh has inked its first Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Bhutan, which will support duty-free access to a range of goods between the two countries and hence boost bilateral trade between them.

New Zealand announces climate emergency

December 3, 2020
New Zealand
  • New Zealand has announced a “climate emergency” and promised to make its public sector carbon neutral by 2025.
  • New Zealand now ties up 32 other countries that have declared a climate emergency. They include Japan, Canada, France and the United Kingdom.

Arab Gulf’s first coal-based power plant being made in Dubai

November 30, 2020
coal
  • The first coal-based power plant in Arab Gulf country is being made in Saih Shuaib, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
  • The 2,400MW Hassyan clean coal power station will be developed at an approximated cost of $ 3.4 billion.

‘Quarantine’ named Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2020

November 28, 2020
Cambridge Dictionary
  • Cambridge Dictionary has named ‘quarantine’ as Word of the Year 2020. The word has been named the word of the year based on data that showed that it was one of the most highly searched words on the Cambridge Dictionary this year.

Russia test-fired Tsirkon hypersonic missile in the Arctic

November 28, 2020
Tsirkon hypersonic missile
  • Russia successfully test-fired a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile in the Arctic. the frigate Admiral Gorshkov in the White Sea fired a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile, hitting a naval target 450 km away in the Barents Sea at a speed of over Mach 8.