Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is a multilateral treaty that regulates the international trade in conventional weapons, which has not entered into force. International weapons commerce has been estimated to reach US$70 billion a year.


It must be workable and enforceable. It must:
  • provide guidelines for the treaty's full, clear implementation;
  • ensure transparency—including full annual reports of national arms transfers;
  • have an effective mechanism to monitor compliance;
  • ensure accountability—with provisions for adjudication, dispute settlement and sanctions;
  • include a comprehensive framework for international cooperation and assistance.

Provisions of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) =
  • be used in serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law, or acts of genocide or crimes against humanity;
  • facilitate terrorist attacks, a pattern of gender-based violence, violent crime or organized crime;
  • violate United Nations Charter obligations, including UN arms embargoes;
  • be diverted from its stated recipient;
  • adversely affect regional security; or
  • seriously impair poverty reduction or socioeconomic development.

GLOBAL NUTRITION FOR GROWTH PACT

World leader signed a global agreement to fight malnutrition in children and made commitments of up to 4.15 billion dollars to tackle under nutrition up to 2020. The agreement, called Global Nutrition for Growth was signed during central London summit.


The participants who signed a Global Nutrition for Growth Compact- Committed  their countries and organizations by 2020 to :


  • Improving the nutrition of 500 million pregnant women and young children
  • Reducing the number of children under five who are stunted by an additional 20 million
  • Saving the lives of at least 1.7 million children by preventing stunting, increasing breastfeeding and better treatment of severe and acute malnutrition.

CROATIA, 28TH MEMBER OF EU

Croatia has become the 28th member of the European Union. Croatia is the first country to join the EU since 2007, when bulgaria and Romania came on board, and only the second of the seven ex-Yugoslav states after Slovenia which part of the big bang eastward enlargement in 2004. The path to join has been more exacting, with EU having learnt that once countries join the bloc they lose momentum to reform , and particularly, to tackle corruption. It had applied for EU membership in 2003. 

Carbon Emission Trade

An exchange of credits between nations designed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. The carbon trade allows countries that have higher carbon emissions to purchase the right to release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from countries that have lower carbon emissions. The carbon trade originated with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and is intended to reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions to 5% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.


CHINA IS THE LARGEST CARBON GAS EMITER IN THE WORLD.

SYRIA JOINS OPCW CONVENTION

    Syria officially joined the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(OPCW), United Nations convention banning chemical weapons. This made the country the 190th state party to the OPCW. Only six states have yet to sign the international treaty.

Statistics from OPCW=

190 nations, 98% of the global population, have joined the OPCW.
58,172, or 81.71%, of the world's declared stockpile of 71,196 metric tonnes of chemical agent have been destroyed.
5,286 inspections have taken place at 228 chemical weapon-related and 1,905 industrial sites on the territory of 86 States Parties since April 1997. Worldwide, 4,913 industrial facilities are liable to inspection.

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia. The bank admits the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and non-regional developed countries. From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 67 members - of which 48 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside. ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with member's capital subscriptions.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC) is an international environmental treaty negotiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992. The objective of the treaty is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerousanthropogenic interference with the climate system".
The treaty itself set no binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries and contains no enforcement mechanisms. In that sense, the treaty is considered legally non-binding. Instead, the treaty provides a framework for negotiating specific international treaties (called "protocols") that may set binding limits on greenhouse gases.
The UNFCCC was opened for signature on 9 May 1992, after an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee produced the text of the Framework Convention as a report following its meeting in New York from 30 April to 9 May 1992. It entered into force on 21 March 1994. As of May 2011, UNFCCC has 195 parties.

Green Climate Fund(GCF)

The purpose of the Green Climate Fund is to make a significant and ambitious contribution to the global efforts towards attaining the goals set by the international community to combat climate change.

The Fund will contribute to the achievement of the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the context of sustainable development, the Fund will promote the paradigm shift towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change, taking into account the needs of those developing countries particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

Russia Successfully Launched Proton-M Rocket


Russia Successfully Launched Proton-M


Russia on 12 November 2013 successfully launched the Proton-M rocket carrying a defense satellite, Raduga-1M from its Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 

It is important to note that Russia restarted the launch of Proton rockets in September 2013 after a small gap in order to check why a Proton rocket launched on 2 July 2013 exploded while taking off. The Proton-M rocket is the most popular rocket of Russia for the commercial satellite launches. 


About the Raduga-1M Defense Satellite

• Raduga-1M is primarily a defense satellite of the third generation.
• It is a part of the Stage Two Unified Satellite Telecommunications System.
• It is equipped with the multichannel transponder equipment, which enables it to establish reliable communications with mobile geo-service stations. 

What is a Proton-M rocket?

Proton-M rocket is a Russian carrier rocket which is derived from Soviet-developed Proton. Proton is actually an expendable launch system which is used for commercial as well as Russian Government space launches. 

Proton-M rocket is built by Khrunichev and launched from sites 81 and 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The commercial launches of Proton-M rocket are marketed by International Launch Services (ILS). First Proton-M launch took place on 7 April 2001. 

All the Protons are built at the Khrunichev plant in Moscow. These are then transported for the launch to Baikonur Cosmodrome from where they are raised into the vertical position for the purpose of launch.

The Proton-MGRAU index 8K82M or 8K82KM, is a Russian carrier rocket derived from the Soviet-developed Proton. It is built byKhrunichev, and launched from sites 81 and 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Commercial launches are marketed by International Launch Services (ILS), and generally use Site 200/39. The first Proton-M launch occurred on 7 April 2001.

World Bank

World Bank


The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans[3] to developing countries for capital programs. The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty.


  1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger: From 1990 through 2004, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell from almost a third to less than a fifth. Although results vary widely within regions and countries, the trend indicates that the world as a whole can meet the goal of halving the percentage of people living in poverty. Africa's poverty, however, is expected to rise, and most of the 36 countries where 90% of the world's undernourished children live are in Africa. Less than a quarter of countries are on track for achieving the goal of halving under-nutrition.
  2. Achieve Universal Primary Education: The percentage of children in school in developing countries increased from 80% in 1991 to 88% in 2005. Still, about 72 million children of primary school age, 57% of them girls, were not being educated as of 2005.
  3. Promote Gender Equality: The tide is turning slowly for women in the labor market, yet far more women than men- worldwide more than 60% – are contributing but unpaid family workers. The World Bank Group Gender Action Plan was created to advance women's economic empowerment and promote shared growth.
  4. Reduce Child Mortality: There is some what improvement in survival rates globally; accelerated improvements are needed most urgently in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 10 million-plus children under five died in 2005; most of their deaths were from preventable causes.
  5. Improve Maternal Health: Almost all of the half million women who die during pregnancy or childbirth every year live in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. There are numerous causes of maternal death that require a variety of health care interventions to be made widely accessible.
  6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases: Annual numbers of new HIV infections and AIDS deaths have fallen, but the number of people living with HIV continues to grow. In the eight worst-hit southern African countries, prevalence is above 15 percent. Treatment has increased globally, but still meets only 30 percent of needs (with wide variations across countries). AIDS remains the leading cause of death in Sub-Saharan Africa (1.6 million deaths in 2007). There are 300 to 500 million cases of malaria each year, leading to more than 1 million deaths. Nearly all the cases and more than 95 percent of the deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability: Deforestation remains a critical problem, particularly in regions of biological diversity, which continues to decline. Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing faster than energy technology advancement.
  8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development: Donor countries have renewed their commitment. Donors have to fulfill their pledges to match the current rate of core program development. Emphasis is being placed on the Bank Group's collaboration with multilateral and local partners to quicken progress toward the MDGs' realization.