Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs/News (jan 16 2023) for CSS

Table of Contents

6. Nato assures Ukraine of `more heavy weapons`

• Ukraine can expect more deliveries of heavy weapons from Western countries soon, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with a German daily on January 15, 2023.
• Kyiv has long pushed for heavier weaponry, including tanks, but Western nations have been reluctant, citing fears of becoming drawn into the war or provoking Russia `The recent pledges for heavy warfare equipment are important -and I expect more in the near future,` Stoltenberg told the Handelsblatt daily.
• The comments come ahead of a meeting this week of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which coordinates arms supplies to Kyiv, at Ramstein air base in Germany

7. Two Belgian MEPs admit to undeclared paid trips to Qatar

• Two Belgian members of the European Parliament have acknowledged they had failed to declare paid trips to Qatar, amid an influence-trafficking scandal that has rocked the European Union assembly.
• The lawyer for Belgian socialist MEP Marc Tarabella acknowledged his client had travelled to Qatar in February 2020 at the expense of the Gulf state, but had not declared the trip, as parliament rules required him to do.
• The development came four days after another Belgian member of the parliament`s centre-left Social and Democrats group, Maria Arena, admitted she had `forgotten` to declare a similar expenses-paid trip to Qatar in May last year

8. Israel`s president steps in to avert judicial crisis

• Israel`s president warned on January 15, 2023 that the country faced a constitutional crisis over a contested plan to rein in the judiciary and said he was mediating between parties.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now in his sixth term, wants to put controls on the Supreme Court, which members of his religious-nationalist coalition accuse of overreach and elitism.
• Proposed legislation would limit High Court rulings against government moves or Knesset parliament laws, while increasing politicians` sway over the selection of judges

9. Biden declares disaster as another storm hits flooded California

• US President Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in California, as the latest in a succession of storm systems blew into the state, bringing heavy Hooding to already waterlogged regions and threatening snowfalls of up to six feet.
• The latest system is expected to bring `heavy lower-elevation rain, significant mountain snow, and strong winds,` with `another surge of Pacific moisture` expected on Monday, the National Weather Service (NWS) said, while predicting `disastrous flooding` across the lower Salinas River valley, a key agricultural region south of San Francisco Bay.
• Biden `declared that a major disaster exists in the State of California and ordered Federal aid to supplement State, tribal, and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe winter storms, flooding, landslides, and mudslides,` the White House said in a statement

10. 68 dead in Nepal`s domestic flight crash

• At least 68 people were killed on January 15, 2023 when a domestic flight of Yeti Airlines crashed in Pokhara in Nepal, the worst air crash in three decades in the small Himalayan nation.
• Hundreds of rescue workers scoured the hillside where the flight carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu went down. Officials late in the evening called off the search operations for the day, saying they will resume on Monday. Local TV footage earlier showed rescue workers scrambling around broken sections of the aircraft. Some of the ground near the crash site was scorched, with licks of flames visible.
• The weather had been clear and there was no immediate indication of what caused the crash