Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs / News (June 25, 2022) for CSS, PMS

Table of Contents

6. Trump`s aides sought pardon after backing his defiance

• At least five congressional Republican allies of Donald Trump sought White House pardons after supporting his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, witnesses told the US House of Representatives on Thursday during hearings related to the probe into the Jan 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol.
• Their names emerged at the end of a fifth day of hearings that focused on how the former president pressured top Justice Department officials daily in his final weeks in office to help him illegally hold onto power.
• Trump sought to replace acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department environmental lawyer and staunch supporter of his false claims that his defeat was the result of widespread fraud

7. Israeli forces` fire killed Al Jazeera journalist: UN

• The United Nations said on Friday it found that Israeli forces fired the shot that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, with Israel swiftly branding the UN`s findings unfounded.
• The Palestinian-American TV reporter, who was wearing a vest marked `Press` and a helmet, was killed on May 11 while covering an Israeli army operation in Jenin camp in the northern West Bank.
• `We find that the shots that killed Abu Akleh came from Israeli security forces,` UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva. `It is deeply disturbing that Israeli authorities have not conducted a criminal investigation

8. Ukraine readies to cede key battleground city

• Ukrainian forces prepared on June 24, 2022 to retreat from the strategic city of Severodonetsk after weeks of fierce fighting, a setback that could pave the way for Russia to seize a larger swath of eastern Ukraine.
• The announcement came shortly after the European Union granted Ukraine candidate status in a show of support for the former Soviet republic.
• Russia has focused its offensive on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine after being repelled from the capital Kyiv and other areas in the first weeks of the February invasion Since then its forces have gradually made progress despite encountering fierce resistance and sustaining heavy losses

9. Germany consigns 1930s abortion law to history

• Germany`s parliament on June 24, 2022 removed a Nazi-era law that limits the information doctors and clinics can provide about abortion.
• One of the most controversial sections of the penal code, paragraph 219a, prohibits the `promotion` of abortion, a crime punishable by `up to two years of imprisonment or a fine` The decision to finally consign the law to history came almost eight decades after its adoption in 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler had taken power. `It is high time,` Justice Minister Marco Buschmann told parliament.
• It is `absurd` and `no longer in step with the times` that doctors are not allowed to provide complete information on abortion while `every troll and conspiracy theorist` is free to spout views about terminating pregnancies

10. EU grants Ukraine candidate status

• European Union leaders have granted `candidate status` to Ukraine in its bid to join the bloc, as tensions deepened over Russian gas supplies and Moscow`s forces closed in on key cities.
• In a show of support, the EU leaders agreed on June 23, 2022 to grant candidate status to Ukraine, as well as Moldova, although the two former Soviet republics face a long path before joining the bloc.
• Ukraine`s President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the news as `a unique and historic moment`, adding: `Ukraine`s future is within the EU