Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs / News (June 30, 2022) for CSS, PMS

Table of Contents

6. Expanding Nato squares up to Russia threat

• The United States vowed on June 29, 2022 to shore up Europe`s defences in the wake of Russia`s invasion of Ukraine, as Nato declared Moscow the West`s greatest threat.
• Meeting in Madrid, alliance leaders said Russia `is the most significant and direct threat to allies` security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area`.
• This came as Nato welcomed Sweden and Finland as invitees to join the alliance and US President Joe Biden announced new deployments of US troops, ships and planes

7. US discusses Russian gas price cap with India

• White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that consultations with India and other allied nations on how to implement a cap on buying gas from Russia have started.
• Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Mr Sullivan also indicated that US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may also hold direct talks on this issue.
• `We have begun talks with India about how a price cap would work and what the implications would be,` he said. `And then, if necessary, it can be elevated` to the leadership level, he added.
• The US media reported this week that India`s crude oil imports from Russia have jumped 50 times since Feb 24, when Moscow invaded Ukraine.

8. Iran says talks with US `serious` as clock ticks on nuclear deal

• Iran said it was `serious` about nuclear talks with the United States but that negotiations could end after just two days on June 29, 2022, as they try to revive a landmark deal.
• The indirect negotiations in Qatar are an attempt to reboot long-running European Union-mediated talks on a return to the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers.
• Iran`s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri is set to meet the talks` coordinator, EU deputy secretary-general Enrique Mora, on the evening of day two in Qatar

9. First case of cat-to-human Covid transfer reported

• Scientists in Thailand have reported the first solid evidence of a pet cat infecting a person a veterinary surgeon with Covid-19, though researchers say such cases of cat-to human transmission are probably rare.
• As per a report published in the science journal Nature on Wednesday, researchers said the results were convincing, but were surprised it took this long to establish the transmission.
• The finding, published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on June 6, came about by accident, said co-author Sarunyou Chusri, an infectious-disease researcher and physician at Prince of Songkla University in Hat Yai, southern Thailand. In August 2021, a father and son, who had tested positive for Covid-19, were transferred to an isolation ward at the university`s hospital. Their 10-year-old cat was also swabbed and tested positive. While being swabbed, the cat sneezed in the face of a veterinary surgeon, who was wearing a mask and gloves but no eye protection

10. Chinese spacecraft acquires images of Mars` entire surface

• An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has acquired imagery data covering all of Mars, including visuals of its south pole, after circling the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, state media reported on June 29, 2022.
• China`s Tianwen-1 successfully reached the Red Planet in February 2021 on the country`s inaugural mission there. A robotic rover has since been deployed on the surface as an orbiter surveyed the planet from space.
• Among the images taken from space were China`s first photographs of the Martian south pole, where almost all of the planet`s water resources are locked.
• In 2018, an orbiting probe operated by the European Space Agency had discovered water under the ice of the planet`s south pole