Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs / News (May 09, 2022) for CSS, PMS

Table of Contents

6. Assad meets Khamenei, Iran`s president

• Syrian President Bashar al Assad met with Iran`s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi during a brief visit to Tehran on Sunday, Iranian state television said.
• `Assad has left Iran for Damascus after meeting separately with the supreme leader` and the president, the report said.
• Iran is a major ally of Assad, backing him alongside Russia in Syria`s more than decade long civil war.
• Tehran has given financial and military support to the Assad regime during the 11-year war, and says it has deployed forces in Syria at the invitation of Damascus but only as advisers

7. N. Ireland in limbo after seismic Sinn Fein triumph

• Northern Ireland`s feuding leaders came under international pressure on May 8, 2022 to unite in a new government, after the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein secured an unprecedented election win.
• Once the political wing of the paramilitary IRA, Sinn Fein won enough seats in the devolved legislature to nominate its Northern Ireland leader Michelle O`Neill as first minister.
• The result from Thursday`s election for the Stormont assembly marked a potentially seismic shift, a century after Northern Ireland was carved out as a Protestant fiefdom under British rule

8. 12.3 million children need aid in Syria, says UN

• More Syrian children are in need than at any time since a devastating civil war erupted over a decade ago, but funding for them is `dwindling`, the United Nations warned on May 8, 2022.
• `Syria`s children have suffered for far too long and should not suffer any longer, the UN children`s agency said in a statement, noting that 12.3 million were in need of aid both inside the country and in the wider region where they had fled.
• `More than 6.5 million children in Syria are in need of assistance, the highest number recorded since the beginning of the crisis, more than 11 years ago,` it added.
• Syria`s war is estimated to have killed nearly half a million people and displaced millions since it began with a brutal crackdown of antigovernment protests in 2011

9. G7 countries pledge to stop oil imports from Russia

• The G7 club of wealthy nations committed on May 8, 2022 to phasing out its dependence on Russian oil and issued a scathing statement accusing President Vladimir Putin of bringing `shame` on Russia with his invasion of Ukraine.
• The statement from the Group of Seven France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States did not specify exactly what commitments each country will make to move away from Russian energy.
• But it was an important development in the ongoing campaign to pressure Putin by crippling Russia`s economy, and underscores the unity of the international community against Moscow`s actions

10. Boos, heckles greet Lankan PM on first public outing

• Boos and heckles greeted Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 08, 2022 on his first public outing since nationwide protests erupted demanding his ruling family resign over the worsening economic crisis.
• Months of blackouts and acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines have caused widespread suffering across the South Asian island in its worst economic downturn since independence in 1948. On Sunday, the premier visited one of the holiest Buddhist temples housing a reputedly 2,300-yearold tree in Anuradhapura.
• But dozens of people carried hand-written placards and chanted slogans demanding that `thieves` be banned from the sacred city, 200 kilometres north of Colombo. `We will worship you if you stand down (as prime minister) and leave,` one man shouted