Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs / News (July 16, 2020) for CSS, PMS

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July 16, 2020: National / International Current Affairs

1. Construction of Diamer-Bhasha dam launched

• Prime Minister Imran Khan on July 15, 2020 launched the construction of Diamer-Bhasha Dam and announced that the government would move towards building more dams on rivers to generate low-cost hydel power.
• There can be no better site for constructing a dam, it is a natural dam. Forty or 50 years ago this was decided, and work on the project has begun today. This is one of the biggest reasons why we haven`t progressed.
• The 6.4 million acre feet water reservoir would not only add 1.2m acres of agriculture and 4,500 megawatts environment-friendly electricity, it would also boost steel, cement and construction industry by creating 16,000 jobs, said Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting retired Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa in a tweet.

2. Etihad to resume flight operations today

• The Etihad Airways that had suspended its services last month for outbound passengers from Pakistan will resume its flight operations on July 16, 2020 with a flight to Abu Dhabi.
• The passengers desirous of flying to the United Arab Emirates aboard the airline`s aircraft would have to prove that they are not suffering from Covid-19, said the carrier.
• The airline had suspended flights to and from Pakistan apparently after some passengers who had travelled to Hong Kong by another airliner were tested positive for the potentially deadly disease

3. China speaks of retaliation after Trump ends HK`s preferential status

• President Donald Trump on July 15, 2020 ordered an end to Hong Kong`s special status under US law to punish China for what he called `oppressive actions` against the former British colony, prompting Beijing to warn of retaliatory sanctions.
• Citing China`s decision to enact a new national security law for Hong Kong, Trump signed an executive order that he said would end the preferential economic treatment for the city.
• `No special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies,` he told a news conference.

4. US warns firms about sanctions for work on Russian pipelines

• The Trump administration on Wednesday hardened its efforts to prevent the completion of new German-Russian and Turkish-Russian natural gas pipelines by warning companies involved in the projects they`ll be subject to US penalties unless they halt their work.
• The move will likely increase tensions in already fraught US-European ties as well as anger Russia.
• Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the administration is ending grandfather clauses that had spared firms previously involved in the pipelines` construction from sanctions authorised by the Countering America`s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, a 2017 law aimed at punishing Russia, in particular, for interference in US elections and other matters.

5. British imperialist Rhodes statue beheaded in Cape Town

• A bronze bust in a Cape Town park honouring 19th-century British imperialist Cecil Rhodes has been decapitated, the South African government said on July 15, 2020.
• A white supremacist, Rhodes made a fortune from mining and colonised swathes of southern African territories in the name of the British crown.
• `The head of the statue was cut from the bust with what seems to be an angle grinder somewhere between Sunday night or the early hours of Monday morning,` Rey Thakhuli, the spokesman for South African National Parks, said in a statement.

6. Apple wins EU court case over $15 billion in claimed taxes

• A European Union court on July 15, 2020 delivered a hammer blow to the bloc`s attempts to rein multinationals` ability to strike sweetheart tax deals with individual EU countries when it ruled that Apple does not have to pay 13 billion euros ($15bn) in back taxes to Ireland.
• The EU Commission had claimed in 2016 that Apple had struck an illegal tax deal with Irish authorities that allowed it to pay extremely low rates. But the EU`s General Court said on Wednesday that the commission did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard that there was an advantage.
• `The commission was wrong to declare that Apple had been granted a selective economic advantage and, by extension, state aid, said the Luxembourg-based court, which is the second-highest in the EU.

7. Ethiopia starts filling dam after talks with Egypt, Sudan fail

• Ethiopia said on July 15, 2020 it has begun filling the reservoir behind the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a day after talks with Sudan and Egypt on the giant Blue Nile hydroelectric project stalled.
• The project has raised concerns in Egypt that already limited Nile waters, on which its population of more than 100 million is almost entirely dependent, will be further restricted.
• The Blue Nile is a tributary of the Nile from which Egypt gets 90 percent of its fresh water.

8. Slave trader`s statue replaced with that of black protester

• A statue of a slave trader toppled by antiracism protesters in Britain last month was replaced on July 15, 2020 without permission with a sculpture of a black woman who helped pull it down.
• The new statue, showing Black Lives Matter (BLM) protester Jen Reid with her fist raised, occupies the plinth where the Edward Colston likeness stood before crowds threw it into Bristol harbour in southwest England.
• Entitled `A Surge of Power` by artist Marc Quinn, the new statue was erected without the knowledge of Bristol City Council.

9. Amal Clooney bags this year`s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award

• The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will honour four courageous journalists from Bangladesh, Iran, Nigeria and Russia with this year`s International Press Freedom Award.
• All four have been arrested or faced criminal prosecution in reprisal for their reporting. The CPJ will also honour lawyer Amal Clooney with the Gwen Ifill Award.
• `Like brave and committed journalists everywhere, CPJ`s honourees set out to report the news without fear or favour for the benefit of their communities, their country, and the world,` said Joel Simon, the CPJ`s executive director.

10. Four games a day confirmed for 2022 World Cup

• World Cup fans will be able to watch an unprecedented four games a day on television, spread out over 11 hours, during the group stage of the Qatar 2022 tournament after the schedule was confirmed on July 15, 2020.
• With the relatively short travel distances for the venues in and around Doha, it could be possible for fans who travel to the 32-team tournament to attend multiple games each day.
• The early games will kickoff at 1300 local (1000GMT) with the fourth match starting at 2200 local (1900GMT) and finishing just before midnight.

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