Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs/News (Feb 09 2023) for CSS

Table of Contents

6. ADB again offers funding for ML-1

• Amid delays in financing arrangements with China for the $10 billion Karachi Peshawar railway line (Main Line-1), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has re-emerged as a funding contender for the mega project.
• Planning Secretary Syed Zafar Ali Shah told a group of journalists on Wednesday that the ADB had recently shown interest in financing the project.
• `As of now, we are still pursuing a part of the project with China,` he said, agreeing that it was a big challenge

7. Flood survivors resorting to `negative coping strategies`: UN

• The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has warned that food security, livelihood-related assistance and public health are the biggest concerns, as the UNOSAT in its latest analysis, estimated that 4.5 million people remain exposed to, or are living close to, flooded areas.
• Evidence shows that people affected by floods are increasingly relying on negative coping strategies, such as selling income-producing assets, increased debt, withdrawing children from school and skipping meals, the UN agency said in its latest report.
• An estimated 1.1 million people are at a risk of sliding from acute food and livelihood crisis situations to humanitarian emergency `food security situations` due to insufficient support, the report said

8. Putin likely approved MH17 missile supply, investigators say

• There are `strong indications` that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally approved the supply of the missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014, international investigators said on February 8, 2023.
• But the investigators said they were halting their eight-year probe, since Putin has immunity as head of state and there is not enough concrete evidence to prosecute him or other suspects.
• All 298 people on board were killed when a Russian-made missile slammed into the plane travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, sending it crashing to earth in separatist-held eastern Ukraine

9. Erdogan admits `shortcomings` as toll tops 12,000

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on February 8, 2023 conceded `shortcomings` after criticism of his government`s response to the massive earthquake that has killed over 12,000 people in Turkiye and Syria.
• The sprawling scale of the disaster that flattened thousands of buildings, trapping an unknown number of people, has swamped relief operations already hampered by freezing weather.
• Survivors have been left to scramble for food and shelter and in some cases watch helplessly as their relatives called for rescue, and eventually went silent under the debris

10. Sweden wary of provocative, anti-Islam moves

• Sweden has moved into the international spotlight after a number of provocative incidents, including the recent public burning of the Holy Quran, the security services said on February 8, 2023.
• `Recent developments with threats targeted at Sweden and Swedish interests are serious and affect Sweden`s security,` the country`s security service, SAPO, said in a statement. `The developments mean that Sweden is deemed to be in greater focus than previously for violent Islamic extremists globally.` Sweden and neighbour Finland last year launched bids to join Nato, following Russia`s invasion of Ukraine. The membership process has been held up by Turkiye, which says the two Nordic countries, primarily Sweden, are not doing enough to fight terrorism.
• The burning of the Holy Quran by a far-right politician outside the Turkish embassy last month has ratcheted up tensions