Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs/News (Feb 27 2023) for CSS

Table of Contents

6. Macron seeks Beijing`s help to end Ukraine war

• French President Emmanuel Macron said on February 26, 2023 he would visit China in April, and urged Beijing to pressure Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
• China has sought to position itself as a neutral party on the conflict, even as it has maintained close ties with Russia and helped scuttle a joint statement condemning the war at a G20 gathering in India.
• It published a 12-point position paper on Friday that called for urgent peace talks and a `political settlement` to end the conflict.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday also expressed hopes to meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, calling it `important for world security`

7. Syria is facing double-disaster, warns UN food agency

• Syria faces a double-disaster as the areas hardest hit by this month`s earthquake had already been destroyed in12 years of unrelenting conflict, warned David Beasley, who heads the World Food Programme (WFP), after returning to New York from the devastated regions of Syria and Turkiye.
• `The impact of this quake will be felt for months and years to come.
• He urged authorities in both countries to open more border crossings to help survivors of the earthquakes that hit the region on Feb 6. The WFP chief described the situation in Syria as a `catastrophe on top of a catastrophe`, pointing out that the earthquake followed 12 years of unrelenting conflict

8. Blinken to visit C. Asia as US eyes inroads in Russian sphere

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Central Asia hoping that greater US engagement will reassure former Soviet republics rattled by the Ukraine war, although Russia`s historic clout limits the extent of cooperation.
• Days after the anniversary of the Ukraine invasion, the top US diplomat will hold talks on Tuesday in Kazakhstan and then Uzbekistan and meet jointly with foreign ministers of all five ex-Soviet Central Asian states in Kazakhstan`s capital Astana.
• Donald Lu, the top US diplomat for South and Central Asia, said the United States was realistic that the five nations were not going to end their relationships with Russia or their other giant neighbour, China, which has been boosting its own presence

9. Putin calls Ukraine war a battle for Russia`s survival

• President Vladimir Putin cast the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people, and said he was forced to take into account Nato`s nuclear capabilities.
• `They have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part the Russian Federation,` Putin told Rossiya 1 state television in an interview recorded on Wednesday but released on February 26, 2023.
• Putin said the West wanted to divide up Russia and then control the world`s biggest producer of raw materials

10. Jordan hosts Israel-Palestine talks to halt violence

• Jordan hosted a meeting between top Israeli and Palestinian officials on February 26, 2023 to try to halt surging violence, an official said, as Washington and its Arab allies seek to defuse tensions that have led to concern of a wider escalation.
• The discussions are part of stepped-up Jordanian diplomacy with Washington and Egypt to address violence, as anxiety mounts of escalation in the run-up to the holy Muslim month of Ramzan that begins in late March.
• The meeting at the Red Sea port of Aqaba brought together top Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs for the first time in many years, officials said, and aimed to restore calm in Israel, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip