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August 30, 2018; National Current Affairs
1. Pakistan to go for arbitration if India ignores concerns
- Pakistan on August 29, 2018 urged India to entertain the objections it has raised over the construction of the 1,000MW Pakal Dul and 48MW Lower Kalnal hydropower projects on the River Chenab.
- It conveyed in categorical terms tothe visiting Indian team that Islamabad would approach the international forums defined in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in case New Delhi failed to accept the requests as narrated in the detailed objections.
- The nine-member team led by Indian commissioner Pradeep Kumar Saxena had arrived on August 28, 2018 for talks with their Pakistani counterparts on water disputes on the platform of the Pakistan-India Permanent Commission for Indus Waters.
- In the first round of talks, Pakistan`s commissioner Syed Mohammad Mehr Ali Shah raised the objections, possible solutions to the problem, India`s previous replies, feedback, etc. He told the Indian side that the objections raised were based on facts and must be resolved under the provisions of the IWT.
2. Three More Ministers get portfolios
- The Punjab government on August 29, 2018 notified portfolios of another three ministers, while five others are still without any assignment.
- Initially, 15 out of 23 Punjab cabinet members who had taken oath were given portfolios Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has assigned forestry, wildlife and fisheries ministry to Sibtain Khan, who was elected from Mianwali (PP-88).
- Malik Nauman Ahmad Langrial, elected from PP-202 (Sahiwal) has been given the charge of agriculture department, while Malik Muhammad Anwar will head the revenue depanment. Mr Anwar was elected from PP-04 (Attock).
3. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet sworn in
- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan`s 11-member cabinet was sworn-in on August 29, 2018 after a last-minute revision of the list of ministers-designate.
- The cabinet swearing-in occurred at the Governor`s House.
- Acting governor Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani administered the oath to the ministers, including Mohammad Atif Khan, Shahram Khan Tarakai, Dr Hisham Inamullah, Dr. Amjad Ali, Akbar Ayub Khan, Qalandher Lodhi, Muhibullah, Taimoor Khan Jhagrra, Shakil Khan, Syed Ishtiaq Urmar and Sultan Mohammad Khan.
4. Massive reshuffle in bureaucracy
- The new government has notified fresh transfers and postings in the top bureaucracy.
- Despite reports that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government was planning to abolish the Ministry of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), Aurangzeb Haque, a grade-22 officer of Pakistan Administrative Services (PAS), has been appointed its secretary in place of Saqib Aziz, another grade-22 PAS officer, who has been made secretary aviation.
August 30, 2018; International Current Affairs
5. Khamenei says ready to abandon nuclear deal if needed
- Iran’s supreme leader warned the country could abandon its nuclear deal with world powers if it no longer served its interests, even as economic and political pressure mounted on the government.
- “Naturally, if we reach the conclusion that (the nuclear deal) is no longer maintaining our national interests, we will put it aside,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a meeting with the cabinet.
- Iran must not “pin its hopes” on Europe, despite European efforts to salvage the nuclear deal following the withdrawal of the United States.
The government of President Hassan Rouhani has been battered by the return of US sanctions, which has triggered a rapid departure of foreign firms and ended his hopes of attracting large-scale investment.
6. German town removes statue of Erdogan after protests
- German firefighters on August 29, 2018 removed a golden statue of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on security grounds after it provoked an angry response from local people.
- Organisers of an arts festival whose theme this year is `Bad News` had installed the four-metre statue of Erdogan, with one arm outstretched, on a plinth in the central Square of German Unity in the western town of Wiesbaden on Monday.
- But the statue got daubed with graffiti, including the slogan `Turkish Hitler`, German media reported, and a few hundred residents had protested against it.
- Police said they could no longer guarantee people`s safety so firemen used a large crane to take away the statue under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Wednesday.
7. UN schools for Palestinians reopen despite US funding cut
- TENS of thousands of Palestinian children returned to United Nationsrun schools on August 29, 2018 after the summer holidays, though major US cuts have thrown their funding into jeopardy beyond next month.
- Children wearing chequered uniforms and backpacks thronged schools across the Palestinian territories for the first classes of the new school year.
- The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said all 711 schools it runs for 526,000 pupils in Gaza and the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria would reopen in the next few days despite the $300 million US funding cut.
- Fearsraised by UN chief Antonio Guterres that the schools might not be able to reopen at all have failed to materialise, but UNRWA warned it might still be forced to close them again in a month if additional new funding is not found. `At the moment, we do not have enough money to keep the schools open after the end of September,` said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.
August 30, 2018; Science/Tehcnology Current Affairs
8. UK plans own satellite system after Galileo exclusion
- Britain will invest in the possible creation of its own satellite-navigation system, the UK government announced Wednesday, after being excluded from the EU’s Galileo programme because of Brexit.
- At the same time, London said it was continuing to negotiate with the European Union about remaining in the Galileo programme. Britain will invest £92 million ($119 million, 102 million euros), taken from its £3.0-billion Brexit fund, for an 18 months-long study into an alternative UK programme, the government said in a statement.
- “We are investing in an alternative option to Galileo to ensure our future security needs are met using the UK’s world-leading space sector,” said Business Secretary Greg Clark.
- Britain in June revealed that it had been formally excluded from future contracts for the Galileo programme that is intended for commercial uses such as logistics as well as for armed forces and emergency services.
9. Facebook rolls out video service worldwide
- Facebook said August 29, 2018 it is rolling out globally its Watch video service, which has already been available in the United States for more than a year.
- “We designed the product not just in a mindless consumption but in order to get people engaged,” said Fidji Simo, Facebook’s vice president for video.
- Facebook launched Watch amid a shift in video viewing habits away from traditional television to online platforms including Netflix and Hulu, and with more people watching both professional and user content on services like YouTube.
- Facebook has been ramping up its video offerings with original shows and this week announced new formats including interactive game shows, quizzes and polls. The announcement comes two weeks after Facebook revealed it would broadcast for free Spanish top flight division football matches in the Indian subcontinent, and Champions League matches in Latin America.
10. Goats can read your face
- Goats can distinguish smiling human faces from frowning ones on photos, and actively seek out snapshots of happier individuals, a study said August 29, 2018.
- Shown two pictures of the same person – one with a happy expression and the other angry – 20 domesticated goats in an experiment were more likely to approach the smiling image and touch it with their snout, said researchers from Europe and Brazil.
- “Goats looked and interacted on average 1.4 seconds with the happy faces and 0.9 seconds with the angry faces,” study co-author Christian Nawroth of the Queen Mary University of London told AFP.
- “That means that goats spend approximately 50 percent more time to look and interact with happy images compared to angry ones.”
- The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, claims to provide the first evidence of goats reading human emotional expression.