Day by Day Current Affairs (June 03, 2018) | MCQs for CSS, PMS, NTS

WELCOME TO CSS TIMES DAY BY  DAY CURRENT AFFAIRS, YOUR BEST SOURCE FOR UP-TO-DATE AND DAILY TOP CURRENT AFFAIRS 2018 FOR PREPARATION OF CSS, PMS, BANKING, NTS, RAILWAYS AND ALL COMPETITIVE EXAMS.  “DAY TO DAY CURRENT AFFAIRS” BASICALLY IS TOP 10 NEWS SUMMARY ON CURRENT HAPPENINGS OF NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL IMPORTANCE FOR ALL EXAMINATIONS

 June 3, 2018

1. Ex-bureaucrat sworn in as Sindh caretaker CM

• Former chief secretary of Sindh Fazlur Rehman was sworn in as caretaker chief minister of the province on June 2, 2018.
• Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair administered the oath to Mr Rehman at the Governor House in front of a select audience in which outgoing chief minister Murad Ali Shah was also present.
• After the swearing-in ceremony, Mr Rehman told that he did not foresee any delay in or postponement of coming general elections scheduled for July 25. `I don`t have any fear or knowledge (about any delay in the elections). It (the elections) will be held on time,` he said.
• The caretaker chief minister said he was thankful to the outgoing chief minister and the opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly who showed trust and confidence in him by nominating him as caretaker chief executive of the province.

2. CAA suspends Shaheen Air flight operation

• Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) could not provide relief to hundreds of stranded Ummrah pilgrims after suspending flight operation of Shaheen Air on June 2, 2018 at different airports.
• The CAA had been issuing warnings to Shaheen Air management for last few years to clear its dues amounting to Rs540 millions but to no avail.
• Operation services of the airline had already been suspended partially. The bridge service was not being provided to the airline planes and passengers were being boarded by transporting them by buses to the planes. A verbal warning was issued to the airline management to pay the dues to avoid any inconvenience.
• On June 2, 2018 due to suspension of operations, Shaheen Air flights from Islamabad to Dubai and Dubai to Islamabad were not allowed to take off. CAA Director Air Transport, Syed Muzafar Alam had issued warning letter to the CAA in which Shaheen Air management was given a deadline of June 01 to clear its dues otherwise on June 02 flight operation could be suspended.

3. Long-awaited 13th Amend to Act 1974 approved

• The Azad Jammu Kashmir Legislative Assembly and the AJK Council approved the much-awaited 13th Amendment in Act 1974, the Constitution of AJK, further empowering the State government.
• Azad Jammu & Kashmir thus achieved a major breakthrough in its over 70-year administrative history after the joint sitting of the houses. It is the historic move unprecedented in the 48 years history since the constitutional democracy was introduced in 1970 as Joint Session of AJK Legislative Assembly and AJK Council amended the constitution to transfer executive and legislative powers from Azad Jammu Kashmir Council to Azad government of the State of Jammu & Kashmir.
• The joint sitting, held June 1, 2018 in AJK’s capital city with Speaker Shah Ghulam Qadir in the chair accorded approval to the Thirteenth Amendment in the Constitution of Azad Jammu and Kashmir with majority vote.
• The bill titled Azad Jammu and Kashmir Interim Constitution (Thirteenth Amendment) Act 2018 was presented in the house by Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Javed Iqbal Chaudhry. Earlier, the committee of the house on bills presented its report.

4. FBR to start automatic sharing of data from September

• Pakistan has officially decided to share financial information about bank accounts of non-residents on reciprocal basis under a multilateral tax convention with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations.
• The sharing of information will start from September 2018 after installation of required hardware and software at the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and other dedicated units.
• The decision for automatic exchange of information was taken after satisfactory clearance from the officials of OECD who recently visited the FBR for a detailed review.
• In compliance with the OECD convention, various laws and persistent efforts for the last two years, Pakistan has now become a member of the Peer Review Group (PRG) of the Global Forum for the period of 2018-20.
• The PRG is a group of 30 countries which enjoy the power to negotiate, review and monitor policy regarding automatic exchange of information of all the member countries.

5. Saudi Arabia reshuffles cabinet with eye on culture

• Saudi Arabia announced another cabinet reshuffle on June 3, 2018 with a heavy focus on culture and religion, as the kingdom undergoes a major image overhaul.
• This is the second significant government change since the appointment of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son of the king, as heir to the region`s most powerful throne. The crown prince serves as deputy prime minister under his father, King Salman.
• State news agency SPA announced King Salman had replaced the country`s labour and Islamic affairs ministers and named a prince linked to the purchase of a Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus as culture minister.
• Saudi Arabia for decades has combined its culture and information ministries.

6. Egypt’s Sisi sworn in for second term in office

• Italy’s new prime minister Giuseppe Conte attended a military parade on his first full day in office June 1, 2018, while his outspoken deputy Matteo Salvini was to head to Sicily as part of his campaign against illegal immigration.
• The military parade, which Conte attended alongside President Sergio Mattarella, marked Republic Day for the foundation of the Italian Republic in 1946.
• The 53-year-old academic heads a Govt of Ministers from the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League Party, the first populist coalition in a founding EU member. A political novice, he inherits a daunting list of issues from his predecessor Paolo Gentiloni, including the financial travails of companies such as Ilva and Alitalia, a Group of Seven summit in Canada and a key EU summit at the end of the month, as well as the thorny question of immigration.
• Immigration is the bugbear of Conte’s interior minister, Salvini, the 45-year-old leader of the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam League, who announced he would visit Sicily to see the situation for himself at one of the main landing points for refugees fleeing war, persecution and famine across North Africa and the Middle East.

7. Sanchez sworn in as Spain PM, Catalan challenge awaits

• Spain’s Socialist chief Pedro Sanchez was sworn in as prime minister on June 3, 2018 after ousting veteran conservative leader Mariano Rajoy, with Catalonia’s separatist president promptly calling for talks over the region’s independence drive.
• Sanchez, a 46-year-old economist with no government experience, has made a spectacular comeback to the front line of politics. But he faces a tough road ahead, leading a minority government with support of diverse parties ranging from far-left Podemos to Catalan separatists.
• He took the oath of office before King Felipe VI in the Zarzuela Palace near Madrid in the presence of Rajoy just a day after toppling him in a historic no-confidence vote.
• That move was sparked by fury over a corruption scandal that struck Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party (PP).
• Sanchez has yet to name his cabinet and it is only when their names are published in an official government journal in the coming days that he will fully assume his functions

8. Ex-Congo minister sentenced to 10 years in absentia

• A court in Congo-Brazzaville has sentenced a former government minister to ten years in prison on charges of violating state security and being complicit in the illegal possession of weapons.
• According to the indictment, Jean-Martin Mbemba currently lives in France and wanted to “organise a popular insurrection in 2013”. He was sentenced on June 1, 2018 in absentia.
• The former ally of long-serving President Denis Sassou Nguesso had held numerous positions in the Republic of the Congo government between 1997 and 2012, including justice minister.

9. US vetoes UN resolution on protecting Palestinians

• The United States has vetoed an Arab-backed UN draft resolution calling for measures to protect the Palestinians but failed to win backing for its own text condemning Hamas for the violence in Gaza.
• The two failed votes at the Security Council came on the same day that a young Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border fence, bringing the death toll of Gazans killed by Israeli fire since the end of March to 123.
• US Ambassador Nikki Haley declared that “it is now completely clear that the UN is hopelessly biased against Israel,” saying council members were “willing to blame Israel, but unwilling to blame Hamas.”
• The outcome deepened the deadlock at the top UN body over how to respond to the flareup of violence in Gaza just days after UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov warned that the Palestinian enclave was “close to the brink of war.”
• Ten countries including China, France and Russia voted in favor of the draft put forward by Kuwait on behalf of Arab countries. Four countries – Britain, Ethiopia, the Netherlands and Poland – abstained. The Kuwait-drafted text had called for “measures to guarantee the safety and protection” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and requested a UN report to propose an “international protection mechanism.”

10. US accuses China of intimidating neighbours

• China’s military build-up in the South China Sea and its deployment of high-end weapons systems in the disputed waters is designed to intimidate and coerce neighbours, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said Saturday.
• His broadside at a security summit in Singapore drew a sharp rebuke from a Chinese general, who lashed out at “irresponsible comments” on the contested sea and insisted Bejing was simply defending its territory.
• Speaking just 10 days before President Donald Trump is due to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Mattis also said the US military continues to support diplomats pushing for the “complete, verifiable and irreversible” denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
• Beijing has deployed a range of military hardware including anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles and electronic jammers across the South China Sea, where it has built islets and other maritime features into hardened military facilities, Mattis said.
• China has also landed heavy bombers on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands.