Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Nov 19, 2016

ANSWER: Jammu & Kashmir

Explanation:
Mehbooba Mufti, the CM of J&K has on 14th Nov 2016 formally launched the World Bank funded Jhelum Tawi flood recovery project in Srinagar.

• The project seeks reconstruction and rehabilitation of infrastructure post 2014 floods in the state.
• The project was pursued by former CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed following devastating floods in 2014
• In January 2016, the Government of India and the World Bank signed a USD 250 million credit agreement as per the Jhelum and Tawi Flood Recovery Project
• Project is funded by credit from the International Development Association, the concessionary lending arm of the World Bank with a mature of 25 years including a 5 year grace period
• Project aims at reconstruction and recovery of support in flood affected areas where public infrastructure and livelihoods are badly impacted
• The project restores critical infrastructure damaged by floods using global best practices.
• Infrastructure will be designed to improve resilience to future instances of flooding, landslide and seismic risk
• It will focus on 20 flood affected areas in the state including Pulwama , Kupwara, Baramulla and Jammu.
• Apart from reconstruction, the project will also focus on disaster risk mitigation.

ANSWER: Marrakech meet in Morocco

Explanation:
Giving a clear message to climate skeptics, the UN climate change conference has come out with action proclamation indicating the worldwide momentum on climate change is irreversible as it is driven by science, business, global action and governance.

• The proclamation which is a reiteration of the Paris Agreement calling for raising ambition and strengthening cooperation among nations to close the gap between current emission trajectories and the pathway needed to keep the average global temperature rise within 2 degree C by 2100 from pre-industrial levels
• The Marrakech Action Proclamation for Our Climate and Sustainable Development was issued on 16th Nov following consultations among nations and participating ministers regardless of what the US will do in the Trump era
• The final version of the MAP ensures that rich nations mobilise USD 100 billion by 2020 and the concerns of the developing countries over the issue of the developed countries pre-2020 climate actions including assigned emissions cut for them till 2020 under the Kyoto Protocol
• The developed country parties reaffirm the USD 100 billion mobilisation goal calling for further climate action and support, in advance of 2020 taking the specific needs and circumstances into account for developing countries, LDC nations and particularly those vulnerable to adverse effects of climate change
• The task is to now rapidly build on the momentum and move to reduce GHG emissions and foster adaptation benefiting and supporting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and SDGs
• As governments cannot implement the Paris agreement on their own, the MAP calls the private players including business enterprises to pitch in to fight challenges of climate change by moving onto a clean energy step
• The collective call is on non state actors to join us for immediate and ambitious action and mobilisation based on important achievements such as the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action itself.

ANSWER: Both b and c

Explanation:
The North Pole has recorded temperatures 20 degree C (36 degree F) above average alongside a record low of sea ice for October, creating alarm for climate change scientists across the world.

• The polar night in the region lasts for more than 24 hours and the Arctic is supposed to get super cold
• October is the first full month when sea ice is supposed to grow; however, the ice area is 28.5 % below the 1981-2010 average
• This is the smallest since the record was begun being estimated in the late 1970s
• NOAA has declared October the third warmest on record in 2016 after 2014 and 2015
• The Arctic has been more warm for a long period of time
• Parts of Greenland including the top of Greenland’s ice sheet was 7 degree C warmer than the average the previous month, and there has also been rise in temperature on Alaska’s north slope

ANSWER: Zika

Explanation:
The World Health Organisation on 18th Nov 2016 announced that the Zika virus outbreak linked to deformities in babies’ heads and brains no longer poses an international public health emergency

• However, the epidemic remains a big challenge
• Brazil is the epicentre of the outbreak and it has refused to downgrade the risk
• Experts have also opposed the world body’s decision
• Zika causes mild symptoms in most people, but pregnant women with virus risk were giving birth to babies with microcephaly- a deformation leading to abnormalities of small brains and heads
• It can also cause a rare adult onset neurological problems such as Guillain Barre Syndrome which can result in paralysis and death
• In the outbreak that began in 2015, more than 1.5 million people have been infected by Zika, mainly in Brazil according to the WHO
• The UN global health agency had declared Zika an international public health emergency in February 2016
• Researchers had warned that at least 2.6 billion people over a third of the global population lived in parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific where Zika could gain a new foothold with 1.2 billion Indians at risk
• Brazil on 18th Nov said that it would continue to treat the outbreak as an emergency
• Zika has been detected in 73 nations worldwide, namely in Latin America and the Caribbean

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
President elect Donald Trump has signalled a strong rightward shift in the US national security policy on 18th Nov 2016, naming the Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as the attorney general.

• He has also appointed Mike Pompeo to head the CIA and former military intelligence chief Michael Flynn to be his NSA
• All three have been fierce critics of President Obama’s handling of terrorism and international relations
• Mr. Trump’s selection is being closely watched in the US and overseas. Flynn called Islam a political ideology hiding behind a religion
• Sessions was the first political senator to endorse Trump, rallying behind his hardline immigration approach
• Pompeo is a conservative Republican and a strong critic of the US-Iran nuclear deal
• Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden should be sentenced to death, says Pompeo

ANSWER: Gen Ban ki-moon

Explanation:
The UNSG and South Korean diplomat has received the Legion of Honour from French President Francois Hollande for his contribution towards tackling climate change, on 17th Nov 2016

• Ban Ki-Moon pushed through the 2015 Paris Agreement
• This deal worked towards moving away from fossil fuels to cleaner energies signed by close to 200 countries after 20 years of negotiations
• Legion of Honour was established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte and is considered one of the leading civilian awards of France
• Ban will step down as head of the 193 member UN after a decade on January 1
• He will be replaced by Portugal’s Antonio Guterres.