Daily subject-wise quiz : International Relations MCQs on countries covered under Alps mountain range, IAEA and more (Week 112)
UPSC Essentials brings to you its initiative of subject-wise quizzes. These quizzes are designed to help you revise some of the most important topics from the static part of the syllabus. Attempt today's subject quiz on International Relations to check your progress.
🚨 Click Here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for May 2025. Share your views and suggestions in the comment box or at manas.srivastava@indianexpress.com🚨
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an NGO backed by:
1. The United States
2. Israel
3. Turkey
4. Syria
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 3 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2 and 4
Explanation
— An estimated 50 people were shot and injured in Rafah this week as thousands of Palestinians starving for food swarmed an aid distribution facility run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israeli-backed NGO.
— Gaza had been under total embargo for nearly three months before last week. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has stated that it cannot collaborate with GHF. Jake Wood, GHF's president, resigned on May 25, claiming that the organization's activity did not adhere to 'humanitarian principles'.
Therefore, option (a) is the correct answer.
With reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), consider the following statements:
1. It is the international centre for cooperation in the nuclear field.
2. The Agency works to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.
3. It is also known as 'Atoms for Peace and Development'.
How many of the statements given above are correct?
(a) Only one
(b) Only two
(c) All three
(d) None
Explanation
— The conclusions of the 'comprehensive' International Atomic Energy Agency assessment sought by the agency's 35-nation Board of Governors in November open the way for a drive by the US, UK, France, and Germany for the board to declare Iran in breach of its non-proliferation responsibilities.
— A resolution will enrage Iran and could hamper nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
— Using the IAEA report's conclusions, the four Western powers want to submit a draft resolution to the board for adoption at its next meeting in the week of June 9, diplomats believe. Iran would be placed in official noncompliance for the first time in nearly two decades.
About IAEA
— The IAEA, often known as the 'Atoms for Peace and Development' organisation within the United Nations family, is the international centre for nuclear cooperation. Hence, statements 1 and 3 are correct.
— The Agency collaborates with its Member States and several global partners to promote the safe, secure, and peaceful use of nuclear technologies. Hence, statement 2 is correct.
Therefore, option (c) is the correct answer.
The Alps mountain range stretches across:
1. Italy
2. Poland
3. Hungary
4. Switzerland
5. Austria
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
(a) 1, 2 and 3 only
(b) 1, 4 and 5 only
(c) 2, 3 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
Explanation
— According to the BBC, almost nine million cubic metres of ice and boulders crashed on the Birch glacier and into the valley. The impact was significant enough to be detected by geological monitoring stations throughout Switzerland.
— Glacier specialist Matthias Huss of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich described the calamity as the worst-case scenario. 'I was speechless,' he told the BBC, adding that, while Blatten's case is the most serious in recent years, it is not the only one. 'We are seeing a lot,' he added. 'A lot of these events in the last years in the Alps are linked to global warming.'
— The Alps mountain range spans various European countries, including France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Liechtenstein, and Monaco. While these are the countries most closely identified with the Alps, the range also extends into Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Albania.
Therefore, option (b) is the correct answer.
Recently, which of the following countries has issued a ban on all imports of poultry and related products from Brazil over an avian influenza outbreak?
(a) United States
(b) Japan
(c) Russia
(d) China
Explanation
— China has issued a ban on all imports of poultry and related products from Brazil over an avian influenza outbreak, two weeks after suspending import applications from the country's poultry farms.
— All direct and indirect Brazilian poultry imports are prohibited and would be returned or destroyed if delivered or mailed into the nation, according to a May 29 internet warning from China's General Administration of Customs.
— It also said that all animal and plant waste from entering Brazilian ships must be processed under customs supervision and not thrown without approval.
— Brazil, the world's top poultry exporter and China's largest chicken meat supplier, announced a bird flu epidemic on a commercial poultry farm in the city of Montenegro in its southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul on May 16, prompting a flurry of international trade restrictions.
Therefore, option (d) is the correct answer.
Which of the following countries are part of the Arctic Council?
1. Canada
2. Finland
3. United States
4. Norway
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
(a) 2, 3 and 4
(b) 1 and 3 only
(c) 2 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Explanation
— The Arctic Council serves as the apex intergovernmental forum fostering regional cooperation and promoting governance in the Arctic region.
— The forum comprises eight permanent members – Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, United States, and Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands).
Therefore, option (d) is the correct answer.
Sorry for the inconvenience caused. All remaining questions and answers are correctly marked.
Daily Subject-wise quiz — History, Culture, and Social Issues (Week 112)
Daily subject-wise quiz — Polity and Governance (Week 112)
Daily subject-wise quiz — Science and Technology (Week 112)
Daily subject-wise quiz — Economy (Week 112)
Daily subject-wise quiz — Environment and Geography (Week 112)
Daily subject-wise quiz – International Relations (Week 111)
Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week.
Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Donald Trump ‘open to peace talks' in Turkey – But only if Putin and Zelensky show up
US President Donald Trump is open to engaging in talks upon an invitation by his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but only if both Russian and Ukrainian Presidents are willing to come to the negotiating table, the White House said on Tuesday (June 3). "The president has said he's open to it if it comes to that, but he wants both of these leaders and both sides to come to the table together," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The nature of Erdogan's proposal has not been officially disclosed, but sources familiar with diplomatic discussions say the Turkish leader has suggested hosting or mediating talks between the disputing parties in an attempt to ease growing regional tensions. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed hosting a landmark summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and US President Donald Trump in Istanbul or Ankara later this month, in a renewed effort to end the war in Ukraine. While Erdogan's initiative has drawn international attention, Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far refused to participate. In contrast, Ukraine's Zelensky has welcomed the idea, emphasising the need for direct engagement between leaders to resolve the most critical issues. 'Key issues can only be resolved at leaders-level,' Zelensky said following the latest round of talks in Istanbul. Despite renewed diplomatic engagement, progress on a comprehensive ceasefire remains elusive. Ukraine said Russia rejected its call for an unconditional truce, offering instead a limited pause of two to three days in select frontline areas. 'The Russian side continued to reject the motion of an unconditional ceasefire,' said Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya. Russian lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky confirmed the limited offer. 'We have proposed a specific ceasefire for two to three days in certain areas of the front line,' Medinsky said, explaining it was necessary to collect the bodies of dead soldiers. According to documents presented by Russian negotiators, Moscow is demanding a full Ukrainian military withdrawal from four contested regions — Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — as a condition for broader peace. Additionally, Russia wants a ban on Ukraine joining NATO, the restriction of its military capabilities, and an end to Western military support. Despite tensions, both sides managed to agree on humanitarian issues. A deal was finalised to exchange all severely wounded soldiers and all captured fighters under the age of 25, involving at least 1,000 individuals on each side. Ukraine also announced that the two sides agreed to repatriate the bodies of 6,000 fallen soldiers. At a press conference in Vilnius, Zelensky made clear that any future agreement must not benefit Russia for its aggression. 'The key to lasting peace is clear — the aggressor must not receive any reward for war,' he said, reiterating that a permanent peace can only be negotiated after hostilities cease entirely. Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who led Kyiv's delegation, called for a follow-up meeting before the end of June and supported the idea of a Putin-Zelensky summit. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan described Monday's negotiations as productive. 'The parties built on the points they had agreed upon during the first meeting,' he posted on X, adding that preparations for a possible leaders' summit are ongoing. (with AFP inputs)
India Today
2 hours ago
- India Today
Ukraine and Russia agree on troop exchange, no progress toward ending war
Representatives of Russia and Ukraine met Monday for their second round of direct peace talks in just over two weeks, but aside from agreeing to swap thousands of their dead and seriously wounded troops, they made no progress toward ending the three-year-old war, officials talks unfolded a day after a string of stunning long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching a devastating drone assault on Russian air bases and Russia hurling its largest drone attack of the war against the negotiating table, Russia presented a memorandum setting out the Kremlin's terms for ending hostilities, the Ukrainian delegation said. Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, told reporters that Kyiv officials would need a week to review the document and decide on a response. Ukraine proposed further talks on a date between June 20 and June 30, he the talks, Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti published the text of the Russian memorandum, which suggested that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the four regions that Russia annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured, as a condition for a an alternate way of reaching a truce, the memorandum presses Ukraine to halt its mobilisation efforts and freeze Western arms deliveries, conditions were suggested earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The document also suggests that Ukraine stop any redeployment of forces and ban any military presence of third countries on its soil as conditions for halting Russian document further proposes that Ukraine end martial law and hold elections, after which the two countries could sign a comprehensive peace treaty that would see Ukraine declare its neutral status, abandon its bid to join NATO, set limits on the size of its armed forces and recognise Russian as the country's official language on par with and the West have previously rejected all those demands from other steps, the delegations agreed to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action and to set up a commission to exchange seriously wounded officials said their surprise drone attack Sunday damaged or destroyed more than 40 warplanes at air bases deep inside Russia, including the remote Arctic, Siberian and Far East regions more than 7,000 kilometers (4,300 miles) from complex and unprecedented raid, which struck simultaneously in three time zones, took over a year and a half to prepare and was 'a major slap in the face for Russia's military power," said Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the Ukrainian security service, who led its called it a 'brilliant operation' that would go down in history. The effort destroyed or heavily damaged nearly a third of Moscow's strategic bomber fleet, according to Ukrainian on Sunday fired the biggest number of drones -- 472 -- at Ukraine since its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine's air force said, in an apparent effort to overwhelm air defences. That was part of a recently escalating campaign of strikes in civilian areas of LOW FOR PEACE PROSPECTSUS-led efforts to push the two sides into accepting a ceasefire have so far failed. Ukraine accepted the proposed truce, but the Kremlin effectively rejected it. Recent comments by senior officials in both countries indicate they remain far apart on the key conditions for stopping the previous talks on May 16 in the same Turkish city were the first direct peace negotiations since the early weeks of Moscow's 2022 invasion. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the fact that the two sides met again on Monday was an achievement in itself amid the fierce fighting.'The fact that the meeting took place despite yesterday's incident is an important success in itself,' he said in a televised said during a trip to Lithuania on Monday that a new release of prisoners of war was being prepared after the Istanbul meeting. The May 16 talks also led to a swap of prisoners, with 1,000 on both sides being the talks, Zelenskyy said, the Ukrainian delegation handed over a list of nearly 400 abducted children. Russia responded by proposing to 'work on up to 10 children.'"That's their idea of addressing humanitarian issues,' Zelenskyy said Monday during an online briefing with International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in 2023 for Putin and the country's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of abducting children from head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin, said Kyiv had made a 'show' out of the topic and that children would be returned if their parents or guardians could be also told journalists that the Russian side said it was ready for a two- to three-day ceasefire to collect bodies from the battlefield, not a full ceasefire."I think they're idiots, because the whole point of a ceasefire is to prevent people from being killed in the first place. So you can see their mindset — it's just a brief pause in the war for them,' he relentless fighting has frustrated U.S. President Donald Trump's goal of bringing about a quick end to the war. A week ago, he expressed impatience with Putin as Moscow pounded Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles for a third straight night. Trump said on social media that Putin 'has gone absolutely CRAZY!'UKRAINE UPBEAT AFTER STRIKES ON AIR BASESUkraine was triumphant after targeting the distant Russian air bases. The official Russian response was muted, with the attack getting little coverage on state-controlled television. The Russia-1 television channel on Sunday evening spent a little over a minute on it with a brief Defense Ministry statement read out before images shifted to Russian drone strikes on Ukrainian said the setbacks for the Kremlin would help force it to the negotiating table, even as its pursues a summer offensive on the battlefield.'Russia must feel what its losses mean. That is what will push it toward diplomacy,' he said Monday in Vilnius, Lithuania, meeting with leaders from the Nordic nations and countries on NATO's eastern has occasionally struck airbases hosting Russia's nuclear-capable strategic bombers since early in the war, prompting Moscow to redeploy most of them to regions farther from the front Sunday's drones were launched from trucks close to the bases in five Russian regions, military defences had virtually no time to prepare for Russian military bloggers chided the military for its failure to build protective shields for the bombers despite previous attacks, but the large size of the planes makes that attacks were 'a big blow to Russian strategic air power' and exposed significant vulnerabilities in Moscow's military capabilities, said Phillips O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Lucas, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Centre for European Policy Analysis, called it 'the most audacious attack of the war' and "a military and strategic game-changer.''Battered, beleaguered, tired and outnumbered, Ukrainians have, at minimal cost, in complete secrecy, and over vast distances, destroyed or damaged dozens, perhaps more, of Russia's strategic bombers,' he fighting has continued along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, and both sides have hit each other's territory with deep forces shelled Ukraine's southern Kherson region, killing three people and wounding 19 others, including two children, regional officials said a missile strike and shelling around the southern city of Zaporizhzhia killed five people and wounded nine others, officials said.
Economic Times
3 hours ago
- Economic Times
‘Suspect got tourist visa under…': Leavitt criticises Biden admin after Boulder attack on protesters
The White House condemned the violent attack in Boulder, Colorado, where a man threw incendiary devices at protesters demanding the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Eight people were injured, some seriously. The suspect, now in custody, received a tourist visa under the Biden administration, drawing sharp criticism from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. The Trump administration vows zero tolerance for violence, especially against the Jewish community, amid rising tensions. Show more 11:39 04:45 09:20 08:10 12:03 01:39 01:39 03:09 01:09 01:56 19:32 01:54 02:32 11:25 01:53 01:32 03:21 01:31 03:08 10:09 09:24 09:02 05:27 03:25 03:36 03:36 03:42
