2025
The Annual Meeting of world economic forum (WEF) 2025 ended in Davos in Switzerland.
This year theme is Collaboration in the Intelligent Age.
The 2025 WEF reiterated the fact that the opportunities in Artificial Intelligence and green tech are just as challenging.
The investment commitments that India had sealed were recorded to be more than Rs 20 lakh crores with Maharashtra sealing almost 80 per cent of the total.
Telangana has bagged 1.79 lakh crore investment.
In 1971, a German economist and engineer Klaus Schwab established the European Management Forum which transformed into the WEF in 1987.
In 2015, WEF was declared an international government with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Davos, Switzerland hosted the WEF Annual Meeting.
International Fleet Review 2025
The International Fleet Review (IFR) 2025 is already in action now in Bali, Indonesia.
IFR is a very proud multinational naval exercise whereby navies of different nations are exercised and it is vetted by the President of Indonesia.
It promotes the negotiations of maritime security and promotes goodwill of naval forces.
Create jobs and reduce on emissions
The World Economic Forum (WEF) initiative Transitioning Industrial Clusters has 13 new industrial clusters that joined.
It was incrementing the total number of the participating clusters to 33 in 16 countries and five continents.
These newcomers were Australian, Brazilian, Colombian, Indian, Dutch, Saudi Arabian, Swedish, Thai and United Kingdom nationals.
This plan, which was introduced at COP26 in 2021, is intended to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, as well as enhance economic growth and creation of employment.
All the 33 clusters could reduce 832 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per year.
This is about equal to afford Saudi Arabia emissions.
Such clusters also add an equivalent of 492 billion dollars to global GDP and they provide a share of 4.3 million positions.
HKU5-CoV-2 in Chinese HKU5-CoV-2 in China
Identical to the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, a novel bat coronavirus, named HKU5-CoV-2, has been detected in China.
She is also labeled as the Batwoman since she published much work on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute.
The newly found bat coronavirus named HKU5-CoV-2 is a member of the merbeco virus subgenus.
It encompasses also the MERS virus that caused the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
It remains uncertain to the Researchers about the risk of the possibility of virus transmission between animals and humans.
Gulf of Tonkin line
Vietnam has a border conflict with China in the Gulf of Tonkin where the foreign ministry published a map that defines the baseline claim over the maritime boundary between the two countries.
Limits into territorial waters and exclusive economic zones have to be defined by the Baselines.
China, Vietnam and other nations in the region have certain inconsistent region claims in the South China Sea.
Last year China declared its baseline in the Gulf of Tonkin in March last year.
Meeting of FATF 2025
Giles Thomson, a representative of UK has been chosen as FATF Vice-President (2025-2027).
Nepal and Lao People Democratic Republic are subjected to grey list.
It is the second time Nepal is made included among the grey list.
Between 2008 and 2014 the country was on the FATF grey list.
In the Philippines, the country was taken off the Grey List because it has made some improvements in compliance.
Kenya together with Cayman Islands and Senegal have availed themselves as guest members of the FATF Plenary.
New International terrorist groups label
Eight Latin American groups of organized crimes were listed as international terrorist groups by the U.S government.
These groups are six Mexico-based collectives, Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua, and Central American MS-13.
Along with US, Canada also labels 7 Latin American organizations as terrorist organizations.
The label is effective to freeze assets and property of a group.
EU Classification on Caffeine
The European Union (EU) has sounded an alarm on the caffeine substance, declaring it to be highly hazardous to human beings, in case of ingestion, under new rules on the on-portal checking of chemical substances safety.
Caffeine as a pesticide is also prohibited in a new regulation by the combined 27 nation bloc.
It was asserting that the main ingredient of coffee might have negative impacts on the heart, fluid and body temperature.
The notice will not easily discourage the drinking of coffee but once the regulation comes into play.
ECONOMY
Principal Purpose Test (PPT)
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has given the revised guidance on how the Principal Purpose Test (PPT) will be applied to India Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs).