Tabloid 24

 29th May 2022 The German Company Siemens sealed an  €8.7 billion deal to develop the railway system in Egypt. A total of 2000 km of railway lines will be constructed connecting  60 cities by train, providing rail access to around 90% of the population  according to siemens.   The contract includes, besides the rail lines, 41 high-speed trains, 94 regional trains, 41 freight trains, and eight depots and freight stations . This project aims to make Egypt the Sixth Largest Railway Network. This is the biggest order in the company’s 175 year history. Causes:    The current Rail network in Egypt connects the cities in the northern part and some cities in the eastern and central part i.e. a very less part of the country has been connected via rail network till now. Thus, Egypt has came up with this project to connect the unconnected parts of the country. Effects:  Egypt will have the most modern high-speed rail network in the world  after the comp...

 245,000 acres of land is being allotted in England and nearby areas for restoration purposes towards aforestation. The funds required for this  (about 2.4 million pounds) are being given by the  Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Natural England, for work to create new habitats, manage land for nature and carbon storage and increase footpaths and connect with communities, with further funding expected from other sources and partners .   How much will be its effect : Its effects include coverage of 30% of the land by England as forest reserves, meeting its goals by 2030. This will measure up to the removal of 612,500 tonnes of carbon each year, creating additional forest resources for industrial products too.  Places in India for this forest scheme to be implemented : The best places available are the outskirts of megacities which have wastelands with minimal populations living outside the cities. These provide an ideal place for afforest...

 27 May 2022 Russia has to pay 40 billion dollars of bonds acquired till now. This year's amounts sum up to be around 2 billion dollar payments. On March 2, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control i.e. OFAC, allowed Russia to settle its bond interests with the USA. To date, from Feb 22nd, Russia has managed to pay its interests on 7 bonds. It has to pay around 100 million by 27th May with grace periods extending up to 24th June. Causes : When a country/institution needs to raise money, it issues bonds; which are nothing but debts, on which the interest needs to be paid twice an annum until the initial money and the interests are paid off. Russia has 3 types of bond payments remaining. 1) The bonds before 2014 2) The bonds after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 3) The bonds after 2018. The 1st and 2nd category bonds need to be paid in the respective currencies in which the bonds were issued, but the 3rd category bonds can be paid in roubles too. The second and 3rd category bonds a...

 The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg took to the media 2 days ago, and publically claimed that Facebook will ''bleed" a significant amount of money in the coming 5-10 years while addressing his investors. Causes :  While the blockchain technology & "The future of Social Media" i.e. Metaverse are looking pretty cool and useful, the world is not ready for them just yet. The change to WEB 3.0 is going to take time. It wasn't that just in a day we switched to cloud computing systems. That tech was almost 30-40 years old, and now the command man is making use of this tech.  The blockchain fascination i.e. the crypto and NFT has attracted a lot of people towards blockchains, but people are yet to understand the full potential of this tech. So this means while people are getting ready for this change, the change causing companies will have to suffer quite a few losses over the years to come as there won't be enough people using that tech to create HUGE profits....

 In the bids for Sweden and Finland, primarily non-NATO countries, for joining the NATO, Turkey opposed their wish. The pretext here to be noted is that the population of Sweden is made up of a large number of immigrants, especially Kurds of Turkey. Whereas in Turkey the Kurds are supposedly a major constituent of the PKK and other terrorist groups. Causes : Turkey accuses Sweden of helping the terrorist groups with finance and military-grade weapons. Sweden has denied these claims to date, but further evidence is yet to be found.   Effects :  It is quite possible that the bigger superpowers are funding this terrorist organisation to destabilize the regimes and governments in the surrounding areas. With the expanding Russian territories, the west might have feared such a situation a long time ago, and due to the vast number of military bases near the Islamic states, only the West has any sort of gain from an unstable government. While no such claims are there publica...

 Iran captured 2 Greek oil tankers near Dubai, UAE as a response to the US seizing Iran's oil tanker in the Mediterranean when Greece intervened and helped the USA. Iran has been seizing/hijacking oil tankers since 2019 over countries such as the UK, South Korea etc. Causes :   US President Donald Trump and the western powers bailed out of the deal to enrich Iran's Uranium sources, which resulted in sanctions on Iran for not using the Uranium deposited. This further strained Iran's relations with the already present tensions with the west over the gulf. The US has an estimated 10,000-20,000 troops present in the gulf region pressuring the oil trade via the 11 publically declared military bases present around the Strait of Hormuz. This strait, between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, accounts for 40% of all oil trade, and both Iran and US have the capabilities to stop it entirely for 1 month, due to their military and positional strength respectively.  Effects : ...