Current Affairs Questions

Explanation :

• IOM, or as it was first known, the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME), was born in 1951 out of the chaos and displacement of Western Europe following the Second World War.
• Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it is the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners.
• With 173 member states, a further 8 states holding observer status and offices in over 100 countries, IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants.
• IOM works to help ensure the orderly and humane management of migration, to promote international cooperation on migration issues, to assistin the search for practical solutions to migration problems and to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants in need, including refugees and internally displaced people.
• The IOM Constitution recognizes the link between migration and economic, social and cultural development, as well as to the right of freedom of movement.
• IOM works in the four broad areas of migration management:
  • Migration and development
  • Facilitating migration
  • Regulating migration
  • Forced migration

Explanation :

• The United Nations (UN) is an international organization founded in 1945.
• The forerunner of the United Nations was the League of Nations, an organization conceived in circumstances of the First World War, and established in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security.
• The name United Nations was coined by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Headquartered in New York City, the UN also has regional offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi.
• Its official languages are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
• Currently, it is made up of 193 Member States.

Explanation :

• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was established by Group of Seven (G-7) countries in a Summit held in Paris in July, 1989.
• The FATF has developed a series of Recommendations that are recognised as the international standard for combating of money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. They form the basis for a co-ordinated response to these threats to the integrity of the financial system and help ensure a level playing field.
• First issued in 1990, the FATF Recommendations were revised in 1996, 2001, 2003 and most recently in 2012 to ensure that they remain up to date and relevant, and they are intended to be of universal application.
• The FATF's decision making body, the FATF Plenary, meets three times per year.

Objectives

• To set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

FAFT Lists

• Grey List: Those countries which are considered as safe haven for supporting terror funding and money laundering are included in this list. The inclusion in this list is not as severe as black listed. It serves as a warning given to the country that it might come in Black list in future.
• Black List: Only those countries are included in this list that FATF considers as non-cooperative tax havens for terror funding. These countries are known as Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories (NCCTs). Countries which are supporting terror funding and money laundering activities are placed in the Black list.

Explanation :

• The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is aneight-member multilateral organization, established on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai, China by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
• These countries, except for Uzbekistan, had been members of the Shanghai Five group, formed on 26 April 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions.
• SCO has two Permanent Bodies — (i) SCO Secretariat in Beijing and (ii) Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. The Chairmanship of SCO is by rotation for a year by Member States. Presently Kyrgyzstan is the Chair of SCO for 2018-19.
• At the July 2005 Astana Summit, India, Iran and Pakistan were granted Observer status.
• In July 2015 in Ufa, Russia, the SCO decided to admit India and Pakistan as full members. India and Pakistan signed the memorandum of obligations in June 2016 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, thereby starting the formal process of joining the SCO as full members. On 9 June 2017, at the historic summit in Astana, India and Pakistan officially joined SCO as full-fledged members.