Thursday, June 21, 2012

HEADLINES

• Julian Assange seeks asylum from Ecuador at their embassy in London after the British Supreme Court rejected his plea against extradition to Sweden

NATIONAL NEWS

• IUCN Red List has 132 species of plants and animals from India
  • The Red list of threatened species, prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has listed 132 species of plants and animals as Critically Endangered, the most threatened category, from India. Plants seemed to be the most threatened life form, with 60 species being listed as Critically Endangered, and 141 as Endangered;
  • The Critically Endangered list included 18 species of amphibians, 14 fishes and 10 mammals. There are also 15 bird species in the category. The agency listed 310 species as Endangered ones, including 69 fishes, 38 mammals and 32 amphibians. Two plant species were reported to be extinct in the wild, including the Euphorbia mayuranthanii of Kerala. A leaf frog species and six plants were recorded as extinct, according to the latest assessment;
  • 15 species of Indian birds, including the great Indian bustard, Siberian crane and sociable lapwing are there in the list of Critically Endangered birds. Compared to the previous year, the conservation status of Baer’s Pochard had been uplisted to Critically Endangered from Endangered, and the Long-tailed Duck to Vulnerable from Least Concerned;
  • This year, Saker Falcon has been listed as Endangered, against the previous year’s rating of Vulnerable. The threat perspective faced by the River Lapwing resulted in its classification as Near Threatened from the earlier Least Concerned. River Tern, a wetland-dependent species found in Kerala, has been moved to Near Threatened category from Least concern, and Black-bellied Tern to Endangered from Near-threatened in the latest list, Dr. Nameer said. Swinhoe’s Storm-petrel, which was first sighted in the India in the sea off the Chavakad beach last year, has also been classified as Near Threatened;
  • Of the total 63,837 species globally assessed, the IUCN classified 3,947 as Critically Endangered, 81 as Extinct, 63 as Extinct in the Wild. In the remaining threatened categories, there were 5,766 species in Endangered, 10,104 in Vulnerable and 4,467 in Near Threatened categories. Scientific data regarding 10,497 species was unavailable, and hence classified as Data Deficient.
• Centre makes labelling of GM foods mandatory
  • The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, in an extraordinary gazette notification, has made an amendment to make labelling of every package containing genetically modified food mandatory from January 1, 2013. The move will impact the imported GM foods that are flooding the markets;
  • The notification published on June 5, 2012 says: Every package containing the genetically modified food shall bear at the top of its principal display panel the words ‘GM.’ The notification is silent on whether the amendment is applicable to primary GM foods or processed foods;
  • With a moratorium on Bt Brinjal, India does not produce any GM food. However, it is suspected that GM foods are imported in several forms;
  • The Rules leave it to the importer to declare that the food commodity entering the country contains GM products or have GM ingredients and several officials confirm that rarely is any voluntary declaration made by the exporter or importer.
• International Sericulture Commission to be shifted to Bangalore in 2013
  • Bangalore will now be a place where global policies on silk would be decided as it is set to house the headquarters of the International Sericultural Commission (ISC), an apex inter-governmental body of 13 silk producing countries;
  • The ISC headquarters, which is presently located in Lyon, France, is being shifted to India for the first time as the Central Silk Board (CSB) Member-Secretary and bureaucrat Ishita Roy has been elected ISC Secretary-General. The shift will take place in January 2013;
  • Ms. Roy said that India heading the influential ISC will help the country’s sericulture sector in a big way as it could play a major role in framing policies on global development of sericulture in such a manner as to bring about stability and sustainability in its own domestic sericulture sector. This, she said, will help improve the financial condition of all the stakeholders in silk industry right from farmers.
• Delhi Jal Board and S'pore ink agreement on sharing waste water treatment expertise
  • Delhi on Wednesday signed an agreement with Singapore to set up waste water treatment plants that will generate ‘new water’ for the city’s consumption. ‘New Water’ as it is popularly called is treated sewage and waste water that is being increasingly used in cities where water is in short supply;
  • The water utility signed an agreement with the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) and Temasek Foundation, Singapore (TF), to share their experience in planning and design of recycle and reuse of treated sewage and wastewater on a public private partnership (PPP) basis;
  • Since Singapore has tackled similar water scarcity issues through its highly successful ‘new water programme’, and set a benchmark in the implementation of recycle and reuse projects for indirect potable and direct non-potable application, the DJB is keen to tap into Singapore’s experience.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Assange supporters face loss of face, money
  • Friends and supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who stood surety for his £240,000 bail, face losing their credibility as well as money after the police said he had broken his bail conditions by seeking asylum at the Ecuadorean Embassy;
  • One condition required him to remain at a registered address between 10pm. and 8am. That registered address was his friend Vaughan Smith’s country house in UK. Police said he had breached the promise by choosing to live at Ecuador’s embassy and faced arrest;
  • Legal experts wondered why, instead of approaching the European Court of Human Rights, he chose to seek asylum. Human Rights lawyer Helena Kennedy, a former member of Mr. Assange’s legal team, speculated that it could be a ploy to “bargain” with Sweden for assurances that it would not hand him over to America.
• Mubarak's health adds to Egypt uncertainty
  • Conflicting reports about the failing health of strongman Hosni Mubarak have added a new twist to political uncertainty in Egypt, where crowds of protesters were out on the streets opposing the recent dissolution of parliament and the denial of civil liberties by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF);
  • Earlier, the state run news agency MENA reported that Mr. Mubarak was “clinically dead”. Officials later rubbished the report, but acknowledged that the former President had suffered a stroke and a cardiac arrest on Tuesday at the prison hospital, where he has been admitted after being handed a life sentence;
  • Mr. Mubarak’s critics said that reports about Mr. Mubarak’s failing health had been deliberately planted to enable his transfer out of prison, to the relative comfort of a military hospital. Others saw in these airings an attempt to defuse the rapidly developing anti-SCAF protests.
• Samaras sworn in as Greek Premier
  • Greek conservative party head Antonis Samaras was sworn in as Prime Minister on Wednesday at the helm of a three-party coalition (New Democracy, PASOK and the Democratic Left) that will uphold the country’s international bailout commitments;
  • The move ends a protracted political crisis that had cast grave doubt over the country’s future in Europe’s joint currency and threatened to plunge Europe deeper into a financial crisis with global repercussions;
  • All three parties broadly back Greece’s pledges to bailout creditors for further austerity and reforms, though they have pledged to renegotiate some of the terms for the rescue loans;
  • Greece has been dependent on the loans from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund since May 2010. In return, it has imposed deep spending cuts, slashed salaries and pensions, and repeatedly hiked taxes. The measures have left the country struggling through a fifth year of recession, with unemployment spiralling to above 22 per cent and tens of thousands of businesses shutting down;
  • Read this editorial on the issue, if you have the time.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article which details the legal framework for the rights of persons with disabilities
• June 20 is held to be World Refugee Day. Read this article which discusses the problems of the Chakmas, a tribal group which fled from Bangladesh to India
• Read this article on the minority sub-quota proposal of the Govt which was struck down by the AP High Court
• Read this article on the situation in Mogadishu, Somalia
• Read this article on the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (Total Sanitation Campaign)