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Britain will launch a new inquiry into a contaminated blood scandal dating back decades which has left 2,400 people dead.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017 19

New Delhi

India’s top court yesterday stayed a nationwide

ban imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on the sale of cattle for slaughter that had provoked outcry in many states.

The Supreme Court upheld a decision by a lower court staying the ban imposed in

May, which prohibited the sale and purchase of cows -- an animal considered sacred for Hindus -- for slaughter.

The sudden ruling had sparked protests against what many saw as an overreach by the Hindu-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and many states where cow slaughter was legal vowed to fight the decree.

“I think that the sums that I have seen that they (EU) propose to demand from this country (UK) seem to me to be extortionate and I think ‘to go whistle’ is an entirely appropriate expression,”

US deploys Patriots in Lithuania

A Swedish government agen-cy threatened to cut aid to NGOs which have suspended abortion services over fears of losing US funding.

The United States deployed a battery of Patriot ground-to-air missiles in Lithuania as part of multinational NATO exercises in the Baltic coun-try.

16 dead in US military plane crash in Mississippi

Britain to hold inquiry into blood scandal

Do you think telecom service providers should bring back one year validity on prepaid lines?

Yes No Cant Say

India’s top court stays cattle slaughter ban

Boris JohnsonBritish foreign minister

Sweden to cut aid to NGOs applying abortion ban

Washington

All 16 troops aboard a Marine Corps air

refuelling and transport aircraft were killed when the plane crashed in a field in rural Mississippi, officials confirmed yesterday.

Authorities provided few details on what went wrong, or the nature of the Marines’ mission.

The KC-130, an air refuelling aircraft that can

also carry troops and cargo, took off from a Marine Corps air base at Cherry Point, North Carolina on Monday and disappeared from radar over Mississippi, crashing in the late afternoon.

“A Marine Corps KC-130 transport aircraft crashed in LeFlore County, Mississippi, on July 10 at approximately 4:00 pm CDT, claiming the lives of 16 service members,” the Marine Corps said.

China scramble to ‘rescue’ ailing Nobel laureate

A Chinese hospital said it was scrambling to save ter-minally-ill Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, while human rights groups decried his treat-ment by the authorities and the leak of a video showing him in his sickbed.

© GRAPHIC NEWS

An attack on pilgrims in Indian-administered Kashmir has angeredhardline Hindu groups who have long sought tough action against

militants fighting Indian rule in the Muslim-majority region

Sources: Wire agencies Picture: Getty Images

INDIA

CHINA

PAKISTAN

Amarnath Cave: Hundreds of thousands ofHindus trek to shrine each year to worship icestalagmite seen as symbol of Lord Shiva –Hindu god of destructionKashmir: Active militancy has raged since 1989.Separatist groups want independence from Delhior to merge with Pakistan, which controls northernpart of state above heavily militarisedLine of Control

Jul 10, Anantnag: Bus returning from AmarnathCave caught in crossfire between militants andpolice. Seven pilgrims killed, 19 injured indeadliest attack since 2000

PAKISTAN-ADMINISTERED

KASHMIR

INDIAN-ADMINISTERED

KASHMIR

Jammu

Srinagar

Islamabad

Gilgit

Area ceded byPakistan to China,claimed by India

Area heldby China,claimedby India

SiachenGlacier

C H I N A

I N D I A

PAKISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

Line o f Control

Attack took place despite40,000 paramilitary forces

deployed to ensure security

Muzaffarabad

60 miles100km

A US Marine Corps KC-130 (file photo)

Moscow

Russia is considering retaliatory measures

after the United States expelled 35 of its diplomats in December, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday, without disclosing details.

“We are thinking about specific steps, and I don’t believe that this should be discussed publicly,” Lavrov told journalists in a televised briefing.

He blamed the “outrageous” move on the administration of former president Barack Obama which “wanted to poison Russian-American relations to the maximum and do everything to put the Trump administration in a

trap.”Deputy foreign minister

Sergei Ryabkov told RIA-Novosti news agency that “there were several variants of a response and a harsh reaction is prepared.”

The expelled diplomats were based in Washington and San Francisco.

The Kremlin at the time refrained from tit-for-tat expulsions but Russian newspaper Izvestia said Monday citing sources that Moscow may be expelling 30 US diplomats and seize some US property in the country.

Obama announced the expulsions and the closure of two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland

in response to purported hacking attacks dubbed “Grizzly Steppe” by US officials. He gave diplomats and their families 72 hours to leave.

President Vladimir Putin at the time ruled out kicking out US diplomats, a move that was interpreted as Moscow’s hope to build ties with the Trump administration.

The Russian strongman even invited US diplomats’ families to a party in the Kremlin.

However Moscow is keen to regain its properties in the US and the subject was on the agenda of Putin’s first face-to-face meeting with Trump in Hamburg, according to the Kremlin. (AFP)

Russia threatens US over expelled diplomats

Paris

The sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is unfolding

more quickly than feared, scientists have warned.

More than 30 per cent of animals with a backbone -- fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals -- are declining in both range and population, according to the first comprehensive analysis of these trends.

“This is the case of a biological annihilation occurring globally,” said Stanford professor Rodolfo

Dirzo, co-author of a study published on Monday in the peer-reviewed US journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Around a decade ago, experts feared that a new planetary wipeout of species was looming.

Today, most agree that it is underway -- but the new study suggests that the die-out is already ratcheting up a gear.

It provides much-needed data about the threat to wildlife, mapping the dwindling ranges

and populations of 27,600 species. For 177 mammals, researchers combed through data covering the period 1900 to 2015.

The mammal species that were monitored have lost at least a third of their original habitat, the researchers found.

Forty per cent of them -- including rhinos, orangutans, gorillas and many big cats -- are surviving on 20 per cent or less of the land they once roamed.

The loss of biodiversity has recently accelerated.

‘Sixth extinction’ of wild life faster than feared

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) attends the OSCE Informal Ministerial Meeting in Mauerbach, Austria