20 January 2015 Last updated at 06:16 ET

India's tiger population sees 30% increase

A Royal Bengal Tiger pauses in a jungle clearing in Kaziranga National Park, east of Guwahati, India - 21 December 2014

India said it was willing to donate tiger cubs to the international community to help conservation efforts

India says it now has almost a third more tigers than it did four years ago.

Presenting the findings of the latest tiger census, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the tiger population had risen from 1,706 in 2011 to 2,226 in 2014.

He said a number of government initiatives to streamline tiger conservation were behind the increase.

India is estimated to be home to around 70% of the world's tigers.

Mr Javadekar described the results of the census as a "huge success story".

'Great news'

"Never before has such an exercise been taken on such a massive scale where we have unique photographs of 80% of India's tigers," he told journalists in Delhi.

"While the tiger population is falling in the world, it is rising in India. This is great news," he added.

Tiger conservation practices that had proved successful in India could be adopted elsewhere, he suggested.

He also said India was willing to donate tiger cubs to the international community and play a key role in global tiger conservation.

Wildlife campaigners had been expressing concerns over dwindling numbers of tigers for some time.

The Times of India says that as recently as 2008, census figures showed a tiger population of just 1,411.

18 January 2015 Last updated at 10:10 ET

Boos and eggs for Canada's foreign minister

Palestinian protesters have thrown eggs at Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird as he was visiting the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Mr Baird was not hit, though some eggs struck his motorcade.

Canada is considered one of Israel's closest allies.
It voted against the Palestinians' successful UN bid to become a non-member state and has opposed their recent move to join the International Criminal Court.

Mr Baird was in Ramallah to meet Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki, during a five-day trip to the region. His visit came a day after the ICC said it was opening a "preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine".

Mr Baird said he and Mr Malki had held "cordial and constructive" talks that included "candid and frank exchanges on areas where we differ in opinion".

"I asked that the minister strongly reconsider the consequences of moving forward with any action that may be counterproductive to a negotiated solution with the state of Israel."

'Wrong side of history'

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, who did not meet Mr Baird, issued a statement expressing his anger at Canada's backing for Israel.

"We regret the Canadian government's decision to stand on the wrong side of history by blindly supporting the Israeli occupation and its apartheid policies," he said.

Harsh critics of Israel level the charge of apartheid - the system of state-sanctioned racial discrimination once practised by South Africa - against the Jewish state over its treatment of Palestinians and Israeli-Arab minority. Israel says the accusation is baseless and a part of efforts to demonise it.

Protest against Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird in Ramallah, 18 January 2015

A crowd of protesters had gathered at the foreign affairs ministry in Ramallah

He criticised Mr Baird for meeting Israeli officials in occupied east Jerusalem in 2013.

Later on Sunday, Mr Baird met Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Jerusalem. Arriving there, he said an ICC decision to open its preliminary examination was "deeply regrettable".

Mr Lieberman thanked Canada for its support. "The opposition of one of the founders of the ICC is very important, maybe crucial," he said.

The Palestinians will formally join the ICC on 1 April and have asked it to investigate Israeli "crimes" since June 2014.

This covers events prior to and during last summer's conflict between Israel and militants in Gaza.

Steve Lewis Blog

Tuesday, January 20, 2015