Kathmandu: An Indian female sloth bear, which was confiscated from two Indian bear trainers here, has finally been sent back to India, thanks to the intervention of animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi.

The bear, Rubina, was taken back to India four days back, according to Mekh Bahadur Pandey, Deputy Director at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.

Banned in 1975, Shahtoosh shawl, made from the wool of endangered Tibetan antelope Chiru, has not lost its charm with a revival in its sale in the last decade, no matter how furtively.

Tibetan antelope chiruThe Shahtoosh trade was banned globally in 1975 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) following a fall in the number of the antelopes.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), as part of the Indo-French Space Collaboration, is planning to launch a satellite for climate research in a year's time.

Defying predictions for a drawn-out battle, parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species rejected a bid to ban cross-border trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, the Rolls Royce of the species, early at their meeting in Doha during the last two weeks of March.

In just ten weeks since January, at least 13 tigers have died, five each in January and March in various reserves across the country. Last year, 60 deaths were recorded. Now, merely 3,500 big cats are left in the wild of which 1,411 are in India.

Arguments over whether to allow one-off sales of ivory stockpiles have dominated the opening of a two-week summit on trade in endangered species.

tlantic bluefin tuna could be the first widely eaten species to be banned from being traded internationally. Would it work, and would it set a useful precedent for other species?

Momentum carrying the bluefin tuna towards an endangered species listing - and an effective trade ban - appears to be slowing as key countries align themselves with Japan, which strongly opposes such a prohibition.

Tanzania and Zambia are petitioning the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to "downlist" the conservation status of their elephants to allow sale of stockpiled ivory. But just 2 years after CITES placed a 9-year moratorium on future ivory sales, elephant poaching is on the rise. The petitioning countries are major sources and conduits of Africa's illegal ivory.

France announced its support for adding bluefin tuna to Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a move that would effectively ban all trade in the large, migratory fish. But environmentalists say France

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