Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI: The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) grouping will become BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa, according to sources in the government.

The third BRIC summit in China next year will see South African President Jacob Zuma present as an observer.

Membership of the soon-to-be five nation grouping will then be frozen for some time.

Japan is likely to shelve a plan to introduce carbon emissions trading as the troubled ruling Democratic Party bows to powerful business groups still recovering from a costly downturn.

If confirmed, it would be a massive reversal by the party, which has backed one of the toughest emissions reduction targets of any major economy and said emissions trading was a key way to achieve that goal and d

Ahead of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

Moscow, Dec.

Chersky (Russia): Wild horses have returned to northern Siberia. So have musk oxen, hairy beasts that once shared this icy land with woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats. Moose and reindeer are here, and may one day be joined by Canadian bison and deer.

Later, the predators will come _ Siberian tigers, wolves and maybe leopards.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday agreed with other Asian nations to try to double the world's wild tiger population by 2022 and save it from extinction.

Just 3,200 tigers now live in the wild, down from 100,000 a century ago, and those that remain face a losing battle with poachers who supply traders in India and China with tiger parts for traditio

Leonardo DiCaprio on Tuesday donated $1 million toward efforts to save tigers from extinction as he arrived in Moscow to take part in an international "tiger summit."

The star of movies "Titanic" and "Inception" made the $1 million commitment to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), with whom he has been working this year on the Save Tigers Now campaign.

DiCaprio, 36, is a committed environmentalis

With just 3,200 left in the wild, tigers could become extinct within a decade unless countries step up efforts to halt poaching and deforestation, wildlife experts told a "tiger summit" in Russia this week.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao join world leaders on Tuesday to endorse a pledge to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022.

Here are some fa