Top News Story –
India’s tiger population rises to 3,000 despite cities expanding
India’s tiger population has grown to nearly 3,000 and has been described by the country’s prime minister as a “historic achievement”.
India estimates its tiger population every few years and the number for 2018 was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.
The tiger population was 2,226 in 2014 and just 1,400 about 15 years ago.
Mr Modi said the number of protected areas for tigers rose from 692 in 2014 to 860 last year while the number of community reserves went from 43 to 100 over the same period.
“With around 3,000 tigers, India has emerged as of one of the biggest and safest habitats for them in the world,” he said.
Belinda Wright, founder of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, based in New Delhi, said India “still has a long way to go to secure a long-term future for wild tigers”.
But she also said India should, nevertheless, be pleased with the results of what was the largest and most thorough estimation of the tiger population.
‘Definitely weird’: man bites snake
An Indian man who was bitten by a snake got his revenge on the reptile by biting it back and killing it, the man’s father said on Monday.
The man, Raj Kumar, was relaxing at home, enjoying a drink on Sunday, when a snake slithered into his house in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, and bit him, said his father.
“A snake bit him. So, in turn, he bit it and chewed it into pieces,” said the father, Babu Ram.
The man’s family took him to hospital where media said his condition was critical. The snake that bit him was reported to have been a rat snake, which experts regard as usually not venomous.
“This is definitely weird,” said Raj Kumar’s doctor, N.P. Singh.
“I’ve seen people coming in with snakebites, but never somebody who bit a snake and then brought it with him in a bag.”
Twitter trends [from Trendinalia] – today from USA
Other News Stories –
Armed conflicts and attacks
- War in Afghanistan
- An Afghan National Army soldier kills two U.S. service members in a suspected “insider attack” in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (BBC)
- Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
- Ten civilians, including children, are killed after a Saudi Arabian-led coalition air strike hits a market in northern Yemen. (The Washington Post)
- 2018–19 Sudanese protests
- Five students are shot dead after security forces open fire in the city of El-Obeid during a protest. (Al Jazeera)
Arts and culture
- Billboard reports that Lil Nas X has broken the all-time record on the Billboard Hot 100 with his song “Old Town Road“, as it spends its seventeenth week atop the chart; the previous record-holders are Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men with “One Sweet Day“, and Luis Fonsi with “Despacito” featuring Daddy Yankee. (Billboard)
Business and economy
- International sanctions during the Venezuelan crisis
- Venezuelan officials are accused of using the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in order to circumvent United States sanctions. (Yahoo Finance)
- Capital One announces that a major data breach occurred on July 19, 2019, by one individual who compromised the data of about 106 million people in the United States and Canada. The Federal Bureau of Investigation have a made an arrest after the alleged hacker, 33-year-old Paige Thompson from Seattle, boasted about her actions online. (BBC)
Law and crime
- An eight-year-old boy is killed and his mother injured after being pushed by a man into the path of an oncoming train at Frankfurt‘s main station, in Hesse, Germany. The attacker, a 40-year-old immigrant Eritrean man, also attempted to knock a third person onto the tracks. The suspect and the victims did not appear to have known one another. (Sky News)
- 2019 Altamira prison riot
Politics and elections
- After two FARC leaders go into hiding from drug trafficking charges in Colombia and the United States, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro makes a public statement saying they are welcome to take refuge in his country. He also welcomes other FARC rebels to Venezuela, calling them “leaders of peace”. (Reuters)
- 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests
- The Chinese government‘s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office condemns protests in Hong Kong as “evil and criminal acts committed by the radical elements”, saying that Hong Kong’s top priority is to “punish violent and unlawful acts in accordance with the law”. Hong Kong legislators and journalists reject the statement from Beijing, expressing concern that this will worsen tensions. (BBC)
News from Wikipedia – please support this valuable resource