A round-up of today's other stories in brief
UN court rejects Georgia's case against Russia
AMSTERDAM – The UN’s highest court has ruled it had no jurisdiction to hear Georgia’s complaints of alleged human rights abuses by Russia on Georgian territory because the two sides had not held negotiations.
Georgia accused Russia of “serious violations” of a 1965 anti-discrimination treaty during three interventions in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from 1990 to August 2008 and a “systematic policy of ethnic discrimination.
Russia asked for the case to be dismissed as Georgia failed to negotiate, as the treaty requires, before the International Court of Justice in the Hague could be approached. – (Reuters)
Diet could reduce gas in farm animals
LONDON – New diets for cows and sheep could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, research funded by the British government’s department for environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) shows.
Agriculture accounts for about 9 per cent of all British greenhouse gas emissions. Most comes from sheep, cows and goats.
A trial showed that high- sugar grasses could reduce an animal’s methane emissions by 20 per cent for every kg of weight gain while oats could reduce methane emissions from sheep by 33 per cent. – (Reuters)