Indian Space Research Organization has called-off Moon mission after scientists lost contact with the orbiting Chandrayaan-1 space ship. Spacecraft was introduced last October as a two-year mission of traveling around.

This launch was a major step for India. ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair said to the reporters in spite of the called off, mission was a great success and 95% of its purpose is finished. He quoted saying we could collect a large volume of data, including 70,000 images of moon. ISRO scientists add a conversation with US and Russia to track the spacecraft, which travel round 200km from the surface of Moon. Southern state of Andhra Pradesh last October expected robotic probe would orbit the Moon, accumulate a three- dimensional atlas of lunar surface and distribution of elements and minerals. The satellite did experience technical problem when an antenna broke down. During that, time information was already gathered through pictures even though picture quality did affect the malfunction.  Mission was likely to cost up to 3.8bn rupees greatly less than Japanese and Chinese survey says when they sent Moon last year. Not all-Indian government welcomed a space effort. Some critics looked upon the space effort as a waste of resources in a country where people still not have basic needs.

More then 20 people were killed when a bomb went off inside a police station in Ingushetia, Southern Russia. The suicide attack happened in Nazran, the largest city in the largest city in Ingushetia injuring more then 60 people. Among the injured are 11 children who are still in the hospital recovering from injuries. The explosion happened at the time of a shift change and many police personal were present in the building compound. A suicide bomber drove a small Russian made truck loaded with explosives into the police station building.

This region has seen many bomb attacks and shooting in recent times and most have been targeted on police and government officials. In June the motorcade of Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was attacked by a suicide bomber. He is still recovering from injuries and has not yet returned to his office.

The Monday suicide attack can be rated as the deadliest in the recent months. Apart from the police station, surrounding buildings, houses and cars parked on the street have been damaged too. As the police men had lined in for an inspection during the shift change, the suicide bomber drove the truck into the police station gate. Officials have estimated that the truck was loaded with 20 kg of TNT explosive and the bomb explosion has been described of high intensity.

Vladimir Putin on his visit to Abkhazia announced that Russia will pump in US $ 500 million to strengthen its military bases in the Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia.

Mr. Putin is in Abkhazia to hold talks with the local leader on economic co-operation that Russia will provide to the Georgian breakaway. He started his tour of Abkhazia by visiting the War Memorial, where he paid reverence to soldiers killed in 1992-93 war between Abkhazia separatist and Georgian force.

Most of the aid will go into strengthening the border posts and also on development of military bases to guard the region. The Abkhaz Government has already offered to Russia to develop a large Naval base in south of Sukhumi. This could be an alternate location to house the Russian Black Sea fleet which is currently based in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsular.

Russia currently has over 1000 troops in Abkhazia and proposes to increase another 1500 by the end of year. Also aided by Russia are the building efforts to improve the Abkhazia region. These include building housing complexes for the people of the region. Most of the people of the region have been given Russian citizenship and are also entitled for benefits like pension.

As a reminder of the cold war era when Russian and American submarines use to monitor each others activities, two Russia attack subs were patrolling the eastern cost of United States in the Atlantic Ocean. But this did not ring any alarm bells as it would have been in the cold era days. According to latest reports the submarines were 300 kilometers of the US eastern coast line in the international waters.

The Attack Submarines belong to the newer Akula II Class and are one of the most advanced vessels in the aging Russian Fleet. Akula II Class Attack Submarines are nuclear powered and equipped with cruise missiles and surface to air missiles.

But some see it as a marketing tactics to promote Russia as a weapon supplier. Russia was one of the main weapons suppliers in the cold era time but its share has dwindled. Russia is already in the process of leasing two Akula Class submarines to India. This is like a follow-up to the last year when the Russian Navy conducted a “tour around the world”. So its another of those Russian stunts to prove that Russian weapon systems are reliable and still state of the art.

According to the latest reports an Iranian official, Deputy Transport Minister Ahmad Majidi said that there were no problems with the aircraft pilot and he was not to blame for the crash thus suggesting that there could have been a technical snag that resulted in the crash. The flight data recorder has been recovered but it is badly damaged. The tapes had actually come out of the black boxes and now it would be sent to Russia, the manufacturer of the aircraft for further investigation.

Caspian Airlines Russian built Tupolev-154 had crashed shed on Wednesday leaving all 168 people on board dead. The plane had crashed in a farmland in the Qazvin province 120 kilometers North West of the Iranian capital Tehran.

According to witnesses the Russian made Tu-154 which has been in service for 22 years, node dived from the sky with its tail on fire. The impact created a large crater and the wreckage lay scattered in a large area.

Most of the passengers on board were Iranian and there were also some Armenian and Georgian passengers. It is also reported that to identify the remains the Iranian authority would do DNA testing.

This is the third deadly crash of a Russian made Tu-154 in Iran. As there is a trade embargo on Iran, they only have aircrafts of Russian origin. Most of the fleet is aging and there have been issues related to maintenance in the past.

Natalya Estemirova, a resident of Grozny, was amongst the key Caucasus-based activists working for Memorial, a prominent Russian rights group that has garnered global approbation for its able efforts of bringing to light rights misuses and detailed facts of warped Russian history. Natalya was brave to live and work in the rife-torn Chechnya. Her slain remains were recovered on Wednesday just hours following her forced seizure by four unidentified men near her residence in the wee hours of morning as she was heard screaming for help saying that she was being taken hostage.

Her cadaver riddled with close range bullet wounds on the head and the chest region was discovered near a highway in Ingushetia that borders Chechnya. Her killing was the most recent in a string of massacres of many human right supporters and journalists in Russia, following the much hyped shooting of reporter Anna Politkovskaya in 2006.

Natalya’s violent end ensues just hours post human rights groups submitting a comprehensive report stating that Vladimir Putin along with other officers must be put on trial in an international court for the misdoings committed at the time of the two wars that debilitated Chechnya.

The Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev has condemned the murder, asking for a top-level investigation into the heinous crime. Natalya’s work was a major source of discontent among Chechen authorities. She had incensed Chechen authorities by blaming security personnel for engaging in capricious slaughter of a suspected rebel on 7th July.

A novel means to allot accountability for carbon emission is said to resolve the standoff between countries that are budding and the developed ones. The mode places nationwide goals for curbing carbon emissions on the basis of the theory that states that the figure of high bracket income earners in a country is directly proportional to the rate of CO2 emission.

Research scholars from Princeton Environmental Institute commenced work on the module two years back with their prime goal being to uncover a steadfast means to assess the typical emission rate of high wage earners. It was concluded from nationwide statistics bureaus and World Bank that with every ten percent hike in income, the corresponding rise in emissions by that particular person went up by nearly close to ten percent.

Countries like Japan are twofold competent in this aspect in comparison to the US. Progressive countries have always received flack in complying with cutting carbon emissions without any concrete assurance from developing countries in this regard. The developed nations are of the viewpoint that developing countries should also take charge of the situation concerned, given the fact that they mass-generate them in the initial instance.

On the 1990 plane by 2020, currently developed countries like Scotland have laid down a determined deduction goal of 42 percent in carbon emissions surpassing many countries, while UK has consented to un-joint reduction of 34 percent and the European Union has allocated a cut of 20 percent evaluated to that same year itself.

The novel method plans to assign reduction on a descending range with reference to wealth as the base. With third world countries becoming slowly affluent, their contribution to carbon cuts will also rise eventually, when in due course they decide to reduce emissions, they would own the sources to be able to accomplish the said task. With the rapid growth rate of developing countries one can expect within the next two to three decades, they will produce significantly high rate of carbon emissions.

China, in fact, doesn’t have alarming high carbon emissions that gives it a lax period of a decade or so, ensuing which it will need to take stringent measures. The state of affairs presumes that global action to curb carbon emissions will commence from the year 2010 which by the year 2030 will have the same carbon emissions as the current scenario.

Countries like Russia, U.S, Canada, Australia, and Middle East need to put in considerable effort in curbing carbon emissions.

In December, as leaders from all nations congregate in Copenhagen to create an agreement that will substitute the Kyoto agreement that nullifies in 2012, how far the impact of the plan charted in the Princeton documents will be followed is to be watched out for.

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hit an introductory pact on Monday , that ensued after three hours of discussion held in Kremlin, to cut down their respective stash of nuclear missiles to as low as 1500, targeting the least echelon that any US –Russia arms pact has ever achieved. The endeavour also entrusts the new deal to reduce the respective nation’s long range projectiles for conveying nuclear bombs to be in the range of 500-1100.

The notable deal being Obama’s premier one in Russia, was signed between the two leaders during the Moscow summit as a means to direct envoys while the nations progress towards a substitute deal as the currently existing START arms control agreement nullifies in December. The present agreement permits an upper limit of 2,200 weapons and 1,600 launch platforms. According to a statement issued by the White House, the new-fangled agreement incorporates able corroboration measures to augment defence, whilst doubling up to offer logicality and constancy in tactical offensive power.

Conscious measures to bridge the gap between the two countries were evident by the deal in which Moscow would permit US to move weaponry across its soil and space to Afghanistan. This comes as a windfall as it would aid in saving precious US $ 133million annually by means of relinquishing of transit fees and decreased flight time.

Obama requires Russia’s aid in creating pressure on North Korea and Iran to forego their nuclear warhead aspirations and thus effectively dealing with global warming, terror campaigns and in reviving economy.