Natural features are persons, court rules

DEHRADUN • An Indian court ruled last Friday that it recognises Himalayan glaciers, lakes and forests as legal persons, in an effort to curb environmental destruction, weeks after it granted a similar status to the country's two most sacred rivers.

The decision aims to widen environmental protections.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

New bird flu cases in China's Hunan

BEIJING • China has reported six new cases of H7N9 bird flu - including one death - in Hunan, after live poultry markets in the province were shuttered last month.

The infections were reported in the last week of last month, according to a Xinhua report yesterday. More than 170,000 birds have been culled in Hunan so far.

REUTERS

Cow killers to hang in Indian state

NEW DELHI • A day after the western state of Gujarat approved a life term for killing cows, India's central Chhattisgarh state last Saturday took a harsher line and said that it would execute cow killers.

"Have you heard of cow slaughter here in the past 15 years? If someone does that, we will hang him," Chief Minister Raman Singh told the media in Raipur, the capital.

XINHUA