Dwindling Tiger Population and G20 Meetings

Dwindling Tiger Population
"Only a century ago, an estimated 100,000 tigers prowled the planet -- some 40,000 in India alone. Then intense hunting and habitat loss devastated tiger populations, and by 1970, fewer that 25,000 remained worldwide. In India, fewer than 2,000 survived." India has expanded its wildlife sanctuary system from just ten national parks to more than 100, to the point that there are over 600 protected areas in the country, including 50 tiger preserves. [1]

The creation of protected areas resulted in protests against displacement of tribal people and eventually resulted in the passage of the Forests Rights Act (FRA). The FRA guarantees the rights of "traditional forest dwellers" to live on and use the lands they've relied upon for generations, even within national parks.

While tiger numbers in India are on the rise, poaching remains a big concern, with twice as many tigers poached in 2016, as in 2015. Poachers feed a multimillion-dollar market in tiger-based Chinese medicines and luxury products.

There is a debate among conservationists, with some maintaining that the only real hope for saving India's tigers is to keep people out of the less than five percent of land that has been set aside for wildlife habitat.

Trump/Putin Meeting Discrepancies
There are a number of discrepancies that have arisen about the meetings between Trump and Putin at the G20 summit. The major problem revolves around the issue of Russia meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump has said that the first time the issue came up, about 20 to 25 minutes was spent in discussing it. Trump then said the issue came up "in a totally different way" and Putin said that Russia absolutely did not meddle in the election. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the issue came up several times.

Both President Putin and the Russian foreign minister contended that Trump accepted the denial and dropped the issue, whereas Trump has not accepted the Russian denial of meddling, nor has he or Tillerson challenged it.

The other discrepancy concerns the length of the meeting that occurred during the G20 dinner. Other sources have been saying that Putin and Trump met once more for about an hour; however, Trump describes that meeting as lasting about 15 minutes. Trump said that "Russian adoptions" was included as a topic, which he said was "interesting," because it was "part of the conversation that Don had in that meeting" (referring to the June 2016 meeting).

ADDENDUMS:
*The Government Ethics office warned that a top Trump administration ethics officer may have violated the very ethics rules he is required to enforce by allowing billionaire investor Carl Icahn -- who has frequently advised Trump -- to skirt financial disclosure requirements.

*Approximately half of American jobs could be replaced by automation in the coming years, and roughly one in four are at risk of being lost to foreign competition, according to a study recently published by Ball State University. "The negative long-term impacts of displacement have been found to be worse for low-skilled, less-educated workers, who are likely to work in more vulnerable jobs."

Footnote
[1] Michael Bananav, "The Tiger Watchers," Sierra, July/August 2017.