Garbage clogs the banks of Iraq's Tigris River in Baghdad but an army of young volunteers is cleaning it, a rare environmental project in the war-battered country.

With boots and gloves, they pick up soggy trash, water bottles, aluminium cans and muddy styrofoam boxes, part of a green activist campaign called the Cleanup Ambassadors.

"This is the first time this area has been cleaned since 2003," shouts a passer-by about the years of conflict since a US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

The war is over but Iraq faces another huge threat: a host of interrelated environmental problems from climate change and rampant pollution to dust storms and water scarcity.

In at least one sense, Scott Morrison is the most successful Australian prime minister in years.

He is the first to survive in office from one election to the next since 2007. That year, the government of Australia’s second-longest-serving Prime Minister John Howard was voted out after a reign of almost 12 years.

Between Howard and Morrison, there have been four prime ministers including Kevin Rudd who served twice during an extraordinary period of political instability in Australia.

Rudd’s second stint ended when voters ousted his center-left Australian Labor Party government in the 2013 election. The other three prime ministers were toppled by their own parties, which panicked amid poor opinion polling. So too was Rudd during his first stint that set the revolving door to the prime minister’s office spinning.

The 53-year-old former tourism marketer was labeled the “accidental prime minister” in 2018 when his government colleagues chose him to replace then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

His critics argue that his success has been a triumph of style over substance.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has been nicknamed Albo since he was a child in keeping with a time-honored Australian tradition of abbreviating names and often adding “o” at the end.

Likewise, Morrison is widely known as ScoMo.

Morrison sells himself as an ordinary Australian family man who is passionate about his Sydney Pentecostal church and his local National Rugby League football team, the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks.

He is the son of police officer and one-term mayor John Morrison and a descendant of British convict William Roberts, who arrived in Australia in 1788 with the first fleet of 11 ships that established the penal colony that became Sydney.

He promoted tourism for the Australian and New Zealand governments before entering politics.

Elon Musk is no longer joining the board of Twitter, the CEO of the social media company said, in a reversal less than a week after announcing the Tesla chief would be appointed.

Musk was named to join the Twitter board after buying a major stake in the firm and becoming its largest shareholder.

"Elon has decided not to join our board," Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted.

Currently the world's richest man and with more than 80 million followers on the microblogging platform, Musk last week disclosed a purchase of 73.5 million shares -- or 9.2 percent -- of Twitter's common stock.

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Musk is a frequent Twitter user, regularly mixing in inflammatory and controversial statements about issues or other public figures with remarks that are whimsical or business-focused.

He has also sparred repeatedly with federal securities regulators, who cracked down on his social media use after a purported effort to take Tesla private in 2018 fell apart.

The Delhi High Court has dismissed an application by Red Bull seeking to injunct Pepsi from using tagline “Stimulates Mind. Energizes Body.” for its energy drink Sting.

The court said plaintiff Red Bull has failed to establish a prima facie case in its favour and the balance of convenience is also in favour of defendant Pepsico India Holdings Pvt Ltd for not granting an interim injunction as the products of the defendants have been selling in the market with this tagline for almost five years.

Red Bull sought an interim injunction against Pepsico, restraining it from using the tagline “Stimulates Mind.Energizes Body.”, which is claimed to be deceptively similar to the plaintiff’s registered trademark/ tagline “Vitalizes Body And Mind”.

In 2018, Red Bull filed a trademark suit in the high court for its mark “Vitalizes Body and Mind.” against PepsiCo’s use of its tagline for its energy drink product Sting.

Red Bull claimed that the marks are similar and Pepsi’s use of the tagline amounts to infringement and passing off its trademark. It had argued that the mark had acquired distinctiveness and secondary meaning, thus entitled to protection.

Many parts of the country will not be able to avail the 5G services in 2022, as Telecom Service Providers could only connect 7,93,551 towers by optical fibre in the country.

Telecom operators have to fiberise 2.3 million Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) installed on mobile towers to cover the entire population.

“Telecom Service Providers fiberise their Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) installed on mobile towers and 7,93,551 BTSs have been connected by optical fibre in the country as on 1 February 2022,” informed Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in the Lok Sabha.

The telecom ministry is hopeful to launch the 5G services in the country before 15 August 2022.

The major obstacle in fiberisation of telecom towers are high charges, complex process and delay involved in getting Right of Way (RoW) permissions due to non-alignment of ROW Policy of States with Indian Telegraph Right of Way Rules, 2016 notified by the Central Government.

The government said it is facilitating the telcos for laying optical fibre by means of addressing RoW challenges and creating a collaborative institutional mechanism between Centre, States and Local Bodies for Common Right of Way, standardisation of costs and timelines for approval, and removal of barriers for grant of approvals. 

The Indian women hockey team's two FIH Pro League matches against England, which were earlier postponed due to Covid-related issues in the English side, have been cancelled, handing the Savita-led side the top position in the standings.

The two matches were initially scheduled for April 2 and 3 at the Kalinga Stadium but postponed due to a high number of Covid-19 cases and injuries in the England team. The Indian team has now been awarded six points -- three each for a match -- for the two cancelled games.

With six points from the two cancelled matches, India leapfrogged Olympic champions Netherlands to occupy the top position in the standings with 22 points. The Dutch are second at 19 points while Germany (13) are third.

FIH Women's World Cup to be held in Spain and Netherlands, 

India created history by winning their first ever gold medal — before adding another one an hour later — at the World Doubles Squash Championships in Glasgow. The returning Dipika Pallikal, who played her last event in October 2018 (US Open) before taking an extended break, teamed up with Saurav Ghosal to win the mixed doubles title before repeating the same feat with Joshna Chinappa for the women’s doubles title.

The 30-year-old conceded that the wins will act as a stepping stone for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) and the Asian Games.

Dipika first clinched the mixed doubles title with Ghosal with an 11-6, 11-8 win over England’s Adrian Waller and Alison Waters. An hour and a half later, Dipika and Joshna triumphed in the women’s doubles final after a hard-fought 11-9, 4-11, 11-8 win over England’s Sarah Jane Perry and Waters.

In the year of the CWG and Asiad, the tournament was a perfect preparation for the seasoned trio of Dipika, Joshna and Ghosal who continue to bring laurels to the country. Dipika and Joshna had made history in 2014 when they won the women’s doubles gold at the CWG. Compared to Asian Games, the competition in CWG is much tougher with all top nations competing, barring Egypt.

• Russia said it was shutting down the local offices of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that have been working in the country for the past 30 years.
• The announcement came on the 44th day of Russia's military campaign in pro-Western Ukraine, with thousands killed and more than 11 million having fled their homes or the country in the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
• Human Rights Watch has been operating in Russia for 30 years, while Amnesty has had a presence in the country since 1993.
• All in all, 15 organisations have been taken off Russia's registry of international organisations and foreign NGOs due to "violations of the current legislation of the Russian Federation," the justice ministry said in a statement without providing further details.
• Russia also shut down the local offices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation, the Wspolnota Polska Association and other organisations.