The SolarJungle is powered with Solar Panel

A remote tropical island in the South Pacific has managed to rid itself of its reliance on diesel and is now completely powered by solar energy.

Ta’u Island, part of American Samoa, is using more than 5,000 solar panels and 60 Tesla power packs to run the entire island.

Before the move to renewable energy, the island, which is home to 600 people and located 4,000 miles off the west coast of the US, was dependent on 100,000 gallons of diesel to survive.

Utu Abe Malae, executive director of the American Samoa Power Authority, said although it was not easy to implement, it is “the future” for all islands in the area. 

Previously Ta’u Island would grind to stand-still when bad weather prevented ferries transporting diesel from docking, but now, due to the new technology, the island is completely self-sufficient. 

“Shipping diesel has been a long-standing environmental risk, and an inefficient use of taxpayers’ money,” the Guardian reported Mr Malae as saying.

“We want all of American Samoa to be solar-powered by 2040 – but Ta’u has been the priority and test-run.”

Construction of the grid began two years ago and had been delayed due to technical issues and poor weather. Solar engineers from contractors Tesla and SolarCity flew out from California to help oversee construction. 

“The ferries to the island would often break down, so then we’d have to flag down nearby fishing boats to transport the solar panels, and then they’d have to pass the panels to row-boats to reach the island. Nothing about this project went smoothly at all,” Mr Malae added.

India’s are begging the poor to help Them Launder Undeclared Cash

Rich people in India are begging the poor to launder money for them after the Indian government abolished the country’s largest currency notes in a bid to curb unaccounted wealth and corruption, according to reports.

Wealthy Indians are said to be treating their maids, drivers, nannies and cooks with unusual politeness, in the hope of persuading them to launder undeclared cash they had been stashing in their homes following what the Indian government called a “strike” against people who keep unaccounted-for cash in the country.

Rahul Sharma, a driver from Delhi, said he was offered a cup of tea by his employer for the first time.

According to Mr Sharma, “I was shocked at his sudden niceness. It went on for two days. He didn't even bother to remember my name. When he wanted to summon me, he'd call out 'driver!'

“On the third day, the penny dropped. He asked me to deposit 250,000 rupees (£3000) in my bank account on his behalf so that he could get rid of his black money."

In another case, it was reported that a woman took two of her servants to a bank and “shamelessly” ordered them to exchange her old notes with new notes from their account.

A witness, known only as “Munkeyy”, wrote in an online forum on Reddit: “I was standing in the queue at a bank to exchange my old notes. A middle-aged aunty brought her servants (a wife and husband) to the bank.

“She made them stand in the queue with her, shamelessly gave them 4500 rupees (£54) each in the bank and asked them for an exchange. The male servant had an ID card he could exchange and the aunty could exchange, but the servant's wife did not have any ID with her and so got nothing.

“She was shamelessly using them to exchange her old notes and I am not sure if those poor servants got a commission for this or not.” 

Experts had predicted that those who would be worst-hit by the crackdown would be doctors, lawyers and wealthy professionals in real estate, who are often paid in cash to avoid taxes and stash their money in overseas accounts.

Following the introduction of the note ban, panicked customers lined up at banks to exchange and deposit old notes, sometimes standing in queues for hours. Fistfights broke out at petrol pumps when clerks ran out of change, while at toll booths operators simply gave up charging and let cars stream through.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the crackdown in an attempt to fulfill his election promise of curbing tax evasion and recovering income stashed overseas after illegally evading taxation, after he struck a chord with 1.3 billion Indians in the 2014 national polls. 

The government had said concessions would be allowed for use of the notes in government-run and private hospitals, chemists and petrol pumps until 11 November, but this was then extended to 24 November.

War Crimes: Russia Have Withdraw its Support For ICC

Russia may have been “emboldened” to withdraw its support for the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the election of Donald Trump, an analyst has said.

Vladimir Putin signed an order to withdraw his country’s signaturefrom the court’s founding treaty on Wednesday, amid an investigation into the Ukraine conflict and calls for Russia to be prosecuted over its air strikes in Syria.

South Africa, Gambia and Burundi have also signalled they will pull out of the ICC, despite warnings from the United Nations.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the Centre on Conflict, Rights and Justice at SOAS, University of London, said Russia was “taking advantage of several different events” to make its move.

 “The ICC is holding an event now in the Hague, there have been three African withdrawals and on the heels of that we have the election of a US President who is not going to be supportive.

The President-elect has vowed to improve relations between the US and Russia, which have been damaged by the Ukraine conflict, Syrian civil war, mutual sanctions and near-misses between Russian and Nato military assets.

As well as repeatedly praising Mr Putin during his election campaign, Mr Trump is reportedly considering anti-ICC campaigner John Bolton for the position of Secretary of State.

The US is not a party to the ICC, while Russia and several other countries signed its founding document – the Rome Statute - in 2000 but failed to ratify it. 

The signature will now be withdrawn, formally removing the Kremlin from the body’s scrutiny.

“The International Criminal Court has not justified hopes placed upon it and did not become a truly independent and authoritative judicial body,” a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry said.

A statement claimed that Russia “consistently advocates that people guilty of grave offences must be held accountable” and took part in developing laws against genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the decision to withdraw Russia's signature had been taken “in the national interest”.

Dr Vinjamuri, who is also an associate fellow at Chatham House, said Russia was unhappy about a previous ICC investigation into its war with neighbouring Georgia and angered by a prosecutor’s report two days ago opening a new probe into Ukraine.

“It’s not likely to do much to affect the operation of the ICC because Russia has never been seen as a supporter,” she added. 

“It’s a bit of posturing and if anything it just affirms that Russia’s not really playing ball when it comes to global support for human rights and cooperation.

“This is the latest in a long line of Russian activity acting against human rights at home and abroad.”

Francois Hollande, the President of France, suggested that Russia should face war crimes charges over its bombardment of rebel-held eastern Aleppo last month.

“These are people who today are the victims of war crimes,” he told French television amid hundreds of reported civilian deaths.

“Those that commit these acts will have to face up to their responsibility, including in the ICC.”

It was the latest call parties in the conflict to be prosecuted by the ICC, after Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to refer the Assad regime in 2014.

Both Russian and Syria have denied deliberately killing civilians or breaking international law in the Syrian civil war, saying they are targeting terrorist groups.

Wednesday’s announcement came two days after the ICC’s prosecutor issued a report on preliminary investigations into actions by Russia and other parties in the Ukraine conflict.

Two probes have been launched over alleged crimes committed during fighting between separatist rebels and government forces in eastern Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

The Kremlin has denied persistent allegations of military intervention in the conflict and providing support to pro-Russian rebels but the ICC’s prosecutor said the situation in Crimea amounted to an “international armed conflict” between Russia and Ukraine as defined by the Rome Statute, meaning its jurisdiction applies.

A report found the conflict began in February 2014 when Russian troops were deployed “to gain control over parts of the Ukrainian territory without the consent of the Ukrainian Government”.