New Zealand's second largest city Christchurch was shaken by a magnitude 5.2 earthquake on Friday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The government seismology agency said the quake was centred 10 kilometres east of the city at a depth of 11 kilometres.

The city was devastated by a force 6.3 quake in February last year, killing nearly 200 people, and destroying the central business district and making large areas of surrounding suburbs uninhabitable.

The captain and the navigation officer of a container ship that smashed into a reef off a popular New Zealand holiday resort were jailed on Friday for causing the country's worst environmental disaster in decades.

The two men, captain Mauro Balomaga and navigation officer Leonil Relon, both Filipino nationals, were jailed for seven months. They had faced maximum terms of seven years imprisonment.

A yearly review of countries' greenhouse gas emissions cut pledges under an extension to the global climate pact the Kyoto Protocol could be a way to raise climate ambitions, the European Union's lead climate negotiator said on Wednesday.

Negotiators from over 180 countries are meeting in Bonn, Germany, until Friday to work towards getting a new global climate pact signed by 2015 and to ensure ambitious emissions cuts are made after the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of this year.

A Peruvian minister has denied claims that explosions used in oil exploration are to blame for the deaths of hundreds of dolphins.

Fisheries Minister Gladys Triveno said a government investigation showed that natural causes were to blame.

She contradicted a study by an environmental group which suggested that explosions had caused the deaths.

The animals have washed up along Peru's northern coastline since the beginning of the year.

The Asia-Pacific region may be home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies including China, Japan, India and Indonesia. But, last year at least, it also was the most vulnerable to natural disasters that hampered expansion and disrupted trade.

The United Nations Economic and Social Survey of the Asia Pacific, a report released Thursday, says Asia Pacific sustained damages and losses of $266.8 billion out of $366 billion globally in 2011 — the worst year in history for catastrophes.

Largely preventable or treatable infections with viruses, bacteria and parasites cause about two million new cancer cases and 1.5 million cancer deaths each year, said a study published yesterday.

This amounted to about one in six of the 12.7 million new cancer cases reported in 2008, said the report in The Lancet Oncology journal.

In a move to reduce dependence on highly priced Australian coking coal, India will acquire a mine in Mongolia and also set up the first steel plant in the quality coal rich country.

The Indian delegation comprising of Chairman of Steel Authority of India (SAIL) C.S. Verma and U.P. Singh, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Steel will go to Ulaanbaatar on Friday to sign a pact in this regard.

The government is set to enact a law to protect the rich biodiversity of the country and also to safeguard Indian agriculture from bio-terrorism and inflow of dangerous pests from outside. The proposed legislation, Agricultural Biosecurity Bill-2012, is high on the agenda of the Union Cabinet for its consideration, which will meet on Thursday.

Confirming this, sources in the government said, the proposed legislation would be on the lines of similar law in place in New Zealand, Australia and the US. The legislation seeks to establish an authority to replace existing plantation protection advisers.

Australia and New Zealand have missed a deadline to set post-2012 emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol, with both governments saying they will decide whether to continue to be legally bound to cut emissions of seven greenhouse gases later this year.

Countries intending to sign up to a second round of targets under the 1997 treaty were scheduled to notify the U.N. by Tuesday.

But Australia and New Zealand, both of which plan to launch emissions trading schemes and have been tipped to take on fresh legal targets from 2013, failed to meet that deadline.

Peruvian authorities are still trying to unravel the mystery of why hundreds of dolphins ended up dead on beaches in the country over the past 2 1/2 months.

Deputy Environment Minister Gabriel Quijandria told The Associated Press in an interview on Friday that studies are incomplete but officials hope to complete their research on the likely causes next week.