A coal ship that ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef did not damage the site’s world heritage status, but UNESCO will monitor the effects of increased shipping on the world’s largest coral reef, the UN cultural agency’s boss said yesterday.
A Chinese bulk carrier strayed from a shipping lane off northeast Australia and crashed into the reef on April 3, leaking more than 2 tonnes of fuel oil and etching a 3km scar across a coral shoal that experts say may take 20 years to heal.
The ship has since been salvaged and removed from the protected waters of the reef’s marine park.
Irina Bokova, director-general of the UNESCO, inspected the crash site on Tuesday. UNESCO included the reef on its World Heritage List in 1981 for its natural beauty, biodiversity and scientific importance
“The Great Barrier Reef is one of the wonders of the world,” Bokova said yesterday. “We were preoccupied after what happened.”
The former Bulgarian lawmaker said she accepted Australian assurances that the grounding had not effected the reef “deeply, so profoundly” as to damage its World Heritage status.
She said she accepted Australian assurances that the reef would remain safe, despite an increasing number of coal carriers passing through its waters to feed China’s voracious demand for energy.
“For the time being, I don’t have any reasons not to trust the authorities in their commitment to protect the site,” she said.
“Whenever we see a danger because of some allowed economic activity, then be reassured that we are intervening with strong messages,” she said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion