Australia claims substantial progress on reef protection
Melbourne: Australia said that it had made substantial progress on the UN request for better protection of the Great Barrier Reef and the world heritage site should not be listed among “in danger”.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt said there was genuine improvement in key reef indicators in regards to dugongs, turtles, seagrass and coral.
“Early indications are that these are important and well received developments internationally,” he was quoted as saying by The Age newspaper. “It is a permanent task for every Australian government to protect and maintain the reef; nobody can ever rest on that. But there should be no way the reef can and should be considered ‘in danger’.”
The World Heritage Committee had threatened to put the reef on a list of world heritage sites considered “in danger” after Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority approved dumping of dredging spoil inside the marine park. In a progress report to the UN World Heritage Committee, the federal and Queensland governments have said the natural values the reef was protected for are still largely intact, although in parts – such as inshore areas south of Cooktown – they are declining.
Australian Coral Reef Society president Peter Mumby referred to concerns raised in past that the reef was in the worst shape since monitoring began and said the progress report played down industrial development threats. He said development already on the table would add 14 million tonnes a year of damaging sediment to reef waters.
“We have real concerns over development that have not been addressed,” he said. University of Queensland coral reef ecologist Selina Ward said the Abbot Point decision was dangerous because the best modelling showed dumped sediment would drift to outer areas, hurting coral and seagrass.
It said pollution from other sources, including port development and dredging, “is minor but may be highly significant locally and over short time periods.” (PTI)
Secret plan behind bringing Nazi scientists to US revealed
New York: A new book is has laid bare some of the facets of the controversial plan to bring Nazi scientists to US. ‘Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program to Bring Nazi Scientists to America’ author Annie Jacobsen used newly released documents, court transcripts, and family-held archives to give the fullest accounting yet of the plan – one shared by the British, the French, and the Russians, all of whom enlisted and embraced top Nazis, the New York Post reported.
The Department of Defense had created a top-secret, elite task force called the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, or JOIA. They were subordinate to the Joint Intelligence Committee, which briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on national security threats.
Jacobsen said that within one year of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the JIC warned the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the US needed to prepare for ‘total war’ with the Soviets- and to include atomic, chemical, and biological warfare – and that they even set an estimated start date of 1952. Unofficial US policy held that it was imperative to secretly bring in those Nazis who could accelerate USA’s scientific, technological and economic advancement.
The Allies held elite Nazis in two luxurious locales: the Palace Hotel in Luxembourg, renamed “Ashcan,” and Crane Mountain Castle in Hesse, Germany, renamed “Dustbin.” These were the places where the most wicked Nazis lounged in well-appointed rooms, strolled through apple orchards, played chess, smoked and drank, and gave each other lectures in grand halls. (ANI)