Icebound Russian Ship's Passengers to Be Rescued by Helicopter...

MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – All passengers and four crew members aboard a Russian research ship stuck in the ice off the coast of Antarctica will soon be evacuated by a Chinese helicopter, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.

“A decision has been made to evacuate 52 passengers and four crew members by a helicopter from China’s Xuelong icebreaker, if weather conditions are suitable,” the ministry said.

Eighteen crew members are expected to remain aboard the icebound ship, the Akademik Shokalsky.

A team of scientists and tourists on the ship had been retracing a famous Australian Antarctic Expedition from 101 years ago when the vessel became trapped in thick ice about a week ago.

A Chinese icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, came within just seven nautical miles (11 kilometers) of the stranded vessel on Saturday, but was forced to turn back after also having problems with dense ice. An earlier rescue attempt by a French vessel had also failed.

An Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, was forced to turn back from a rescue attempt earlier on Monday, citing poor weather that made the mission unsafe.ria.ru
30/12/13
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Related:

• Antarctic mission now pinning hopes on Australian icebreaker for rescue. -VIDEO. L'Akademik Shokalskiy toujours prisonnier des glaces 

• China’s Snow Dragon to aid rescue of trapped Russian ship...

• Icebound Antarctic passengers face air rescue if ship cannot reach them soon...

• Les passagers piégés dans l'Antarctique seront évacués par hélicoptère...

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• Antarctic expedition scientists trapped in ice....

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• СООБЩЕНИЕ ДЛЯ СМИ О ситуации с НИС «Академик Шокальский».....

Из-за тяжелой ледовой обстановки ни один из кораблей ледового класса - «Сюэлонг» (КНР) и «Ороре Остралис» (Австралия) - до сих пор не смог пробиться на выручку к российскому научно-исследовательскому судну «Академик Шокальский», блокированному у берегов Антарктиды в акватории моря Д’Юрвиля. Судно «Сюэлонг» находится в 6,7 морских миль, а «Ороре Остралис» лежит в дрейфе на расстоянии 18 миль от НИС «Академик Шокальский».

Принято решение об эвакуации 52 пассажиров и 4 членов экипажа вертолетом китайского корабля «Сюэлонг», если это позволят погодные условия.

Посольство России в Австралии поддерживает постоянную связь с властями страны пребывания и капитаном НИС «Академик Шокальский» И.Б.Киселевым. По его информации, все члены экипажа и другие участники экспедиции здоровы. Угрозы для их жизни и безопасности нет.
http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/newsline/322E3A1B389B7D9244257C51004978D8
30/12/13

Antarctic mission now pinning hopes on Australian icebreaker for rescue. -VIDEO. L'Akademik Shokalskiy toujours prisonnier des glaces

 Scientists on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition remain trapped for a fourth day after a Chinese icebreaker that was en route to rescue the ship failed to push its way through the heavy ice.

The Chinese ship Snow Dragon was just 11 kilometres away from the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy on Saturday morning, but the icebreaker was forced to turn back after being stalled in heavy ice.

France’s L’Astrolable icebreaker also called off its rescue mission Saturday after failing to break through the ice around the ship, said Lisa Martin, spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.


 A third icebreaker -- Australia’s Aurora Australis -- which Martin says has the best chance of cutting through the ice is expected to arrive on Sunday.

Expedition leader Chris Turney earlier tweeted an image of the Snow Dragon icebreaker on the horizon approaching the ship, with penguins in the foreground.

“It’s a little frustrating again that we can see hope and help,” Turney told CTV News Channel in Skype interview. “But unfortunately at the moment we’re just in an isolated position still.”

The Akademik Shokalskiy, which left New Zealand for Antarctica on Nov. 28, has been stuck since in ice since Christmas morning after blizzard winds of up to 70 kilometres per hour pushed ice around the ship, trapping it south of Hobart, Australia.
The vessel isn’t currently in danger of sinking, and the 74 scientists, tourists and crew on board have weeks’ worth of supplies.
“Some of the Australians are complaining about the amount of beer we’ve got left,” Turney said. “But overall I think morale’s pretty good.”
The scientific team had been following the same route Australian explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago. Turney said they plan to continue their expedition once they’re freed.

• And despite interruptions, scientists on board the Akademik Shokalskiy have been continuing their research, counting birds in the area and drilling through the ice to observe sea life.

ctvnews.ca
28/12/13
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Related:

• Antarctic expedition scientists trapped in ice....

• VIDEO. L'Akademik Shokalskiy toujours prisonnier des glaces

Après l'échec du brise-glace chinois, "l'Astrolabe" français aussi a dû renoncer à lui porter secours. Le navire russe "Akademik Shokalskyi" est prisonnier de l'Antarctique depuis la veille de Noël. Mais l'ambiance à bord reste bon enfant...

Depuis le 24 décembre, le bâtiment russe est bloqué par les glaces et immobilisé par un blizzard violent à 200 kilomètres au large de la base française Dumont d'Urville (pôle sud, Antarctique). Un brise-glace chinois qui a voulu lui porter secours, le Snow Dragon, a dû abandonner, samedi 28 décembre pour ne pas se trouver dans la même situation. L'Astrolabe français a lui aussi fait une tentative dans la même journée pour rallier l'Akademik Shokaskyi - sans succès. Le seul espoir est désormais le bateau australien Aurora Australis, toujours en route. Mais la zone est réputée particulièrement difficile...

Malgré cette situation délicate, l'ambiance à bord reste bon enfant. Les passagers ? Soixante quatorze scientifiques et touristes. Cette mission australienne effectue des expériences, sur les traces des expéditions polaires du début du XXe siècle comme celle de l'explorateur australien Douglas Mawson. Le responsable de l'expédition AAE Intrepid Science s'amuse de l'émergence de compétences scientifiques étonnantes : "Aujourd'hui, certains ont appris à faire des noeuds avec les cordes - ce qui leur a paru fantastique. D'autres, plus scientifiques, ont jaugé la température de l'océan en jetant des pièces de monnaie. Enfin, cela reste assez basique, et j'espère qu'on bientôt va se sortir de là - avant au moins deux jours !" conclut-il en riant.
http://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/video-l-akademik-shokaskyi-toujours-prisonnier-des-glaces_492954.html
29/12/13
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ΑΥΣΤΡΑΛΙΑ: Ανησυχία για διαρροή ουρανίου σε εθνικό πάρκο/Uranium mine causes radioactive leak in Kakadu

Διαρροή ουρανίου σημειώθηκε στο ορυχείο Ranger που βρίσκεται κοντά στο Εθνικό Πάρκο Κακαντού της Αυστραλίας.

Σύμφωνα με την εταιρία Energy Resources of Australia που λειτουργεί το ορυχείο, η διαρροή σημειώθηκε από δεξαμενή που έσπασε.

Ο ομοσπονδιακός υπουργός Περιβάλλοντος, Γκρεγκ Χαντ, παρά τη διαβεβαίωση της εταιρείας ότι δεν υπάρχουν συνέπειες στο περιβάλλον, έδωσε εντολή να διεξαχθεί άμεσα έρευνα ενώ οι Αβορίγινες της περιοχής εκφράζουν ανησυχίες για τις επιπτώσεις που μπορεί να έχει η διαρροή στο εθνικό πάρκο της περιοχής.

Το Εθνικό Πάρκο Κακαντού, περιλαμβάνεται στα Μνημεία της Παγκόσμιας Φυσικής και Πολιτιστικής Κληρονομιάς της UNESCO, όχι μόνο για την εκπληκτική βιοποικιλότητα και φυσική ομορφιά του, αλλά διότι αποτελεί ιερό τόπο για τους ιθαγενείς, καθώς είναι άμεσα συνδεμένος με τη γένεση του κόσμου την «εποχή των ονείρων».

Με έκταση 20.000 τετραγωνικών χιλιομέτρων, το πάρκο αυτό που το διαχειρίζονται οι αυτόχθονες από κοινού με το κράτος, είναι ο μεγαλύτερος φυσικός δρυμός της Αυστραλίας. 
politisnews.eu
8/12/13
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• Uranium mine causes radioactive leak in Kakado

A RADIOACTIVE leak from a uranium mine inside Kakadu National Park had led to calls from environmental groups demanding the Ranger Mine be shut down.
At 1am on Saturday, a tank on the mine site owned by Energy Resources of Australia, was found to have split and leaked a "slurry" of mud, water, ore and acid.
The Rio Tinto-controlled ERA released a statement saying the mixture was contained and there was no impact to the environment.
The Environment Centre Northern Territory is calling for Ranger to be closed.
"This is a massive system failure at an increasingly dysfunctional mine," said ECNT campaigner Lauren Mellor.
"In the last month, ERA have lost control of mine vehicles and containers and now they have lost control of a large volume of containment."
She said federal and territory regulators needed to take "urgent action" against the mine.
ERA general manager of operations Tim Eckersley said ERA protocols kept the spill contained.
"ERA is focussing on the clean up and recovery, and the protection of the environment and the health and safety of our people remains paramount," he said. 
http://www.whitsundaytimes.com.au/news/Uranium-mine-causes-radioactive-leak-in-Kakado/2108361/
8/12/13

The battle for Tasmania's wilderness

Could the government have the 2013 addition to the Tasmanian World Heritage Area revoked, asks John Pickrell.  
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AUSTRALIA’S WORLD HERITAGE areas are having a tough time. In 2013 it was revealed that the Great Barrier Reef had lost half its coral cover since the 1980s. Now, due to a series of port developments for coal and gas exports, it is hanging under the threat of ending up on the “List of World Heritage in Danger”, the precursor to World Heritage status being removed.

It would be embarrassing for this to happen in one of the world’s wealthiest nations, one that holds under its guardianship perhaps the most famous natural World Heritage Area (WHA) on the planet. 

While we await the World Heritage Committee’s decision on the reef, it now appears that the Tasmanian Wilderness WHA could be at similar risk. In June 2013, the committee voted to add 1700sq.km to the existing 14,000sq.km protected area, which now covers 22 per cent of Tasmania.

Stunning strips of forest

The additions comprise many stunning strips of forest along the eastern and northern borders of the existing WHA, which grew to envelop areas including the eastern- and northern Great Western Tiers; Mount Field National Park; and the Huon, Styx, Upper Florentine, Picton and Counsel river valleys.

The extension was well received by conservation workers and environmentalists who believed these areas were now protected in perpetuity. It seemed a fitting way to mark 30 years since the High Court decision that saved the Franklin River from damming in July 1983.

However, in the run-up to September’s federal election, the Coalition said it did not agree with the extension, which had been formalised under the Labor government, and it would seek to have part of it delisted from the WHA if it was elected.

Value of Tasmanian forests

This has been reiterated since the election and was confirmed to AG by Richard Colbeck, Liberal senator for Tasmania and parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Agriculture. Will Hodgman, Tasmania’s Liberal opposition leader, has said that if his party wins the state election in March 2014, they’ll allow logging in parts of the extension that were previously state forest. Environmentalists say that this would be an unprecedented act of ecological vandalism.

About one-third of the newly added area is made up of pre-existing national parks and reserves that have pristine old growth woodlands and tall eucalypt forests that are of undisputed value. However, Mark Poynter of the Institute of Foresters of Australia has argued that, as the extension was not scientifically assessed for World Heritage values, it inappropriately included heavily disturbed former state forest areas.

He also says that the area added in June was ushered in as a “minor boundary modification”. The World Heritage Committee accepts these small modifications without the independent scientific analysis of value and wilderness quality that it requires for larger areas. The June addition was allowed despite the fact that minor boundary modifications typically constitute no more than a 10 per cent increase to the area of a WHA, and the new addition represented a 12 per cent increase.

Legal complications

The problem now for the Coalition is that it may not be legally permissible for recent additions to be removed. This has never been attempted in Australia and there is little experience of it internationally – usually governments fight to have territory added to the World Heritage List, not removed. Even more worryingly, if logging was to occur in disputed areas, it might place the entire WHA under threat of going on the danger list.

Some argue that removing the new areas with the minor boundary modification rule is unlikely to succeed, as they protect the integrity of the overall WHA, but this remains to be seen. One legal option would be to renounce Australia’s support for the entire World Heritage Convention, but we have to hope the government will come to its senses and realise that this is a step too far.
John Pickrell is the editor of Australian Geographic. Follow him on Twitter @john_pickrell.
Source: Australian Geographic Nov/Dec 2013
 australiangeographic.com.au
29/11/13
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Related (Great Barrier Reef):

• Υπό εξαφάνιση ο μεγαλύτερος κοραλλιογενής ύφαλος

• Αχτίδα ελπίδας για το Μεγάλο Κοραλλιογενή Ύφαλο

• Μαζική Επέλαση Από Αστερίες Απειλεί τον Μεγάλο Κοραλλιογενή Ύφαλο της Αυστραλίας.

Explosion fails to demolish disused building in Brisbane

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Heavy machinery was brought in to help demolish a silo in Australia after a controlled explosion failed to bring the building down.


The silo, at an industrial site south west of Brisbane, was reduced to more than 4,000 tonnes of rubble after a jackhammer finished the job.

Le tigre de Tasmanie a officiellement disparu

AFP PHOTO/FILES/Torsten BLACKWOOD

Voici l'équivalent, pour une espèce menacée, d'un faire-part de décès. Jeudi 7 mars, les pays signataires de la Convention sur le commerce international des espèces menacées (Cites), réunis en congrès à Bangkok, ont retiré le tigre de Tasmanie de l’annexe I de ladite convention. De tigre, donc : point. Plus. Disparu.
Les signataires avaient espéré longtemps recevoir une preuve de vie. Mais rien. Depuis 1936. Précisément depuis Benjamin, qui baille pour l'éternité ci-dessous :

 
L'animal, qui souffrait d'une sale réputation de tueur de mouton, a été exterminé à la fin du XIX^e siècle et au début du XX^e par les fermiers du Sud-Est australien, réputés, eux, hargneux.
Il y eut bien quelques expéditions de recherche, nous apprend Libération, mais vaines. En 1982, l’Union internationale pour la conservation de la nature (IUCN) le considérait comme éteint. Alors pourquoi ce dernier faire-part, trente ans après le premier ?
"L’espèce avait très certainement disparu, mais tous les ans il se trouve quelqu’un pour assurer qu’il en a vu. On ne pouvait pas se permettre d’avoir le moindre doute, d’autant qu’il s’agit d’une espèce emblématique, très recherchée", explique au quotidien David Morgan, scientifique en conclave à Bangkok.
Las, d'un coup de plumeau, le tigre de Tasmanie est donc évacué des listes, un brin poussiéreuses, de la Cites. Dans les jours qui viennent, on saura si le nettoyage en cours emportera aussi le wallaby à queue cornée, le bandicoot-lapin à queue blanche et la grenouille à incubation gastrique.

.lemonde.fr
8/3/13

'Catastrophic': Hundreds of wildfires rage in Australia amid record heat wave (VIDEO, PHOTOS RT)

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A heat wave that has already caused devastating fires on the Island state of Tasmania, with 100 people still missing, has now moved to mainland Australia and is reaping havoc in New South Wales, as the heat wave looks to smash records.
­In some areas temperatures have shot up by as much as 20C in three hours and combined with 50 mph winds have created disastrous fire conditions.

Right across Australia records have been broken by the heat wave and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has been forced to add colors to its forecast charts to take account of temperatures of 50-54 degrees Celsius.
Australia’s all-time record of 50.7 degrees; set in January 1960 at Oodnadatta in South Australia is likely to be smashed over the coming days. On Tuesday, in some places temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius were recorded.
“The scale has just been increased today and I would anticipate it is because the forecast coming from the bureau’s model is showing temperatures in excess of 50 degrees,” David Jones , the BoM’s head of climate monitoring, told Fairfax newspapers.
Australia as a whole experienced its hottest day on record on Monday, with average maximum temperatures across the entire country reaching 40.33 degrees breaking the previous record of 40.17 degrees set in 1972.
More than 130 fires are already blazing away in New South Wales (NSW), where fire officials said conditions were among the worst they had ever seen for wildfires. Fires had already burnt more than 30,000 hectares of land across NSW.
There are also wildfires burning in Victoria with 20 homes evacuates in Chepstowe, west of Australia’s second city Melbourne.
.rt.com
8/1/13

Houses destroyed by a bushfire are seen in ruins in Dunalley, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Hobart, January 5, 2013. (Reuters/Chris Kidd/Pool)
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Land continues to burn in Tasmania where blazes last weekend destroyed 90 homes and 20,000 hectares of farm land and forest.
Officials on the island are still unsure of the fate of 100 people who went missing since last week, after fires destroyed the town of Dunalley.
In the current terrifying conditions, fires can become so hot that they create their own lightning storms, which can in turn ignite more fires, and ember showers can fly up to 15 miles ahead of a fire, igniting new fires in areas not yet alight. Experts warn that the intense heat being generated by the fires can kill people before the flames even reach them.
The conditions hark back to Black Saturday in the state of Victoria in 2009, when 172 people were killed by fires. This time emergency services are not taking any risks and have already closed national parks, ordered tourists out of campsites and are following the movements of known arsonists.
“We are at a catastrophic level and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option,” New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.
The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said that it is important for people to keep themselves safe and listen to local authorities and their warnings.  She also stressed that the fires were being called catastrophic for a reason.
The Bega Valley is one of the areas authorities are most worried about, where fast moving scrub and grass fires are threatening homes.
Properties were under threat in the city of Wagga Wagga where the local highway has been closed. The Southern Ranges, the Riverina and Shoalhaven have also been given a catastrophic rating.
The heat, wind and dryness – ideal conditions for wildfires – follow a record four months of dry weather, allowing mere smoldering stumps and embers from areas already burned to blow into unburnt country.
However, the BoM is predicting cooler conditions to arrive across NSW by Wednesday morning.

This undated handout picture provided by New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW Rural Fire Service) on January 8, 2013 shows smoke billowing as a bushfire burns near Green Point in New South Wales. (AFP Photo/ NSW Rural Fire Service)

This undated handout aerial picture provided by New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW Rural Fire Service) on January 8, 2013 shows a bushfire burning 8km south west of Naradhan, north of Griffith in New South Wales. (AFP Photo/ NSW Rural Fire Service)

Smoke rises from the Yarrabin bushfire, burning out of control near Cooma, about 100km (62 miles) south of Canberra January 8, 2013. (Reuters/Tim Wimborne)

This aerial photograph taken on January 5, 2013 shows the devastation to property between Dunalley and Boomer Bay after bush fires swept through the area. (AFP Photo/Pool/Chris Kidd)