Latest news with #ChristineChen
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
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Australia's bid for ancient rock art World Heritage listing stalls over pollution
By Christine Chen SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia's bid to secure World Heritage status for a site with Indigenous rock art estimated to be 50,000 years old has been dealt a blow after a U.N. advisory body warned it was at risk from nearby industrial pollution. The International Council on Monuments and Sites advised UNESCO to refer the nomination back to the Australian government so it could 'prevent any further industrial development adjacent to, and within, the Murujuga Cultural Landscape'. Located on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia state, the Murujuga rock art, which is of cultural and spiritual significance to local Indigenous Australians, was nominated for heritage listing in 2023. The Burrup Peninsula is also a key industrial hub, home to two gas plants run by Woodside, and fertiliser and explosives plants run by Norway's Yara International. The government on Wednesday extended the lifetime of Woodside's largest gas plant in the region, the North West Shelf, until 2070. The extension will generate up to 4.3 billion metric tons of additional carbon emissions. Scrutiny over the impact of Australia's resources industry on Indigenous heritage sites has been magnified since Rio Tinto destroyed the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters as part of a mine expansion in 2020. Australia has said the Murujuga petroglyphs were in 'good condition overall' and presented findings from a study of the site that said there were no suggestions 'acid rain or deposition is contributing to damage of the rock art'. Despite this, ICOMOS recommended preventing further industrial development near the site and called for a 'decommissioning and rehabilitation plan for existing industrial activities'. ICOMOS, citing media reports quoting rock art experts and information received about the proposed North West Shelf extension, concluded 'the conservation conditions of the petroglyphs are extremely vulnerable and threatened by industrial acidic emissions'. Luke James, a cultural heritage expert at Deakin University, said the ICOMOS draft decision was a 'setback' for the Australian government. 'ICOMOS has identified some concerns around protection and management," he said. 'It is now up to the Australian government to demonstrate to the committee that these are surmountable, or it will need to wait at least a year - and do further work - for another chance at inscription." Woodside said in a statement it continued to support the heritage listing of the rock art and would work with the Murujuga traditional owners and government to prepare its response to ICOMOS' recommendation. "We believe the World Heritage nomination should proceed on the strength of the evidence and stand as proof that cultural heritage and industry can responsibly co-exist when collaboration, transparency and rigorous scientific monitoring are in place," it said. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee will meet in July.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
James Webb telescope discovers frozen water around alien star
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In a milestone discovery, astronomers have announced that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected water ice drifting through a dusty ring of debris surrounding a distant, sunlike star. Astronomers have long suspected that water, especially in its frozen form, might be common in the cold, outer reaches of planetary systems beyond our own. That's because in our own solar system, Saturn's moon Enceladus, Jupiter's Ganymede and Europa, and other icy moons are known to contain vast amounts of frozen water. Some of these moons are even thought to harbor subsurface oceans of liquid water, fueling ongoing discussions about their potential to support life. Now, with JWST's confirmation last week, scientists say they can begin exploring how water — a key ingredient for life as we know it — is distributed and transported in other planetary systems. The new discovery centers on a star called HD 181327, located about 155 light-years away, in the constellation Telescopium. At just 23 million years old, HD 181327 is a cosmic infant compared with our 4.6 billion-year-old sun, and it's encircled by a broad, dusty debris disk that is rich in small, early building blocks of planets. "HD 181327 is a very active system," study co-author Christine Chen, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said in a NASA statement. Frequent collisions between icy bodies in this disk are constantly stirring up fine particles of dusty water ice, which are "perfectly sized for Webb to detect," Chen said. The findings, published May 15 in the journal Nature, suggest these "dirty snowballs" of ice and dust could eventually play a key role in delivering water to future rocky planets that may form over the next few hundred million years. As planets take shape within the disk, comets and other icy bodies could collide with the young worlds and shower them with water — a process thought to have helped seed early Earth with the water that sustains life today. Related: Did the James Webb telescope really find evidence of alien life? Here's the truth about exoplanet K2-18b. RELATED STORIES —Astronomers discover doomed planet shedding a Mount Everest's worth of material every orbit, leaving behind a comet-like tail —James Webb telescope could find signs of life on alien 'hycean' ocean worlds —4 tiny, Earth-like planets found circling 2nd-closest star system to us — and could be visited by future human generations JWST revealed that most of the distant star system's water ice is concentrated in the outer regions of the disk, where temperatures are cold enough for it to remain stable. Closer in, the ice becomes increasingly scarce, likely vaporized by the star's ultraviolet radiation or locked away in larger rocky bodies known as planetesimals, which remain invisible to JWST's infrared instruments. According to the research team, the debris disk around HD 181327 resembles what the Kuiper Belt — the vast, doughnut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond Neptune — likely looked like billions of years ago during the early stages of our solar system's evolution. "What's most striking is that this data looks similar to the telescope's other recent observations of Kuiper Belt objects in our own solar system," Chen said in the statement.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Australian climate protesters disrupt Woodside's annual meet
By Christine Chen SYDNEY (Reuters) - Climate change protesters blew whistles and shouted on Thursday as they disrupted Australian Woodside Energy's annual general meeting, heckling Chief Executive Meg O'Neill and forcing several suspensions. Investors also figured in the backlash to Woodside's gas projects and sustainability measures, similar to last year, with Australian pension funds HESTA and Aware lodging protest votes against its director charged with climate risk oversight. "I'd ask you to please be respectful of the other actual shareholders in the room who have a keen interest in understanding what we're doing to generate value for them," O'Neill told protesters who interrupted her opening address. "You should be ashamed!" some of them had yelled. The whistling and shouting began 20 minutes into the meeting in the western Australian city of Perth, as O'Neill discussed Woodside's gas portfolio, its contribution to society and role in meeting energy security and decarbonisation goals. The behaviour was "unnecessary", Chairman Richard Goyder said. Event organisers suspended proceedings and tried to drown out the noise by playing promotional videos about the company's energy projects and sponsorship of local football club the Fremantle Dockers. "We have plenty more of these videos we can play," O'Neill added. Last year's annual meeting drew similar protests and shareholders voted down Woodwide's emissions plan. Last week, the company greenlit a $17.5-billion liquefied natural gas project at Louisiana in the United States, which would take its total LNG output to 24 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) in the next decade, or more than 5% of global supply. Ahead of the meeting, influential proxy adviser Glass Lewis recommended that shareholders block the re-election of independent director Ann Pickard, who chairs the oversight committee on climate risk. The funds HESTA and Aware, as well as Norway's Storebrand, said they would oppose Pickard's re-election, while U.S. pension funds CalPERS and CALSTRS also said they would vote against director Ben Wyatt. "The steps taken by Woodside so far fall short of what is needed to position it for the global transition to a low-carbon future and the company needs to do more," HESTA said in a statement. (Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Australia's Westpac says 'worst is behind us', finance demand for M&A stronger
By Scott Murdoch and Christine Chen SYDNEY (Reuters) -The CEO of Australia's second-largest home lender Westpac said on Tuesday the nation's economy was showing signs of recovery with reduced mortgage stress and rising demand for corporate buyout activity. Chief Executive Anthony Miller said Westpac had seen an improvement in mortgage stress levels, highlighted by fewer loans that were more than 90 days behind in repayments. At the same time, demand for mergers and acquisition financing had picked up. "The ongoing reduction in stress levels in the business bank is quite encouraging and so that only reinforces in my mind that the worst is behind us," Miller told the Macquarie Australia conference in Sydney. "The pipeline of activity that we see in business bank is very pleasing. That is still to be executed. But there is a lot of interest and activity in the pipeline and growth in the last half, and that is expected to continue." Corporate buyout activity in Australia was worth $20.54 billion in the first quarter of 2025, according to LSEG data, down 13.7% on the same time last year. But dealmakers hope interest rate cuts would help lift activity in the second quarter. "Some of the M&A pipeline that we've been invited to participate in is quite a bit larger than we thought we'd see at this point of the environment we are in," he said. Australia's central bank cut interest rates by 25 basis points in February to 4.1% in the first reduction in four years, and markets expect another rate cut on May 20, following a decline in first-quarter core inflation to a three-year low. Westpac on Monday reported a 1% slip in first half net profit to A$3.32 billion ($2.14 billion) and a net interest margin contraction. The results showed mortgage delinquencies and impairment charges were low, with repayments on home loans in Australia more than 90 days late as a proportion of total loans falling to 0.86% as of the end of March from 1.12% six months earlier. ($1 = 1.5506 Australian dollars) Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Australia and New Zealand pledge support for film industries after Trump proposes tariffs
By Alasdair Pal and Christine Chen SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia and New Zealand said on Monday they would advocate for the two countries' film industries, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the country. Australia's home affairs minister Tony Burke said he had spoken to the head of the government body Screen Australia about the proposed tariffs. "Nobody should be under any doubt that we will be standing up unequivocally for the rights of the Australian screen industry," he said in a statement. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told a news conference the government was awaiting further detail of the proposed tariffs. "We'll have to see the detail of what actually ultimately emerges. But we'll be obviously a great advocate, great champion of that sector in that industry," he said.
