MINING billionaire Andrew Forrest has gifted a staggering $65 million - believed to be the nation's largest single philanthropic donation - to attract the world's best minds to Western Australia's universities.
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OVERFISHING is putting sea cucumbers in a pickle on the Great Barrier Reef, marine biologists say.
Sydney University's Professor Maria Byrne and Dr Hampus Eriksson, a post-doctoral researcher at Stockholm University, say more than 24 sea cucumber fisheries have closed in recent years.
Over 70 per cent of tropical sea cucumber fisheries are now considered depleted, fully exploited or over-exploited.
After analysing catches in the Great Barrier Reef over the last 20 years, the researchers say sea cucumber fishing is now showing worrying signs of being unsustainable.
"Sea cucumbers play a vital role in reef health and our previous research indicates that they may help reduce the harmful impact of ocean acidification on coral growth," Prof Byrne said in a statement.
"The crown-of-thorns starfish is often singled out as responsible for the decline in the barrier reef.
"This work suggests that overfishing of ecologically important species such as sea cucumbers, may have also contributed to this decline."
Dr Eriksson said that with declining catches of high value sea cucumber species, Australian fishers had turned to other, lower value species, which were also being overfished.
"Pursuing profits by targeting abundant species which sell for less while continuing to fish scarce high-value species is a pathway to their extinction," Dr Eriksson said.
Prof Byrne said further studies were needed to understand the impact of declining sea cucumber numbers on the reef.
"We recommend introducing precautionary reductions in sea cucumber fishing," she said.
THE Newman Government has bet on up to three new mega casinos to reclaim Queensland's status as an international tourism mecca.
COMPO fraudsters could face up to five years' jail, but those injured on their way to or from work will continue to be covered as part of an overhaul of the state's worker's compensation scheme.
WELCOME to your new clubhouse boys... there's no TV, no gym and prisoners are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day.
DURING the first week of the election campaign, a smiling Peter Beattie and Kevin Rudd worked hard to convince Queenslanders they were the best of mates.
A HSC-STYLE exam in senior mathematics and science subjects has been recommended for Queensland school students by a state inquiry.
A MAN has been arrested after trying to get into Buckingham Palace with a knife, Scotland Yard says.
The 44-year-old was held around 11.30am on Monday (2130 AEDT Monday) when he attempted to get through the north centre gate and was stopped by police.
Officers searched him and he was found to have a knife.
He was arrested on suspicion of trespassing on a protected site and possession of an offensive weapon and is in custody.
Buckingham Palace said the Queen was not in the building when the man tried to get in, but would make no further comment.
THE Newman Government has bet on up to three new mega casinos to reclaim Queensland's status as an international tourism mecca.
COMPO fraudsters could face up to five years' jail, but those injured on their way to or from work will continue to be covered as part of an overhaul of the state's worker's compensation scheme.
WELCOME to your new clubhouse boys... there's no TV, no gym and prisoners are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day.
DURING the first week of the election campaign, a smiling Peter Beattie and Kevin Rudd worked hard to convince Queenslanders they were the best of mates.
A HSC-STYLE exam in senior mathematics and science subjects has been recommended for Queensland school students by a state inquiry.
THE Newman Government has bet on up to three new mega casinos to reclaim Queensland's status as an international tourism mecca.
COMPO fraudsters could face up to five years' jail, but those injured on their way to or from work will continue to be covered as part of an overhaul of the state's worker's compensation scheme.
WELCOME to your new clubhouse boys... there's no TV, no gym and prisoners are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day.
DURING the first week of the election campaign, a smiling Peter Beattie and Kevin Rudd worked hard to convince Queenslanders they were the best of mates.
A HSC-STYLE exam in senior mathematics and science subjects has been recommended for Queensland school students by a state inquiry.
THE Newman Government has bet on up to three new mega casinos to reclaim Queensland's status as an international tourism mecca.
COMPO fraudsters could face up to five years' jail, but those injured on their way to or from work will continue to be covered as part of an overhaul of the state's worker's compensation scheme.
WELCOME to your new clubhouse boys... there's no TV, no gym and prisoners are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day.
DURING the first week of the election campaign, a smiling Peter Beattie and Kevin Rudd worked hard to convince Queenslanders they were the best of mates.
A HSC-STYLE exam in senior mathematics and science subjects has been recommended for Queensland school students by a state inquiry.
THE European Commission has set out what it says will be a revolution in food safety from farm to fork, drawn up in response to the scandal of horsemeat sold as beef.
But the EU executive was careful to underline that the new rules would not in and of themselves prevent willful future mis-selling.
The agri-food industry is the European Union's second biggest, in the world's largest tariff-free market of half a billion consumers.
It is worth, the Commission says, some 750 billion euros per year and employs nearly 50 million people across Europe.
If passed by EU member governments and the European Parliament, the proposed revamp, boiling down existing legislation and sharpening testing regimes, will introduce:
-- financial penalties directly related to profits from "fraud";
-- and mandatory spot-check testing, as opposed to the power only to recommend inspections, as now.
In a departure, national authorities will be encouraged to publish league tables where consumers can check food data from everything from big-brand producers to individual restaurants, the Commission's proposals said.
But the changes will not affect, in the main, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or "micro-businesses," a large part of the post-industrial food chain.
Neither will stipulations governing the important seed sector be applied to "private gardeners," who will still be able to buy seeds "in small quantities" on open markets.
"The recent horsemeat scandal has shown that there is room for improvement," said EU Health and Consumer Commissioner Tonio Borg, in announcing the rulebook rewrite.
He said the changes "take on board" some of the lessons of a scandal that stunned consumers in large part due to links to organised crime.
Borg's office spelled out that the labelling of food, as seen in the horsemeat scandal, is a problem of fraud, not origin -- already covered in legislation due to take effect from December 2014.
"This fraud could have occurred, even if there was mandatory origin labelling in place," it said of the equine scandal.
The Commission is to report to the European Parliament by December on whether or not it is desirable or feasible to extend origin labelling to meat provenance, it added.
BELEAGUERED French President Francois Hollande marked the first anniversary of his election win with a promise to launch a major investment programme that will transform the country.
Under fire from right and left, Hollande outlined what amounts to a comeback strategy constructed around a ten-year programme of investment in digital and other new technologies, alternative energy, health and infrastructure.
"We have achieved a lot in a year, but there remains a considerable amount to do," Hollande told his ministers, asserting that "the coming year will be a year of results."
"The reforms undertaken will change the face of France - profoundly."
Hollande marked the anniversary of his May 6, 2012 win over right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy as the most unpopular president in modern French history.
The Socialist leader has paid a heavy political price for his failure to revive a flagging economy and prevent unemployment rising to a 16-year high.
Newspapers marked Monday's anniversary with harsh criticism, with even the left-wing daily Liberation's front-page headline depicting the president as "A Man Alone".
"A year after the election of Francois Hollande, France is in crisis -- political, economic, social and moral," Liberation wrote, saying Hollande "has not been able, for the moment, to win the confidence of his countrymen."
Right-wing daily Le Figaro said: "The Socialist Party is in hiding for the first anniversary".
With criticism of the government mounting, some are predicting a cabinet reshuffle before the summer. Polls suggest voters would support the widening of the government to include some prominent centrist figures.
But that is unlikely to go down well with the left, both inside and outside of the Socialist Party.
Tens of thousands of left-wing protesters took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to accuse Hollande of turning his back on Socialist principles, while thousands more demonstrated across the country against a government bill legalising gay marriage.
Hollande's opponents rounded on him again on Monday, with the head of the right-wing UMP's parliamentary faction, Christian Jacob, telling France Info radio: "Simply put, right now the boat is sinking and we have a president who is incapable of taking action."
Since his election, Hollande's approval rating has fallen faster and further than any other president's since the founding of France's Fifth Republic in 1958.
His popularity has been especially dented by two recent crises -- a tax-fraud scandal involving his ex-budget minister Jerome Cahuzac and the deeply divisive debate on gay marriage.
A new TNS Sofres poll for i-Tele released Monday showed more than 76 of respondents saying they were disappointed with Hollande's performance and 56 percent of those who voted for him considering his record negative.
BANGLADESHI police are considering murder charges against the owner of a shoddily built factory that collapsed nearly two weeks ago, after the wife of a garment worker crushed in the accident filed a complaint.
The development comes as officials said on Monday that the death toll from the country's worst industrial disaster had reached 675.
Sheuli Akter, the wife of Jahangir Alam, filed the complaint with Dhaka magistrate Wasim Sheikh, saying her husband and other workers were "pushed toward death" by building owner Mohammed Sohel Rana and two others.
Alam was employed in New Wave Styles Ltd, one of the five garment factories housed in the eight-story Rana Plaza that collapsed on April 24 as workers started their morning shift even though cracks had developed in the building.
New Wave Styles owner Bazlul Adnan and local government engineer Imtemam Hossain were the two others accused in the case.
Magistrate Sheikh has ordered police to investigate the complaints, and local police chief Mohammed Asaduzzman said on Monday that they would now investigate possible murder charges.
A conviction for murder can result in a death sentence in Bangladesh.
Nine people, including Rana and Adanan, have already been arrested on other charges. Rana faces charges such as negligence and illegal construction, which are punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail.
By Monday evening, the death toll had reached 675, according to the police control room at the scene. It is not known how many people are still missing, as workers use heavy equipment to search through the rubble. There is a stench around the collapse site from decomposing bodies.
An architect whose firm designed the initial floors of the building said on Sunday it had not been designed for heavy industrial work. Masood Reza, an architect with Vastukalpa Consultants, said they designed the building in 2004 as a shopping mall and not for industrial purposes.
Officials say Rana illegally added three floors and allowed the garment factories to install generators. Vibrations from garment machines and from the generators are thought to have contributed to the collapse.
The disaster is the worst ever in the garment sector, surpassing the 1911 garment disaster in New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory, which killed 146 workers, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that killed 112, also in 2012.
