More than 100 rarely seen fish species were hauled up from a deep and cold abyss off Australia during a scientific voyage, including a cousin of the "world's ugliest animal" Mr Blobby

More than 100 rarely seen fish species were hauled up from a deep and cold abyss off Australia during a scientific voyage, including a cousin of the "world's ugliest animal" Mr Blobby pic.twitter.com/veFyihUfu3

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 21, 2018

Archaeologists find fossils, Mayan relics in giant underwater cave in Mexico

Yahoo – AFP, February 20, 2018

Remains of a Pleistocene bear from 2.5 million years ago, in the Sac Actun underwater
 cave in Quintana Roo state, Mexico, in an image published by the National Institute
of Anthropology and History (INAH) on February 19, 2018 (AFP Photo/HO)

Mexico City (AFP) - Archaeologists who have been exploring the world's largest underwater cave -- recently discovered in Mexico -- presented their findings Monday, including fossils of giant sloths and an elaborate shrine to the Mayan god of commerce.

Researchers discovered last month that two large networks of underwater caves in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, the Sac Actun and Dos Ojos networks, are in fact connected, forming the largest such structure on Earth.

Diving with SCUBA gear, they have been exploring the ancient relics left in the caves over the millenia, in a project sponsored by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Researchers believe the water level in the caves has fluctuated over time, and that they were a source of water in times of severe drought -- a sometimes perilous one.

Some of the animals and humans who ventured inside never made it out alive. Today, their remains are a treasure trove for scientists, enabling them to piece together bits of the cave's history dating all the way back to the Pleistocene epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago).

Remains of a mask in the Sac Actun underwater cave in Mexico's Quintana Roo 

state, from an image published by the National Institute of Anthropology and History

(INAH) on February 19, 2018 (AFP Photo/HO)

The animal remains include gomphotheres -- an extinct elephant-like animal -- as well as giant sloths and bears, archaeologists told a press conference.

Then there are the artefacts left inside by humans: burnt human bones, ceramics, wall etchings and more.

"It is very unlikely that there is another site in the world with these characteristics. There is an impressive amount of archaeological artefacts inside, and the level of preservation is also impressive," said Guillermo de Anda, an underwater archaeologist.

The relics include a shrine to the Mayan god of war and commerce, with a staircase accessed through a sink-hole in the middle of the jungle.

Many other of the hundreds of sink-holes that connect to the cave have elaborate signs of ritual activity around them, archaeologists said.

The ancient Mayans viewed caves, "and especially ones that led to water, as extremely sacred places," the INAH said.

Greenpeace protestors occupy North Sea rig, three arrested in Lauwersoog

DutchNews, February 16, 2018

Photo: Greenpeace 

Police in the Groningen port of Lauwersoog have arrested three members of the environmental organisation Greenpeace for getting too close to a drilling rig off the coast of the Wadden island of Schiermonnikoog. 

The three were taking part in a protest against test drilling for gas but had returned to the mainland because they were seasick in the rough seas, broadcaster NOS said.   

The platform, owned by a company called Hansa Hydrocarbons, is some 20km into the North Sea and was occupied by several Greenpeace protesters on Thursday. 

Protests are also taking place on the Wadden Sea island itself. The island’s mayor Ineke van Gent, who has joined the protestors, told local broadcaster RTV Noord: ‘We should be moving over to sustainable energy. You should not be drilling for gas near a vulnerable nature reserve.’ 

Economic affairs minister Erik Wiebes said on Thursday that locals should not be worried about the test drilling. ‘You hardly see the rig,’ he said. ‘On a clear day, if you look closely, you can see a spot.’ 

British company Hansa Hydrocarbons is trying to establish if the gas field in the area is big enough to exploit commercially.

Sunlight at sea: The Dutch to build first floating solar farm

DutchNews, February 7, 2018

A Dutch consortium is to build the first offshore floating solar energy farm in the world, which the partners say could produce more power than land-based solar farms. 

Six groups are involved in the project which will take three years and is co-financed by the Dutch government’s Enterprise Agency. The solar farm will be placed 15 kilometres off the Dutch coast at Scheveningen. 

A floating energy farm fitted with solar panels could be a solution for places where there are no means to generate clean energy on land, project initiator Oceans of Energy said on its website. 

Oceans of Energy and the University of Utrecht are together investigating the viability of electricity production at sea which is expected to yield 15% more power than a land-based facility. 

According to the firm’s CEO Allard van Hoeken, solar farms at sea pose major challenges which can be conquered by putting together the experience and knowledge of Dutch knowledge institutions and offshore industry companies. 

If the project is successful, solar power could potentially provide three quarters of the country’s energy needs, programme director of the solar power division of TKI Urban Energy Wijnand van Hooff said.

‘Projects like these are necessary to explore both the commercial and energetic potential of applications such as these,’ he said. 

The Netherlands is currently cutting down on gas extraction in the province of Groningen due to earthquakes and is phasing out the use of domestic low calorie gas in homes. The government hopes that by 2050 all homes should have have switched to an alternative source of energy.

Top UN court draws new borders for Costa Rica, Nicaragua

Yahoo – AFP, Jan Hennop and Toni Cerda, February 2, 2018

Experts examine the damage to a tract of land lying in a border area that
has caused years of tension between Costa Rica and Nicaragua (AFP)

The Hague (AFP) - The UN's highest court drew new maritime boundaries between Costa Rica and Nicaragua on Friday seeking to end a decades-long frontier dispute, and ordered Managua to pay compensation for environmental damage.

In a multi-pronged judgement, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) also ordered Nicaragua to remove a military camp near the river San Juan -- which divides the two neighbours -- and which the Hague-based ICJ said "violated Costa Rica's sovereignty."

Friday's judgements resulted from a string of disputes between the two Central American neighbours before the ICJ, set up in 1945 to rule on border and territorial disputes between nations.

Apart from a ruling on the disputed San Juan wetlands area, Costa Rica also asked the ICJ to set its maritime boundaries on both its western Pacific Ocean coast and in the Caribbean Sea to the east.

Environmental damage

On Friday morning, the ICJ judges ruled that Managua must pay San Jose almost $380,000 for environmental damage and to compensate for the costs of efforts to restore the area on the San Juan River.

"Costa Rica has sovereignty over the whole of Isla Portillos up to the point at which the right bank of the San Juan River reaches the low-water mark of the coast of the Caribbean Sea," judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said.

The Somali-born judge was referring to a slither of land on Costa Rica's disputed northern border, where Nicaragua set up a military camp in 2010, dredged the San Juan River and dug three channels.

The judge ordered Managua to pay the compensation before April 2 for the damage to the land, known in Costa Rica as Isla Portillos and in Nicaragua as Harbour Head.

But the amount fell far short of the $6.7 million demanded by Costa Rica in the ICJ's first-ever compensation ruling for environmental damage.

The judges then drew maritime borders between the two countries in both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean along "delimitation lines."

'Spectacular' ruling

Costa Rican ambassador Sergio Ugalde said San Juan was happy with the marathon set of judgements, calling the ruling on maritime boundaries "spectacular."

Nicaragua and Costa Rica first held negotiations in 1976 to try to reach an agreement

on the border which broadly follows the San Juan river (AFP Photo/YURI CORTEZ)

"Although a little less than what Costa Rica had estimated, the decision this morning (too) remains a very important economic remedy," he added.

Costa Rica now wanted to normalise relations with its northern neighbour, Ugalde told AFP.

Nicaraguan ambassador Carlos Arguello also said his country was pleased with the outcome, calling it "a fair assessment".

"There is no longer a major problem, or there should be no problem to have normal relations between Nicaragua and Costa Rica," Arguello said.

The new rulings came more than two years after the ICJ found that Costa Rica had sovereignty over Isla Portillos, basing its ruling in part on an 1858 treaty.

In December 2015, the court reproached Managua for violating San Jose's right to navigation in the waters and ordered the two countries to negotiate an amount of compensation.

But the neighbours failed to reach a deal and the issue trundled back to the ICJ so judges could set the compensation amount.

The two countries first held negotiations in 1976 to try to reach an agreement on their border which broadly follows the San Juan river, but talks dragged on.

Costa Rica brought the case to the ICJ in 2014 saying it had "exhausted its diplomatic means" to resolve the row.