UNESCO World Heritage Committee identifies 12 new sites in its 40th session in Istanbul

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has identified 12 new sites for the World Heritage List in its 40th session at Istanbul - the session had to be cut short due to the unrest that erupted in Turkey. With this, the number of sites added in the current session goes up to 21 and this finally adds up to a total of 1,052 sites in 165 countries.
The breakdown of these 21 newly added sites are - 12 cultural sites, six natural and three mixed ones.
This has been reported in thestatesman.com dated 18 July 2016.

The session also discussed the state of conservation of 155 properties - five of these in Libya have been inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger along with one in Uzbekistan and another in Mali. Additionally, one site in Georgia was removed from the list of endangered sites, while the site of Nan Madol, or the Ceremonial Centre of Eastern Micronesia, was simultaneously inscribed on the World Heritage List and on the List in Danger.
The 40th session had started on July 10 and was cut short by four days due to the attempted coup in Turkey. The unfinished would be taken up at a separate meeting slated to be held in Paris later. The 41st session is scheduled for July 2017 in Krakow, Poland.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Turkey is desperately trying to revive its tourism industry which is suffering as a result of security concerns coupled with its worsening relationship with Russia, which forms a key part of the market. As per information, the number of foreign visitors to the country was down by nearly 30% in April. Hence, it has sent an Airbus A300 to the bottom of the Aegean Sea hoping that it will become a diving reef and revive the Turkish tourism industry.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 6 June 2016.

Turkey has procured the 47-ton plane from a private company for about £64,295 and it has now been submerged off the coast of Kusadasi. Its journey had started in Istanbul in April, where the 54m aircraft was divided into parts and taken by truck to the seaside resort town in western Turkey. Subsequently, the 36-year-old plane was lowered into the sea by using divers and cranes. It finally came to rest 75 ft underneath the surface.
The authorities hope it will attract not only the fish but also tourists.
Incidentally, this is not the first sunken treasure. The Turkish authorities have already sunk three other planes off the coast and other artificial reefs include the USS Oriskany, an aircraft carrier which lies in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida.
Then there is the Cedar Pride, a Lebanese merchant vessel that was damaged by fire in 1982 while in Jordan. In 1985, Jordan's king took charge of the abandoned - but still floating - ship. Then he had its oil and hazards removed and finally scuttled it. Its present resting place is 82ft deep in the Red Sea.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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This has been reported in aljazeera.com dated 20 July 2015.

The incident happened in Suruc near the Syrian border and, located near the Syrian town of Kobane. It is home to many refugees who had fled fighting there in recent months.
Kobane has been a battleground between militants from the Islamic State (IS) group and Kurdish fighters since September last year, when IS overran the town and forced a large portion of its residents to flee into Turkey.
The dead are believed to belong to Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF) who have had nearly 300 members staying at the Amara Culture Centre – they have gathered to take part in rebuilding work in Kobane. They were volunteers who had come from Istanbul and were headed to the Syrian city of Kobane for relief work.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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The information is apparently from an Iraqi blogger who had posted on 5 May that the ISIS terror group had been searching "all its checkpoints" for three British girls who are "married to ISIL militants". Although their identities have not been disclosed, it is believed that they were the same three who were recorded on CCTV in Turkey on 18 February.
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The location is in the otherworldly region of Cappadocia which is well-known for its rock formations, deep valleys and ancient subterranean hideouts carved out from volcanic ash rock. It lies under the Nevşehir fortress. The area is being excavated for a construction project carried out by Turkey's Housing Development Administration (TOKİ).
The multilevel settlement is believed to include living spaces, kitchens, wineries, chapels, staircases and was built to protect residents from invaders. This find is similar to the discovery of another underground city, Derinkuyu. That was in 1963 when a man demolished his basement wall.
Derinkuyu was apparently home to 20,000 residents who lived together underground and the city was reportedly eleven levels deep with 600 entrances. It boasted of areas for sleeping, stables, wells, kitchens, ventilation shafts, tombs, communal rooms, bathrooms.
Geophysicists from Nevşehir University had carried out a systematic study of a 1.5 mile (4 km) area using geophysical resistivity and seismic tomography. The studies would suggest that the underground corridors may go as deep as 371ft (113 metres), but the exact size remains unknown.

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