Great Barrier Reef in danger: UN

THE Great Barrier Reef is set to be named as a World Heritage Site in danger by UNESCO next month.

A long-awaited assessment of the reef by UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), released on Friday evening, says decisive action must be taken to avoid a listing in June.

The report claims the federal and Queensland governments have failed to improve water quality or halt coastal developments that could impact the reef.

Only one annual water quality report card has been published, in 2011, which covered 2009.

A second report card was due in early 2012, but it's yet to be delivered.

The report also says there's been no clear commitment by the either federal or Queensland governments to limit port developments near the reef.

Instead about 43 proposals are under assessment.

"The above-mentioned issues represent a potential danger to the outstanding universal value of the property," the report said.

"The World Heritage Centre and IUCN ... recommend that the committee consider the Great Barrier Reef for inscription on the list of World Heritage in Danger ... in absence of a firm and demonstrable commitment on these priority issues."

Greens senator Larissa Waters called on Liberal and Labor to support a Senate bill which would adopt the World Heritage Committee's recommendations as law.

"The Newman and Gillard governments have continued to fast-track mega industrial ports alongside the reef," she said.

"Protecting the Great Barrier Reef must be beyond politics and all parties should support my bill."

World Wildlife Fund spokesman Richard Leck said UNESCO had put Australia in the sin bin.

"We will likely see a reef showdown this June," he told AAP.

The only other world heritage sites in danger that aren't in a developing country or an active war zone are the UK's Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City and Florida's Everglades.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the federal government was committed to keeping the reef a great heritage area for the world.

"In the last couple of weeks I announced a $200 million reef rescue commitment," she told reporters in Melbourne.

"We are very committed and we'll continue to pursue those kind of commitments in the future."

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Designer Martin reveals Gatsby inspiration

THE Great Gatsby production designer Catherine Martin spent time in iconic Long Island and sought out collaborator Miuccia Prada to create the perfect look for the 1920s film.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Martin, who's been married to Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann since 1997, says her visits to the island, where the F Scott Fitzgerald novel is set, helped her visualise the story's fictional East and West Egg villages.

She also researched the style of 1920s Long Island houses to design a realistic backdrop to Gatsby.

But Martin, 48, and her 50-year-old husband also like to douse their sets and costumes in kitsch, fantasy or the unexpectedly modern - think Romeo in a Hawaiian shirt in their 1996 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

"We wanted to make sure we kept the visceral modernity and the raciness of the book," she said.

To that end, she sought out Prada, who contributed 40 looks from the archives of her Prada and Miu Miu labels, including the crystal-beaded dress that leading lady Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) wears in the final party scene.

"What's interesting about Miuccia Prada is that she's constantly in dialogue about what is beauty, what is ugly, what is nostalgia," said Martin.

"I thought her clothes would add texture and a kind of newness in the world of Gatsby."

The 20s were an interesting time in design history, she says, because some prominent designers were emerging to guide women.

"If you look at the 1920s, you have all these strong female designers like Jeanne Lanvin and Coco Chanel, women who for the first time in history were actively speaking to their peers about how we dress and who we are."

The Great Gatsby opens in Australia on May 30 and is the opening night film at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15.

The world premiere was held in New York on May 1.

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Missing Sydney boy found

A SCHOOL boy missing from Sydney's eastern suburbs has been found.

Daniil Ivanyuta, 16, left his family home in Waverley on Wednesday morning and hadn't been seen since.

A police spokesman told AAP on Friday that Daniil had been found and there would be no further investigations.

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Pakistan prosecutor in Bhutto case killed

Pakistan's main prosecutor on the Benazir Bhutto murder case has been shot dead in Islamabad. Source: AAP

PAKISTAN'S main government prosecutor on the Benazir Bhutto murder case, in which ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf is under house arrest, was shot dead in Islamabad.

State prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar was shot multiple times on Friday by gunmen as he was driving to the next hearing in the murder case of the former prime minister, who was assassinated more than five years ago.

His bodyguard was also wounded in the attack and a woman killed when Zulfiqar lost control of his vehicle, police said.

"Chaudhry Zulfiqar was driving his car. He lost control and the car crushed a woman passer-by," Yousuf told AFP.

"Zulfiqar was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to his injuries."

Police said the gunmen fled on a motorbike.

The attack happened in broad daylight in a busy street in a middle class neighbourhood.

The prosecutor had been on his way to appear before the anti-terrorism court hearing the Bhutto case in the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi.

Nobody has ever been convicted or jailed for Bhutto's December 2007 assassination.

Musharraf's government blamed the killing on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement and was killed in a US drone attack in 2009.

On Tuesday, Musharraf was placed under a two-week house arrest over charges that he conspired to murder the former prime minister, who was at the time campaigning for election.

Bhutto's son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is chairman of the outgoing main ruling Pakistan People's Party, has accused Musharraf of her murder.

In 2010 a UN report said Bhutto's death could have been prevented and accused Musharraf's government of failing to give her adequate protection.

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Paternity battle in the belly of sharks

TIGER shark embryos cannibalise their siblings in the womb in a pre-birth battle for paternity, new research has revealed.

The American and South African study studied genetic samples from 15 pregnant female sharks which had died after being caught in shark nets off the coast of South Africa.

The study published in Biology Letters showed 10 of the sharks carried just two embryos, while the other five, in an earlier stage of pregnancy, had between five and seven embryos in utero.

Using DNA analysis to determine the paternity of the embryos, the larger litters had at least two fathers, while the litters with only two sharks more often had just one father.

Study co-author Professor Demian Chapman, a marine biologist at Stony Brook University of New York, said that proved one embryo - possibly the one that grew biggest first - tended to devour embryos from other fathers.

The study concluded the practice was an evolutionary strategy allowing the most aggressive male sharks to father the surviving embryos, and thus outdo their sexual rivals.

"It's exactly the same sort of DNA testing that you might see on Maury Povich to figure out how many dads there are," Chapman told LiveScience, referring to the American TV talk show host.

"And basically, that loser father ultimately provided food for a rival male."

It has been known since the 1980s that shark foetuses cannibalised each other in utero - with one scientific legend relating how a shark embryo bit a researcher's hand during a dissection - but scientists hadn't known why.

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Naden 'confessed' to three other killings

FORMER bush fugitive Malcolm Naden told a psychiatrist he was a "serial killer" who'd murdered three other people and had dreamed of killing since he was aged 12, a Sydney court has heard.

Naden, 39, has pleaded guilty to the 2005 murders of Lateesha Nolan and Kristy Scholes, both 24.

In his sentencing hearing at the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday, forensic psychiatrist David Greenberg said Naden had told him during an examination that he had killed three other people.

"He told you he was a serial killer?" Naden's barrister Mark Ierace, SC, asked.

"Yes," Professor Greenberg replied.

The court heard that when police followed up on the allegations, there were no missing persons that fitted the descriptions Naden gave.

Prof Greenberg said when he spoke to Naden again last month and asked him about these "confessions", Naden laughed and said he'd lied.

Prof Greenberg said Naden was at "high risk" of reoffending.

"You have a person who has pleaded guilty to two murders, who has a history of violence prior to that, who reports that he started having fantasies of killing since he was 12 years old," Prof Greenberg said.

"He states that he will kill again and that his killing days are not over."

Earlier in the proceedings, Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, sought a non-publication order on a number of details on the murders, describing them as "graphic", "offensive" and "distressing".

In addition to the two women's murder, Naden has also pleaded guilty to a raft of other charges, including indecently assaulting a 12-year-old girl and attempted murder of a police officer.

The former abattoir worker went on the run in 2005 - days after Ms Scholes was discovered strangled in the bedroom of his grandparents' house at Dubbo in NSW's central west.

Five months earlier, his cousin, Ms Nolan, had gone missing from the town. Her body has never been found.

His capture last year in the Hunter Valley marked the end of one of the state's biggest manhunts.

The court heard after his arrest Naden appeared "cheerful", but later displayed signs of depression, threatening harm on himself and others.

Mr Ierace said shortly after his arrest, Naden told prison psychologists he wished he could cry and he was glad when the police dog bit him during his capture because it allowed him to "feel some pain".

The court heard Naden had told Prof Greenberg he wanted life in jail.

The hearing before Justice Derek Price continues.

A statement of facts tendered to court on Thursday reveals how Naden killed Ms Nolan and Ms Scholes.

Naden told police that on January 4, 2005 he had a "chance meeting" with his cousin Ms Nolan at their grandparents' house.

She then offered him a lift so he could go fishing.

But whilst in the car, Naden became enraged when Ms Nolan brought up the allegations of indecent assault against him.

He strangled her and then drove to Butlers Falls reserve outside Dubbo where he dug a hole beside the Macquarie River and dismembered her body.

Months later in June 2005, the facts state, Naden strangled Ms Scholes in his grandparents' bathroom.

He then took her body into his bedroom and had sexual intercourse with it.

"The offender dressed the deceased, covered her body and fled from the house," the statement says.

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Taming the dollar is dangerous: Swan

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan ruled out intervening to tame a strong Australian dollar. Source: AAP

TREASURER Wayne Swan believes it would be a "folly" and extremely dangerous for Australia to intervene to curb the strength of the Australian dollar, despite its impact on company profits and government revenues.

The domestic dollar has trading above parity against the US dollar for some time.

Its continuing strength is a major factor in forcing the federal government to scale back its revenue expectations by $12 billion for this financial year.

Mr Swan said the currency's strength was a reflection of the strength of the local economy as well as relative weakness in other countries such as the US.

"We have a developed economy in very good nick," he told a business function in Melbourne on Tuesday.

A favourable change the US growth outlook might ease some of the upward pressure on the Australian dollar, but Mr Swan ruled out any Reserve Bank of Australia or government market intervention.

"A Swiss style intervention would be folly ... extremely ineffective and dangerous," he said.

The Swiss central bank has previously intervened to try and tame the strength of the Swiss franc, spending billions buying up euros on foreign exchange markets.

Mr Swan said the fact that the Australian dollar had been high despite a downturn in global commodity prices suggested its strength would remain "for some time to come".

Global investors looking for growth opportunities now turn to the Asia-Pacific and the Australian dollar, whereas previously Australia was an investment option.

"That's the big change that has come as a consequence of the resilience that our economy demonstrated during the global financial crisis," he said.

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Sydney naval monument gets facelift

A HISTORICAL naval monument on the Sydney Harbour foreshore honouring Australian sailors and ships lost in combat is being refurbished.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) says the work will conserve the mast of the HMAS Sydney 1 on Bradley's Head, which received State Heritage listing in 2010.

The mast is part of a memorial erected in 1934 and dedicated to the memory of members of the crew of the HMAS Sydney 1 who were killed in November 1914 in a battle against the Germans.

It was rededicated in 1964 and now serves as an official memorial to those who served in the Royal Australian Navy and the nineteen naval ships lost in service.

NPWS acting regional manager Peter Hay says the work includes erecting an 'encapsulation' scaffold around the mast.

The NPWS will also build new fences and upgrade the carpark and walking trail to the Sydney Harbour National Park where the monument is located.

"The mast is a reminder of ... the naval tradition to which all Australian and international naval personnel belong," Mr Hay said.

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Santos commits to $100m NT project

OIL and gas producer Santos has committed to a $100 million drilling and appraisal program over the next 12 months in the Northern Territory.

The onshore Mereenie program will target oil while also evaluating natural gas resources.

Santos on Monday said it would consider a further drilling program if the initial appraisals were successful.

Santos has operated Mereenie, 250 kilometres west of Alice Springs in the Amadeus Basin, since 1993.

The field has produced more than 16 million barrels of oil and condensate and over 240 billion cubic feet of gas since 1984.

Santos Mereenie asset manager Mark Buckland said there were enough oil and natural gas reserves to extend the life of the Mereenie field well beyond 2030.

"The safe and sustainable development of this project has the potential to deliver economic benefits through jobs, revenue and royalties for many years," Mr Buckland said.

The commitment to the Mereenie appraisal and development drilling program is the latest in a recent series of investments by Santos in onshore interests in the Northern Territory.

In October last year, Santos announced a farm-in agreement with Central Petroleum over 13 permits in the Amadeus and Pedirka Basins. In December, the company struck a farm-in agreement with Tamboran Resources over four permits in the McArthur Basin.

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NZ dollar gains at start of risky week

THE New Zealand dollar has gained at the start of what's shaping up to be a risk-heavy week with central bank meetings and US employment figures threatening to disappoint investors.

The kiwi rose to 85.22 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 84.80 cents at 8am and 84.75 cents on Friday in New York.

The trade-weighted index advanced to 78.47 from 78.24.

The trans-Tasman currencies recovered some losses from Friday after US gross domestic product figures missed analysts' expectations.

That comes in a week where the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and European Central Bank (ECB) are scheduled to review monetary policy, and will give updates on the economies of their respective regions.

US employment on Friday will also be seen as a barometer of America's well-being, with the Federal Reserve linking its monetary expansion to the jobless rate.

"It'll probably be a fairly dull first-half of the week, though it livens up in the second half with the ECB on Thursday and the FOMC on Wednesday," said Imre Speizer, market strategist at Westpac Banking Corp in Auckland.

"The kiwi's just above the middle of its range" with support at 83 US cents and resistance just below 87 cents, he said.

Mr Speizer said the currency may continue its strong run against the Australian dollar, with the Reserve Bank of Australia seen as likely to cut rates, while New Zealand's central bank is viewed as more inclined to hike rates later this year.

The kiwi increased to 82.60 Australian cents from 82.43 cents last week.

The kiwi rose to 65.30 euro cents from 65.04 cents on Friday in New York and to 83.20 yen from 83.08 yen.

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