Great Barrier Reef undergoing bleaching crisis
According to Australian marine biologist Terry Hughes, the current bleaching event taking place at the Great Barrier Reef could potentially change the reef forever.
“We’re seeing huge levels of bleaching in the northern 1,000-kilometre stretch of the Great Barrier Reef,” said Hughes in a March 28, 2016 interview with ABC News.
According to Hughes, of the 520 reefs that he personally surveyed, only four show no signs of bleaching. Hughes explained that he believes that approximately half of the coral life in the reef could die within the next month.
“The bleaching now is not just restricted to the hard corals,” said Dr. Jodie Rummer, from the ARC Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, in a March 21, 2016 news release. “There’s also extensive bleaching in the soft corals, and it is also affecting anemones and giant clams.”
Though pollution, tourism, and invasive species have long been harmful for the reef, this event is largely in part due to the unseasonably high temperatures at the reef.
Large whistleblowing operation reveals web of corruption
On April 3, 2016, the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released a report outlining an extensive network of tax evasion. The report was compiled thanks to approximately 2.6 terabytes of data gathered from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca by an anonymous whistleblower.
The so-called “Panama Papers” were studied by an international team of hundreds of journalists over the course of a year. The ICIJ report suggests that Mossack Fonseca aided politicians, celebrities, and other individuals of means by providing these individuals with a network of shell companies in which to invest.
Mentioned in the Panama Papers are members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and the prime minister of Iceland.
Though the ICIJ report is extensive, the consortium has been reluctant to publicly release all 2.6 terabytes of data.
“ICIJ will release the full list of companies and people linked to them in early May [2016],” read a statement from the Panama Papers website.
—Compiled by Sameer Chhabra