Canberra ends push for Tasmania forest logging

SYDNEY • The Australian government ended its push to log World Heritage-listed forests on the southern island state of Tasmania yesterday, after Unesco issued a report calling for the area to remain protected from logging.

The United Nations agency said it "does not consider a World Heritage property recognised for its outstanding cultural and natural values the place to experiment with commercial logging of any kind".

Australia's government in 2014 sought unsuccessfully to have parts of the Tasmanian wilderness - some one million hectares, or a fifth of the island - removed from Unesco's World Heritage listing to enable logging.

REUTERS

Graft scheme: 'Brazil leader knew everything'

RIO DE JANEIRO • A Brazilian senator facing charges in an explosive corruption scandal has claimed President Dilma Rousseff "knew everything" about the scheme, deepening the country's political crisis.

Senator Delcidio do Amaral, a former Senate leader for the ruling Workers' Party, said in an interview that embattled former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva masterminded the graft scheme at state oil company Petrobras and that Mrs Rousseff used some of the proceeds to fund her presidential campaigns.

An irate Mrs Rousseff ordered her government to press criminal charges against Mr Amaral for his "defamatory statements", which she has categorically denied.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE