[MSN] Hampi monuments off UNESCO endangered list

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Hampi monuments off endangered list
[ 11 Jul, 2006 0209hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES ]
 

VILNIUS/BANGALORE: Unesco's World Heritage Committee on Monday decided to
remove a group of monuments in Hampi and Cologne's famed cathedral from a
list of endangered sites after conditions there had improved. 

The UN agency named the 13th-century Gothic Cathedral in Cologne a World
Heritage site in 1996 and put the site on its endangered list in 2004,
arguing that four new buildings being built across the Rhine river could
block dramatic views of the cathedral and ruin the skyline. 

The decision to take the Virupaksha temple and its precincts off the
endangered list came after the Karnataka government took measures to protect
the monuments. 

The bridge from Anegundi that a Unesco team had objected to has been shifted
to about 6 km downstream of the Tungabhadra river. 

The committee, holding a conference in the Lithuanian capital, decided to
take the 157-metre cathedral off the list after city authorities agreed to
scale down plans for the high-rises, Unesco spokeswoman Gina Doubleday said.


The committee is also expected to decide on whether to support Polish calls
to have the official name of the notorious Auschwitz death camp in Poland,
where an estimated 1.5 million people were killed during World War II,
changed to reflect the Nazi German supervision of the camp.