CHRISTCHURCH, June 29 (Xinhua) -- UNESCO's World Heritage List numbers 851 properties including 660 cultural, 166 natural and 25 mixed after the additions made this year.

    Twenty-two new sites were inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List, and one was deleted during Committee meeting in Christ church, said the director of the United Nations-funded organization, Francesco Bandarin, Friday.

    The new inscriptions include 16 cultural, five natural and one mixed, cultural and natural property.

    The World Heritage Committee also took the unprecedented decision of removing a site from UNESCO's World Heritage List.

    The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary (Oman), home to the rare antelope, became the first site to be deleted since UNESCO's 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage entered into force.

    The World Heritage Committee said it deleted the property "because of Oman's decision to reduce the size of the protected area by 90 percent, in contravention of the Operational Guidelines of the Convention."

    The new heritage sites are: the Rainforests of the Atsinanana (Madagascar), Ecosystem and Relict Cultural Landscape of Lop-Okanda(Gabon) (mixed site), Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape (South Africa), Twyfelfontein or /Ui-//aes (Namibia), Samarra Archaeological City (Iraq), Sydney Opera House (Australia),Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape (Azerbaijan), South China Karst (China), Kaiping Diaolou and Villages (China), Red Fort Complex (India), Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine (Japan), Jeju Volcanic Islands and Lava Tubes (South Korea), Parthian Fortresses of Nisa (Turkmenistan), Rideau Canal (Canada), Bordeaux, Gamzigrad-Romuliana, Palace of Galerius (Serbia), Mehmed Pasa Sokolovic Bridge of Visegrad (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Teide National Park (Spain), Lavaux Vineyard Terrace (Switzerland), Primeval Beech Forest of the Carpathian (Ukraine and Slovakia), and Central University City Campus of the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de M xico (UNAM) have been inscribed on the World Heritage status.

    South China Karst (China) was inscribed as a natural property, unrivaled in terms of the diversity of its karst features and landscapes.

    Kaiping Diaolou and Villages (China) features multi-storied defensive village houses, which display a complex and flamboyant fusion of Chinese and Western structural and decorative forms, and was inscribed as a cultural property.

    The Committee also removed four sites from the List of World Heritage in Danger, recognizing improvements in their conservation: Everglades National Park (USA), Ro Pltano Biosphere Reserve (Honduras), Royal Palaces of Abomey Benin) and Kathmandu Valley (Nepal).

    Three World Heritage sites were inscribed on the Danger List because of concern about threats to their preservation: Galapagos (Ecuador), Niokolo-Koba National Park (Senegal) and Samarra (Iraq).

    During its 31st session the Committee also decided to extend the boundaries of Switzerland's Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn (inscribed in 2001).

    The World Heritage Committee has also approved Poland's request to change the name of Auschwitz on UNESCO's World Heritage List. After international consultations, the property, listed as "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" in 1979, is to have the title of "Auschwitz Birkenau" and the subtitle of "German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)."

    Over 600 international delegates attend the ten-day meeting started Saturday.

    In 1972, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the World Heritage Convention as a way to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of the world's most outstanding cultural and natural heritage sites.

    With 183 member countries and more than 830 sites, it is one of the most widely supported United Nations' conventions.

Kaiping Diaolou inscribed on World Heritage List

    CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, June 28 (Xinhua) -- The Diaolou (watchtower house) of Kaiping, China, was inscribed Thursday World Heritage status by the 31st World Heritage Committee meeting here.

    The Diaolou of Kaiping thus became the 35th World heritage site, also the first of economically prominent South China's Guangdong province.

The Diaolou (watchtower house) of Kaiping in China's Guangdong province. (File Photo)

China's Karsts inscribed on World Heritage List

    CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, June 27 (Xinhua) -- The Karsts in southern China, which is made up of the stone forest in Yunnan province, Libo County in Guizhou province and Wulong county in Chongqing city, was inscribed here on UNESCO's World Heritage List Wednesday.

    The site nomination was approved by the ongoing 31st World Heritage Committee's annual meeting, which started here Saturday.