COOLUM, Australia: Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer has a vision of the future and it’s made in China.
Palmer, a law school dropout, has based much of his fortune on selling minerals to China. Now backed by his faith in the fast-growing Asian economy, he wants a Chinese shipyard to build his dream project — a replica almost down to the tee of the Titanic. A fleet of luxury Bentley cars shuttled journalists off his private jet last week to hear plans for the ship at his golf resort on a pristine stretch of Australian coastline.
Handing out reproductions of blue floral dinner plates lost with the Titanic 100 years ago, the wise-cracking, self-made billionaire sought to fuel interest in the project, which has been met with skepticism by some in the media.
Palmer dreams of cruising into New York Harbor on Titanic II flanked at the wheel by Hollywood stars, Chinese Communist Party leaders he has befriended, and descendants of the original passengers. A Chinese navy escort, as well as ones from the US and British fleets, would be there too, he says.
“Why not build the Titanic?” questioned Palmer, who made his fortune in real estate and by selling mineral rights in Australia to Chinese investors. “I’m 58 and I’ve got the money and I don’t care what it costs.”
The original Titanic, the largest liner in the world when it was launched and dubbed “virtually unsinkable,” sank en route to New York after hitting an iceberg in April, 1912, killing 1,517 passengers and crew. “I’m not saying he won’t do it, but all I’ve seen so far are the plates,” said James McCullough, a columnist for the Brisbane Courier Mail who has been following Palmer for years. Palmer said his shipping company, Blue Star Line Pty Ltd, had reached a “memorandum of understanding” with Chinese shipbuilder SinoTrans to build Titanic II. The original ship was operated by the White Star Line.
The new ship will have the same dimension as the old version with 840 rooms and nine decks, he said. But would have extra safety features including modern life boats and better stability.
“If you book on third class you can share a bathroom, sit down at a long table for dinner every night, have some Irish stew and a jig in the night,” added Palmer. If all goes to plan, Titanic II is scheduled make its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to Manhattan in four years, according to Palmer. “The big difference, is our ship won’t sink and will end up making money as a commercial enterprise.”
State-run SinoTrans is also building Palmer a half-dozen shipping freighters capable of navigating the Panama Canal in search of nickel ores to feed a refinery he runs in Australia.
Like his Titanic plans, skepticism dogged Palmer’s purchase of the loss-making QNI nickel refinery after the mining behemoth BHP Billiton said it could no longer make money. The following Christmas, Palmer presented 55 of the refinery’s workers with a Mercedes Benz car and gave away 700 holidays to Fiji to celebrate a bumper year of profitability.
“Everyone who works hard deserves something nice,” he said. “If you doubt what this man can do you do so at your own peril,” said Ian Ferguson, a 60-year-old property investor who gave Palmer his first job in 1976 and now runs the nickel refinery. “I told Clive I had no experience running a refinery,” Ferguson added. “But he said ‘You’ve got good people and marketing skills, so get in there,’ and I did.” Though happy to acknowledge his wealth, Palmer refuses to say just how rich he is and outside estimates vary widely.
“Let’s just say I’m not exactly calling up my bank needing a rise in my credit card limit,” he said. Forbes puts his wealth at $ 795 million. BRW magazine, an Australian monthly, says he’s worth A$ 3.85 billion ($ 4 billion).
He has a passion for vintage cars owning more than 80 and recently dispatched buyers to snatch up even more at a European auction ahead of the opening of a planned museum. To the horror of conservationists, he wants to turn untouched beachfront near his resort into a theme park with life-sized dinosaurs and high-rise accommodation.
A jumbo jet would circle Australia daily picking up and dropping off guests.
Titanic II: Made in China
Titanic II: Made in China
This handout photograph released on Jan. 21, 2026, shows a view of prehistoric cave paintings in the Sulawesi island of Indonesia, which includes faded hand stencils dated to at least 67,800 years ago. (AFP Photo/Maxime Aubert/Griffith University)
- Newly dated artworks are believed to have been created by ancestors of indigenous Australians
- Discovery shows Sulawesi as one of world’s oldest centers of artistic culture, researcher says
JAKARTA: Hand stencils found in a cave in Indonesia’s Sulawesi are the world’s oldest known artworks, Indonesian and Australian archeologists have said in a new study that dates the drawings back to at least 67,800 years ago.
Sulawesi hosts some of the world’s earliest cave art, including the oldest known example of visual storytelling — a cave painting depicting human-like figures interacting with a wild pig. Found in 2019, it dates back at least 51,200 years.
On Muna, an island off the province’s southeast, researchers have discovered new artworks which are faint and partially obscured by a more recent motif on the wall. They used a new dating technique to determine their age.
The cave art is of two faded hand stencils, one at least 60,900 years old and another dating back at least 67,800 years. This makes it the oldest art to be found on cave walls, authors of the study, which was published this week, said in the journal Nature.
Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency, or BRIN, and co-author, said this hand stencil was 16,600 years older than the rock art previously documented in the Maros-Pangkep caves in Sulawesi, and about 1,100 years older than stencils found in Spain believed to have been drawn by Neanderthals.
The discovery “places Indonesia as one of the most important centers in the early history of symbolic art and modern human seafaring. This discovery is the oldest reliably dated rock art and provides direct evidence that humans have been intentionally crossing the ocean since almost 70,000 years ago,” Oktaviana said on Wednesday.
The stencils are located in Liang Metanduno, a limestone cave on Muna that has been a tourist destination known for cave paintings that are about 4,000 years old.
“This discovery demonstrates that Sulawesi is one of the oldest and most continuous centers of artistic culture in the world, with roots dating back to the earliest phases of human habitation in the region,” said Prof. Maxime Aubert of Australia, another of the study’s co-authors.
To figure out the stencils’ ages, researchers used a technique called laser-ablation uranium-series dating, which allows for the accurate dating of ocher-based rock art. The method uses a laser to collect and analyze a tiny amount of mineral crusts that had formed on top of the art.
The study also explored how and when Australia first became settled, with the researchers saying the stencil was most likely created by the ancestors of indigenous Australians.
