Foulness Island passing of the Ministry of Defence Act 1946 and the subsequent rationalisation of five agencies in 1971, ownership of the island passed from the War Office to the Ministry of Defence. In 2003, a contract to manage the testing of munitions was awarded to the defence contractors QinetiQ, and they also control access to the island. In the 1850s, the South Essex Estuary and Reclamation Company proposed a grand scheme to reclaim around of land on the Essex coast, which would have included most of Foulness Sands and Maplin Sands. The civil engineer Sir John Rennie produced the plans, and
Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia The Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, commonly abbreviated as CGPCS, is an international governance mechanism established in New York on January 14, 2009 to facilitate the discussion and coordination of actions among states and organizations to suppress Somali piracy. The CGPCS was established in response to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1851 (2008), later recalled and replaced with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1918 (2010). To date, more than 60 countries and international organizations have become part of this forum, all of which are working towards the