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MOSAIC: Are computers harmful?
Australian army to kill kangaroos THE Australian army will kill as many as 15,000 kangaroos to keep a southeastern army base from being overgrazed, a military spokesman said recently. The Defence Department said the plant-eating marsupials threatened the environment in the 104,000-acre training ground near Melbourne, said Brigadier Mike Hannan. Animal activists vowed to protest, saying the real problem was a fence surrounding the training ground that prevented the kangaroos from roaming freely. Animal Liberation Australia spokeswoman Rheya Linden said more killing could not be justified. “Kangaroo numbers are severely reduced, not only because of the slaughter last year but because the drought has taken its toll as it has on wildlife everywhere,” she said. The base is about 62 miles north of the Victoria state capital, Melbourne. The decision was made after an April census found 36,000 kangaroos on the base, and environmental consultants said the area could only sustain 10,000 of the animals because of a drought, Hannan said. “The problem is one of environmental degradation: The land is overgrazed, and the kangaroos themselves suffer pretty badly once all the food is gone for them. We don’t want this area to be a dust bowl; it is not a realistic training environment.” Hannan said licensed shooters would kill 6,500 eastern gray kangaroos to start. Another count would be made at the end of August before a decision is made to continue the killings. More than 20,000 eastern gray kangaroos — many of them starving — were killed at the base last year. The Victorian Department of Environment and Sustainability approved the killings after the kangaroos overbred and devoured much of the area’s vegetation. — Samina Iqbal No terrorism futures! BOWING more to outrage than pressure, the Pentagon scrapped a controversial online futures market that aimed at getting information on Middle East events by letting investors bet on the probability of wars, terrorist attacks and assassinations. The whole project, Policy Analysis Market was officially scuttled one day after the Democrats in Congress criticized the whole idea. Even government and Defense Department officials was bewildered at the whole idea. The whole scheme was aimed to let anonymous traders wager money on when and whether such events, for example, overthrow of a Middle East monarchy might topple. The market, planned for start in October, was to focus on economic, civil and military futures of Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, and the impact of US involvement with these countries, according to the web site. The plan would have allowed traders to buy futures contracts priced on the certainty of a particular event occurring in the Middle East. Opponents, both within and outside the government were stunned. Many of them accused the American government of trying to “trade in death”, not that many outside the US have any doubt that they are already doing so. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told senators that while the Defense Department was supposed to be imaginative, “it sounds like maybe they got too imaginative.” US senators released a letter saying the programme’s funding would be eliminated and Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican who chairs the powerful Armed Services Committee, called the plan “a very significant mistake.” The programme came under the direction of retired Adm. John Poindexter, who was convicted for his role in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal — which was later set aside. He also spearheaded the Pentagon’s so-called Total Information Awareness Program to collect information about potential terror threats from private databases. | ||
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