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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS THE NEW ELECTRONIC ROADBLOCK EXPLODING STAR MAY HAVE KILLED THE.DINOSAURS ROADBLOCK Counter-terrorist exercises have taken a Sleepy Hollow, Illinois — A barrier of — sinister new turn in Australia. Instead of police cars, dozens of officers with guns the imaginary enemies being foreign, trained on an onrushing car—that's the tra~ Hollywood-style terrorists, the new "bad- ditional way of bringing a high-speed auto dies" are Australian citizens who start agi- chase to a halt, but those are about to go. tating on the subject of "foreign owner- The new improved, less brutal version is ship". a 42-inch plastic 'pancake' riddled with Exercise Tropic Punch is described as a electrodes. "protracted national! counter terrorist exer- Called the Anti-Vehicle Electronic cise". It was held between 14 September Countermeasure, or AVECM, the discs are and 20 October 1994, and was centred pri- deployed on the road surface before the marily in Queensland, specifically in suspect arrives. As the car passes over an Caims and south-east Queensland. AVECM, electric discharges scramble the According to a leaked document about vehicle's engine controls and associated cir- _ the exercise, "an imaginary extremist group cuitry. The car stops and cannot be restart- incensed at increasing foreign ownership of ed for some time. Australian business and resources... (Source: Popular Mechanics, February embarks, in the initial phase, on a terror 1995) campaign to force State and Commonwealth Governments to take PRESS MUZZLED IN FRANCE remedial action. When this fails to achieve Alain Marsaud, a member of the French _ the desired result, the group tums to other Parliament, has introduced a measure that options in politically motivated violence. would mandate that "any information relat- This signals the activation of the National ing to a person who is the subject of an Anti-Terrorist Plan, with the Queensland official inquiry, or under judicial investiga- Police Service, State Government and tion, can't be published, except with that Commonwealth Government responding to person's specific permission”. the incident and seeking to negotiate the In other words, the media can't report safe release of the hostages.” that politicians and others suspected of cor- For those interested, the level of foreign ruption are under investigation. ownership of Australian resources and There are a lot of people in France today _ business is well over 90 per cent! But don’t who might support this measure—particu- go talking about it, will you. larly a bevy of politicians who are under (Source: Extracted from release, dated 13 investigation at this time, and others who September 1994, leaked from the Queensland are about to fall under public scrutiny for Police Service, Media and Public Relations possible misdeeds. Branch, Police Headquarters, Roma Street, (Source: The Spotlight, 3 January 1995) Brisbane, old, Australia) By now NEXUS readers must have quite a pile of theories on what killed of the dinosaurs—meteorites, oxygen shortage, ice ages, viruses, cave-dwellers, or worse. According to Dr David Schramm, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, an exploding star could have killed 95 per cent of the Earth's species 225 million years ago by destroying the ozone layer and bathing the planet in radiation. All it would take is a supernova explo- sion in the vicinity of 30 light years to wipe out virtually all life on Earth, he said. “Dr Schramm used mathematical models to develop his theory of massive extinction caused by a supernova blast and now seeks evidence to support it in the chemical sig- nature of fossils from the period. (Source: The Australian, 4 January 1995) PRESS MUZZLED IN FRANCE Alain Marsaud, a member of the French Parliament, has introduced a measure that would mandate that “any information relat- ing to a person who is the subject of an official inquiry, or under judicial investiga- tion, can't be published, except with that person's specific permission”. In other words, the media can't report that politicians and others suspected of cor- ruption are under investigation. There are a lot of people in France today who might support this measure—particu- larly a bevy of politicians who are under investigation at this time, and others who are about to fall under public scrutiny for possible misdeeds. (Source: The Spotlight, 3 January 1995) PLO BOOK SPARKS ISRAELI SCANDAL A political scandal has erupted in Israel after allegations that the Labour Party con- spired with the then-outlawed PLO to defeat the right-wing Likud and win the 1992 general elections. The crisis was triggered by the publica- tion of memoirs by a senior PLO negotia- tor, Mahmoud Abbas, in which he alleges that the present Health Minister, Ephraim Sneh, held a series of pre-election meetings with a leading member of the PLO at which the Labour Party urged the PLO to block progress at peace talks in | Washington, and thus deny Likud any cam- paign advantage. Labour won the 1992 election, and in September 1993 signed a peace accord with the PLO. The memoirs also claim that Yitzhak Rabin was an attendee at one of the meetings. (Source: The European, 13-19 January 1995) DEATH BY POLITENESS This item should probably have gone in the Twilight Zone section of NEXUS, but we ran out of room and put it here instead. Polite Japanese risk death by bowing. At least 24 Tokyo residents have died in the last five years while bowing to each other. Five fell under trains after head butts (presumably concussed), seven died in kerbside and escalator collisions, and many more have been injured in revolving doors. As a result, the city has had to introduce safe "Greetings Zones". (Source: D. Record, 25 June 1994) 8 ¢ NEXUS THE NEW ENEMY IN AUSTRALIA FEBRUARY - MARCH 1995