Outrage over Royal Mail plan to offer cheaper stamps to five million claiming benefits

Outrage over Royal Mail plan to offer cheaper stamps to five million claiming benefits - Benefit claimants will be able to buy stamps at 2011 prices under plans - Royal mail bringing in April price hikes

Royal Mail came under fire yesterday over a plan to sell cheaper stamps to five million customers on benefits.

Since the Penny Black was introduced in 1840, the company has delivered a letter anywhere from the Scottish highlands to the Cornish coast for a uniform price.

But embattled boss Moya Greene said Royal Mail planned to break with tradition and make cheaper stamps available for ‘the most vulnerable members of society’ this Christmas.

Cut price: Since the Penny Black was introduced all stamps have been priced the same - but now benefit claimants may be in line for a discount

They will be able to buy stamps at 2011 prices – 46p for first-class and 36p for second-class – while everybody else will be hit by price hikes from April.

The move – labelled ‘means-testing’ by angry MPs – threatens to spark chaos by creating two-tier stamp prices, with around five million people expected to be eligible for the discount.

Royal Mail refused to reveal many details about the scheme, but did say that anyone who receives Pension Credit, Incapacity Benefit or its replacement, Employment and Support Allowance, will get the discount.

Around 2.6million elderly receive Pension Credit, which tops up their weekly income by an average of £33 a week.

Benefits discount: Although stamp prices will go up in April, five million people on benefits will be eligible to buy them at 2011 prices, under the controversial plan

But the controversy surrounds those on Incapacity Benefit, which closed to new claimants in 2008, and the Employment and Support Allowance, which ministers have admitted includes many fraudulent claims.

Around 1.95million claim Incapacity Benefit, with a further 662,000 on Employment and Support Allowance.

It raises the prospect of benefit cheats being allowed cheaper stamps.

Around 55 per cent of all ‘personal’ mail sent each year, such as Christmas cards and thank-you letters, is sent over the festive season.

The move comes at a controversial time, with Royal Mail on the brink of revealing huge increases in stamp prices.

The postal regulator, Ofcom, wants to scrap the cap which limits the amount Royal Mail can charge for the price of sending a letter or a parcel. An announcement from the company is expected within weeks.

During a heated grilling by MPs yesterday on the business, innovation and skills committee, Miss Greene admitted: ‘I think prices in the UK will have to rise.’

Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, who sits on the committee, rubbished the plan to offer cheaper stamps to vulnerable people.

The former entrepreneur said: ‘How are they going to do it? How are they going to police it? If you go into a Post Office wearing a scruffy coat, will you get cheaper stamps?

‘Do you just send out your granny, who gets Pension Credit, to buy all the stamps? Is there a cap of ten on how many stamps you can buy? This is means-testing of stamps.’

Emma Boon, campaign director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘This is a ridiculously complicated way of solving a problem that only exists because of Royal Mail’s inefficiency.

‘Taxpayers want to see improved standards and a change to working practices that are out of date, not a complicated system of reduced prices for those who are on certain benefits.’

During the committee hearing yesterday, Miss Greene, whose bonus last year of £142,000 is equal to the Prime Minister’s salary, insisted current stamp prices offered ‘incredible’ value. ( dailymail.co.uk )

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Pink dolphins are being slaughtered for bait

Pink dolphins are being slaughtered for bait - Pink dolphins in the Amazon river are being killed to be used as bait. The pink dolphin population could collapse, scientists say, if this practice continues.

The bright pink color gives them a striking appearance in the muddy jungle waters. That Amazon river dolphins are also gentle and curious makes them easy targets for nets and harpoons as they swim fearlessly up to fishing boats.

In this Nov. 2005 photo released by Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia, a pink Amazon river dolphin swims in the Airao River in Amazonas state, Brazil. Researchers say Amazon river dolphins are increasingly being slaughtered and used as fish bait in Brazil and the practice threatens to wipe out local populations of the mammals which have already died off in other parts of the world.

Now, their carcasses are showing up in record numbers on riverbanks, their flesh torn away for fishing bait, causing researchers to warn of a growing threat to a species that has already disappeared in other parts of the world.

"The population of the river dolphins will collapse if these fishermen are not stopped from killing them," said Vera da Silva, the top aquatic mammals expert at the government's Institute of Amazonian Research. "We've been studying an area of 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) for 17 years, and of late the population is dropping 7 percent each year."

That translates to about 1,500 dolphins killed annually in the part of the Mamiraua Reserve of the western Amazon where da Silva studies the mammals.

Da Silva said researchers first began finding dolphin carcasses along riverbanks around the year 2000. They were obviously killed by human hands: sliced open and quartered, with their flesh cut away.

The killings are becoming more common, researchers and environmental agents say. Even the government acknowledges that there is a problem. It's already illegal to kill the dolphins without government permission — as with all wild animals in the Amazon. But little is being done to stop it.

Less than five agents are tasked with protecting wildlife in a jungle region covering the western two-thirds of Amazonas state, which is more than twice the size of Texas, according to the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), the enforcement arm of the Environment Ministry.

"It's a matter of priority, and right now the government is focusing on deforestation," said Ibama's Andrey Silva. "The killings of these dolphins exists — it's a fact."

The dolphins are attractive to anglers for their fatty flesh that is a highly effective bait for catching a type of catfish called piracatinga.

Consumption in neighboring Colombia is driving the slaughter. Some 884 tons of the fish came from Brazil in 2007, according to the Colombian Institute for Rural Development. That jumped to 1,430 tons in 2008 and spiked to 2,153 tons in 2009.

Simple economics exacerbates the problem: Killing dolphins is free, and their meat is valuable. Using the flesh from one carcass, fishermen can catch up to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of piracatinga. According to da Silva and other researchers, they can sell the catfish for 50 cents per kilogram, translating into $550 for just a few nights' work — about double Brazil's monthly minimum wage.

"It's attracting a lot of poor people to this region to kill the dolphins and make easy money," said Antonio Miguel Migueis, a dolphin researcher with the Federal University of Western Para since 2005.

So far it's impossible to quantify the exact impact fisherman are having on the river dolphins — little research has been done to study the killings or even the overall population of the dolphins in the Amazon.

But activists warn that waiting for exhaustive studies could mean the dolphin population would be irreversibly devastated by the time the work is complete.

"This is most definitely a threat to the future of this river dolphin species," said Alison Wood, with the England-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. "This is a relatively new threat, but clearly an extremely serious one."

Migueis said he warned Ibama and other authorities numerous times about the dolphin slaughter, but his reports fell on deaf ears.

Growing up to 8 feet (2.5 meters) long and weighing as much as 400 pounds (180 kilograms), Amazon river dolphins are the largest of four species known to exist in South America and Asia.

Their genetic siblings have already died off elsewhere: The Yangzte river dolphin in China was declared functionally extinct in 2006, the victim of pollution, overfishing and increased boat traffic.

Meanwhile, the International Union of Conservation of Nature lists the Ganges river dolphin in India as endangered, and the Irrawaddy river dolphin in Bangladesh as vulnerable.

Scientists believe river dolphins likely arrived in the Amazon during the Middle Miocene era 16 million years ago, when ocean levels were high around the world, and the sea inundated what is now lush rain forest.

For centuries they have been revered by locals and protected by myth. According to one tale, the dolphins transform into handsome men and leave the water at night, seducing and impregnating local women before returning to the river. Many simply consider it bad luck to kill them, given their supposed magical attributes.

But today, the quick payoff is trumping legend and superstition.

"Killing the dolphins is a fast and easy way for the fisherman to make money. It costs nothing but time," Vera da Silva said. "It's ugly because these dolphins have a folkloric value in the Amazon, and all that is disappearing for the sake of using them as bait." ( csmonitor.com )

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Why are so many dolphins beaching themselves on Cape Cod?

Why are so many dolphins beaching themselves on Cape Cod? - In the past month, 177 short-beaked common dolphins have beached themselves on Massachusetts's Cape Cod, and, despite rescue efforts, 124 have died.

There's no good spot on Cape Cod for dolphins to continue this winter's massive and unexplained beachings, but a group of 11 has chosen one of the worst.

Using a sling, members of an International Fund for Animal Welfare rescue team carry one of 11 dolphins stranded on a mud flat during low tide in Wellfleet, Mass., Tuesday. Ten of the dolphins were saved and one perished during the event. There have been 177 dolphins stranded in the area since Jan. 12. Fifty-three have been successfully released. Stephan Savoia/AP

The remote inlet is a place where the tides recede fast and far, and that's left the animals mired in a grayish-brown mud.

Walking is the only way to reach the animals, but it's not easy. The muck that releases a footstep only after a sucking pop. One rescue volunteer hits a thigh-deep "hole" and tumbles.

One dolphin is dead, but the other 10 appear healthy, and some thump their tails in the shallows, struggling to move. Rescuers decide the best course is to wait for the incoming tide to free the dolphins, then boats can try to herd them out of trouble. The only alternative is hauling them to a waiting trailer, and open water. But the trailer is nearly a mile (1.6 kilometers) away.

Waiting has risks. Dolphins can't survive long on land, and there's no guarantee the boats can push the dolphins on to safety.

"Now's where we start crossing our fingers," said Brian Sharp of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

A year ago, Tuesday's 11 stranded dolphins would have seemed remarkable.

But in the last month, 177 short-beaked common dolphins have stranded on Cape Cod, and 124 have died.

So far, there's no explanation.

Workers at the IFAW, which has led the rescue efforts, tag and take blood samples of the stranded animals, necropsies have been done on dead dolphins and a Congressional briefing was held early this month in the push for answers. But researchers can offer only theories about things such as changes in weather, water temperature or behavior of the dolphins' prey.

Geography may also play a role, if the dolphins are getting lost along the Cape's jagged inner coastline.

Rescuers work in pairs to move the dolphins on slings, bringing them closer together and pointing the right way.

"We'll take advantage of the fact that they're social animals," said Kerry Branon, an IFAW spokeswoman. "We're hoping if we release them together, they'll stick together."

Not all the dolphins are on board, though. One drifts off to the left, where he could beach again. The manager of the stranding team, Katie Moore, slides over, grabs its dorsal fin, and gives it a push in the right direction.

"You're going the wrong way, buddy," she says.

The inlet continues to fill and the dolphins break into waters that are deeper than the rescuers can follow on foot. They take boats. The noise from the motors pushes the dolphins ahead. So do acoustic pingers, devices that make a sound that annoys the dolphins.

From here, all the shore workers can do is await word from the boats, which will follow the dolphins until dark, if needed.

Volunteer Mike Giblin, muck still on his face, sits in his truck and explains why, at 64, he can't wait to get an early morning call to help the dolphins. The animals are special, he says.

Moore later smiles at the thought, but dismisses any mystical link with the animals.

"They're wild animals," she says. "This is not comforting for them. They don't want to be touched."

She's been encouraged by IFAW's success so far in getting dolphins back to sea. She also believes in the work.

"I think that as humans we have such a huge impact on the ocean environment and on these animals in other ways, that this is our opportunity to do the right thing."

The dolphins would all eventually reach the bay. ( csmonitor.com )

READ MORE - Why are so many dolphins beaching themselves on Cape Cod?

Goats apparently have accents, report goat experts

Goats apparently have accents, report goat experts - A study of young goats found that the animals' social environment helps shape their calls.

Goats don't have their own language, but they do seem able to pick up accents from one another, scientists found in a study of calls made by young goats.

Goat kids, like these, appear to pick up accents from one another, a study indicates. Elodie Briefer

The researchers say their results could have implications for our understanding of the evolution of vocal learning, or as it is known in humans, speech.

The ability to learn a range of sounds and modify them according to the environment was thought to be reserved to a handful of animals, including some birds, whales, dolphins, bats, elephants, and the most extreme example, us.

The goat calls reveal these animals are capable of a rudimentary form of vocal learning, and they hint that similar abilities may have gone undetected elsewhere, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London.

"This suggests an early step in the evolution of vocal communication, leading to the advanced and unique vocal-learning abilities found in humans, which allow us to speak," write study researchers Elodie Briefer and Alan McElligott in a study made available today (Feb. 15) by the journal Animal Behavior.

Goats are social animals that live in groups and make "contact calls" to one another to stay in touch, Briefer explained.

The researchers compared the calls made by full and half-sibling pygmy goats living in different social groups when they were 1 week and 5 weeks old. At 1 week, the kids' calls showed limited similarities to other members of their group. By 5 weeks old, the kids in the same group made calls with overall structures that were more similar. Most important, the half-siblings living in the same groups made more similar calls over time.

This indicates that the kids' social environment, not just their genetics, played a role in shaping the calls they make, effectively giving them accents.

"Our results support the growing and controversial evidence that social context plays a role in shaping vocal communication systems," they write. "Such surprising plasticity could be present in most mammals, but has gone undetected." ( csmonitor.com )

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Rover, is that you? Mars orbiter captures traces of Nasa's retired Martian explorer, gathering (red) dust on the planet surface

Rover, is that you? Mars orbiter captures traces of Nasa's retired Martian explorer, gathering (red) dust on the planet surface - A camera on board Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image of the lander from one of Nasa's retired Martian explorers, peaceful on the surface of the Red Planet.

It's the orbiter's first colour image of the lander, which helped carry Mars Rover Spirit to the surface. It now has a red colour - probably due to a coating of Martian dust.

The red dot is the lander from Mars Rover Spirit, now with a reddish colour from a coating of Martian dust. The rover drove off the lander platform in 2004 and spent six years exploring and sending data from nearby craters and hills

Spirit stopped sending signals in 2010. The image was captured on January 29.

Spirit drove off the platform in 2004 for a six-year mission exploring nearby hills and craters.

The view covers an area about 2,000 feet wide, dominated by Bonneveille Crater.

On the northern edge of Bonneville Crater, there is a bright spot - a remnant of Spirit's heat shield.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the view.

The camera is the largest ever sent into deep space, and has recorded tens of thousands of images.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been examining Mars with six science instruments since 2006.

This mission has returned more data about Mars than all other orbital and surface missions combined. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Rover, is that you? Mars orbiter captures traces of Nasa's retired Martian explorer, gathering (red) dust on the planet surface