Watching the World
BHOPAL SETTLEMENT
Although India Today magazine said that “the end is nowhere in sight” for victims seeking compensation for the Bhopal chemical accident, it seems that an end of sorts has come at last. (See Awake! April 8, 1989.) In a recent out-of-court settlement, Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to victims of the disaster, although lawyers had demanded $3 billion. Victims will receive an average of $14,460, which, notes the British magazine The Economist, is “roughly equivalent to $1m[illion] per person in the United States.” The journal also observes that the settlement may have been low enough to motivate big corporations to build dangerous plants in poor countries, where they will have to pay less to victims of accidents. The low settlement even caused the price of Union Carbide’s stock to rise, adds The Economist.
ADVANTAGES OF CIRCUMCISION
The American Academy of Pediatrics has had to reverse its position on the matter of circumcision. In 1971 the group held that there were “no valid medical indications” to warrant circumcising newborn males routinely. However, recent studies have shown that circumcision may help prevent kidney and urinary-tract infections, which can be quite dangerous. In one study, uncircumcised boys were 11 times more likely to suffer urinary-tract infections than circumcised boys. The pediatric academy now says that circumcision “has potential medical benefits and advantages.” While Christians are not bound by the Mosaic law requiring circumcision, the new findings do suggest that the law was of practical benefit to the ancient Israelites who obeyed it.
WHAT THE FETUS HEARS
Researchers were amazed recently upon discovering how much external sound may be heard by the unborn fetus. Placing a microphone in the womb near the head of a baby, doctors could hear with clarity a variety of sounds from outside, from conversation 12 feet [4 m] away to the sound of a cart passing in the hallway on the other side of a closed door. In a similar vein, a psychologist in Ireland noted that newborn babies seemed to recognize the theme music from a television program their mothers had watched regularly while pregnant. Such findings may lead to further research on what effect all this sound might have on the tiny ears of unborn babies, reports the U.S. magazine Woman’s World.
A LETHAL CROP
According to the U.S. State Department, global production of drugs is rising sharply. From 1987 to 1988, the following harvests increased: marijuana, by 22 percent; opium, by 15 percent; hashish, by 11 percent; and coca from four countries, by 7.2 percent. The lethal bumper crops were produced in spite of more arrests, more drug seizures and destruction of crops, and more treaties promising international cooperation. According to The New York Times, the State Department report “has become an annual admission of the inability of the United States to singlehandedly fight narcotics.”
CHRISTENDOM IN CHINA
“Christianity in China has gained ground in recent years,” notes the New Zealand Herald, citing an official Chinese newspaper, News Digest. Three years ago, most of the country’s professed Christians were said to be among the elderly, the illiterate, and the semiliterate. The Digest said that a more recent survey shows a large portion of China’s seven million adherents of Christendom—as many as 25 percent of them—to be “intellectuals,” such as doctors, university professors, students, writers, and engineers.
CHILD ABUSE IN GERMANY
In the Federal Republic of Germany, every ten minutes a child is beaten severely enough to warrant a trip to the hospital, reports the newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten. Of the 11,000 children assaulted each year, 100 die. Further, experts estimate that 150,000 children suffer constant sexual abuse from family members and relatives. A mere fraction of these—some 10,000 cases—are reported to the police. One expert estimated the total number of children suffering from constant physical, mental, or sexual abuse at 300,000. The victims are both male and female and are often no more than babies.
PORNOGRAPHY FOR PRISONERS
Inmates of a prison in Iowa, U.S.A., have the right to subscribe to the same magazines as nonprisoners, including hard-core pornographic magazines, ruled a federal district judge. The prison has complied with the court order by establishing an official “porno reading room” where such magazines are kept. For some time, prisoners have been allowed to have soft-core-pornography subscriptions come to their cells. While a prisoner’s psychological status and record must be reviewed before he is eligible to subscribe to the hard-core materials, there is no crime that would automatically disqualify him. However, not everyone was pleased with the ruling. The New York Times noted that many Iowans “questioned the wisdom of arousing the passions of people whose aggressive behavior had landed them in prison in the first place.”
THAILAND PROTECTS FORESTS
In a last-ditch effort to save its dwindling forests, the government of Thailand recently banned all logging in the country. Officials estimate that forests now cover only 18 percent of Thailand, down from 70 percent after World War II. Conservationists put the current figure as low as 12 percent. In the south of the country, recent floods and mud slides, which killed 350 people, were blamed largely on illegal logging. The disaster helped the government to impose the ban in spite of fierce opposition from the logging industry.
FOUR-LEGGED CHICKENS
What would be considered ideal for the fried-chicken industry was an ordeal for some junior-high-school teachers in Hiroshima, Japan. When 153 pupils were told to draw a picture of a chicken, over 12 percent came up with chickens with four legs. When checked on nine points of design, “only three children had drawn chickens accurately,” reports the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. “There is less contact with nature than before,” explains the teacher who conducted the survey.
REPORT ON THE POPE’S DIOCESE
The parish priests of Rome had some disheartening news to report to their bishop, the pope, in their annual meeting with him this year. According to the Catholic newspaper Avvenire, one priest lamented the “frightening dechristianization of his parish, where only 3 percent attend mass and 90 percent of those intending to marry ‘know nothing about religion.’” “Last year,” the priest continued, “there were 18 funerals, but nobody asked for the sacraments.” Avvenire added that another problem facing parish priests is the presence of Jehovah’s Witnesses, “whose growth is widespread”—one worried priest even claiming erroneously that they have “made Rome their capital in Europe, Asia, Africa.”
SOVIET WATER BABIES
Some Soviet women give birth to their babies in an unusual way: in water, either at home or in the sea. The Soviet magazine Sputnik reports that of 700 such births, none have resulted in complications or death. A water environment is felt to be more like the environment the newborn has just left. The article claims that children born this way tend to sit, stand, and even walk earlier than others. They certainly swim earlier. “Within four hours of birth such babies can keep afloat unaided, and after just a few months they can swim distances of several kilometres,” notes Sputnik. Still, some Soviet doctors disapprove of births in water because “the baby passes into a nonsterile environment of inadequate temperature” and because of possible bleeding problems.
PASSIVE SMOKE THREATENS CHILDREN
Smoking parents may contribute to the deaths of from 10 to 20 Australian children every year, reports The Weekend Australian newspaper. Thousands more are hospitalized. The article cites a study of some 500 children hospitalized for respiratory illnesses. The researcher found strong chemical evidence that breathing in smoke from the cigarettes of those taking care of them contributed to the children’s sickness. The article also noted links between passive smoking and pneumonia, influenza, childhood asthma, and SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). It concluded: “Of most concern is the rise in numbers of female smokers.”