Watching the World
APPALLING STATISTICS
“The world today has 157 billionaires, perhaps 2 million millionaires, and 100 million homeless,” writes Alan Durning, a senior researcher for World Watch magazine. “It has half a billion [500,000,000] who eat too much, and an equal number who eat scarcely enough to stay alive. . . . Equity of income distribution is worse today than at any time since records have been kept. The richest billion people consume at least 20 times the goods and services that the poorest billion do. . . . We humans spend $200 a year for each man, woman and child on the means of warfare, but we cannot seem to find the $1 it would cost each of us to save 14 million children who die each year from simple diseases like diarrhea.” According to a Worldwatch Institute estimate, some 1.2 billion people live in absolute poverty—23.4 percent of the total population of the world.
“BEST TIME FOR THIEVES”
“The best time for thieves, burglars, drug dealers, and other wrongdoers” to engage in their illegal activities in the Attican district of Greece “is the afternoon hours of Sundays,” says the Athenian newspaper Elefterotypia. Why? Because about 3,800 policemen and 500 officials are diverted then to maintain “measures of order and security” at the soccer games and other athletic contests. And if a Sunday happens also to be the one of the “Derby” match, the force is increased by 700 policemen and 100 officials. The paper adds: “The presence of police agents at each athletic match is more indispensable than the presence of athletes.”
CLOCK RESET
For 43 years the “Doomsday Clock” of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has indicated the state of international security in regard to nuclear war. “The risk of global nuclear war being ignited in Europe is significantly diminished,” the magazine stated in April. “Although success is in no way guaranteed, this is the greatest opportunity in four decades to create a safe, sustainable world. In response, we turn back the hands of the Bulletin clock four minutes, to stand at 10 minutes to midnight.” However, this is not the farthest back the hands have been turned. Both in 1963 and in 1972, the hands were set at 12 minutes to midnight when treaties were signed between the United States and the Soviet Union, although the Cold War continued. “The conflict was cold only in that World War III did not happen,” says the Bulletin. “During the past 45 years approximately 125 wars were fought, more than 20 million people killed.”
A-BOMB VICTIMS
Exactly how many people have died as a result of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945? According to a survey recently released by Japan’s Health and Welfare Ministry, 295,956 deaths have been attributable to the bombs as of 1988. Of these, 25,375 people in Hiroshima and 13,298 in Nagasaki were said to have died on the day of the bombing; the rest have died since, many within a few days of the bombing, because of radiation-induced illnesses. Relatives of the deceased have criticized the government for waiting too long to carry out the survey. Additionally, “it does not really deal with all aspects of the bombings or the total number of those who died as a result of them,” says Yoshio Saito, vice secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations.
UNIQUE NEW STATE
On Monday, April 23, 1990, Namibia was accepted into the United Nations as the 160th member state. The new state, which gained its independence from South Africa on March 21, 1990, is unique in a number of ways. For one, it is larger than Pakistan, yet has a population of less than two million. Only Greenland and Mongolia are larger than Namibia and have a lower population density. Namibia is also unique in the variety of languages spoken by its relatively small population, a number of them known for their unusual click sounds. “There are too many indigenous African languages and dialects to enumerate,” says a Namibian tourist brochure. Yet, the official language is English.
FLOUR “BABIES”
In a novel approach to teach his students responsibility and the realities of parenthood, a San Francisco high-school teacher has been giving each of his students a five-pound [2.5 kg] sack of flour as a baby. “You must treat your baby as if it were real twenty-four hours a day for the next three weeks,” he tells them. This includes dressing the sack in baby clothes, including diaper, blanket, and bottle, and carrying it and treating it lovingly and carefully at all times. When students are away from their babies, they must find baby-sitters. If a baby is lost or broken, the student ends up with a heavier baby—a ten-pound [5 kg] sack of flour. Students quickly learn how having a baby will affect their lives, and the school has had a low number of teenage pregnancies. Said one student: “It was only a sack of flour that didn’t cry or scream, didn’t need to be fed or put to sleep, and I still couldn’t wait to get rid of it.”
A MONUMENT TO EGO
It is three times the size of the palace of Versailles, is 12 stories high, has over 3,875,000 square feet [360,000 sq m] of floor space, sports the second biggest chandelier in Europe with 980 lightbulbs, and has a bomb shelter 300 feet [90 m] underground. It is “Romania’s most visible monument to the excesses of Mr. Ceaucescu, who ruled the country for 24 years,” says The Wall Street Journal, and “one of many headaches [he] bequeathed to the people.” The palace was built by some 100,000 workers over the past ten years at a cost of more than $1,000,000,000. A fourth of old Bucharest was even razed to make way for the grand boulevard Ceauşescu ordered to be constructed outside the main entrance—6.5 feet [2 m] wider than the Champs Élysées. Now no one knows quite what to do with it. “It was all a Pharaonic dream,” says Bucharest history professor Stefan Andreescu.
U.S. DEBT
In April 1990, the national debt of the United States reached $3 trillion (3 with 12 zeros) for the first time, the U.S Treasury Department reported. The first trillion was reached in 1981. The new level of debt, spread over the population, amounts to $12,000 for each man, woman, and child. Assuming no more debt is incurred and interest does not accrue, retiring the national debt at the rate of $1,000 a second, nonstop, would take nearly a hundred years.
TRASH MUSEUM
While museums usually devote themselves to more aesthetic themes, a museum has opened in the state of New Jersey, U.S.A., that is devoted to garbage. The new museum gives visitors a sense of what it is like to be inside a garbage dump, with a display of discarded items that stretches across the floor, up the walls, and onto the ceiling. All the items came from trash cans, the only rule being that none of it would smell. A biodegradability (degrades in the environment) display helps viewers see what happens to the garbage as years go by. While produce and cardboard boxes have all disappeared in 100 years’ time, plastic utensils and soda bottles remain. Other exhibits stress conservation and recycling. It is hoped that the museum will especially make young people aware of the world’s mounting garbage disposal problems.
WEIGHT-CONTROL FACTOR
Not only what a person eats but also with how many others he eats is now seen as a factor in weight control. Researchers at Georgia State University, U.S.A., have discovered that the larger the number of people eating at a meal, the more each individual tends to eat. “This suggests that social factors may provide powerful eating cues, and that people trying to lose weight should be extra careful when eating with others,” notes the University of California, Berkeley Wellness Letter.
WORLD ILLITERACY
“A billion [1,000,000,000] people in the world can’t read—not even their own names, for the most part,” says Asiaweek magazine. “And illiteracy is not on the wane, as most educated folk fondly imagine.” India leads the world with 290 million people who cannot read or write, while China follows with 250 million. In many countries, boys are more likely to receive an education than are girls. The global ratio is 1 male in 5 who cannot read, compared to 1 in 3 for females.
ANIMALS FAVORED
Community groups unsuccessfully pleaded with California officials battling the Mediterranean fruit fly to stop spraying the insecticide Malathion in populated areas, reports Time magazine. The officials insisted that the spraying posed no threat to humans. But when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warned that the spray could harm a 3-inch-long [8 cm] nocturnal rodent called the Stephens’ kangaroo rat, an endangered species, the officials agreed not to spray the 5-square-mile [13 sq km] area where the rats are found. “Rats rate, people don’t,” says Time.