Watching the World
Rich-Poor Gap Widens
The gap between rich and poor has doubled in the past 30 years, says the Human Development Report 1992, published for the United Nations Development Programme. Based on national averages, in 1960 the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s population was 30 times richer than the poorest 20 percent. By 1989 they were nearly 60 times richer. On an individual basis, the world’s billion richest people are at least 150 times better off than the billion poorest.
Working Mothers
What is the largest and fastest-growing segment of the female work force in the United States? Women with children under 18 years of age, says the National Association of Working Women. Mothers with children at home represent two thirds of employed women. They total 21 million, a rise from 6.6 million in 1960. Women with children under age two make up the fastest-growing subgroup. Since 1970 they have increased 129 percent, to 3.1 million. What does the future look like? The association estimates that by the mid-1990’s, 65 percent of women with preschool children and 77 percent of those with school-age children will be working mothers.
Nigeria Counts Its People
On March 20, 1992, all the major Nigerian newspapers headlined the same figure—88.5 million. This figure, 88,514,501 to be precise, was announced to the nation as the total number of people counted in Nigeria’s national census of November 1991. The census results held two surprises. One was that in contrast with the pattern in many nations, men slightly outnumbered women. The second was that the total number of Nigerians was far smaller than the estimates of from 100 million to 120 million that had been based on projections from the previous census in 1963. But while the total fell more than 20 percent short of popular estimates, Nigeria remains the most populous nation on the African continent.
Fake-Medicine Warning
Each year, billions of dollars are reaped by unscrupulous traffickers in counterfeit medicine. But unlike most other counterfeited products, “counterfeit drugs can seriously harm health and even kill,” warns a press release of the World Health Organization. Many, because they are of little or no medicinal value, cannot help a person suffering from a serious disease such as malaria or diabetes. Some even contain unauthorized or toxic substances. “Recently reported deaths of Nigerian children after taking what was supposed to be a drug against a cough tragically confirms the seriousness of this kind of trafficking,” says the report. The problem is particularly serious to poor people in the developing world, who think they are buying at bargain prices what seems to be a good medicine made by a respectable company. Neither the label nor the packaging guarantees that a product is genuine. They may be as counterfeit as the medicine itself.
Modern Art Fails a Test
The art world is in a dither over the surprising threat facing many paintings by contemporary artists—they are disintegrating. Paintings by such artists as David Hockney Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko are discoloring or cracking, while the artwork of others is flaking and falling off the canvas, reports The Sunday Times of London. Acrylic paint used in the 1960’s is blamed as the main culprit. Although modern chemical-based materials were hailed when they first appeared on the market in 1962, Carol Stringari associate conservator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, said: “The first time somebody tried to take a bit of dirt off an acrylic painting, they realised that it would not come off. We just do not know yet how to do it.”
Earthquake on the Rhine
Last April the Lower Rhine basin in Germany experienced its severest earthquake since 1756. The quake, which measured 5.5 to 5.8 on the Richter scale, injured people and caused damage estimated at millions of German marks. The tremors even resulted in a partial shutdown at a nearby atomic reactor. At the seismological station near Cologne, instruments “either went mad or swung so dramatically that their pointers were bent and ink was splashed off the edge of the paper,” reported the natural science magazine GEO. The strength of the quake surprised scientists, who are still not able to predict tremors with adequate precision.
French Catholics’ Doubts
Although 84 percent of the French say that they are Roman Catholic, research shows that only a small minority actively practice Catholicism. Just 12 percent claim to attend Mass regularly, while 24 percent say they occasionally attend Mass on holidays. The French magazine L’Express recently conducted a survey to find out exactly what a minority of practicing Catholics believe with regard to some of the fundamental teachings of the church. The results were revealing: 25 percent do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 30 percent doubt the Bible’s record of the miracles performed by Jesus, and 38 percent do not believe in the Trinity. Furthermore, 59 percent do not accept the church’s teachings regarding purgatory, 60 percent do not believe in a hellfire, and 62 percent doubt the existence of Satan.
Churches Become Targets
“Crooks Turn to ‘Sacred’ Targets,” warned a headline in The Star of Johannesburg, South Africa. Recent reports indicate that churches and welfare organizations are easy targets for desperate criminals. After two armed robberies of places of worship in one week, churches were advised “to take extra security precautions.” In one of the robberies, a large sum of money was taken at gunpoint from a church where a group of the elderly were receiving their pensions. Authorities attribute this development to a progressive moral breakdown in society. Said one police spokesman: “The fact that people are starting to rob churches shows they will stop at absolutely nothing.”
Family Blood Can Kill
The Japan Red Cross Society is “calling on doctors to do their utmost to avoid transfusing blood donated by family members, especially when the donor is the recipient’s parent or child,” says Asahi Shimbun. Using blood donated by family members, says the Red Cross report, can trigger GVHD (Graft-Versus-Host Disease), a disorder that occurs when the lymphocytes in transfused blood attack the bone marrow, liver, and skin of the recipient. The body’s immune system is affected, and the death rate is high. Additionally, a strong warning against using fresh blood is included in the report because of the discovery that blood used within 72 hours of being donated can also cause GVHD. The report is based on an extensive two-year study of the hundreds of patients diagnosed as having GVHD and on a survey of 14,083 doctors. Nearly half of the doctors believed that GVHD occurs only when the body’s immunity has deteriorated and that the malady is unrelated to blood transfusions—but they were mistaken.
Biodegradable Golf Balls
Golf, a land sport, is usually not considered a threat to marine life. But golf practice has been a popular pastime on cruise ships for a long time. “Until 1989 golfers were whacking about half a million golf balls a month off the decks of cruise liners,” states New Scientist magazine, “and many of them ended up in the stomachs of turtles, whales and dolphins.” So when MARPOL, the world maritime regulatory agency, banned the dumping of plastic refuse into the oceans in 1989, it included golf balls. Since then shipboard golfers have had to use a net, limiting the distance of their drives. Now a San Diego, California, inventor has come up with a completely biodegradable golf ball that looks and hits just like the regular one. But instead of plastic over rubber, its skin is of paper pulp, gelatin, or seaweed, with a core of sodium bicarbonate and sodium citrate—ingredients in Alka-Seltzer.
Grain Shortage
About ten million tons of maize will have to be imported into southern Africa over the next year, reports the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference, a regional early warning unit. Its bulletin states: “There is very serious concern regarding the ability of available port, rail, road and storage infrastructure within the region to cope with grain movements of the anticipated magnitude.” Although the previous year’s production was below average, maize production this year is expected to be 40 percent lower than last year. The drought is possibly the worst to grip southern Africa in this century.
Tuberculosis Returns
WHO (World Health Organization) reports that the old scourge of tuberculosis is now claiming three million lives a year. The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Canada, further explains that 96 percent of the eight million new cases each year occur in the developing countries because of shortages of medical care and supplies. “Tuberculosis is becoming a socio-economic disease which hits the underprivileged hardest,” explained Hiroshi Nakajima director general of WHO. In wealthier countries, it is principally striking elderly people, ethnic minorities, and migrants. For example, in the United States, a WHO medical official said that many cases involve patients whose immune systems have been weakened by drug abuse or AIDS.