Watching the World
Roman Treasure Found in Britain
A hoard of 14,780 gold, silver, and bronze coins, as well as a three-foot-long [90 cm] gold chain, 15 gold bracelets, and about 100 silver spoons, have been uncovered on a farm in Suffolk, England. The trove was discovered by a retired gardener who was using a metal detector to search for a lost hammer. One expert has estimated the value of the find to be at least 15 million dollars. A jury determined the treasure to be the property of the Crown, which means that 70-year-old Eric Lawes, who found the hoard, will receive an ex gratia payment equal to the collection’s market value. The treasure has been put on public display in the British Museum, reports the Guardian Weekly.
India’s Deadly Quake
“With the head of an elephant and the body of a potbellied man, Lord Ganesha is one of Hinduism’s most beloved deities, a god of new beginnings and good luck,” states Time magazine. But just hours after a ten-day festival in honor of this god of good luck had concluded, the southwestern region of India was struck by an earthquake that caused houses to collapse in more than 50 villages and towns. Nearest to the epicenter of the quake, which measured 6.4 on the Richter scale, the village of Killari was 90 percent flattened. Some estimates put the death toll beyond 20,000, making it the worst earthquake to hit the Indian subcontinent in 58 years. Most of the deaths are attributed, not to the power of the quake, but to the primitive construction of most houses, made of pressed mud or masonry, which collapsed and entombed their inhabitants. The San Francisco earthquake of a few years ago, for example, hit 6.9 on the Richter scale. Yet, only 67 persons were reported to have died, including deaths attributed to heart attacks.
Literacy Problems in Canada and the United States
A four-year federal study of literacy in the United States has shown that “nearly half of the nation’s 191 million adult citizens are not proficient enough in English to write a letter about a billing error or to calculate the length of a bus trip from a published schedule,” reports The New York Times. This means they face difficulty in everyday matters, such as correctly getting information from a newspaper, making out a bank-deposit slip, reading a bus schedule, or determining from a label the correct dose of medicine to give a child. A similar official study in Canada pointed out that “the reading skills of 16 per cent of Canadian adults are too limited to allow them to deal with the majority of written material encountered in everyday life” and that an additional 22 percent can only read print that clearly outlines a simple task and is in a familiar context, according to The Globe and Mail. Lost productivity, errors, and accidents because of poor literacy have cost businesses many billions of dollars.
Public Image of Clergy Plunges
“Every year since 1988, Gallup polls have shown that more people believe religion is losing influence than believe religion’s sway is gaining,” notes the Los Angeles Times. One reason is that the clergy as a profession are slipping in public esteem. Eight years ago a peak of 67 percent of Americans rated the clergy “high” or even “very high” in honesty and ethical standards. A 1993 survey showed a drop to 53 percent. Why? Scandals involving sexual misconduct by televangelists, Protestant pastors, and Catholic priests have blackened the clerical image, as have controversies over fund-raising claims. By 1988, pharmacists had replaced the clergy for the ethical top spot in the public’s eye. Another survey even showed that independently run businesses, as well as computers and technology, ranked higher than the churches as influences for good. But the public still feels that the clergy are more honest than politicians and journalists.
Indian Wildlife Threatened
Officials in India’s Union Environment Ministry were all set last year to herald their accomplishments in saving the Indian tiger when they discovered the opposite to be true: The tiger is heading for extinction. Some 1,500 of the 4,500 tigers in the wild have been killed by poachers since 1988. Virtually all parts of the slain tigers—skins, bones, blood, and even genitals—are sold in underground markets for lucrative prices. Illegal trade is also pushing many other animals in India to extinction. The number of rhinoceroses being killed for their horns has doubled. Male elephants are again being slaughtered in large numbers for their tusks. All types of leopards are being killed for their skins, musk deer are butchered for the perfumed pods under their bellies, and black bears are slaughtered for their gallbladders. Additionally, snakes and lizards are being killed for their skins, and mongooses for their bristly hair, which is used to make brushes. Other animals, such as starred tortoises and falcons, are shipped out in the illegal pet trade. Forest guards fear for their lives because of the heavily armed poachers.
World Health Report
Painting a bleak picture of the global fight against disease, the World Health Organization, in its eighth report on the world health situation, states: “Tropical diseases seem to have gone on a rampage, with cholera spreading to the Americas for the first time this century, yellow fever and dengue epidemics affecting even greater numbers, and the malaria situation deteriorating . . . The AIDS pandemic is spreading globally . . . pulmonary tuberculosis is on the increase . . . In the developing world, the number of cancer cases has for the first time overtaken that in the developed countries. Diabetes is increasing everywhere.” Covering the period 1985-90, the report shows that 46.5 million of the 50 million deaths each year are due to illness and disease and that almost 4 million of the 140 million babies born each year die within hours or days of their birth. Seven million new cancer cases occur each year, and over one million people a year become infected with AIDS-causing HIV. On the bright side, certain childhood diseases, such as measles and whooping cough, are decreasing, and life expectancy has increased by between one and two years. The global average is now 65 years.
Smoking-Related Deaths in the United States Are Down
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced a decline in the number of smoking-related deaths—the first since records started to be kept in 1985. The number of Americans dying each year from cigarette smoking dropped by 15,000, to 419,000 in 1990, primarily because of a reduction in smoking-induced heart disease. Some 42.4 percent of American adults smoked in 1965. By 1990 it was 25.5 percent. However, smoking still remains the biggest cause of preventable disease and death and increases health costs by about $20 billion a year. While the government spends about $1 million a year on antismoking advertising, the tobacco industry spends $4 billion on promotions and ads to increase smoking. Smoking causes an average life-expectancy loss of five years per smoker, the CDC reports.
Hopelessness and the Heart
“Nagging despair and emotional distress markedly boost a person’s chances of developing heart disease and dying from its consequences,” states Science News. “Hopelessness and sadness that linger for years, yet fall short of ‘severe depression,’ can undermine heart function,” researchers say. The investigators studied 2,832 adults, ages 45 to 77, for an average of 12 years. All started free of heart disease and other chronic illnesses. The findings showed that deaths from heart disease were four times more common among participants who reported severe hopelessness than among those who reported no hopelessness and that cases of nonfatal heart disease also appeared more often in those who were depressed. The death rate from heart disease was significantly greater even among those who suffered mild depression and moderate hopelessness as compared with those who reported no hopelessness.
No End in Sight
In 1989, Craig Shergold, a seven-year-old British lad, was suffering from a brain tumor and was not expected to live. His wish was to break the world record for receiving the most get-well cards. Publicized by the media and the Atlanta-based Children’s Wish Foundation International, the record was broken within months. Over 16 million greeting cards were received the first year, 33 million by 1992. They are still being received at the rate of 300,000 cards a week even though pleas went out over two years ago not to send any more. The count was stopped at 60 million. “We’ve got a 10,000-square-foot [900 sq m] warehouse that is stacked to the ceiling with mail that still hasn’t been opened,” says Arthur Stein, the foundation’s president. Through the help of a benefactor, an operation was performed on Craig early in 1991, and 90 percent of the tumor was removed.