Watching the World
Blood Transfusion Scandal
Germany, which consumes more blood products per person than any other country, has been rocked by a scandal that has “turned one of the world’s most dependable branches of medicine into a target for criticism,” reports the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The scandal involves a blood processing company that, for some years, has sold huge amounts of improperly tested blood products to hospitals. Hence, thousands of hospital patients who have used these products have been exposed to the risk of HIV infection. Federal Health Minister Horst Seehofer has advised that “anyone who wishes to make certain he has not contracted HIV through infected blood or plasma products during an operation” should undergo a test. Die Zeit reports that “71 percent of the population are now afraid of getting AIDS out of a transfusion bag.”
Wanted: Monks
For the first time in Japan’s religious history, monks are to be publicly recruited. “Anyone who is pious and not worldly-oriented can become a chief priest,” said a high-ranking monk of the Buddhist Tendai sect. The sect plans to have “entrance exams” for applicants beginning in 1995. According to an official of the sect, little knowledge of religion is needed to pass the exam. Traditionally, sons of priests took over their fathers’ position as temple priests. “Recently, however, the sons of priests in all sects are said to be reluctant about becoming monks,” reports the Mainichi Daily News. Commenting on this trend, Hiroo Takagi, an expert on religion, said: “Now that the hereditary system is falling apart, Buddhist sects are worried about the shortage of youths willing to become priests.”
Locusts Return
Egypt’s eighth plague, locusts, “is again poised to swoop on Africa,” reports The Weekly Mail & Guardian newspaper. Already 200,000 acres [80,000 ha] have been plundered in Yemen, and swarms have arrived at Chad, Niger, and Mali. A spokesman for an agricultural research unit said the damage threatens to be much greater than the severe plague of 1986-87 that destroyed crops in 28 countries in northern Africa. He added: “If the ecological conditions remain favourable, the swarms could expand tenfold in a single generation (45 days).” The locusts could attack all the Sahel’s food crops in 1994.
Preventing Suicide
“Suicides of youths increase,” reports the Brazilian paper O Estado de S. Paulo. A study by Brazil’s Ministry of Justice shows that “the main reason for suicide is illness, followed by disappointment in love, alcoholism, and financial difficulties.” Since the help of family members and friends is essential in preventing suicide, psychiatrist Christian Gauderer suggests: “Do not disregard the possibility” of a suicide. And since communication can relieve the tension, “ask for the reasons of the depression, why the person is thinking of killing himself, how he intends to do it.”
Pregnancy After Menopause?
Is pregnancy possible after menopause? The answer would appear to be yes, according to a medical report in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. The report says that “there are an apparently increasing number of women who find themselves pregnant after having been confirmed as menopausal.” The French study, involving 6,000 gynecologists and obstetricians, revealed that a woman has a significantly higher potential for a postmenopausal pregnancy if she is receiving HRT (hormone replacement therapy). Statistically, these women on the average had stopped menstruating for two years, the majority had experienced menopause relatively early, and 71 percent were receiving HRT. Interestingly, Dr. Christian Jamin, who headed the study, said that every woman has the potential of having a child even after menopause.
Pope John XXIII Praised Mussolini
For some time now, a struggle seems to have been under way within the Catholic Church between those who are favorable to the canonization of Pope John XXIII and those who are opposed to it. It was recently made public that before becoming pope, John XXIII, in a number of letters dating back to the 1930’s, praised Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader of Italy during the 1930’s and 1940’s. The then future pope said Mussolini seemed to be guided by “Providence.” These letters had been published years ago, but the editor, the former personal secretary of John XXIII, had censored the praise directed to the Fascist dictator to “avoid”—he now says—“political exploitation.” Some think that the censored passages have been made public only now in order to impede the course of the proceedings that could lead the present pope to proclaim John XXIII “blessed.” In any case, points out the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, the revelation of those passages “does not add much to what was already known about the attitude of the ecclesiastical authorities toward Fascism.”
Flammable Rain Forests
Fires in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, ravaged 8.6 million acres [3.5 million ha] of forest land in the drought years of 1983 and 1991. But fires in the damp Amazonian rain forest are a much greater cause for alarm. Why? Normally the rain forest canopy effectively traps the moisture-laden air beneath it, keeping the wood so damp that fire fails to ignite it. In the last five years, reports the Manchester Guardian Weekly, the eastern Amazonian forest has been riddled with a network of roads as timber cutters have searched for and cut down prize mahogany trees, and the wet atmosphere escapes. The unwanted branches and crowns of trees lying on the forest floor are burned, making the forest vulnerable. According to one survey, cutting down a mere 2 percent of the trees destroys as much as 56 percent of the forest canopy. Brazilian farmers have reported flames that ran for three miles [5 km] through the standing trees.
Mushrooms Threatened With Extinction
“Of the roughly 4,400 types of mushrooms found in Germany, one third appear on the list of species threatened with extinction,” comments the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In fact, scientists are warning that there is a danger that not only the mushroom but also many other kinds of fungi will die out in Europe. Why? It appears that pollution and overexploitation are exacting a high toll. Other forms of life, such as oak and pine trees and many varieties of beetles, are dependent upon fungi for survival. So a widespread disappearance of the fungi would mean ecological disaster.
Scientific Basis for Belief
“It is possible to be a scientist and believe that there is a God,” states the South African newspaper The Star. The article reported on a 90-minute lecture by Professor David Block, an astronomer at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand. Block explained that science confirms how “finely tuned and balanced” the universe is. For Block and many other scientists, this clearly indicates purposeful design, which, in turn, strongly suggests a Designer. According to The Star, Block concludes that there is such overwhelming evidence for God’s existence “that a man who does not believe in a Creator would have to have more faith than one who does [believe in a Creator].”
Egyptian Monuments Threatened
Ancient monuments throughout Egypt are being threatened by rising groundwater. At risk are 400 historic monuments in Cairo, as well as monuments much farther south, such as the Temple of Luxor. The Sphinx has already lost a paw, reports The UNESCO Courier. The problem is partly due to the construction of the Aswân High Dam, which keeps the Nile waters flowing and the water table high. Before the dam’s construction, the river received no water for nine months of the year and shrank to a low level. Also at fault is Cairo’s hundred-year-old sewage system, which leaks and often overflows. When the water penetrates a building’s foundations, capillary action sucks it many feet up into the structure, where chemical reactions take place to form salts that attack the walls.
This Is Justice?
“Michael Charles Hayes killed four people in a North Carolina shooting rampage—and now, his victims’ families complain, he’s living better than he’s ever lived, at taxpayers’ expense,” says an Associated Press dispatch. Judged insane and committed to a state mental institution, Hayes became eligible for Social Security disability benefits and receives $536 a month. This has allowed him to purchase a motorcycle, a huge wardrobe, and a room full of expensive stereo and video equipment because he is already provided with the shelter and food that the disability benefits are supposed to cover. The government gives about $48 million a year to the criminally insane. Prosecutor Vincent Rabil calls it a “strange twist of justice” and adds: “Taxpayers are paying the killer. It doesn’t make very good sense.”