Watching the World

Turkish Court Grants Freedom

● On December 2, 1981, a military court in Istanbul acquitted five witnesses of Jehovah from the charge of conducting a secret meeting on May 31, 1981. (See news report in our issue of September 8, 1981.) In its decision the military court ruled ‘that Jehovah’s Witnesses are an accepted religion in Turkey and that they have the same right to freedom of worship as any other religion in the country.’ As a result of that decision, Jehovah’s Witnesses were able, on January 3, 1982, to assemble together again for worship in their Kingdom Halls in Istanbul.

Feats Too Dangerous to Record

● The editors of the Guinness Book of World Records is “closing the book” on some of its records. The editors feel that to record certain dangerous feats would be unwise as it might encourage others to try to eclipse them. For example, the book will no longer list records for eating dangerous items such as live ants, goldfish and chewing gum. “There is sufficient planned lunacy on television,” said the book’s cofounder in London, “without our having to add to it.” He further explained: “People can do what they like, but we’re not going to chronicle it. Maybe the obituary columns will, but we won’t.”

Czech Antichurch Campaign

● According to Newsweek magazine, Czechoslovakia is “conducting its harshest campaign in decades” against the Roman Catholic Church. The report states: “The government is jailing popular priests and pensioning off older clergymen without permitting their replacement. Clerics are not the only targets of the anti-church campaign: authorities also see to it that children from religious families are denied enrollment at good academic high schools.”

Natural Leather Preservative

● In his column “Of All Things,” Warren F. Gardner of the Meriden, Connecticut, Record-Journal recently related: “We have noticed for many months that some of the old leatherbound books in our library are deteriorating. . . . Our bookbinder was aghast. ‘Why did you let it happen? Don’t you know that leather bindings dry out if they are left sitting on the shelves year after year? Books have to be cared for, you know.’

“‘What shape is your Bible in?’ he asked, his expression still pained and his eye accusing. ‘I rebind family Bibles for lots of people who seldom read them. But every now and then a Jehovah’s Witness brings in a Bible. The pages may be loose and the volume may need resewing, but the leather binding is invariably in fine shape. Why? Because it has been handled so much. These Jehovah’s Witness people have a Bible in their hands practically all the time, and the natural oil from their hands keeps the binding soft and flexible.’”

Coping with Commercials

● A report in the TV Guide shows that an average American child sees about 250,000 TV commercials by the age of 10. The article points out that parents should teach their children to be discriminating when it comes to commercials, as young children are excited and influenced by techniques such as animation, special effects, music and lighting. With regard to commercials around Christmastime, the article says: “Children are bombarded with large numbers of alluring commercials for playthings, games and other products. To a vulnerable child, life without some toy that is advertised heavily can seem almost intolerable. Parents are then confronted by pressures to purchase products that are often beyond their means. Sometimes if the toy or other product is purchased, the child may suffer disappointment and frustration upon discovering that the toy is smaller or more fragile than it appeared on TV, or that it doesn’t move easily by itself as it appeared to on TV.”

Food Losing Ground to Tobacco

● Some African lands are now growing more tobacco, as well as coffee and tea, to earn money from abroad. This is usually at the expense of food growing. According to All Africa Press Service in Nairobi, farmers in Kenya’s Kunati Valley have virtually stopped growing maize, even though it is the country’s most important staple food, because tobacco is more profitable. This is a problem because only 17 percent of Kenya’s land can support crops. Moreover, the trees on the sides of the Kunati Valley have been cut down to provide fuel for tobacco curing. “What is happening in the Kunati Valley is being repeated in a thousand other places in all of Africa,” the All Africa Press Service reports. “Exports are being promoted at the expense of local consumption. In the long run the ecological basis of all production is being permanently destroyed.”

High Crash Toll

● According to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, 377 fatal accidents in general aviation during the first six months of 1981 resulted in 708 deaths. Most of those killed were in small private planes or in corporate jets. General aviation, which excludes airliners, claims an average of 27 lives a week. Commenting on this, The Wall Street Journal said: “Safety experts and government regulators aren’t surprised at the death toll. They have long known that, although flying in an airliner is statistically the safest way to get somewhere, traveling by light plane is the most perilous.”

Seats for Nonsmokers

● The U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board has made an exception to their rule that an airline passenger must be guaranteed a seat in a nonsmoking area. The new regulation guarantees a seat in the no-smoking area only if the passenger arrives by the airline’s check-in deadline. The no-smoking area of an airliner will no longer have to be enlarged to furnish seats for late arrivals and standbys.

Overlooked Power Source

● Many countries are overlooking animal power, according to Noel Vietmeyer, a professional associate of the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Vietmeyer points out that animals could make more of a contribution toward solving the global energy crisis. “Few people know,” he says, “that some 400 million horses, oxen, cows, water buffaloes, donkeys, camels, mules, yaks, llamas, and elephants work for man. Even now, after we’ve harnessed steam, oil, and electricity, animals contribute about half the energy used for agriculture in the third world. Four-legged traction provides some developing countries with as much as 90 percent of their agricultural power. . . . In much of the world, rural farmers recognize the practical value of animal power better than politicians do. That’s understandable, for who these days could willingly give up an energy source that reproduces itself, consumes no diesel fuel and produces free fertilizer?”

$100 per Life

● According to a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), during 1981, 17 million children died from disease and hunger throughout the world. The report asserts that these deaths could have been prevented at a cost of less than $100 per child. “While $100 per child in aggregate adds up to rather large sums,” said UNICEF director James P. Grant, “it is worth remembering that the sum is the equivalent of only six weeks of what the world spends on arms today.” Most of the deaths were in Africa and southern Asia and averaged over 40,000 a day. The U.N. report held out little hope for improvement, saying: “In many poor nations, the economic trends indicate that progress against poverty is not only slowing down, but is being thrown into reverse.”

International Inflation

● The chairman of the Union Bank of Switzerland, Robert Holzach, recently gave a speech about the outlook for inflation internationally. He said that a glance at the past “is not very encouraging,” noting that “during the fifties, the average erosion of purchasing power in the 24 leading industrial countries . . . was less than 2 percent. In the sixties, it climbed to 4.5 percent. Between 1970 and 1979, it rose to an average of 8.2 percent. At present, inflation in the industrial nations averages more than 10 percent.” This erosion of monetary purchasing power, he explained, “is a disease that harms all of us,” and “hits those hardest who are economically weakest.”

Counterfeit Inflation

● “According to the Los Angeles Times, the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing says there’s no longer any point trying to stop counterfeiters from faking dollar bills,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Now the dollar’s worth so little, it seems counterfeiters don’t even bother to counterfeit anything less than $20 bills.”

Feelings of Coercion

● New York city is no longer permitting the largest charity in the U.S., the United Way, to solicit funds from employees of the city through automatic payroll deductions. Said the New York Times: “According to Mayor Koch’s administrative assistant, Diane M. Coffey, the Mayor believed that United Way’s solicitation methods made employees feel coerced into contributing and that these methods wasted the time of city workers. Mrs. Coffey said United Way’s campaign was one in which city department heads were involved and team captains were appointed to solicit contributions. ‘It was an accelerated and intense solicitation effort undertaken by the city,’ Mrs. Coffey said, ‘and the Mayor felt it was not appropriate to have city employees spend this time or perform this function.’ . . . Another factor in the decision, Mrs. Coffey said, was the increasing number of requests for deduction privileges from other charity groups.”

Robot “Stabs” Worker

● A Japanese government report states that a robot recently “stabbed” to death a 37-year-old factory maintenance worker. This was apparently the first time that one of the many thousands of robots in Japan killed a person. Investigators said that the victim went beyond a safety barrier and accidentally triggered the robot into action, the arm of which “stabbed” the worker in the back.

Supertanker Extinction?

● Supertankers used to make big money for their owners. But times have changed. Now most owners of supertankers are getting rid of them at bargain prices or scrapping them. Explained the magazine World Press Review: “The oil crisis sharply reduced the industrial use of oil; and the widening of the Suez Canal opened it to 150,000-ton ships, making passage more economical than sailing around Africa. Today only ships up to 160,000 tons are regarded as economical. In the past two years twenty-seven supertankers have been sent to the scrapyard. No more 500,000-ton giants will be built.”