Watching the World
World Illiteracy Rate Rising
“Nearly one-sixth of the 5.9 billion people in the world cannot read or write,” reports The New York Times. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the illiteracy rate is expected to climb. Why? Because 3 out of 4 children in the world’s poorest nations presently do not go to school. In addition to causing worldwide economic problems, ethnic conflicts have denied millions of children an education. Wars not only destroy schools but also turn many children into soldiers instead of students. Illiteracy, of course, contributes to social problems as well. The UNICEF report entitled The State of the World’s Children 1999 says that there is a direct relationship between illiteracy and birthrates. For example, in one South American country, “illiterate women have an average of 6.5 children, and mothers with secondary-school educations have an average of 2.5 children,” the Times said.
Millennium Madness
“The [Israeli] government has allotted $12 million to upgrade security at the Temple Mount” to prepare for millennium-related violence, reports Nando Times. Police are concerned that Jewish or “Christian” fanatics may try to destroy mosques at the Temple Mount in order to rebuild the Jewish temple. Some “Christian” cults believe that this will hasten the end of the world and the second coming of Christ. According to the report, the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, is “considered the most sensitive spot in the Mideast conflict.” It is located “in the walled Old City of Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war.” It has been noted that a number of “Christians” have already rented space on the Mount of Olives in anticipation of Christ’s return.
Aspirin for a Plant-Ache?
Plants may not feel pain in the way people do, but they do react to injury by producing jasmonic acid. Some even release jasminelike vapors that can evoke a response in other plants. “For years, researchers have known that aspirin somehow shuts down plants’ jasmonic acid output,” states Science News. Now Arizona State University scientists have unlocked part of this mysterious mechanism. Aspirin disables a key enzyme in plants by means of the same kind of chemical reaction that it uses to disable a different enzyme in humans. However, the relationship between aspirin’s action in plants and in people is still unclear, since the two enzymes appear to have almost nothing in common.
Posthumous Pardons for “Witches”?
In 1994 the pope called for the Roman Catholic Church to ‘examine its historical conscience.’ One result is the formation of a Catholic commission in the Czech Republic—the first of its kind—to consider whether to pardon hundreds of people who were burned alive as witches. As a result of church-sanctioned witch-hunts, many thousands of people died in Europe, either by fire or torture, between the 12th and 18th centuries. After Pope Innocent VIII published an edict on witchcraft in 1484, witch-hunts increased, and more than 30 methods of torture were used to identify those suspected of being witches. Even young children were not spared when efforts were made to extract evidence against their parents. Germany burned the greatest number of witches, but such trials were also common in France and Britain. The church may contemplate posthumous apologies, reports The Sunday Telegraph of London.
Taming the Yangtze River
Once completed, the Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze River will be the world’s largest hydroelectric power station. The dam will be 607 feet [185 m] high, will span 1.4 miles [2.3 km], and will generate 18.2 million kilowatts of power. However, the main reason for building the dam is not to generate hydroelectric power. It is to help reduce flooding by the Yangtze River. Construction started in 1994 and is expected to be finished in 2009. In all, this massive project will require excavating 192 million cubic yards [147 million cubic meters] of earth and rock, pouring over 30 million cubic yards [25 million cubic meters] of concrete, and installing close to two million tons of steel. “The most difficult task, however, is the relocation of the more than 1.1 million people living in areas affected by the project,” says China Today.
Asthma on the Rise
Reports from the World Health Organization indicate that in the last decade, there has been a 40-percent rise in both the prevalence of and the hospitalization rates for asthma worldwide. Why the increase? Members of the American College of Chest Physicians pointed to the dramatic rise in pet ownership, coupled with the current trend toward living in tight, poorly ventilated quarters. Asthma attacks can be triggered by “animal dander (skin, fur and feathers), dust mites, moulds, cigarette smoke, pollens, environmental pollutants and strong smells,” says The Toronto Star. The biggest allergen, though, is cat dander. The newspaper said that asthma is of particular concern because most deaths from it are preventable. Presently, there are about 1.5 million asthmatics in Canada, and about 500 die every year from the disease.
Record Weather Damage
In the first 11 months of 1998, a record $89 billion was lost worldwide in weather-related disasters. This damage was “far ahead of the $55 billion in losses for the entire decade of the 1980s,” says an Associated Press report. The report says: “Even when adjusted for inflation, the 1980s losses, at $82.7 billion, still fall short of the first 11 months” of 1998. In addition to material losses, natural disasters such as storms, floods, fires, and droughts killed an estimated 32,000 people. “More and more,” says Seth Dunn of the Worldwatch Institute, “there’s a human fingerprint in natural disasters.” How so? According to Dunn, deforestation has contributed to the problem by stripping the land of trees and wetlands, which act as ‘nature’s sponges.’
Families Under Stress
A recent poll of Canadians concludes that families today feel that they are under more financial and emotional stress than postwar families of a half century ago. The National Post newspaper cites divorce and family breakdown as topping the stress list. In descending order, other major sources of family stress are “parents working too hard and for too many hours, insecure job conditions, excessive taxation, and lack of respect for the efforts parents put into raising children.” These stresses are said by those polled to be even higher in most single-parent families.
Harvesting Icebergs
“Newfoundlanders have long known iceberg water was extremely pure,” says the Financial Times of London, but now this “endless resource that floats past their beaches” is being harvested. After nets are wrapped around a floating iceberg, at high tide a tugboat tows it toward shore. Moving at full throttle, the tugboat veers sharply when it nears the coastline, releases the nets, and slings the iceberg onto the shore. When the tidal waters recede, the iceberg is marooned on land. A huge crane then breaks the ice into chunks and loads it onto a barge “where it is crushed, melted and filtered before passing under ultraviolet lights” for purification.
Aggression Against Women
“In Brazil, 63 percent of all physical aggression against women occurs in the home, and only a third is reported,” states O Globo newspaper. The newspaper adds: “Domestic violence mainly involves poor women, but they are the ones who most often report aggression to the police. Rich women hardly show up in the statistics.” Other countries report similar statistics. For example, according to a survey published by the U.S. Justice Department, “more than half of all women in the US have been physically assaulted at some point in their lives, and nearly 1 in 5 has been raped or a victim of attempted rape,” says Reuters news service. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala says: “Each number in this survey represents our daughters, our mothers, and our neighbors.”