Watching the World
40,000 Children Every Day
According to the Paris daily International Herald Tribune, the director of UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) noted: “No famine, no drought, no natural disaster has ever killed 40,000 children in a single day, yet preventable disease and malnutrition are killing that many every day—unnecessarily.” Reporting on UNICEF’s World Summit for Children, the newspaper added that the problem stems partly from the prevailing attitude that in developing countries such childhood sickness and death are “normal and unavoidable.” The purpose of the summit was to try to improve conditions for the 1,500 million children expected to be born over the next ten years. This is, according to the Tribune, “the largest generation of children ever entrusted to mankind.”
“Nothing More Than Cold Print”
According to the Diario Las Américas, a Spanish-language newspaper published in Miami, Florida, U.S.A., the Mexican government has instituted an antismoking program that bans smoking from public places. The measure, intended for the protection of nonsmokers, stipulates that in public places smoking will be restricted to designated isolated areas. Some feel, however, that “this plan seems condemned to be nothing more than cold print, since there are no coercive measures, fines, or inspectors to enforce respect for it,” noted Diario. The newspaper observed that the population at large has received this law with skepticism and is simply ignoring it.
“Modern-Day Armor”
A recent wave of violent crime in New York City has boosted the sale of bullet-resistant apparel and accessories. The Daily News reports that “people are spending big bucks to cover themselves, their children and even their dogs with clothing lined with bullet-resistant fabric such as Kevlar, a light-weight fiber stronger than steel.” The list of available items include raincoats that sell for $1,000, umbrellas for $1,000 to $2,000, ski jackets ranging from $800 to $2,500, and fur coats for somewhere between $12,000 and $80,000. The newspaper referred to these items as “modern-day armor for the streets of New York” and added that the basic vest can “stop a bullet fired from a handgun at point-blank range.”
Unwelcomed Growth
Presently the world has about 5,300 million inhabitants. It is estimated that by the end of the 20th century, the figure of 6,250 million will be reached. According to Visión, a Latin-American magazine, poor countries will be affected adversely by this population explosion. Of these new additions to the human race, 90 percent will be born in poor countries. Visión reported that of the 20 most populated cities in the world, 17 are in developing countries. For example, “according to scientific projections, by the year 2025, Latin America will have a population of 740 million.” Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Venezuela have the highest rate of population growth in Latin America, while Argentina, Cuba, and Uruguay have the lowest. The magazine added that “between the years 1985 and 1990, Latin America had a rate of population growth of 20.77 percent.”
A False Messiah
Thousands of religious devotees were deprived of their leader when he and 12 other members of a religious group known as the Nation of Yahweh were arrested. According to The New York Times, “the indictment charges 18 specific instances of racketeering that include 14 killings, two attempted killings, extortion and arson.” The head of the group, with headquarters in Miami, Florida, U.S.A., is known as Yahweh Ben Yahweh. He claims to have been raised from the dead as a messiah to lead black people “out of the wilderness of white domination.” He and other members of the cult are accused of killing former members who disagreed with the leader. “In one case, the indictment charges, a former member was decapitated,” reports the Times.
Street Children
“Police and social workers estimate 10,000 homeless youngsters roam the streets of Metro Toronto,” noted The Toronto Star. A study found that 90 percent of homeless girls “say they were raped before the age of 12 by a family member or friend.” It is reported that the majority of these children have been driven to the streets by “family problems such as physical and sexual abuse and alcoholism that made the street, with all its horrors, preferable to home.” Authorities are afraid that this community of street children will become the source of AIDS infection among the general population of adolescents. The Star added that “half of the girls who were not prostitutes had had more than 10 sexual partners and 30 per cent of the boys had had more than 50. Among the prostitutes, 70 per cent of the females and 50 per cent of the males reported more than 100 partners.”
Tropical Killers
An increasing number of tourists and businessmen are visiting tropical countries. The French newspaper Le Figaro reports that many travelers are returning home with malaria, amoebic dysentery, hepatitis, or one of a wide range of other tropical diseases that can easily infect unwary travelers. Worldwide, malaria alone kills over two million people each year. The danger exists because the symptoms experienced by the travelers may not be correctly diagnosed at home by local doctors untrained in tropical medicine. Thus, potentially fatal diseases are incorrectly treated.
Unequal Distribution
According to Mariano Grondona, writing in Visión, a Latin-American magazine, the World Bank recently reported that 1,100 million people throughout the world live in a state of poverty. On the average, these individuals have a daily income of less than one dollar per person. Out of a population of some 450 million people in Latin America, almost 90 million live in such poverty, which according to Grondona, makes Latin America “an unjust society.” The report stated that Latin America has “an exceptionally high degree of inequality in the distribution of income” and that no other region in the developing world has such a contrast between the rich and the poor.
Depressed Babies
According to the Colombian newspaper El País, in Cali 29 percent of all children brought to health centers have some psychological disorder requiring professional treatment. According to one authority, the most frequent cause is problems in the family, producing in a child feelings of anxiety, depression, learning disabilities, sleeping disorders, and others. El País added that the greatest incidence of psychiatric problems in children is manifest during the first nine years of life. One study revealed that when the parent-child relationship is deficient, even babies may experience depression.
News for Coffee Drinkers
A recent two-year study of 45,589 men has shown no link between coffee consumption and heart disease, reports The New England Journal of Medicine. Although other recent studies have found a relationship between coffee drinking and heart-disease risk, this extensive new study, as well as several previous ones, found none. The president of the American Heart Association said: “On the basis of this study I feel more confident telling patients that as a public health measure I would not advise them to stop drinking coffee.” On the other hand, another recent study found a slightly increased risk of heart attacks in people who drank more than four cups of coffee a day.