Watching the World
Children Expelled From Schools in Paraguay
During 1984, school authorities in Paraguay expelled more than 60 children of Jehovah’s Witnesses because the children declined to take part in patriotic flag-salute ceremonies in violation of their Bible-trained consciences. Expulsions have continued in 1985. Other Witness students have not been accepted for enrollment. At issue is the trustworthiness of the guarantee by the constitution of Paraguay of “the right to profess . . . and practice [one’s] religion . . . as long as it does not oppose good customs or public order.”
On April 15, 1985, a lower court in Asunción ruled in favor of a petition by five family heads to have their ten children readmitted to school. The attorneys successfully argued that “the silence maintained [during patriotic ceremonies] by the students who are children of Jehovah’s Witnesses is considered RESPECTFUL and is in no way intended to offend.” But on May 8, the Court of Appeals overturned the ruling. Additionally, on April 17 the Ministry of Education and Worship issued Resolution No. 1.051, endorsing the expulsion of children who do not salute the national emblem. The family heads have now taken their case to the highest court of Paraguay, the Supreme Court of Justice. In the meantime, a separate lower court decision—favorable to Jehovah’s Witnesses—involving ten more children is being challenged by the Ministry. The upcoming court decisions will determine whether that country stands by its constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion or not.
New Japanese Bible
The Watch Tower Society released a new Reference Bible in modern Japanese. “The first of its kind,” reports Japan’s Asahi Evening News. It calls this Bible “a boon to all seeking accuracy in translation,” adding that it “is easy to read.” The article also notes that “this new work has 11,400 footnotes which contain alternate textual renderings making this new Reference Bible a multiversion translation. It has 125,000 marginal references to other texts that reveal the interlocking harmony of the 66 books.” The Bible was released to a crowd of 28,564 of Jehovah’s Witnesses assembled at Yokohama Stadium on May 19. By means of telephone hookups to 30 other convention sites throughout Japan, the total attendance figure swelled to 174,959.
48 Million Addicts
Despite the efforts of national and international organizations to stem the tide of drug abuse, this 20th-century plague continues to spread earth wide, says a United Nations antidrug conference in Vienna. It has been estimated that there are at least 48 million drug addicts. Of these, says the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, “about 38 million use cannabis, about 2 million use opium, and an uncertain number but certainly ‘several million’ are victims of cocaine, while about seven hundred thousand use heroin regularly.”
Transfusion Tumors
Blood transfusions may cause tumors in cancer patients, suggest new but controversial scientific studies. According to reports delivered at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, blood transfusions weaken the patient’s immune system and may thereby spur the growth and return of tumors in patients with lung, breast, colon, and rectal cancers. Dr. Neil Blumberg, a blood-transfusion specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, studied patients with colon and rectal cancer. His findings, as published in the British Medical Journal, show that recurrences of the cancer after surgery were more likely in patients who had a transfusion than in similar patients who did not have transfusions. “In our particular group of patients, there was an association that suggested that transfusion was one of the most important risk factors,” Dr. Blumberg said in an Associated Press news dispatch.
Deep-Sea “Waterfalls”
Scientists from the Australian Navy research laboratories discovered off the coast of Tasmania a deep-sea “waterfall” 12 times higher than Niagara Falls and 6 times higher than Victoria Falls. The “waterfall” is 1,970 feet (600 m) high, reports The Evening Post of Wellington, New Zealand. In the same area, the research team also discovered a 6,560-foot-high (2,000 m) deep-sea volcano with its peak more than one and a half miles (2.4 km) below the surface.
Birthday Parties—Christian?
Among heathens, according to Horst Fuhrmann, professor of medieval history at the University of Regensburg, “the birthday celebration was in honor of one’s guardian angel or god, whose altar was decorated with flowers and wreaths; sacrifices were offered to the god of festival, friends offered congratulations and brought gifts.” Professor Fuhrmann continues in the German newspaper Süddeutschen Zeitung: “Great prominence was given the birthday parties held for the emperor, replete with parades, public banquets, circus plays, and the hunting of animals: spectacles disgusting to the Christians.” Thus, says Fuhrmann, Christians “refused to celebrate the birthday.”
Buckled-Up Behavior
Children are better behaved passengers when buckled up, claims the American Academy of Pediatrics. Their publication states that university studies show that when not buckled up “children squirmed around on the seats, stood up, complained, fought, and pulled at the steering wheel. When buckled into car safety seats, however, there were 95% fewer incidents of bad behavior.” In addition, when children are buckled up, parents are less distracted and irritated, so that they can concentrate more on their driving.
“Dial-a-Shrink”
Add “dial-a-shrink in New York” to the growing list of personal services now available by telephone, says The Medical Post of Canada. [“Shrink” is an American colloquial term for “psychiatrist.”] At $19 (U.S.) for each ten minutes, a person with problems can receive professional counseling and charge it to his credit card. Calls are coming in at the rate of about 20 a day. They are mostly from women in their 30’s and 40’s who are having anxiety and depression problems due to “failing relationships.” Individuals who are not inclined to have a face-to-face interview are attracted to the service because it offers anonymity and the convenience of calling from one’s own home or office.
Tobacco Update
NICOTINE—POTENT DRUG. What drug is one of the oldest, is the most widely used, and, in the same amounts, is stronger and more addictive than cocaine? It is nicotine. According to Jack Henningfield, a scientist at the National Institute of Drug Abuse Addiction Research Center, Baltimore, Maryland, the euphoric effect of nicotine is the same as morphine and cocaine. In a Gannett News Service release, Henningfield said that nicotine “does something biological in the brain.”
DEADLY EXHALATIONS. Passive tobacco smoking, inhaling smoke exhaled by smokers, is killing thousands a year, according to independent studies in England and North America. The London Daily Telegraph, in summarizing a conference called by the British Department of Health, reports: “As many as 5,000 non-smokers die each year as a result of inhaling other people’s cigarette smoke.” And James Repace, a researcher for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told a Canadian federal hearing that tobacco smoke in the workplace kills an estimated 5,000 nonsmokers a year in the United States and about 500 in Canada by lung cancer alone, according to The Globe and Mail of Toronto. It added: “Estimates by other scientists of all deaths associated with ambient on-the-job tobacco smoke range up to 50,000 annually in the United States and 5,000 in Canada.”
NONSMOKERS PREFERRED. A growing number of major employers in the United States—Grumman, Boeing, and Goodyear—are joining a drive against smoking in workplaces. Why? “Employing a smoker costs $1,000 [U.S.] more a year than a nonsmoker for a variety of reasons,” so Marvin Kristein, a professor of economics at the State University of New York, was quoted as saying in The New York Times. That can add up to a tidy sum for these large companies. For example, The New York Times reports that “Boeing will save $10 million [U.S.] a year once it puts its smoking ban into effect.” These and other factors led Goodyear’s chairman, Robert Mercer, to predict last year: “We’ll get to the point where non-smoking is a condition of employment.”
Financial Tidal Wave
Forty years after being defeated in World War II, Japan is about to become the world’s principal creditor, states the Detroit Free Press. A gush of money, representing Japanese consumers’ savings and the profits of Japanese industry, is surging through the world economy at a rate of $50 billion to $100 billion (U.S.) per year, about half of it ending up in the United States. According to the report, the phenomenon is due principally to the current American economy, “its exceptionally strong dollar, its federal budget deficits, its relatively high interest rates, and its record trade deficits.” Mr. C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, estimates that, with current trends, within five years the United States will owe Japan and the rest of the world one trillion dollars (U.S.), and the rest of the world will owe Japan $500 billion (U.S.).
World’s Best Notes
Bank notes made in Brazil are among the world’s best, both in quality and security, claims the president of Brazil’s mint, Carlos Alberto Direito. Brazil’s bank notes, which are made solely from the country’s own raw materials, are printed on special cotton-fiber paper. They are electronically cut and are carefully checked by 120 skilled women workers. Brazil also prints money for the countries of Angola, Bolivia, Peru, and Venezuela.