Watching the World
More Addicts in Asia
In many Asian countries, heroin addiction has skyrocketed. For example, in 1980, Sri Lanka had fewer than 50 known heroin addicts. Now there are about 40,000. Over the same period, the number of addicts in Pakistan went up to 1.8 million from just a few thousand. Asiaweek magazine says that “tougher penalties have failed to slow the rising tide of drug traffic. Sri Lanka has one of the world’s stiffest sentences for possession: holding two grams [0.07 oz] of heroin or cocaine carries a death sentence or life imprisonment.” The financial gain in the drug business is a formidable incentive for farmers to switch from other crops to heroin-producing poppies. Dr. Ravi Pereira of Colombo’s National Dangerous Drugs Control Board noted: “If there’s no sugar tomorrow—so what. But if there’s no heroin, you’ll have people crawling up the walls. They’ll pay anything to get it.”
Cholera in South America
Health authorities in Peru estimated that an average of two thousand people are infected with cholera every day in that country. In March 1991, Visión, a Latin-American magazine, reported that a cholera epidemic in Peru claimed the lives of some 200 people and infected over 40,000—all in just a two-month period. According to the Peruvian Ministry of Health, the number of deaths could rise to some ten thousand. Carlos Ferreira, president of the Epidemiology Society of Argentina, noted that the number of cases in Peru is greater than the total number of cases reported worldwide during 1990. In the neighboring countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador, and even as far north as Mexico, the governments are adopting preventive measures against the disease. Mr. Ferreira added: “Cholera is in South America and is here to stay for a long time.”
Balloon Industry Deflated
Watching thousands of brightly colored balloons slowly rise into the sky and disappear from sight may be an exhilarating experience for many, but it is one that is no longer as common in the United States. Ever since a balloon was found in the stomach of a dead whale that washed ashore in New Jersey in 1985 and another was found in a dead leatherback sea turtle, children throughout the nation have been clamoring for a ban on balloons, believing that thousands of animals have been killed by eating stray balloons. Legislators have listened to the children’s cry, and several states and cities have already banned or restricted balloon launchings. While the claims of animal deaths have been disputed by the balloon industry, balloon sellers were said to be losing $6 million a year in sales.
Death of the Dolphin
A recent study shows that “a growing number of the world’s 65 species of cetaceans (sea mammals) are on the brink of extinction,” notes Perspectives, a bulletin published by the International Institute for Environment and Development. Researchers assert that more than 500,000 dolphins are killed each year. According to the Environmental Investigation Agency, which conducted the study, the worst offenders are Japan, Mexico, Peru, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan, “with Japan the most excessive accounting for more than 100,000 cetaceans yearly.” The principal cause of death is drift nets. However, dolphins are also “being shot, stabbed, speared, gaffed, hooked, drowned, beached, electrocuted, harpooned, bombed and mutilated.”
Cigarette Advertisements Banned
Tobacco companies in France have been sidestepping a law against cigarette advertisements by using their brand names and logos to advertise nontobacco products. Such advertising invariably associates smoking with scenes that depict adventure, sports, and pleasure. The French government has passed a new law that will ban all forms of cigarette advertising as of January 1, 1993. The new law will prohibit all such forms of indirect publicity, as well as sponsorship of sports events by cigarette companies. Government officials quote statistics showing that smoking causes over 60,000 premature deaths each year in France. Worldwide, about three million people die each year from diseases related to smoking.
AIDS in Argentina
According to the Argentine newspaper Clarín, for every 500 persons in Buenos Aires, there is one infected with AIDS. Dr. Emilio Hass, president of the First Argentine Immunogenetics Center, noted that by “next year this proportion could rise to 4 infected individuals for every 1,000 citizens.” One medical source revealed that many donate their blood in order to receive a free test and find out whether they are infected with AIDS or not. Dr. Hass added that in one important Buenos Aires hospital, 36,000 blood bags were tested, and it was revealed that out of every 1,000 bags, 2 were contaminated with the AIDS virus. Hass reported that the number of AIDS victims in Buenos Aires “doubles every 13 months.”
Alcohol and Work
A leading German labor union estimates that “one in seven employees in the Federal Republic has problems with alcohol,” reports the Süddeutsche Zeitung. This costs German society between 50 thousand million and 120 thousand million German marks every year. On the average, Germans drank four times as much alcohol in 1990 as in 1950. A board member of the labor union noted that alcohol has become like a drug “with which people render themselves insensible so as to put up with their work and working environment.”
What Is Genesis?
A religious journal conducted a survey among teenage Italian students. The results were “disconcerting,” the Italian daily La Repubblica said. The poll revealed that 56 out of 100 students had not read even one verse of the Scriptures since the time of their first Communion. Also, 83.4 percent of the students could not “explain the difference between the old and the new testament,” and 75 percent admitted that they did not even have a Bible in their home. According to La Repubblica, 36 out of 100 students recognized the word “Genesis” as the name of an English rock group but not as the first book of the Bible.
Useless Guns
Because of the continual threat of crime, many in Rome are resorting to various means of self-defense. According to La Repubblica, people are using trained attack dogs, martial arts, chemical sprays, daggers, crossbows, and sword canes to disable assailants. More than 15,000 people, both men and women, have obtained permission from the police to carry firearms. La Repubblica noted that according to Gianfranco Rodolico, Rome’s delegate to the Italian Union of Marksmen, it is useless for the ordinary person to carry a gun. He said: “You cannot walk around all the time with a pistol in your hand. If someone attacked me, I almost certainly wouldn’t have time to pull it out.”
Shark-Eating Men
Sharks are in danger, especially off the coasts of Australia, Japan, South Africa, and the United States. The shark population in these areas is dwindling because of the increased popularity of the shark’s meat on the dinner table. According to Time magazine, “commercial shark catches in the U.S. jumped from less than 500 tons in 1980 to 7,144 tons in 1989.” Shark fins are used to make a soup considered a delicacy in Asia. Some restaurants charge as much as $50 (U.S.) for a bowl of the gelatinous soup. Time notes that in obtaining the fins, fishermen engage in “the cruel practice of catching sharks, slicing off their fins and tossing the maimed creatures back into the ocean to die.”
“The Lung of Humankind”
A new international organization known as Parlamento Amazónico (Amazonian Parliament) has recently been formed in South America. The members are government officials and scientists from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. The purpose of this organization is to encourage a more rational development of the Amazon region, which covers some 2.7 million square miles [7,000,000 sq km] and is the home of more than 150 million people in eight countries. The Argentine newspaper La Nación reported that the Amazonian Parliament referred to the Amazon region as “the lung of humankind.” Regarding the 150,000 square miles [400,000 sq km] of jungle that have been destroyed in recent years, spokesmen for the organization stated that “although it may be good business, the money will be of no use should the planet become uninhabitable, which will happen soon if this destruction is not halted.”