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Watching the World

DISASTERS STRIKE UNITED STATES

Two disasters devastated separate regions of the United States during September and October 1989. First, Hurricane Hugo, with 135-​mile-​per-​hour [220 km/​hr] winds, swept through the southeastern part of the United States, leaving a trail of destruction. On October 17, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale jolted the San Francisco Bay area, killing scores of people and causing damage estimated in the thousands of millions of dollars in that western section of the country. Coincidentally, during the following two days (October 18, 19), a series of earthquakes, with a magnitude of about 6 on the Richter scale, rocked northern China. At least 29 people were killed.

‘UN TO PLAY A CENTRAL ROLE’

Diplomats attending the 44th United Nations General Assembly stated that the three most important world issues crying out for a solution are debts of developing countries, drug trafficking, and environmental protection. There was broad consensus that the UN must become involved in solving them. The president of the General Assembly said that all members had “underlined the need for the United Nations to play a central role as mankind’s last hope for peace and justice.”

SMOKING BAN ON ALMOST ALL FLIGHTS

U.S. lawmakers have agreed to ban smoking on almost all domestic commercial airline flights. Every day there are about 16,000 flights within the United States. The law would allow smoking on about 20 of those flights, claimed a lobbyist for the Association of Flight Attendants. “We’ve now gotten it down to the point where we have virtually banned smoking on airplanes,” said one senator.

“AUTHORITATIVE” PARENTS BEST

“Parents who are not harshly punitive, but who set firm boundaries and stick to them, are significantly more likely to produce children who are high achievers and who get along well with others,” states U.S.News & World Report. Such parents are termed “authoritative” (“do it for this reason”), as opposed to “authoritarian” (“do it because I’m the parent”) and “permissive” (“do whatever you want”), disciplinary styles that produced children with behavioral traits that were markedly different. The studies, which spanned two decades, showed that authoritative parents were more likely to have children who were stable, contented, self-​controlled, and self-​reliant, and who were less likely to experiment with drugs. “Authoritative parents are not bossy,” says University of California psychologist Diana Baumrind, who conducted the studies. “They make it their business to know their children, how they’re doing in school and who their friends are. Their control reflects a high level of commitment to the child, and they are not afraid to confront the child.”

GREED PUSHES MANKIND TO BRINK

At a recent conference in Vancouver, Canada, Digby McLaren, president of the Royal Society of Canada, stated: “We see man as the destroyer and upsetter of our whole world.” Sponsored by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), the conference of international scientists and scholars concluded that the quest for material wealth has led mankind to the brink of destruction. Mr. McLaren added that scientific and technological advancement has triggered a preoccupation with material prosperity, to the neglect of cultural and spiritual values. The group called for mankind to set aside national, racial, and religious boundaries in order to cooperate in restoring the earth.

ELEPHANT​—NOW AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, last October, put the African elephant on its endangered species list. That action bans trade in ivory. The convention hopes that this move will stop poaching by ivory hunters. It is estimated that the population of African elephants has been cut in half during the last decade. In 1979 there were 1.3 million elephants on that continent. Now there are about 625,000.

MAN-​EATING LIONS

South Africa’s Kruger National Park is a strip of land stretching about 200 miles [320 km] along the border with Mozambique. To escape civil war, many Mozambicans have fled through the park at great risk to their lives, since the park is full of lions and other dangerous animals. Generally, lions avoid humans. However, it is suspected that the refugee movement has given lions a taste for human flesh, since they can easily overcome people who are unable to keep moving and who fall down exhausted. Recently, three people in South Africa were killed by lions, and two of these attacks occurred within the Kruger National Park. Therefore, park rangers have been instructed to track and kill all the lions that have become man-​eaters.

ADDITIONAL THREAT

Another dimension has been added to the current drug plague: destruction of the rain forests. “Driven by American and European demand for cocaine, Peruvian coca growers have chopped down large stretches of Amazon rain forest and are dumping millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into its highlands and headwaters,” notes The New York Times. According to the report, the coca growers “have invaded two national parks and two national forests, deforested most of a fragile cloud forest known as the ‘eyebrow of the jungle’ and destroyed an area estimated at well over 500,000 acres [200,000 ha] of tropical forests.” Coca leaf is now the largest crop being cultivated in the Peruvian Amazon. In their rush to grow cocaine, the farmers have abandoned their ancestral farming practices that prevented topsoil erosion.

CIVILIZED BUT DEPRESSED

Does modern civilization bring people more happiness? A recent study assembled the results of surveys from all over the world, and it showed that in a group of developed countries, depression rates have soared since World War II, in some cases even doubling. The young are often hit the hardest. On the other hand, in poorer countries with more traditional social structures, the rate of depression has grown only slightly in the same period. Why? According to The Boston Globe, the researchers in the study speculate that the trend toward city life in these advanced countries, coupled with increased mobility, have led to looser family ties and social networks. The study’s lead author concludes: “Depression seems to be the price of civilization.”

MAKING DESERTS BLOOM

In an ambitious plan to reach self-​sufficiency in food production, Saudi Arabia is making the desert bloom. Dotting the Saudi desert are hundreds of green circles, each up to 200 acres [80 ha] in size, irrigated by water pumped from far below. But the cost of turning the desert into productive land does not come cheap. The government has already spent thousands of millions of dollars on the project. “Growing wheat in Saudi Arabia is as expensive as growing melons under glass at the north pole,” says The Economist. And even though money available from petroleum production may seem unending, the water supply is not. Most of the water used comes from deep aquifers of trapped “fossil” water that is not renewable. If water consumption continues at its present rate of growth, it is feared that the aquifers may be exhausted in from 10 to 20 years.

FIRST MOSQUE IN ROME

Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist ruler of World War II days, is reported to have refused to allow a mosque to be built in Rome, saying that he would allow it only when a Roman Catholic church was permitted in Mecca. Times have changed. Not only is a mosque under construction some three and a half miles [5.5 km] northeast of the Vatican but it is described by its architects as the largest in Europe. “Even if it is not the largest, and there is a question about that, it is the most important mosque in Europe,” says Abdul Qayuum Khan, director of the Islamic Cultural Center in Rome. “The simple fact is that it is the only one located in the heart of Christianity, in the Mecca of Catholicism, you might say.” Nevertheless, the official Vatican position is said to be favorable.

HOMEGROWN MARIJUANA

Efforts to curtail the use of marijuana in the United States have more than failed​—they have backfired. The New York Times reports that although the federal budget to enforce antimarijuana laws ballooned from $526 million in 1982 to $968 million in 1988, all that money reduced neither the drug’s availability nor its use. Instead, use of extra potent, domestically grown marijuana is on the rise. In The Medical Post of Canada, Dr. Andrew Macnab warns that such homegrown marijuana can have up to 350 toxic compounds.