Watching the World
Problems With Peacekeeping
“A decade ago, UN peace missions were so highly regarded that they were collectively awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” states the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail. “Now, members of peacekeeping missions—civilians, police and soldiers—reap contempt as well as congratulations.” Why the change? “A key problem is the nature of modern conflict. Many of today’s wars are not fought by well-organized armies with clear goals and doctrine, but by factions and warlords employing teenaged soldiers for mercenary ends. They are fought for control of a state, not between states,” says the Globe. As a result, the paper adds, “instead of monitoring formal ceasefires between nations,” the United Nations peacekeeping forces “find themselves interposed between warring factions whose goals—sometimes even their leadership structures—are unclear, and whose desire for peace is suspect.”
New Credo Brings Violence to Sports
According to the French magazine L’Express, French soccer authorities handled a record 20,825 disciplinary proceedings for the 1997/98 season, and violent incidents also increased considerably in other sports. Why so much violence? According to researcher Richard Pfister, one reason is “the need to win. When money is preferred over prestige, when the result is emphasized more than the pleasure of playing, the implication is that anything goes.” Pfister says that such conduct, displayed with apparent impunity by people often viewed as role models, seems to excuse violence in the eyes of the young and encourages them to imitate it.
Pigeon Post Still Useful
The police department in the Indian state of Orissa has a sophisticated communications network, but it is still not closing down its “pigeon wing,” an 800-strong pigeon corps, reports The Indian Express. According to Mr. B. B. Panda, director general of the Orissa police, the pigeons have been a lifeline during floods and cyclones for the past 50 years and are still practical when wireless communication breaks down. When floods devastated the town of Banki in 1982, for instance, the pigeons were the only link between the town and the district headquarters of Cuttack. The first Orissa unit was started in 1946, with a Belgian breed called the homer, capable of flying up to 500 miles [800 km] nonstop at 50 to 55 miles [80-90 km] an hour. The birds, which have a life span of 15 to 20 years, are at present kept in three centers under the care of 34 constables. Mr. Panda stated: “The pigeons might appear archaic in the days of cellular phones but they continue to render yeoman service to the state.”
Children Lack Schooling
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, defined the fundamental right to education. While many commendable efforts have been made, this goal is still far from being reached. “Fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there were still more than 130 million children of primary school age who did not go to classes,” reports the German daily Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz. “This means that 20 percent of all children in the world did not get a basic education.” According to Reinhard Schlagintweit, the head of United Nations Children’s Fund, Germany, it would take about $7 billion to send all children worldwide to primary school. This is much less than the money spent in Europe each year on ice cream or the amount spent yearly in the United States on cosmetics, and it is only a fraction of the world’s arms expenditures.
Disaster-Prone Asia
“Six of the world’s 10 main disasters last year occurred in Asia, claiming 27,000 lives and costing US$38 billion,” notes the South China Morning Post. This includes devastating floods in Bangladesh and China and the Indonesian forest fires that spread haze to neighboring countries. “Asia is affected by more natural disasters than any other region in the world,” says the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. “In Asia in particular, risk reduction will become one of the major challenges of the 21st century.”
Why You Can’t Tickle Yourself
“A well-placed tickle will reduce even a grown adult to jelly. But the most hypersensitive victim can at least rest easy in the knowledge that he can’t tickle himself,” states The Economist. Why not? According to recent research, the answer lies in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that coordinates motor activity. Researchers believe that the cerebellum not only coordinates actions but is also involved in predicting the sensory consequences of them. Thus, when people try to tickle themselves, the cerebellum anticipates the sensation and suppresses it. When tickled by someone else, the stimulus and the cerebellum’s calculations do not coincide, and the sensation is not suppressed. The New York Times, in a similar article, summed it up this way: “The brain can tell which tickling sensations are caused by one’s own actions and gives them low priority, so that it can be more receptive to sensations from outside sources that may be more urgent.”
Morse Code’s Successor
The Morse code, invented in 1832, “has played an incalculable part in the development of trade and history itself,” acknowledges Roger Cohn, of the United Nations agency that regulates world shipping. It had been an international standard used by ships in distress ever since 1912, the year the Titanic signaled SOS—three dots, three dashes, three dots—says The Toronto Star. But as of February 1, 1999, a new satellite system, introduced by the International Maritime Organization, will automatically transmit a package of data to “a network of rescue co-ordination centres around the world” when a “hot key” on a shipboard satellite terminal is pressed. In addition to a vessel’s nine-digit identity number, other data sent “can include the time, ship’s position and the type of distress—unspecified, or one of 12 categories that range from fire through flooding and listing to piracy,” says the Star. It adds, nostalgically: “Morse was used to give the world some of the best news in history: It was used to broadcast the ceasefires of both World Wars.”
Health Problems Linked to Shoes
“Medical opinion suggests that one in six people have serious foot problems, which can often be linked to shoes,” reports The Toronto Star. Bad knees, sore hips, lower-back pain, and headaches may also be telling you to look at the shoes you wear. “The most important thing to remember is that shoes don’t break in, feet do,” says the Star. “Don’t buy shoes expecting them to conform to your feet. If they don’t feel comfortable in the store, don’t buy them.” Shop for shoes in the afternoon, since “feet usually swell slightly over the course of a day,” and “fit the shoe to the width of the ball of your foot, rather than fitting it to the heel.” Women have a statistically higher rate of foot problems and deformities. It is thought that this is because 90 percent of them “wear shoes that are too small and too tight for their feet” and “high heels often lead to many of the most serious foot deformities.” The paper adds: “It’s also important to remember that pain occurs after damage has already been done.”
Bible Publishing in China
“China has published more than 20 million copies of the Holy Bible in the past two decades and the Bible [has] become one of the most popular books in the country since the beginning of the 1990s,” says the Xinhua News Agency. According to Professor Feng Jinyuan, of the Institute of World Religions under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Christians in China have the right to purchase two copies. Over 20 different editions have already been published, “including English editions with Chinese translations, Chinese editions in traditional and simplified characters, editions in ethnic minority languages and in both portable and desk forms.” Additionally, a number of books containing Bible stories have been published and are expected to surpass Bible sales. “The Bible has ranked 32nd on the list of the most influential books in the country since the early 1990s,” says the article, but “generally speaking, religion exerts less influence upon the Chinese people than on the people in the West.”