Watching the World

Driving-Test Rage

“Assaults, verbal and physical, against France’s 500 driving-test ‘inspectors’ have escalated 150 percent since 1994,” reports the Paris newspaper International Herald Tribune. Less than 60 percent of all applicants pass the 20-minute driving test, and nearly all candidates who have not taken an expensive driving course fail. Those who fail are increasingly venting their rage on examiners, who have been punched and dragged from the car by the hair. One examiner was even pursued by a man wielding a syringe containing, he claimed, AIDS-contaminated blood. Recently, a 23-year-old man who failed his test shot the examiner with a gun loaded with rubber bullets. To ward off all such violence, inspectors are recommending that drivers be notified of their test results by mail instead of being informed in person.

Stressed Students

Year-end school examination time brings increased stress to many children in India, reports the Asian Age newspaper of Mumbai. Cramming just before exams and the pressure to get good grades prove too much for some, and the number who visit psychiatrists doubles during the exam period. Some parents, anxious to see their children do well on exams, curtail all forms of entertainment. “Children are placed under a good deal of pressure by their parents. Also there is the competition with other students,” observes psychiatrist V. K. Mundra. He adds that many parents “don’t realise that helping the child relax will refresh his mind and help him study better.” Dr. Harish Shetty notes that exam stress “has filtered down to even the first to seventh [grade] students.”

Boars Go to Town

Wild boars, normally shy forest dwellers, have discovered that cities provide not only plenty of food but also refuge from hunters, says the German weekly Die Woche. Wild sows have even given birth in the city of Berlin. The hungry animals do not stick to forested areas or public parks. They also devastate private gardens, munching on flower bulbs. The boars, which can weigh up to 800 pounds [350 kg], have frightened many citizens, who in some cases have sought refuge in trees or telephone booths. The animals have caused countless traffic accidents. Upon coming home from work, a number of residents have encountered the bristly invaders. One person asked: “How do I manage to get in when there are 20 wild boars standing between my car and the front door?”

Teen Marriage

In India as many as 36 percent of married adolescents are between 13 and 16 years of age, according to a recent National Family Health survey. The study also found that 64 percent of girls between 17 and 19 have already borne a child or are pregnant, reports the Asian Age newspaper of Mumbai. Young mothers aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than are those aged 20 to 24, states the report. Moreover, sexually transmitted infections among youths aged 15 to 24 have doubled during the past few years. Experts blame the growing problems on a lack of knowledge and on misleading information from peers and the media about sexual matters.

Exchanging One Disease for Another

“Thirty years ago, three out of five Egyptians suffered from bilharzia, a debilitating disease caused by parasites carried by water-snails,” states The Economist. Antibilharzia campaigns using modern drugs have radically reduced the threat. However, it now appears that one of the early campaigns may “have exposed millions of people to hepatitis-C, a potentially deadly virus that may replace bilharzia as Egypt’s leading health problem.” The reason is that the needles used for the injections against bilharzia “were routinely reused, and rarely sterilised properly. . . . Scientists did not even identify the blood-borne hepatitis-C virus (HCV) until 1988,” the magazine  says. Surveys now show that Egypt has “the highest toll of hepatitis-C in the world.” About 11 million Egyptians—approximately 1 out of 6—are said to carry the disease, which develops into chronic liver disease in 70 percent of cases and proves fatal in 5 percent. Calling this “the greatest single transmission of a viral disease by doctors known to date,” the article adds: “The one consolation is that, without the mass campaigns, many more people would have been killed by bilharzia.”

Pollution Invites a Gnat Plague

Water pollution has apparently contributed to the problem of biting insects near the Chili River, which flows through Arequipa, one of Peru’s largest cities. Residents there have exhausted local supplies of insect repellent in the face of an invasion of small biting gnats. The plague, according to El Comercio newspaper of Lima, is believed to have resulted from chemical pollution of the Chili River. Toxins appear to have destroyed many of the river’s toads, which “for years maintained a natural biological control of these insects,” says the paper.

Stronger Wines

Police and alcohol-awareness groups in Britain are warning that a rise in the alcohol content of wine can cause casual drinkers to become drunk. Ten years ago, usually only special vintage or dessert wines had a 13- or 14-percent alcohol content. Now, however, wines for everyday drinking are commonly as much as 14 percent alcohol. These wines come largely from countries such as Australia, South Africa, and Chile, where warmer climates produce riper, sweeter grapes, producing a stronger wine. Reporting on this, The Sunday Times of London quotes Mary-Ann McKibben, assistant director of Alcohol Concern: “Alcohol strengths of wine are increasing, and it is becoming confusing for consumers, who are not taking the higher alcohol content into account.”

Too Clean?

According to the Institute of Environmental Medicine and Hospital Hygiene at Freiburg University, Germany, antibacterial additives in some household products may be useless or even dangerous, reports the German newspaper Westfälische Nachrichten. “None of them are necessary,” says Professor Franz Daschner, head of the institute. “Quite the opposite, the users can be harmed.” For one thing, some of such products contain substances that are highly allergenic. Bad-smelling clothes simply need to be washed, not treated with antibacterial chemicals, says the report. Daschner concludes: “Normal cleaning with environmentally sound cleaning agents is quite sufficient.”

Pressure to Conform

A government survey of 500 teenagers in England suggests that young people are “struggling under increasing pressure to conform to idealised images in advertising and the media,” reports The Guardian of London. While girls tend to cope with such stress by confiding in close friends, boys find it more difficult to communicate their feelings, with the result that many express their anger in aggressive or criminal behavior. With feelings of low self-worth and increased depression, boys are three times more likely to commit suicide than girls of the same age. On the other hand, girls are four times more likely to harm themselves intentionally or to suffer from such eating disorders as anorexia and bulimia.

Abandoned Soccer Players

“More than 90 percent of young soccer players recruited in Africa to play on French teams end up as illegal workers [without] any hope of integration into French society,” says the Paris newsmagazine Marianne. An official French government report denounced the unscrupulous recruiting agents who travel the globe in search of “golden-legged youths.” Thousands of young African boys, including about 300 under the age of 13, have been seduced by the dream of a dazzling sports career. But the vast majority do not sign any official contract with a club and wind up penniless. The magazine comments: “There are many more sad stories in the files of soccer lawyers than there is glitter.”