Lausanne World Pulse – World Pulse Archives – World Pulse Archives

AFRICA: At a 2.7 growth rate, Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s fastest-growing population, but also the world’s highest death rate [17 per 1,000] because of AIDS. This disease has dropped the continent’s average life expectancy to 53 years. In Namibia and Sierra Leone, life expectancy is 39 years. Africans are the world’s youngest population as 45 percent are under age 15. Annually, 500,000 inherit HIV from their mothers, and 12 million become AIDS orphans. Bright spots: In the past 20 years, infant mortality has fallen from 116 to 91 per 1,000 live births, and the mortality rate of children under five years of age has fallen from 187 to 162 per 1,000. Also, 78 percent of African children attend primary schools.

BRAZIL:

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will borrow $6.1 billion over four years to improve the country’s sanitation system. Some 45 million of Brazil’s 170 million people can’t access good water. The sewage of half the country flows untreated into rivers. Fifty people die daily because of the lack of basic sanitation. Waste-related illness causes more than half of children’s hospitalizations.

CHINA:

In December authorities cracked down on unauthorized worship and destroyed churches, while at the same time promoting the commercial aspect of Christmas. Still, Christianity is growing. At a Roman Catholic cathedral in Shanghai, tickets were required to worship on Christmas Day because services were so popular. Both sanctioned and underground churches are growing as “being Christian” is fashionable. Youths wear crosses in a mild form of dissent.

INDIA: A Hindu spiritual leader, the Shankaracharya of Gobardhan Peeth, is urging Hindus to donate a rupee [two pennies] a day to a fund that aims to stop “illegal conversion.” He claims that poor, under-developed tribals are being taken advantage of and lured away from Hinduism and that conversions threaten what he calls the world’s oldest religion.

PAKISTAN:

Modern-day slavery in the form of bonded labor is still endured by those forced to work for years or even generations to pay off debts on terms they can’t repay. Poor people take out such loans in desperation by families needy for life-saving healthcare or other important purchases, such as a dowry. Buying, selling and trading bonded laborers are still common. Most live in the Thar Desert. Once indebted, the peasant becomes a prisoner of the feudal lord. Some people are born into bondage or sold into it by relatives. A 1992 law banned bonded labor and imposed fines and jail for feudal lords, but none have been found guilty.

PERU:

Peasant children able to afford schooling may reap few benefits. Classes are taught in Spanish, but indigenous children speak Quechua. In one school with 250 pupils, four of its seven old computers didn’t work and few students knew how to use them. Textbooks are scarce. Globalization is passing Latin America’s poor, who comprise 43 percent of the continent. Even peasants with high school diplomas find they’re qualified only for menial work that pays little. President Alejandro Toledo has declared a “state of emergency” for Peru’s education system.

TURKEY: People in this secular Muslim country have embraced Santa Claus—literally Noel Baba or Father Christmas—and the Western commercial aspect of the holiday in a celebration devoid of religious meaning. A Muslim public relations executive who has promoted Santa says that the jolly gift-bearer is neither Muslim nor Christian. “For me, he is first of all a symbol of goodness. But he is an industry. He makes money for us.”

UGANDA: Men who want a harem will have to have their first wife’s consent and approval of a district counsel, if a bill reforming marriage law passes. If approved, polygamists may get five years in prison. The bill, supported by President Yoweri Museveni, has created strife with traditionalist men and some Muslims who say it goes against Islamic sharia law. Museveni’s core supporters in predominately Christian Uganda are women, who like his programs that bring more women to universities and parliament. But in rural Uganda, where 80 percent of citizens live, polygamy is popular among Christians, Muslims and those who practice traditional beliefs. The bill proposes to grant women veto power on their husband’s property decisions and ban “widow inheritance,” which calls widows to wed their late husband’s brother, a practice that may spread HIV. Uganda’s justice minister, a Muslim woman, is pushing the bill that will also outlaw marital rape and guarantee women’s right to refuse sexual relations on “reasonable grounds,” such as poor health and recovery after birth or surgery.

USA: A survey of spirituality on one campus found that about three of every four students pray, consider religion personally helpful and say religious or spiritual beliefs have helped shape their identity. But just 55 percent are satisfied with opportunities they had for religious or spiritual development, and 62 percent say their professors never encourage discussing such matters. Some students who weren’t raised with religion are curious. Others seek structure and guidance that religion provides, which often draws them to more conservative practice. A leader of a major university ministry said, “Spirituality is in and religion is out.”

VIETNAM: Those with HIV/AIDS suffer ostracism in their jobs, even being fired or refused work. HIV is quickly spreading in the general population and has become a disease of the young, with almost two-thirds of cases in people ages 15 to 29. In 2003 the country recorded some 165,400 HIV cases. By next year the figure is expected to rise to 200,000.

ZIMBABWE: The country that five years ago was Africa’s breadbasket is now the world’s neediest recipient of food aid. Corn, Zimbabwe’s staple food, is scarcest of all. Many depend on emergency aid through World Vision, which distributes food through the UN World Food Program. The main reason is political. President Robert Mugabe pushed quick land reform and confiscated white-owned farms. Then he gave the land to loyal supporters, many of whom were not experienced in running huge agribusinesses.