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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Four-year-old Niamh Herbert, of Brisbane, Qld, has staked a claim to being the youngest person ever to walk from Albany to Perth, WA. It took the tot 11 weeks to cover the 963 kilometres. She completed the trek with her two bothers, aged seven and eight, and her parents, Rocky and Leanne.
A hard-up English atheist has sold his soul on an Internet auction site. Gareth Malham, an artist, came up with the idea after he saw an episode of the television show the Simpsons in which Bart sells his soul. He got just £11.61 from a man from Oklahoma. Malham says he will sign over his soul in a legal document signed in his own blood—when he sees the money.
Researchers in Canada have found that pleasant smells, such as roses, help women feel less pain. Volunteers were asked to put their hands into very hot water and then sniff different scents. Women were found to feel pain less than men when they sniffed pleasant smells. But smells such as vinegar seemed to make the pain slightly worse. Researchers think smells could alter the brain processes of touch, pain and temperature information in women, but are unsure why men are unaffected.
A self-styled Australian prophet believes he will be the world’s last pope. He could have an uphill battle, however, as the Vatican has just outlawed him and his order. William Kamm, who administers the order of St Charbel, has a reputation for predicting disasters that never happen. The church decree comes after a four-year investigation by the Catholic Church, which has now ordered Kamm’s cult to disband and Kamm to stop associating himself with the church. Kamm has wrongly predicted natural disasters, and claims the Virgin Mary speaks to him on the 13th of each month (at 3 pm).
While unbiased statistics suggest the poor aren’t actually getting poorer, there’s no doubt the rich are getting richer and the gap between the two is widening. Up until the Enron, Worldcom and Andersons scandals hit, anyway. The world’s top 10 corporations, with a comparable market economy bracketed, based on 2001 revenues are: Wal-Mart ( Sweden), ExxonMobil ( Turkey), General Motors ( Denmark), Ford ( Poland), DaimlerChrysler ( Norway), Shell (ditto), BP (ditto), Enron (well, anyway), Mitsubishi ( Finland) and GE ( Greece).
According to the Australian Community Survey, almost 20 per cent of Australian adults find religious services to be an “important place to spend time with friends.” McIndex The Economist publishes what it calls the Big Mac Index, which compares the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac hamburger— standard fare around the world—in different countries in order to assess exchange rates. According to the index, in April, for example, the $A was 35 per cent undervalued, and should have been pulling 83 cents against the $US rather than the dismal 54 cents of the time.
Infant mortality rates have greatly improved over the past 40 years. In 1960, of every 1000 children born in developing countries 280 died before turning five. Now it’s 156. The life expectancy in developing countries is now 52.6 years and is gradually improving each year. While this is a big improvement from 1960 when it was just 43 years, it’s still a long way from the 77.8 years expected in such countries as Australia.
Pakistan ’s hardline Islamic leader and chief of the country’s main religious party Maulana Fazlur Rehman (right) greets Christian minority leader J Salik (left), after bringing him out of the cage in which Salik had voluntarily confined himself for seven months. Salik said he wished to promote peace and show solidarity with the Muslim community. Rehman requested that Salik end his voluntary confinement, which he accepted.— AAP/AFP Saeed Khan
(SIGNS was then known as the Bible Echo and Signs of the Times.)
Last year the visitors to the Melbourne Public Library numbered 697,000.
some 361,000 of those visited the reference library. Volumes to the number of
5054 were added to the library last year. the number of volumes now available
for loan to the public stand at 17,000.
Extract from Signs of the Times, September 2002.
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