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buildings and streets would
be broken. Data
communication networks of
telephone lines and
microwave installations would
be knocked out.
Within days, the economic
impact would be felt all over
the world.
Firms in other countries
could not assemble
computers because Silicon
Valley would be
technologically dead. In
northern California and San
Francisco, majar defense
contractors and the
banking industry, whose
lifeblood is dependen! on
data processing, would sil
incapacitated. Lile in the
San Francisco-Oakland Bay
area would be a
shambles-even smaller
companies could not
operate without computers.
"No bank would be able
to transfer any money if its
the Federal Republic of
Germany to alcoholic
mothers, according to a
report in the
German
Tribune.
Research shows that the
most significan! factor in
determining the likely extent
:;: of birth defects is how long
' the woman has had a
g
drinking problem. A woman
iil
who is just beginning to
Alcohol Abuse
and
abuse alcohol yet still retains
control over her intake will
probably deliver a healthy
baby. Conversely, an
alcoholic mother-to-be-one
with a constan! physical and
mental need for
alcohol-has a 50 percent
chance of giving birth to a
the Unborn
A
t leas! 2,000 mentally
and physically deformed
babies are born each year in
China, India
Enjoy
Bumper Crops
A
lter years of grain
shortages, China and
India , which together
account for nearly 40
percent of !he world's
population, are producing
more grain than they can
effectively
handle.
Liu Dongping, a deputy
director of China's
Commerce Ministry, said
China produced 407 million
tuns of grai11 in 1984, an
increase over 1983's
bumper crop of 387 million
tons. Because of the
surplus, farmers have
problems selling produce.
42
and buyers have difficulty
transporting and storing it.
Since favorable weather
and higher government
purchasing prices have
renewed farmers' output,
China has been able to
export significan! quantities
of grain. South Africa, for
example, now in its third
year of drought, purchased
20,000 tons of yellow
maize from China to
computers were down. The
West Coast banking
community would be unable
to function," says Professor
Haresh Shah of Stanford
University's Civil Engineering
Department. Simple
transactions like buying
groceries or cashing a
check could not occur
because the machines used
for these operations wouldn't
work.
During the many months
deformed child.
Of those babies affected,
90 percent will be mentally
retarded. One in three will
have cardiac defects. Others
will have deformities of the
urinary trae!, bladder and
genitals.
Though alcoholism has
long been recognized as a
serious health hazard, this
knowledge has been widely
neglected in prenatal planning
and care. lts costs to the
public are lar greater than
just unproductive citizens, as
if that weren't bad enough:
Alcohol abuse costs
generations yet unborn the
chance lo live whole, healthy
lives. •
supplement its own
domestic shortfall.
In India, grain production
has far surpassed the
nation's storage capacity of
20 million tons, according
to Rao Birendra Singh ,
Food and Civil Supplies
Minister. Bumper harvests in
the past two years have
dramatically cut the need
for food imports.
When viewed on a per
needed to get Silicon Valley
functional again, foreign
competitors would capture
new markets.
Research ·shows magnetic
disks and tapes would be
highly endangered by
earthquake shocks unless
well secured in storage
areas. Heavy jars, cracked
cases, nicks in disks or
scratches on tapes would
make much stored material
unusable.
Earthquake engineers now
propase that data
processing centers in areas
highly vulnerable to quakes
isolate each piece of
equipment from the !loor
through a set of springs or
other shock-abs.orbing
suspension. Such solutions
would be costly lo many
large computer users,
however, as they would
need to protect heavy critica!
data processing equipment
not only from up-and-down
motion, but also sliding
thrusts.
Japan is keenly working
on such isolation devices
because that nation has an
extremely high earthquake
risk. •
capita basis, India is
essentially self-sufficient in
food grains. Nevertheless, a
startling number of lndians
are chronically
malnourished. Widespread
poverty prevents millions
from being able to
purchase enough food.
8oth countries hope to
overcome the food surplus
through changes in food
management policies. For
China, this means
converting sorne grain land
over to industrial and leed
crops, and changing food
composition from food grain
to meat, milk and eggs,
according to Liu
Dongping. •
With food surpluses come
distribution problems; left,
Shanghai farm project.
The PLAIN TRUTH