In Brief... World News Review
Beyond Today Magazine
World News and Prophecy: August 1999
Course Content
Gloomy tidings regarding this leading killer.
WASHINGTON-AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa. In Harare, Zimbabwe, four out of 10 adults are HIV-positive. The full force of the epidemic has yet to hit, but it becomes clearer all the time that AIDS will have vast and long-term consequences for many societies. Fewer people in the West are dying of AIDS, thanks to new drug regimens, but even here the virus is not defeated. Last year in North America there were some 44,000 newly reported infections.
These are some of the gloomy tidings from Peter Piot, a Belgian physician and microbiologist who directs the U.N. program on AIDS. Last year, according to the World Health Organization, about 54 million people died. AIDS was responsible for 2.3 million of those deaths-more than malaria or tuberculosis or lung cancer.
AIDS is now among the top five killers in the world, and in many places the epidemic is still advancing. Its toll is especially high in developing countries, most of all in Africa, where the virus originated. In Botswana, children born in the next few years can expect to live, on average, to just past their 40th birthdays. Were it not for AIDS, their life expectancy would be 70. The picture of reduced life spans and orphaned children is repeated throughout much of southern and eastern Africa. Some 1.4 million Latin Americans, nearly a million North Americans and 7 million Asians also are living with HIV, and India and China may still lie ahead in the epidemic's path (The Washington Post, July 19, 1999).
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
Peter serves at the home office as Media and Communications Services operation manager.
He studied production engineering at the Swinburne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, and is a journeyman machinist. He moved to the United States to attend Ambassador College in 1980. He graduated from the Pasadena campus in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and married his college sweetheart, Terri. Peter was ordained an elder in 1992. He served as assistant pastor in the Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo, California, congregations from 1995 through 1998 and the Cincinnati, Ohio, congregations from 2010 through 2011.
Darris McNeely works at the United Church of God home office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43 years. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Darris is the Associate Media Producer for the Church. He also is a resident faculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren.
