Inside the Canadian Reader's Digest

IN THE MAY 1999 READER'S DIGEST

Afghanistan's Great Leap Backward
Not so long ago, women in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, worked alongside men, went to school, drove cars and wore what they wanted. Then, in September 1996, the Taliban arrived and immediately proclaimed a new regime. Now the Taliban's religious police -- the Department for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice -- rule the streets. Women must wear the burka, a shroud that covers them from head to foot. Women's education is banned. So are jobs outside the home, except those in all-female hospital wards. Women mustn't speak to men other than family members, and makeup and Western clothes are banned. Women caught breaking the rules are beaten -- or worse.

Cyclone in the Coral Sea
After cruising the South Pacific in their 15-metre ketch, Orca, Maggi and Robin Ansell set sail for Vancouver Island, where they planned to settle. But then, in the Coral Sea outside Australia's Great Barrier Reef, they came face-to-face with tropical cyclone Justin. Shrieking winds and mountainous seas pummelled Orca and put them on a collision course with a reef that would surely destroy them. In her dramatic first-person account, Maggi describes the couple's 53 hours of terror.

They Prey on Our Seniors
Lois Hornung, an investigator with Alberta's Municipal Affairs, is known as Tracker among shady home renovators. One in particular won't soon forget her. Howard Duke and his firm Caswell Design pressured Alberta seniors into over-priced, even unnecessary renovations, many of which were never done. It is a scam that is happening across the country. And while Hornung laid charge after charge against Duke, the contractor just paid the fines and sent his salesmen out to bilk more seniors. Finally, though, he did one shady deal too many...

The Seven Commandments of Parenting
In a recent survey, two-thirds of parents polled thought teenagers were "rude," "irresponsible," "wild" and "spoiled." More than half thought the same of children age five to 12. The problem? A lack of discipline. Learn from the experts how to keep your child from becoming a spoiled brat -- without turning your home into a boot camp.

Tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout
It all started when David Hahn, at age ten, read The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. After that, the kid who played baseball and soccer was hooked on science. By age 12 he had devoured his father's college chemistry textbooks. By 14 he'd made nitroglycerin. In Scouts, he earned a merit badge in Atomic Energy. But David had grander ambitions. Using created identities, he managed to acquire all the materials necessary to build a nuclear reactor, which he did -- in the shed in his mother's backyard. When his Geiger counter began picking up radiation five doors away, he realized he could be putting himself and others in danger. . . .

Justice for Diane
Diane Chalmers -- a plain, intellectually handicapped woman of 42 who could neither read nor write -- had disappeared from her cabin in the Bear Lake region of northern Ontario. With the help of police crime-scene experts, Const. Rick Phillips found evidence of a murder in Chalmers's cabin, including blood in the kitchen sink plumbing. Then bloody clothes were found in a plastic bag at the dump up the road. An exhaustive air and ground search of the area failed to turn up a body, but lab analysis made it clear that the various blood samples belonged to Chalmers. Meanwhile, Phillips had been talking to the locals and gathering clues that increasingly pointed to one suspect...

Wilderness Family
When Kobus Krüger was appointed ranger at South Africa's Kruger National Park, the only clues his wife, Kobie, had as to what life in the bush would be like were the stark warnings from officials. She was told of wild animals and malaria, of loneliness and the lack of amenities. But instead of hardship and difficulty, the Krüger family found their years at the remote ranger station filled with wonder and surprise. Though it was a life that continually tested their ingenuity and courage, it was perhaps as close to paradise as humans can get. Book Choice.