51 80《经济学家》读译参考

Translated & Edited by Chen Jilong
TEXT 51
The seven-year itch

Jul 27th 2006 | MACAU
From The Economist print edition
THE army of workers operating along what used to be Macau's waterfront is conducting land reclamation[1]: dumping sand into the water
to create more land on which to build ever more casinos, resorts and hotels in the formerly Portuguese playground. Cranes and bulldozers
beaver away[2] throughout the territory, building new high-rises. Like most of China's booming conurbations[3], Macau is paying an
environmental price; the air is thick with smog and dust, and the Pearl River has transferred some of its p_______ to Macau's seas.
1But the damage pales when set against[4] the promise of growth, and billboards proudly herald the coming of the Las Vegas
of Asia.
pale
when set against beforebeside
Amid all the buzz, the music from a boat docked at the inner harbour sounds a strange note. The red-robed musicians and their audience are
Taoists engaged in a religious ceremony. As the musicians play their instruments, the believers on board burn incense and e_______ scraps
of food into the water as an offering to the gods. 2The contrast of ancient ritual with feverish modernisation is the story of modern
Macau: the story of development transforming a once-sheltered nook[5].
Macau's stunning economic boom2004 saw its GDP grow by 28%has been powered by gambling, tourism and the construction
necessary to support such endeavours. Since Stanley Ho, Macau's most famous casino mogul[6], found his monopoly on the gambling
industry broken in 2001, American firms such as Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands Corporation have stepped in to build impressive new
f_______. 3Visitors include rich and powerful Chinese, wishing to indulge in games of chance illegal on the mainland, as well
as tourists from nearby countries like South Korea and Singapore.
2004 GDP 28
2001
There has been a price. Construction firms are eager to hire immigrants from Fujian, Guangdong and even Shanghai who are willing to work
for lower wages than the local Macanese. 4The ill-will thus created was evident last May 1st, when locals (quite a few of whom
were also illegal immigrants when they first arrived) rioted. They protest that outsiders are finding jobs in the new economy while many
middle-aged Macanese remain j_______.
5 1
Ethnic tension is growing too. Macau is thoroughly cosmopolitan[6], with Nepalis, Brazilians and Filipinos working beside Portuguese and
Chinese. But the relationship between them and the newly arrived mainlanders is problematic. The mainland Chinese are rude and look

down on us, says a Nepali security guard, a sentiment echoed by many locals. And though the authorities have failed to keep mainlanders
out, foreigners who have worked there since long before the handover are finding it hard to bring their families over. My daughter won't be
joining me because it's hard to get a work p_______ now, says one Filipino, who has worked in Macau for 24 years.
24
It is not only racial harmony that is under threat. Under Portugal Macau escaped many of the depredations of the Cultural Revolution, and it
remains one of the last r_______ of traditional Chinese culture. Figurines[7] depicting the god of wealth sit outside most doors, attended
by burning sticks of incense. The temples of Tin Hau, Kum Iam and Pak Tai continue to draw the faithful, who take pride in pointing out that
their religion has survived both the rule of Portuguese Christians and the handover to atheist China. 5 Such piety[8], however, sits
uncomfortably with the gambling, the neon lights and prostitution that are forever gaining ground.
6The old order, at least, is not particularly pleased by the prospect. It used to be just a sleepy fishing village when I was a child,
recalls a middle-aged resident. We used to pump water up from hand-wells. He sighs. I have no idea what it's going to look like a year
from now.
[QUIZ]
1.
p_______n. substances that make air, water, soil etc dangerously dirty
e________v. to remove everything that is inside something
f________n. [often pl.] rooms, equipment, or services that are provided for a particular purpose
j________adj. unemployed
p_______n. an official written statement giving you the right to do something
r________n. a place or container in which large quantities of something are stored
2.
3
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. reclamation n.v. reclaim2. beaver (away) v. n.
3. conurbation n. adj. conurban
4. nook n. 5. mogul n.
6. cosmopolitan adj. n. 7. figurine n. 8. piety n.
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. pollution
a.good for the environment:environmentally friendly , eco-friendly , sustainable ,

recyclable , biodegradable , renewable , organic

b.people who want to protect the environment:
greens , eco-warriors
c.things that cause harm to the environment: pollution , greenhouse gases , global warming , acid rain
, deforestation
empty
facilities
jobless to not have a jobnot have a job/be without a job be out of work unemployed jobless be on the
dole
permit warrantlicense
repositories
2.
TEXT 52
India's deadly Maoists

Maoism Maoist
Naxalite
deadly
Jul 26th 2006 | DELHI

From Economist.com
THE single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country, is how Manmohan Singh, Indias prime minister, in April
described its Maoist rebels, known as Naxalites. Many were taken aback: a violent i_______ in Indian-administered Kashmir has
claimed tens of thousands of lives; its north-eastern states are wracked[1] by dozens of secessionist movements; and its cities have been
subject to repeated terrorist atrocitiesc_______ in this months bomb attacks in Mumbai, which killed nearly 200 people.
4
200
Compared with such well-known horrors, the Naxalite threat is low-key, insidious[2], and, to the city-dweller, largely i_______. Yet it
now affects at least 170 of Indias 602 districts: a red corridor, running from the Nepali border in the north to the state of Karnataka in the
south. It takes in some of the poorest parts of India, and in particular forests inhabited mainly by tribal peoples. In some places Naxalites
have, in effect, replaced the state, running local affairs through their own councils, and administering their own rough justice. 1The
Indian government estimates that the Naxalites, heirs to a 40-year old movement that splintered[3] and then united in 2004, now
have some 10,000 armed fighters, and a further 40,000 full-time supporters.
602 170
1 4 40 2004
They have also executed ever-larger military operations: attacking trains, arranging jail-breaks and, most recently, arranging a co-ordinated
attack on a police station, a paramilitary base and a resettlement camp for people displaced by the conflict. In one attack, on July 17th, some
800 Naxalites were involved, and more than 30 people were killedmostly h_______ to death with axes.
800 7 17 30

That came in Dantewada, a remote, forested, dirt-poor and sparsely populated district in the south of Chhattisgarh state. Dantewada has
become the main focus of the war with the Naxalites, following the e_____ in the district, a year ago, of an anti-Maoist movement, known
as Salwa Judum. This is usually translated as meaning peace march in the local language, Gondi, but is perhaps closer to purification
drive. 2Portrayed as a spontaneous response to Maoist exactions[4], Salwa Judum is nowand many say always has beenan
arm of the state, where about 5,000 local tribal people have been armed as special police officers, and pitted against[5] the
Naxalites.
5000
As part of this campaign, villages have been emptied, supposedly in order to protect the residents from the Maoists, but often, in practice, in
order to root out Maoist sympathisers. Another aim may have been to p______ the Maoists into violent retaliation, and so lose them local
support. 3The result has been a bloody local war in which at least 350 people have so far lost their lives, and nearly 50,000 are
holed up[6] in relief camps, with little prospect of being allowed back to their villages, and harbouring well-founded anxieties about
the states ability to protect them.
350
5000
A huge swathe[7] of Dantewada, where no roads penetrate the forest, remains outside the governments control. There, the Maoists are wellentrenched[8]. Nearly 60 years after independence, the Indian state has still failed to deliver to these parts even r_______ development:
roads, schools, health-care. A big iron mine in the district employs mainly outsiders and pollutes a river. It is easy to see why a crude, violent
ideology, discredited even in its homeland, might take root, and why Mr Singh might be right about the Naxalite threat. 4 Other
terrorists attack the Indian state at its strongpointsits secularism, its inclusiveness and its democracy. Naxalism attacks where it is
weakest: in delivering basic government services to those who need them most.
50
[QUIZ]
1.
i_______ n. an attempt by a group of people to take control of their government using force and violence [= rebellion]
c_______ v. to reach the highest point or degree; climax
i_______adj. cannot be seen
h_______v. to cut something roughly or violentlychop
e________n. when something begins to be known or noticed
p________v. to make someone angry, especially deliberately
r________adj. very basic and not advanced
2.
3

[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. wrack v. rack2. insidious adj. 3. splinter v.
4. exaction n. 5. pit against 6. hole up

7. swathe n. 8. entrenched adj. in
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. insurgency culminating
invisible
hack cut snip slit slash stab hack
emergence
provoke
rudimentary
2.
TEXT 53
The dream of the personal computer
PC
Jul 27th 2006
NOT many 25-year-olds can reasonably claim to have changed the world. The IBM personal computer, which was launched in 1981 and
celebrates its 25th birthday in August, is a rare e_______. Other personal computers had been launched before; but it was the IBM PC that
ended up defining the standard around which a vast new industry then coalesced[1]. IBM, the titan of the computing world at the time,
quickly lost control of its own creation, allowing others to reap the benefits. 1 But leave aside what the PC has done for the fortunes
of particular companies, and instead step back and consider what the PC has done for mankind.
25 IBM PC 1981 8
25 PC PC IBM
IBM PC
PC
The PC's most obvious achievement has been to help make computers cheaper, more widely available and more useful than ever before.
Before it appeared, different computers from different m________ were mostly incompatible with each other. 2 The PC's
architecture was not perfect, but its adoption as an industry standard made possible economies of scale in both hardware and
software. This in turn reduced prices and enabled the PC to democratise computing.
PC PC
PC
PC
It is also worth celebrating the innovation that has been unleashed[2] by the PC. Its flexible, general-purpose architecture has made it the
platform on which new technologies, from voice-over-internet calling to peer-to-peer file-sharing, have been incubated. Most important of
all, the PC has, in the past decade, turned primarily into a communications device, thanks to the rise of the internet. 3Cheap, fast global
communication, online commerce, the ability to find the answer to almost any question on the web using a search engine and the
many other wonders of the internet are all underpinned[3] by the widespread availability of inexpensive, powerful PCs.
PC
PC
PC

But although the PC has its m______, it also has its faults. 4Its flexibility has proved to be both a strength and a weakness: it
encourages innovation, but at the cost of complexity, reliability and security. And for people in the developing world, PCs are too bulky,
expensive and energy-hungry. When it comes to extending the benefits of digital technologychiefly, cheap and easy access to information
to everyone on the planet, the PC may not be the best tool for the job.
PC
PC
PC
Look on the streets of almost any city in the world, however, and you will see people clutching tiny, pocket computers, better known as
mobile phones. Already, even basic handsets have simple web-browsers, calculators and other computing functions. Mobile phones are
cheaper, simpler and more reliable than PCs, and market forcesin particular, the combination of pre-paid billing plans and microcredit
schemesare already putting them into the hands of even the world's poorest people. 5Initiatives to spread PCs in the developing
world, in contrast, rely on top-down funding from governments or aid agencies, rather than bottom-up adoption by consumers.
PC
PC
Merchants in Zambia use mobile phones for banking; farmers in Senegal use them to m_______ prices; health workers in South Africa use
them to update records while visiting patients. All kinds of firms, from giants such as Google to start-ups such as CellBazaar, are working to
bring the full benefits of the web to mobile phones. 6There is no question that the PC has democratised computing and unleashed
innovation; but it is the mobile phone that now seems most likely to carry the dream of the personal computer to its conclusion.
Google CellBazaar PC
PC
[QUIZ]
1.
e________n. something or someone that is not included in a general statement or does not follow a rule or pattern
m________n. a company that makes large quantities of goods
m________n. an advantage or good feature of something
m________v. to carefully watch and check a situation in order to see how it changes over a period of time
2.
3
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. coalesce v. into/with 2. unleash v.
3. underpin v.
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. exception manufacturersmaker producer merits monitor
2.
TEXT 54
The bird flu capital of the world

Jul 27th 2006 | JAKARTA

LAST week, Indonesia announced its 43rd human death from bird flu. It has now recorded more fatalities than any other nation, and in
stark[1] contrast to all other countries its death toll is c_______ regularly. _________________________________
43
The Indonesian government claims to be committed to fighting the disease, caused by the H5N1 virus, but it does not seem to want to spend
much of its own money doing so. 1 After the international community pledged $900m in grants and slightly more in very soft
loans to combat the spread of bird flu globally and to help nations prepare for a possible human flu pandemic[2], Indonesia put in a
request for the full $900mall of it in grants.
H5N1
9
9
A national bird-flu commission was created in March to co-ordinate the country's response but it has yet to be given a budget. Its chief,
meanwhile, has just been given a second full-time jobh_______ efforts to rebuild the part of Java devastated by an earthquake in May.
3
5
Observers say that the available money is being mis-spent, with the focus on humans rather than on animals. The agriculture ministry, for
example, is asking for less money for next year than it got this year. 2This is despite hundreds of thousands of hens dying every
month, to say nothing of infected cats, quails, pigs and ducks. Farmers are being c________ at only 2,000 rupiah (21 cents) per bird,
well below market price, thereby discouraging them from reporting outbreaks. The country's veterinary[3] surveillance services are
inadequate. Pledges to vaccinate hundreds of millions of birds have not been met.
2000 21
3The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation is starting to establish local disease-control centres to cope with the effects of a
virulent mutation, should one occur, but reckons that only one-third of the country will be covered by year's end. A bunch of
international do-gooders[4] that is trying to plug some of the gaps is finding it hard to raise money.
1/3
do-gooder
4In fairness, Indonesia has many priorities to deal with. It is contending with the a________ of earthquakes, a volcanic eruption
and a tsunamiall in the last seven weeks. More than 1,500 children die every day from treatable illnesses such as pneumonia, tuberculosis,
dengue fever and malaria. Besides, many Indonesians either do not believe the hypethey point to the SARS threat in 2003 that never
materialised[5]or say that if outsiders are so worried they should pay for the necessary measures.
priority 7

1500
2003 SARS
The UN's bird flu tsar[6], David Nabarro, is a diplomat. 5He calls the issues involved really tricky and says recrimination[7]
achieves little. It will take many, many months, he thinks, for Indonesia to get on top of bird flu. Keep your fingers crossed.
get on top of
keep sbs fingers crossed
[QUIZ]
1.
c_______v. to increase in number, amount, or level
h_______v. to be in charge of a team, government, organization etc
c________v. to pay someone money because they have suffered injury, loss, or damage
a________n. the period of time after something such as a war, storm, or accident
2.
3.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. stark adj.
2. pandemic adj.&n.
3. veterinary adj.
4. do-gooder n. someone who helps people who are in bad situations, but who is annoying because their help
is not needed - used to show disapproval
5. materialize v.
6. tsar n.czar
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. climbing increaseincrease go up/rise grow climb gain escalate pick up widen be on the
increase intensify expand build up
heading
compensate
aftermath
2.
3It looks as though things will get worse before they get better.
TEXT 55
Evolve or die

Jul 27th 2006
1 THE personal computer spawned[1] a new industry. But many of the firms that initially
flourished in the PC era are now finding life difficult. Dell, the leading PC-maker, issued a profit warning
last week that sent its share-price to a five-year low. Intel is trying to regain ground lost to AMD, its increasingly
confident competitor. Microsoft has just announced that it will buy back 8% of its shares for around $20 billion
a sign that its high-growth days are behind it.
PC PC PC

AMD
200 8%
2 But none of these firms is in mortal danger. That is more than can be said for many of the
smaller firms of a similar vintage[2] to the PC. Novell's two top executives departed in June following a
string of poor results. Silicon Graphics filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May. 3Com replaced its boss
earlier this year following lacklustre[3] performance. Borland shed one-fifth of its workforce and is preparing to
sell the best-known part of its business; this month its finance chief r_______.
PC Novell
6 5 11 3Com
Borland
All four firms are c_______ of the IBM PC, the creatures of a distant era when only around 200 institutions were
connected to the internet. 3Each had a bold vision of technology, but then failed to evolve as the
very innovations they pioneered became commonplace.
IBM 200
Novell prospered by selling networking software to link up computers and enable group-working. Yet the firm
failed to keep up with its rivals, c_______ Microsoft and IBM. It then shifted strategy and acquired an opensource software company in 2004, leaving users of its earlier products feeling neglected.
Novell IBM
2004
Silicon Graphics, founded in 1982, makes sophisticated computers for modelling things such as cars and
aeroplanes. But as PCs became more powerful, the firm was wrongfooted[4] by the shift to commoditised
hardware: its last profitable year was 1999. (The firm has kept itself afloat by selling its lavish office buildings to
Google, the technology industry's d______ today.)
1982 PC
1999 Google
Similarly, 3Com, which makes computer-networking gear, floundered[5] as such products turned into low-cost
commodities. 4 And Borland, which makes programming tools, was squeezed between industry
giants on the one hand and free software on the other.
3Com Borlan
/
5Companies that start off with a wildly successful product often fail to stay the course, explains
Jim Collins, the author of Built to Last. If you have a great idea, it creates a false sense that you are
stronger and more successful than you actually are, he says. Failure to evolve can then lead to e_______.

Longman wildly in a very uncontrolled or excited way
extremely
[QUIZ]
1.
r_______v. to officially announce that you have decided to leave your job or an organization
c_______n. someone who lived or was in a particular place at the same time as someone else
c________adv. mostly but not completely [= mainly]
d________n. used when speaking to someone you lovethe most popular person or thing in a particular group or area of activity
e________n. when a particular type of animal or plant stops existing
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. spawn v.
2. vintage n.
3. lackluster adj.
4. wrongfoot v. to surprise and embarrass someone, especially by asking a question they did not expect : Woo's
political skill and ability to wrongfoot the opposition
5. flounder v.
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. resigned to leave a job or organizationleave quit resign retire hand in your notice/resignation
/ pack/jack it in
contemporaries
chiefly the main reason for something or the main part of somethingmainly largely/chiefly
primarily/principally above all first and foremost
darling
extinction
2.
TEXT 56
Something new

Aug 3rd 2006 | BEIJING
AFTER years of prospering as the world's workshop, China now wants to be its laboratory as well. Innovation has become a national
buzzword[1], and Chinese leaders have been tossing it into their speeches since the beginning of the year, when President Hu Jintao started
an ambitious campaign to drive China's economy further up the value chain. 1True, new campaigns and catchphrases[2] are declared
by the government and the Communist Party in China all the time, and mostly end up fizzling out[3] in puddles[4] of rhetoric. But
there are signs that the government i_______ to back its innovation campaign with more than just words.
In launching their National Medium- and Long-Term Programme for Scientific and Technological Development (2006-20), Mr Hu, the
prime minister, Wen Jiabao, and other top officials have v______ to spend more on science and technology, and to insist on business
reforms. Their goal is to move China beyond its dependence on natural resources and cheap labour, and stake its place among the economies

that depend on education and information technology.
20062020
Officials say privately that the new policy emerged only after years of contentious internal debate. 2 One divide was between
nationalists, who advocated a go-it-alone approach towards developing indigenous technology, and others who were more open to
international collaboration. There were also disagreements as to whether the campaign should concentrate on scientific mega-projects or
incremental innovation.
One target is to reduce China's dependence on imported technology to 30% or less by 2020. According to Professor Fang Xin, of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences, the initiative is a matter of necessity. China must learn to innovate if it is to s_______ growth. Foreign firms, she
notes, reap more than 60% of the profits from China's high-tech exports. Other officials say that, on average, China's 20,000 large and
medium-sized enterprises undertake fewer than five new development projects and generate only two and a half new products each year.
2020 30%
60% 2
5 2.5
The plan also calls for an increase in research and development spending from its current 1.23% of GDP to 2.5% by 2020, putting China in
the same range as OECD countries' current scores. Ms Fang says banks and government departments will be told to help out with their credit,
taxation and currency-exchange policies. According to Denis Simon of the State University of New York's Levin Institute, who advises the
Chinese government on science policy, this m______ comes just in time. 3 If China doesn't do this right, he says, it risks
becoming a good 20th-century industrial economy just when it needs to figure out how to be a 21st-century knowledge-based
economy.
2020 1.23% 2.5
OECD
20 21
But to succeed, says Mr Simon, China needs to attend to other matters as well. These include an internal brain drain[5] that sees much of
the country's best talent going to work for foreign firms in China, and the country's n_______ lax[6] regime for protection of intellectualproperty rights. 4Mr Simon predicts that such protection will improve as more local businesses with an interest in the matter join
the chorus of complaints from foreigners.
5 Another huge obstacle is the nature of China's educational system, which stresses conformity and does little to foster
independent thinking. Confucian philosophy reveres the teacher above all. More innovative Western economies, according to Ms Fang,
operate under Aristotle's maxim[7]: I love my teacher Plato greatly, but I love truth more.
[QUIZ]

1.
i_______v. to have something in your mind as a plan or purpose
v_______v. to make a serious promise to yourself or someone else[=promise]
s________v. to make something continue to exist or happen for a period of time [= maintain]
m________n. something that you decide to do in order to achieve something
n________adv. famous or well-known for something bad [= infamous]
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. buzzword n. 2. catchphrase n.
3. fizzle out 4. puddle n.
5. brain drain 6. lax adj. slack7. maxim n.

[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. intends
intend to do something mean to do something be going to do something plan to do something be looking to do
something set out to do something be out to do something it is somebody's intention to do something with intent to do something
not intend to do something not mean to do something have no intention of doing something have no plans to do
something/not have any plans to do something not be serious
vowed
sustain
move
notoriously
2.
TEXT 57
The brand of me

Aug 10th 2006 | NEW YORK
WHAT'S the difference between God and Larry Ellison? asks an old software industry joke. Answer: God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison.
The boss of Oracle is hardly alone among corporate chiefs in having a reputation for being rather k________ on himself. 1Indeed,
until the bubble burst and the public turned nasty at the start of the decade, the cult of the celebrity chief executive seemed to
demand bossly narcissism[1], as evidence that a firm was being led by an all-conquering hero.
IT
Longmanthe bubble burstsa very successful or happy period of time suddenly ends
get/turn nastysuddenly start behaving in a threatening way
Narcissus met a nasty end, of course. And in recent years, boss-worship has come to be seen as bad for business. In his management
b________, Good to Great, Jim Collins argued that the truly successful bosses were not the self-proclaimed stars who adorn[2] the
covers of Forbes and Fortune, but instead self-effacing[3], thoughtful, monkish[4] sorts who lead by inspiring example.

2A statistical answer may be at hand. For the first time, a new study, It's All About Me, to be presented next week at the annual
g________ of the American Academy of Management, offers a systematic, empirical analysis of what effect narcissistic bosses have on
the firms they run. The authors, Arijit Chatterjee and Donald Hambrick, of Pennsylvania State University, examined narcissism in the upper
echelons[5] of 105 firms in the computer and software industries.
105
3To do this, they had to solve a practical problem: studies of narcissism have hitherto relied on surveying individuals personally,
something for which few chief executives are likely to have time or inclination. So the authors devised an index of narcissism using six
publicly available indicators obtainable without the co-operation of the boss. These are: the prominence of the boss's photo in the annual
report; his prominence in company press releases; the length of his Who's Who entry; the frequency of his use of the first person singular
in interviews; and the ratios of his cash and non-cash compensation to those of the firm's second-highest paid executive.
Narcissism naturally drives people to seek positions of power and influence, and because great self-esteem helps your professional advance,
say the authors, chief executives will tend on average to be more narcissistic than the general population. How does that affect a firm?
Messrs Chatterjee and Hambrick found that highly narcissistic bosses tended to make bigger changes in the use of important resources, such
as research and development, or in spending and leverage[6]; they carried out more and bigger m_______ and acquisitions; and
4their results were both more extreme (more big wins or big losses) and more volatile than those of firms run by their humbler
peers. For shareholders, that could be good or bad.
5Although (oddly) the authors are keeping their narcissism ranking secret, they have revealed that Mr Ellison did not come top.
Alas for him, that may be because the study limited itself to people who became the boss after 1991well after he took the helm. In every
respect Mr Ellison seems to be the c________ narcissistic boss, claims Mr Chatterjee. There is life in the old joke yet.
1991 1991 alas

mentioning a fact that you wish was not true
[QUIZ]
1.
k_______adj. fond of something or someone
b_______n. a popular product, especially a book, which many people buy
g________n. a meeting of a group of people
m________n. the joining together of two or more companies or organizations to form one larger one
c________adj. typical

2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. narcissism n. 2. adorn v. decorate3. self-effacing adj. modest
4. monkish adj. 5. echelon n. 6. leverage n.

[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. keen be keen on
like be into be fond of be keen on appeal to go down well
be to your liking
bestseller
gathering
meeting conference convention summit gathering
mergers
classic
a typical person or thingtypical representative archetypal classic textbook case /example
stereotype
2.
TEXT 58
A president in paradise

Aug 10th 2006 | VICTORIA
1BEST known as a destination for honeymooners in search of perfect white beaches and swaying palms, the Seychelle islands
rarely make any sort of headlines. Few tourists would even have noticed the presidential election on July 30th, in which James Michel,
leader of the Seychelles People's Progressive Front, was returned with 54% of the ballot. For Mr Michel, it was the first time he had faced the
islands' 62,000-odd[1] voters, having been promoted from vice-president two years ago by his predecessor, Albert Ren, who had ruled the
islands for 27 years since taking power in a c________ in 1977.
7 30
54 6.2
1977 27
To the casual eye, Seychelles seems both fortunate and well-governed. 2The 115 islands, most of them uninhabited, cover a mere
445 square kilometres (175 square miles) of the Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar, and enjoy several advantages over most of the
rest of Africa. The weather is never e_______. There is no malaria. The islanders have free education and health care. Their multiracial
society is pretty harmonious. With GDP at around $8,000 a head, there is almost no discernible poverty.
115
445 175
GDP 8000
But this standard of living has come at a cost: the IMF says its public debt is too high and may be unsustainable. Mr Michel's main
opposition, the Seychelles National Party, which scored 46% in the elections, claims that Seychelles, per person, is the world's most
i_______ country. 3A black market in foreign currency already exists as speculation persists that the government, unable to
meet its obligations, may be forced to devalue. Basic consumer goods sometimes run out. If, as the IMF predicts, GDP falls by over 1%

this year, Mr Michel may find his next five years in power more testing than he had hoped.
46%
meet/fulfil a obligation do something that is your duty
GDP 1%
The country needs more ways of making money. In the cold war, it was easy. 4The Seychelles played each side off against the other,
remaining a member of the Commonwealth as well as the Non-Aligned Movement and taking military aid from the Soviet Union
while leasing a satellite tracking station to the Americans. Since those streams of revenue dried up, the main Seychellois streams of
revenue have been from tourisml________ land to foreign hoteliersand from tuna[2]: the government earns about $200m a year from
selling tuna-fishing licences to Spain, France and South Korea.
play off one against another
2
5But conflict in the Middle East has brought Seychelles an unexpected bonus: Western warships stop off[3] in the islands, which
offer rest and recreation. The soldiers and sailors scuba[4]-dive, sail and drink Seybrew, the local beerand pay for it all in hard currency.
[QUIZ]
1.
c_______n. a sudden and sometimes violent attempt by citizens or the army to take control of the government
e_______adj. very great in degree
i________adj. owing money to someone
l________v. to rent buildings, cars, or equipment over a long period of time, especially for business use
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. odd adj.
2. tuna n.
3. stop off
4. scuba n.
[TIPS & BACKGROUNDS]
Seychelles
1500 92 4
905
2000 200
90
269 25
1/3

1901
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. coup coup d'tat military takeover
extreme
indebted
leasing
hire, rent, lease
1rent We rented an apartment together.
The TV is rented.rent hire hire a car
You can hire a car at the airport.
2lease If you upgrade computers regularly, it may work out cheaper
to lease them.
2.
TEXT 59
A ticket for corruption

Aug 10th 2006 | NEW YORK
THE UN needs a good smack in the face, fumed one city councillor. New York has long been fed up with the United Nations and its
diplomats. 1The city has 1,700 of them, about 1,699 too many. Their meetings cause endless traffic jams and annoying multi-car
motorcades[1]. As for their outstanding fines for traffic violations (more than $18m at the last count), these have so infuriated[2] Michael
Bloomberg, New York's mayor, that in 2002 he vowed to tow away illegally parked consular[3] vehicles. Colin Powell, then secretary of
state, had to step in to broker[4] a c_______.
1700
1800
2002 outstanding
at the last count according to the latest information about a particular situation
Can anything be done? In 2002 Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, New York's senators, added an a_______ to a foreign-aid bill that
allowed the city to recoup[5] unpaid parking tickets from foreign-aid disbursements to offending countries. But now a new weapon has been
discovered: shame. 2Two economists have found a direct correlation between the number of people who park by the city's fire
hydrants and in its loading bays[6], and the level of corruption in their home countries.
2002
A study by Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel, economists at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, gives a rare
picture of how people from different cultures perform under new cultural n_______. For instance, between 1997 and 2002 diplomats from
Chad averaged 124 unpaid parking violations; diplomats from Canada and the United Kingdom had none. The results from 146 countries
were strikingly similar to the Transparency International corruption index, which rates countries by their level of perceived sleaze[7]. In the

case of parking violations, diplomats from countries with low levels of corruption behaved well, even when they could get away with
breaking the rules. 3The culture of their home country was imported to New York, and they acted accordingly.
1997 2002 124

146
The same a_______ to high-corruption countries. 4Their diplomats became increasingly comfortable with parking where they
liked; as they spent more time in New York, their number of violations increased by 8-18%. Overall, diplomats accumulated 150,000
unpaid parking tickets during the five years under review.
8 18 15
5Yet any moral superiority New Yorkers may feel should be tempered by the behaviour of the American embassy in London.
Last year, embassy s_______ stopped paying the congestion[8] chargenow 8, or over $15for bringing cars into central London. The
growing pile of unpaid charges now stands at $716,000.
8 15 71.6
[QUIZ]
1.
c_______n. an agreement that is achieved after everyone involved accepts less than what they wanted at first, or the act of making this
agreement
a_______n. a small change, improvement, or addition that is made to a law or document, or the process of doing this
n________n. generally accepted standards of social behaviour
a________v. to have an effect on or to concern a particular person, group, or situation
s________n. the people who work for an organization
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. motorcade n.
2. infuriate v.
3. consular adj.
4. broker v.
5. recoup v. recover
6. loading bay loading dock
7. sleaze n.
8. congestion n.
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. compromise
amendment modification; adjustment
norms
applied

staff
staff workforce labour personnel
manpower
shopkeeper proprietor merchant sales assistant
salesman/saleswoman/salesperson sales staff vendor
work for be employed be on the payroll be on the staff be with
somebody employer
2.
TEXT 60
Newcomers don't like the smells

Aug 10th 2006 | GILBERT, PRESCOTT AND SCOTTSDALE
GEORGE WILLIAMS, one of Scottsdale's last remaining cowboys, has been r_______ horses and cattle on his 120 acres for 20 years.
1The cattle go to the slaughterhouse, the horses to rodeos[1]. But Mr Williams is stomping[2] mad.
20 120
His problems began last year when dishonest neighbours started to steal his cattle. Then other neighbours, most of them newcomers, took
offence at his horses roaming on their properties. Arizona is an open-range[3] state: l_______ have the right of way and there is no fine
for trespassing[4]. This has been on the law books since 1913. 2Mr Williams, who is elderly and in poor health, is angry that he has
to spend so much of his time fielding[5] complaints and retrieving stolen cattle.
the
right of way trespass
1913
Such grumbles are common in Arizona. The most recent Department of Agriculture census shows that 1,213 of Arizona's 8,507 farms closed
down between 1997 and 2002. Many cattlemen are moving out to more remote parts of the state. Arable[6] farmers are struggling, too.
Norman Knox, a respected grain farmer in Gilbert, recently learned that the owner of his rented land wants to build condos. Mr Knox is 72
and has to move. He r_______ that 50-70% of the farmland in Gilbert has been sold for development in the past two years.
1997 2002 8507
1213
72
5070
This affects not only cowboys and farmers, but small businessmen too. 3For 20 years, Gary Young, owner of Gilbert's Higley Feed,
sold range blocks and cubes to cattlemen who fed them to cattle during the droughts. But 18 months ago he switched to selling pet food
and baby chicks to new home-owners.
Higley
range open-rangeblock cube
stock
cube

Doc Lane is an executive at the Arizona Cattlemen's Association, a trade group. He says Arizona's larger ranch owners are making
d_______ profits from selling. It is the smaller players who are the victims of rising land values, higher mortgages and stiffer city council
rules. 4What happens all too often is that people move in next to a farm because they think the land pretty. But soon they start
complaining to the council. In Mr Williams's case it was the horses that annoyed them. Other newcomers don't like the noise, the pesticides
and the smell of manure.
Locals worry about the precious, dwindling cowboy culture. Arizona's tourism boards like to promote a steady interest in all things cowboy
and western[7]. Last year more British and German tourists came than usual, and many of them were looking p_______ for that.
5Arizona's Dude[8] Ranch Association fills its $350-a-night luxury ranches most of the year; roughly a third of the guests are
European.
350
6Many of the ranchers themselves see all this tourism as a cheeky[9] attempt to commercialise a real and vanishing culture. In
Prescott, estate agents promote American Ranch-style homes with posters of backlit[10] horse riders. On the other side of the street is
Whiskey Row, a famous strip of historic cowboy bars. But in Matt's Saloon on Saturday night, real cattlemen could not be found.
Farm folk like Mr Knox and Mr Williams are weighing up their options. Many will migrate to remoter places where land is cheaper and not
crowded with city people. 7Younger ones take on side-jobs as contractors and are cattlehands part-time. Older cowboys aren't
sure what to do.
The Arizona Cowboy College in Scottsdale, which trains cattlehands, conducts the school for profit but also for m________ the cowboy
culture. The six-day courses include cattle-herding, rustling[11] and ranch-survival skills. The owner, herself a rancher, says the courses are
popular, especially with retired businessmen.
[QUIZ]
1.
r_______v. to look after animals or grow plants so that they can be sold or used as food
l_______n. animals such as cows and sheep that are kept on a farm
r________v. to guess a number or amount, without calculating it exactly
d________adj. of a good enough standard or quality
p________adv. exactly the right thing
m________v. to make something continue in the same way or at the same standard as before

2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. rodeo n.
2. stomp v.
3. open range
4. trespass v.
5. field v. to answer questions, telephone calls etc, especially when there are a lot of them or the questions are difficult
6. arable adj.arable land

7. western n. 19
8. dude n.
9. cheeky adj.
10. backlight v.
11. rustle v.
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. raising
livestock
reckons
decent
good
very goodexcellent , fantastic , wonderful , great , terrific
, neat , superb , amazing , outstanding , brilliant
, impressive , fine, first-class , out of this world
of good qualityhigh quality, top quality, superior, deluxe , classy
morally good decent , virtuous , respectable , honorable , upright
, beyond reproach
precisely
maintaining continue/carry on perpetuate keep up preserve
2.
TEXT 61
How green is your Apple?

Aug 25th 2006
1DISPOSING of computers, monitors, printers and mobile phones is a large and growing environmental problem. Some 20m50m tonnes of e-waste is produced each year, most of which ends up in the developing world. According to the European Union, e-waste is
now the fastest-growing category. Last month new rules came into force in both Europe and California to oblige the industry to take
responsibility for it. In Europe the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive limits the use of many toxic materials in new
electronic products sold in the European Union. In California mobile-phone r________ must now take back and recycle old phones.
25
Many technology firms are already eliminating certain chemicals and offering recycling schemes to help their customers dispose of obsolete
equipment. Yet there is a wide variation in just how green different companies are, according to Greenpeace, an environmental l_______
group that launches a new e-waste campaign on August 25th. 2It has ranked the top mobile-phone and PC-makers based on their
progress in eliminating chemicals and in taking back and recycling products.
8 25
The RoHS rules ban products containing any more than trace amounts of lead, mercury, cadmium[1] and other hazardous substances,
including some nasty materials called brominated flame-retardants (BFRs)[2]. To do well in Greenpeace's rankings, firms must make sure
both products and production processes are free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC)[3] and some BFRs that are not on the RoHS list.
3Greenpeace also wants companies to adopt a precautionary principle and avoid chemicals if their environmental impact is
uncertain.
BFR
PVC
BFR
Although not everyone will agree with Greenpeace's methodology, its ranking still has some merit. Nokia does well: the world's biggest
handset-maker has already got rid of PVC from its products and will eliminate all BFRs from next year. But, Greenpeace g________, it is
not sufficiently precautionary in other areas. Dell, however, scores well in this regard and on recycling, but loses marks for not having
phased out PVC and BFRs yet, though it has set a deadline for doing so.
PVC
PVC
BFR
Perhaps the biggest surprise is the poor rating of Apple. 4Despite having an image steeped in California's counterculture[4], it is one
of the worst heel-draggers, says Zeina Al-Hajj of Greenpeace. The company insists that it has a strong record in recycling and has
eliminated BFRs and PVC from the main plastic parts in its products. It scores badly because it has not eliminated such chemicals altogether,
has not set time limits for doing so, does not provide a full list of regulated substances and is insufficiently precautionary for Greenpeace's
t_______. As for recycling, the 9,500 tonnes of electronics Apple says it has recycled since 1994 is puny[5] given the amount of
equipment the firm sells, says Ms Al-Hajj. Apple responds that many of its products (such as the iPod music-player) are small and light.
Greenpeace points out that Nokia also makes tiny devices, but is much better at recycling them.
BFR PVC
1994 9500
iPod
5 Alas for Apple, whatever the pros and cons of Greenpeace's ranking criteria, consumers are likely to be influenced by it
anyway. Comically, Greenpeace is now considering a plan to promote its e-waste campaign via podcastinga technology that Apple helped

to p_______.
[QUIZ]
1.
r_______n. a person or business that sells goods to customers in a shop
l_______n. an attempt to persuade a government to change a law, make a new law etc
g________v. to keep complaining in an unhappy way [= moan]
t________n. the kind of things that someone likes
p________v. to make something well known and liked
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. cadmium n.
2. brominated flame-retardants (BFRs) n.
3. polyvinyl chloride (PVC) n.
4. counterculture n.
5. puny adj.
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. retailers wholesaler
lobby
grumbles
tastes
popularize
2.
TEXT 62
China's pied piper

pied piper
pied piper
Sep 21st 2006

ON A rainy weekend this month 10,000 businessmen, hobby traders and netheads gathered in Hangzhou, a pretty Chinese city near
Shanghai, to talk about e-commerce. Most went to meet and s_______ tips with other online traders. All came to the Alifest to sit at the
feet of Jack Ma, a pixie[1]-sized, boyish 42-year-old who is the founder of Alibaba, an e-commerce firm, and is regarded as the godfather of
the internet in China. In a country where businessmen are viewed with suspicion, his popularity is unusual. 1When he was invited
recently to speak in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Mr Ma needed six bodyguards to escape a mob[2] of online traders waiting
outside to give him a hug.
9
42

6

Mr Ma's rock-star status reflects how he has enabled thousands of his countrymen to become their own bosses, build businesses and make
money. Alibaba has become the world's largest online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, Asia's most popular online auction site and,
as a result of its a________ of Yahoo! China, the 12th most popular website in the world. That combination makes Alibaba one of the few
credible challengers to the global online elite of Google, eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon.
B2B
GoogleeBay Amazon
Alibaba is far from being just a Chinese knock-off[3] of these American giants. Indeed, they have borrowed ideas from him. Jack is not just
a Chinese v_______, but a global one. Western companies are taking pages from the Alibaba book, says Bob Peck, an analyst at Bear
Stearns. At Alibaba's heart sit two B2B websites (alibaba.com and china.alibaba.com), one a marketplace for firms from across the world to
trade in English, the other a domestic Chinese service. Rival e-commerce outfits, such as America's Ariba and Commerce One, sought to cut
multinationals' procurement[4] costs. 2In contrast, Alibaba's intention was to build markets for China's vast number of small and
medium-sized enterprises, which make everything from cufflinks[5] to motorcycles, by allowing them to trade with each other and
linking them to global supply chains. Today, traders in America buy from Alibaba and resell on eBay.
Bear Sterns
B2B alibaba.com china.alibaba.com

Ariba Commerce One
eBay
Mr Ma has also led the charge into online communities and social networking, both now booming areas. In 2003 he added a consumer
auction site, Taobao, that allowed instant-messaginga feature later added to his business sites. In contrast with eBay's relative anonymity,
Taobao lets buyers and sellers get chummy[6] through messaging and voicemail, and by posting photographs and personal details on the
site. Turning e-commerce into a community of friends has been critical in a country beset by a lack of trust. And with 70% of China's web
users aged under 30, Taobao's informal, blog-like format struck a chord[7]attracting more than 20m users. Many have now gone
professional, buying goods w________ on Alibaba and reselling them on Taobao. 3 The story goes that, shortly after visiting
Alibaba's offices and seeing Taobao, Meg Whitman, eBay's boss, bought Skype, an internet-telephony start-up, for its instantmessaging.
2003
eBay
7030
2
eBay
Skype
Alibaba has also outflanked[8] the opposition in online payments. Aware that most Chinese do not have credit cards, Mr Ma introduced
AliPay, a system that keeps cash in escrow[9] until goods arrive. That trick for getting round settlement risk was later adopted in China by
eBay. 3China's powerful banking regulator has a hawkish eye on AliPay, which is, in effect, an online bank with thousands of
credit histories (something mainland banks crave). Taobao's success has been startling. Its market share jumped from 8% to 59% between
2003 and 2005, while eBay China's slid from 79% to 36%. Mr Ma trumpets that it is game over for eBay China. Many industry watchers
expect eBay to retreat and sell out to a local outfit such as Tencent (a rising star in auctions) or Alibaba itselfas Yahoo! China did.
Alipay

eBay
Alipay Alipay
2003 2005 8 59 eBay 79
36%eBay eBay
Mr Ma is also at the forefront of the trend to integrate paid search with e-commerce. Alibaba's takeover of Yahoo! China last October gave
the firm a search engine just as Google was demonstrating the huge potential of paid search, and the deal a________ eBay's link-ups with
portals (Yahoo! in America, and Google elsewhere). Baidu, China's main search engine, is a strong rival. But online advertising is surging in
China and small firms are the biggest users of paid search, giving Alibaba an edge.
Google
Google eBay
Mr Ma seldom mentions technology. Whereas most internet e________ are geeks[10] (think of Yahoo!'s or Google's founders), Mr Ma
first touched a computer in 1995 on a trip to Seattle. Someone as dumb as me should be able to use technology, he says. He insists on
simplicity. A new feature is rejected unless he can understand and use it. Mr Ma's approach to running the company is similarly independent.
4He reads neither business books nor case studies, and ascribes Alibaba's survival and success to the fact that he knew nothing
about technology, we didn't have a plan and we didn't have any money. In truth, Mr Ma had powerful backers early on, including
Goldman Sachs and Softbank. Yahoo!'s Jerry Yangwho joined Mr Ma at the Alifestis also a longtime friend. In any case, he has money
aplenty today: as part of its takeover by Alibaba, Yahoo! paid $1 billion for a 40% stake in the company.
Google 1995
Softbank
10 40
5Only one thing is missing: profits. As the boss of a private company in no rush to join the stockmarket, Mr Ma is relaxed. Revenues
should double to more than $200m this year. But Alibaba has so far pursued market share rather than revenue. The global business site
charges its users, but Taobao does not; an attempt to do so this year failed. Mr Ma says it is too early: only 30m of China's 120m online users
have bought anything online. He wants to help the market growcreating 1m jobs in China in the next three yearsnot stifle it with
charges. He will have to t________ profitability if he is really to call the tune[11].
2
1.2 3
100
[QUIZ]
1.
s_______v. to give something to someone and get something in return [= exchange]
a_______n. the act of getting land, power, money etc
v________n. someone who has clear ideas and strong feelings about the way something should be in the future
w________ n. the business of selling goods in large quantities at low prices to other businesses, rather than to the general

public
a________v. to do something before someone else
e________n. someone who starts a new business or arranges business deals in order to make money, often in a way that involves
financial risks
t________v. to try to deal with a difficult problem
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. pixie n.
2. mob n.
3. knock-off n.
4. procurement n. v. procure
5. cufflink n.
6. chummy adj.friendly
7. struck a chord touch a chord with somebody to do or say something that people feel is
familiar or true
8. outflank v.
9. escrow n. a property to be held in escrow
10. geek n. techieLongman someone who is not
popular because they wear unfashionable clothes, do not know how to behave in social situations, or do strange
things [= nerd]
11. call the tune to be in a position of authority so that you can give orders and make decisions
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. swap
acquisition
visionary
wholesale
anticipated
entrepreneurs
tackle
2.TEXT 63
Sickening spinach

Sep 21st 2006 | PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA
A SMALL card sits above an empty shelf in the Whole Foods store in Petaluma, California. Consumers are advised NOT to eat fresh
bagged spinach at this time. 1As a precaution, Whole Foods Market has temporarily removed ALL fresh spinach and fresh salad
mixes containing spinach from its stores.
On September 14th the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta issued the first of several daily alerts concerning an outbreak
of E. coli 0157:H7, a potentially lethal pathogen typically associated with adulterated[1] beef. Investigators had traced it to consumption of
fresh r_______ spinach sold in bags. 2A few days later, an investigation conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

had narrowed down the culprits to a California-based grower, Natural Selection Foods, and at least one of its distributors. So far, a
77-year-old woman in Wisconsin has died from eating spinach traced back to Natural Selection, and 146 people in 23 states are ill, some very
seriously. Half of the victims have been hospitalised, a high rate that may indicate an especially virulent strain of E. coli.
9 14 O157:H7 O157:H7
FDA
77 23
146
Investigators continue to search for the cause of the outbreak. 3They have scoured the company's processing plant as well as the
farms that grow the spinach, looking at everything from irrigation water to the proximity[2] of livestock, with no sure connections
made so far. The fact that Natural Selection is in California's Salinas Valley has raised alarms, however. According to the FDA, fresh
produce from the valley, including spinach, has been the s________ of nine E. coli outbreaks since 1995.
FDA 1995 9
Moreover Natural Selection, which supplies several supermarket c_______ across the United States with conventionally produced fresh
spinach, is also the nation's largest grower and shipper of certified organic produce, under its Earthbound Farm brand. 4 If organic
spinach becomes implicated, the financial consequences for the organic sector of the fresh produce market, which prides itself on its
purity, could be severe.
Earthbound Farm
5But with the FDA advising consumers not to eat fresh spinach from any source until further notice, the outbreak could ruin
California's whole spinach industry. The state grows about three-quarters of the American crop. In recent years the market for fresh
spinach has benefited hugely from what one producers' spokesman calls a great health profile. In 2005, per capita consumption[3] in
America was f________ at 2.2 pounds (one kilogram), up from just 0.6 pounds ten years ago. That total isn't likely to increase again for a
while.
FDA
1995 0.6 2005 2.2 1
[QUIZ]
1.
r_______adj. not cooked
s_______n. a thing, place, activity etc that you get something from
c________n. a number of shops, hotels, cinemas etc owned or managed by the same company or person
f________ v. to make a statement saying what is likely to happen in the future, based on the information that you have now [=
predict]
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. adulterate v.
2. proximity n.

3. per capita consumption
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. raw undercooked
source
chains
forecast =foretellprophesy, second-guess
2.
TEXT 64
Testament of youth

Sep 21st 2006
Political parties start talking to an elusive constituency
MOST marketing operations pay close attention to what young people are buying and thinking. Not Britain's political parties, however, for
the simple reason that the under-30s are unlikely to go anywhere near a p______ booth. In 1964, 11% of those aged 18 to 24 claimed not
to vote, according to the British Election Study. At the general election last year that figure rose to 55%. 1 A report this week by
Reform, a think-tank, suggests that this reticence[1] is costing them dearly. Changes in government policy, it argues, have turned
being young into a terrible bore.
30 1964 11 18 24
55
2 There are already two powerful economic forces working against the so-called IPOD generation that are beyond the
government's control. First, the ageing of the population is fast increasing the ratio of people in r_______ to those of working age. So the
young can look forward to handing over a rising proportion of their pay to support the oldies in their decline. Second, the cost of buying a
house in places where people want to live has shot up beyond the reach of the young. In 1995 24% of all first-time homebuyers were under
25; today, less than 15% are, according to the Halifax, a bank.
IPOD
Halifax 1995 24 25 15
This much is uncontroversial. But the report also argues that the Labour government has made life worse for young people, in three ways.
First, increased spending on health care has tended to benefit the old, who use the NHS[2] more than the young. Second, tilting the tax and
benefit system towards people with children has transferred money from the young to the middle-aged. Third, higher t_______ fees are
landing university graduates with hefty debts. 3 And the future doesn't look much better: the government's proposed pension
reforms, along with the decline of defined-benefit company-pension schemes, make grim reading for the under-30s too.
30
These changes ought to have brought about a re-examination of the burden of taxation on this age group, says Nick Bosanquet of

Imperial College London, one of the authors of the report. He reckons that, after paying various taxmen and lenders, graduates take home
only around half of their salaries. The average for all salaried workers is about three-fifths.
Are things really that bad? When examined in a freeze-frame[3], being young does not look much fun financially. But welfare states are
meant to transfer resources from the vigorous to the f_______. Some benefits are merely deferred: today's 25-year-olds will have babies
and hip[4] replacements one day. 4And although people in their 20s and 30s tend to be heavily indebted this passes when they sink
into their 40s and 50s, says Richard Disney of Nottingham University.
25
Even so, the feeling that young people are being s_______ presents a political opportunity for the opposition parties. David Willetts, the
Conservative shadow education secretary, said in a speech last year that 5the young could be forgiven for believing that the way in
which economic and social policy is now conducted is little less than a conspiracy by the middle-aged against them. The Liberal
Democrat commission on tax policy worried in August about inter-generational unfairness too.

8
There will be more of such talk. For the Tories[5], it offers a way to discuss reducing spending without sounding as if they are merely the
mouthpiece[6] of the wealthy. It gives Lib Dem leaders a way to argue activists out of promising to out-spend Labour. And it might even
persuade some of those gloomy 25-year-olds to vote.
[QUIZ]
1.
p_______n. when people vote in a political election
r_______n. the period after you have stopped work
t________n. the money you pay for being taught
f________adj. a weak physical condition because of illness
s________v. to strictly limit the amount of money that is available to a company or organization
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. reticent adj. unwilling to talk about what you feel or what you know [= reserved]
reticence n.
2. NHS National Health Service
3. freeze-frame n. when you stop the action on a video at one particular place
4. hip adj. doing things or done according to the latest fashion [= cool]
5. Tory

6. mouthpiece n. a person, newspaper etc that expresses the opinions of a government or a political
organization
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. polling
retirement
tuition
fragile frailfeeble
squeezed
2.
TEXT 65
The horror

Oct 5th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
1 TO JOURNALISTS, three of anything makes a trend. So after three school shootings in six days, speculation about an
epidemic of violence in American classrooms was inevitable, and wrong. Violence in schools has fallen by half since the mid-1990s;
children are more than 100 times more likely to be murdered outside the school walls than within them.
6 3
100
Of course, that average is not wholly comforting. Most children who are murdered are murdered by someone they know. But most parents
know with certainty that neither they nor their friends or relations are killers, so their worries f_______ on strangers. 2Their fears
are inevitably stoked[1] by the breathless coverage of school shootings.
On September 27th a 53-year-old petty criminal, Duane Morrison, walked into a school in Bailey, Colorado, with two guns. He took six girls
h_______, preferring the blondes, molested[2] some of them, and killed one before committing suicide as police stormed[3] the room.
9 27 53 6
On September 29th a boy brought two guns into his school in Cazenovia, Wisconsin. Prosecutors say that 15-year-old Eric Hainstock may
have planned to kill several people. But staff acted quickly when they saw him with a shotgun, calling the police and putting the school into
lock-down. The head teacher, who c_______ him in a corridor, was the only one killed.
9 29 15
And on October 2nd a 32-year-old milk-truck driver, Charles Roberts, entered a one-room Amish[4] school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.
His suicide notes mentioned recurring dreams of molesting children, but it is unclear whether he did so. He lined the girls up, tied their feet
and, after an hour, shot them, killing at least five. He killed himself as police broke into the classroom.
10 2 32

5
What to make of such horrors? Some experts see the Colorado and Pennsylvania cases as an extreme m_______ of a culture of violence
against women. Both killers appeared to have a sexual motive, and both let all the boys in the classroom go free. 3But it is hard to
extrapolate[5] from such unusual examples, and one must note that violence against women is less than half what it was in 1995.
1995
Other experts see all three cases as symptomatic of a change in the way men commit suicide. Helen Smith, a forensic[6] psychologist, told a
radio audience men are deciding to take their lives, and they're not going alone anymore. They're taking people down with them. True, but
not very often.
Gun-control enthusiasts think school massacres show the need for tighter restrictions. It is too easy, they say, for criminals such as Mr
Morrison and j_______ such as Mr Hainstock to obtain guns. 4 Gun enthusiasts draw the opposite conclusion: that if more
teachers carried concealed handguns, they could shoot potential child-killers before they kill.
George Bush has now called for a conference on school violence. Will it unearth anything new, or valuable? After the Columbine massacre in
1999, the FBI produced a report on school shooters. 5It concluded that it was impossible to draw up a useful profile of a potential
shooter because a great many adolescents who will never commit violent acts will show some of the behaviours on any checklist[7]
of warning signs.
1999
[QUIZ]
1.
f_______v. to give special attention to one particular person or thing
h_______n. someone who is kept as a prisoner by an enemy so that the other side will do what the enemy demands
c________v. to face someone in a threatening way, as though you are going to attack them
m________n. a very clear sign that a particular situation or feeling exists
j________v. young people who are not yet adults
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. stoke v. (stoke fear/anger/envy etc) to cause something to increase
2. molest v. to attack or harm someone, especially a child, by touching them in a sexual way or by trying to
have sex with them [= abuse]
3. storm v.

4. Amish 17
5. extrapolate v. to use facts about the present or about one thing or group to make a guess about the future
or about other things or groups
6. forensic adj. relating to the scientific methods used for finding out about a crime
7. checklist n. a list that helps you by reminding you of the things you need to do or get for a particular job or
activity
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. focus on
hostage
confronted
manifestation
juveniles
2.
TEXT 66
A natural choice

Oct 12th 2006
BORN in the trough[1] of the Great Depression, Edmund Phelps, a professor at Columbia University who this week won the Nobel prize for
economics, has spent much of his intellectual life studying slumps of a different kind. The Depression, which cost both of his parents their
jobs, was exacerbated[2] by the monetary authorities, who kept too tight a grip on the money supply. 1Mr Phelps is interested in
unemployment that even open-handed central bankers cannot cure.
Most scholars stand on the shoulders of giants. But Mr Phelps won his laurels[3] in part for kicking the feet from under his intellectual
forerunners. In 1958 William Phillips, of the London School of Economics, showed that for much of the previous hundred years,
unemployment was low in Britain when wage inflation was high, and high when inflation was low. Economists were quicktoo quickto
conclude that policymakers therefore faced a grand, macroeconomic trade-off, embodied in the so-called Phillips curve. 2They could
settle for unemployment of, say, 6% and an inflation rate of 1%as prevailed in America at the start of the 1960sor they could
quicken the economy, cutting unemployment by a couple of percentage points at the expense of inflation of 3% or sowhich is
roughly how things stood in America when Mr Phelps published his first paper on the subject in 1967.
1958
6 120 60
3% 21967
In such a tight labour market, companies appease workers by offering higher wages. They then pass on the cost in the form of dearer prices,
cheating workers of a higher real wage. Thus policymakers can engineer lower unemployment only through deception. But man is a
thinking, expectant being, as Mr Phelps has put it. Eventually workers will cotton on[4], demanding still higher wages to offset the rising
cost of living. 3They can be duped[5] for as long as inflation stays one step ahead of their rising expectations of what it will be.
The stable trade-off depicted by the Phillips curve is thus a dangerous mirage. The economy will recover its equilibrium only when workers'
expectations are fulfilled, prices turn out as anticipated, and they no longer sell their labour under false pretences. But equilibrium does not,
sadly, imply full employment. Mr Phelps argued that inflation will not settle until unemployment rises to its natural rate, leaving some
workers mouldering[6] on the shelf. 4 Given economists' almost theological commitment to the notion that markets clear, the
presence of unemployment in the world requires a theodicy[7] to explain it. Mr Phelps is willing to entertain several. But in much of his
work he contends that unemployment is necessary to cow workers, ensuring their loyalty to the company and their diligence on the job, at a
wage the company can afford to pay.
Natural does not mean optimal. Nor, Mr Phelps has written, does it mean a pristine element of nature not susceptible to intervention by
man. Natural simply means impervious to central bankers' efforts to change it, however much money they print.
5Economists, including some of his own students, commonly take this natural rate to be slow-moving, if not constant, and devote
a great deal of effort to estimating it. Mr Phelps, by contrast, has been more anxious to explain its fluctuations, and to recommend
measures to lower it. His book Structural Slumps, published in 1994, is an ambitious attempt to provide a general theory of how the
natural rate of unemployment evolves. Some of the factors that he considered importantunemployment benefits or payroll taxes, for
exampleare widely accepted parts of the story. Others are more idiosyncratic[8]. He and his French collaborator, Jean-Paul Fitoussi, have,
for example, blamed Europe's mounting unemployment in the 1980s in part on Ronald Reagan's budget deficits, which were expansionary at
home, but squeezed employment in the rest of the world.
1994
20 80
A few years ago David Warsh, an economic journalist, lamented that the glare of the Nobel prize left other equally deserving economists,
such as Mr Phelps, languishing in the half-lit penumbra[9] of the shortlist. 6 This week, after an unaccountably long lag,
professional acclaim for this bold, purposeful theorist finally converged on its natural rate.
[QUIZ]

[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. trough n.
2. exacerbate v.
3. laurel n.
4. cotton on
5. dupe v.
6. moulder v.(molder)
7. theodicy n.
8. idiosyncratic adj.
9. penumbra n.
TEXT 67
Danger zone

Oct 5th 2006
It began moderately, but has risen too far, too fast and now threatens jobs
1SO FIRMLY entrenched in the political economy has the minimum wage become that its latest increase, on October 1st, to
5.35 ($10.08) an hour, caused little stir. Yet the i________ of a national pay floor in 1999 was one of New Labour's most radical
economic policies. Although minimum wage rates had previously covered a few industries, this was the first time that a general rate had been
set.
10 1 5.35 10.08
1999
During the 1997 election campaign the Conservatives said that the policy would destroy jobs. Some economists calculated that hundreds of
thousands of people might be put out of work. 2These dire warnings proved way off the mark after the national minimum wage
came into force seven years ago. The feared job losses did not materialise.
1997 7
way off the mark=inaccurate
However, that benign o________ had much to do with the cautious approach the government, advised by the Low Pay Commission, at
first adopted. In April 1999 the main ratefor workers aged 22 or overwas set quite low, at 3.60 an hour. Eighteen months later, the rate
edged up to 3.70. At this level it was worth only 36% of average hourly earnings for all employees. Furthermore, workers aged 18 to 21 had
a separate, lower rate, which began at 3 in 1999 and was raised to 3.20 in October 2000.
1999 4 22
3.60 18 3.70
3618 21 1999 3 2000 10
3.20
The modest starting point for the minimum wage meant that it affected relatively few workers. The commission initially thought that it would
raise the pay of around 2m workers but in practice only about a million gained. This limited any possible loss of jobs.
200
100

3After the initial period of caution, however, the government got bolder. This month's increase pushed the main rate up by 6%,
comfortably ahead of average earnings which went up by 4.4% in the past year. Since 1999 the minimum wage has risen by 49%,
outstripping[1] average earnings which increased by 32% in the past seven years. As a result, it is now worth 41% of average hourly
earnings.
6
4.41999 49
7 32 41
4This trajectory[2] contrasts sharply with what has happened in America. The federal minimum wage has stayed at $5.15 since
September 1997. At this level, it is worth 27% of average hourly wages for all employees other than those working in agriculture or for the
federal governmentfar stingier[3] than Britain's rate.
1997 9 5.15
27
The commission accepts that the period when the minimum wage rose faster than average earnings is over. The worry, however, is that it has
already risen to a level that will hurt employment. The Confederation of British Industry said on September 24th that businesses in several
parts of the economy, such as retailing, were struggling to cope with the minimum wage. A few days later the British Chambers of
Commerce (BCC) added that the latest increase would have serious i________ for firms. David Kern, who advises the BCC, says:
There is now a distinct risk that the minimum wage will have an adverse effect on jobs.
9
24
Whether employment will necessarily take a big knock is uncertain. M________ economic theory suggests that a minimum wage set too
high will cost jobs. 5 However, the evidence from other countries has been quite mixed. Some studies find no impact on
employment whereas others find the jobs do indeed disappear, especially among young people.
In a recent a________ of employment policies in the world's developed economies, the OECD said that a moderate minimum wage
generally is not a problem. Britain's experience in the first few years of the policy bears out[4] that judgment. 6 But more recent
increases have pushed the rate up to a level where it may inflict damage.
OECD
[QUIZ]
1.
i_______n. the act of bringing something into use for the first time
o_______n. the final result
i________n. a possible future effect or result of an action, event, decision
m________adj. accepted by or involving most people in a society
a________n. a statement or opinion judging the worth, value, or condition of something
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)

1. outstrip v. to be greater in quantity than something else
2. trajectory n.
3. stingy adj.
4. bear out
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. introduction
acquisition
implications
Mainstream
appraisal
2.
TEXT 68
High risk, high reward

Oct 12th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
Reuters
A frying pan, a pair of sneakers and some amoxycillin please
THESE are tough times for Wal-Mart, America's biggest retailer. 1Long accused of wrecking small-town America and condemned
for the stinginess of its pay, the company has lately come under fire for its meanness over employees' health-care benefits. The charge
is arguably unfair: the firm's health coverage, while a_______ less extensive than the average for big companies, is on a par with[1] other
retailers'. But bad publicity, coupled with rising costs, has stirred the Bentonville giant to action. Wal-Mart is making changes that should
shift the ground in America's health-care debate.
Always Low Prices
Bentonville
One strategy is to slash the prices of many generic, or out-of-patent, prescription drugs. Wal-Mart recently announced that its Florida stores
would sell a list of some 300 generic drugs at $4 for a month's supply; other states will follow. That is above cost but far less than the prices
charged by many pharmacy chains, which get profits from fat m________ on generics.
300
4
Wal-Mart's critics dismiss the move as a publicity s________. The list of drugs includes only 143 different medicines and excludes many
popular generics. True, but short-sighted. Wal-Mart has transformed retailing by using its size to squeeze suppliers and passing the gains on
to consumers. It could do the same with drugs. Target, another big retailer, has already announced that it will match the new pricing. 2A
Wal-Mart effect in drugs will not solve America's health-costs problem: generics account for only a small share of drug costs,

which in turn make up only 10% of overall health spending. But it would help.
143
10
The firm's other initiative is more controversial. Wal-Mart is joining the small but fast-growing group of employers who are controlling costs
by shifting to health insurance with high deductibles[2].
From January 1st new Wal-Mart employees will only be offered insurance with very low premiums (as little as $11 a month for an
individual) but rather high deductibles (excesses): an individual must pay at least the first $1,000 of annual health-care expenses, and on a
family plan, the first $3,000. Unusually, Wal-Mart's plan includes three doctor visits and three prescription drugs before the big deductible
kicks in[3]. 3Since most employees go to the doctor less often than that, the company argues, they will be better off because of
the lower premiums. That may be true for the healthy, say critics; sicker workers will see their health costs s_______.
1 1 11
1000 3000
3 3
3
This debate, writ large[4], is the biggest controversy in American health care today. The Bush administration has been pushing highdeductible plans as the best route to controlling health costs and has encouraged them, with tax-breaks for health-saving accounts. The logic
is a________. 4Higher deductibles encourage consumers to become price-conscious for routine care, while insurance kicks in
for catastrophic expenses.
HSV
Early evidence suggests these plans do help firms control the cost of health insurance. But critics say that the savings are misleading.
5They argue that the plans shift costs to sicker workers, discourage preventative care and will anyway do little to control overall
health spending, since most of the $2 trillion (a sixth of its entire GDP) that America spends on health care each year goes to people
with multiple chronic diseases.
20
GDP 1/6
For the moment, relatively few Americans are covered by these consumer-directed plans. But they are becoming increasingly popular,
especially among firms employing low-skilled workers. And now America's biggest employer has joined the high-deductible trend. That is
bound to have an impact.
[QUIZ]
1.

a_______adv. used when you are admitting that something is true
m_______n. the difference between what it costs a business to buy or produce something and what they sell it for
s________n. something that is done to attract people's attention, especially in advertising or politics
s________v. to increase quickly to a high level
a________adj. attractive or interesting
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. on a par with
2. deductible adj.
3. kick in
4. writ large
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. admittedly
margins
stunt
soar spiral
appealing
2.
TEXT 69
A predictable crisis

Oct 12th 2006
JOHN REID became home secretary because of a prison s_________. His predecessor, Charles Clarke, was forced to resign in May after
admitting that some 1,000 foreign prisoners who ought to have been considered for deportation had been freed. 1This week Mr Reid
faced a prison crisis of his own, made worse by new figures showing that offenders released early from jail on electronic tags have
committed more than 1,000 serious crimes.
5 1000
In theory, the jails of England and Wales can a_________ just over 80,000 people. By October 6th they were just 210 short of that limit.
The obvious remediescramming two people into cells built for one, letting more prisoners out on probation and moving convicts far from
their familieshave already been taken. So, last-ditch[1] measures were put in place this week. Some 500 police cells will be used for
prisoners. 2Foreign convicts' appeals against deportation will no longer be contested, in order to liberate their beds. Others will
be paid to go home.
8 10 6 210
2
500
This is one of history's less surprising crises. 3By the late 1990s Home Office statisticians were not only predicting a rapid rise in

prisoner numbers, but also erring[2] on the side of pessimism. Eight years ago, when the prison population was just above 65,000, the
department predicted that it would rise to 83,000 by 2005. In 2002 the statisticians' forecasts were also too pessimistic. Yet the politicians still
appear to have been caught by surprise.
20 90
8 6.5 2005 8.3 2002
One reason the prisons are full is that there are more police officers141,000, compared with 122,000 in 2000. 4They can now go
after crimes that are hard to crack but attract long sentences, such as drug-trafficking. The number of people in prison for drug
offences has trebled since 1994. And, while the overall crime rate in England and Wales is improving, it may be that some criminals are
worse. Cindy Barnett, a London magistrate, reckons the d_______ she sees are more violent and have graver drug problems these days.
That helps to explain why magistrates sent 27% of robbers straight to prison in 2004up from just 10% in 1993.
2000 12.2 14.1
1994 3
2004 271993 10
In the past few years, the Home Office has prodded[3] judges and magistrates to punish serious, violent offenders more heavily, while
encouraging them to go easier on petty thieves. The former has certainly happened: the number of life sentences has more than doubled since
the early 1990s. The latter has not. Populist politicians forgot that judges tend to have f_______ ideas about the relative seriousness of
offences. 5Force them to increase sentences for murder, and they will also hand out longer terms to armed robbers.
20 90
Finally, there is media pressure. T_______ newspapers such as the Sun and the Daily Mail hound[4] judges who pass, or even seek to
justify, lenient sentences. This week the Sun accused one wig of living in an ivory tower. Because most people's experience of the
criminal-justice system is rare and intermittent, such coverage strongly influences the public mood. 6Ivory towers notwithstanding, it
also stings judges. Penny Darbyshire, an academic who has been following wigs for several years, says they pore over[5] press coverage.
And many of them have wives who read the Daily Mail, she says.
[QUIZ]
1.
s_______n. an event in which someone, especially someone important, behaves in a bad way that shocks people
a_______v. to have enough space for a particular number of people or things
d________n. the person in a court of law who has been accused
of doing something illegal
f________adj. very definite

t________n. a newspaper that has small pages, a lot of photographs, and stories mainly about sex, famous people etc rather than
serious news

2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. last-ditch adj.
2. err v. on the side of
3. prod v.
4. hound v.
5. pore over
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. scandal
accommodate
defendants
fixed
Tabloid
2.
TEXT 70
Comeback man

Oct 12th 2006
THE true critic, Vladimir Nabokov once o_______, reads not with his brain but with his backbone. He waits for the tell-tale tingle down
the spine which alerts him to good writing. After more than a decade messing about writing some fine essays and autobiography mixed in
with poor fiction and some questionable history, 1Martin Amis has suddenlyand unexpectedly, even to his publishersturned in
a work of real worth, a novel that not so much makes the spine tingle as the heart race at its passion and richness.
The enemies of the people whom the Soviet authorities sent to camps in the gulag[1] were, on rare occasions, permitted conjugal[2] visits.
2 Valiant women would travel huge distances, the jacket sleeve says, sometimes for weeks or even months, in the hope of
spending a night deux[3] in the House of Meetings. Written as a deathbed letter to a well-fed daughter now living in the West, House of
Meetings tells the taleand tragic consequencesof one such e________.
Two brothers fall in love with the same girl, Zoya, a 19-year-old Jewess, in a Moscow that is readying for a pogrom[4] some time between
the second world war and the death of Stalin. She marries Lev, the younger. My little brother came to the camp in 1948, the story begins. I
was already there.
19
1948
The camp is situated just north of the 69th parallel[5], inside the A______ circle. As Zoya makes the journey from Moscow, it is the
narrator's job to prepare the House of Meetings for Lev and his bride. They had been married for eight years, but this would be their first
night together as man and wife. The narrator offers them a thermos of vodka, two candles and six cigarettes (rolled out of the state

newspaper). 3 The triangular romance, however, is but a come-hither[6] to the novel's weightier themes, which are all about
rust, ruin and decayall metaphors for ageing.
69
The compulsive vividness of Mr Amis's style may have annoyed his father, but he puts it to good use here. Lev's f_______ seem to have
been thrown together inattentively, as if in the dark. Even his ears seemed to belong to two completely different people. A smoker, he eats
with a cigarette in the hand that holds the knife: When he went to stub it out, the movement was but a step on the road to lighting another.
There is little romance in the book. The sex, when it appears, comes as a shock. 4Mr Amis uses it to explore how people are not
strengthened by adversity but warped[7], crushed and then killed, even as they still walk the streets.
5 House of Meetings is a singular, unimpeachable triumph, as powerful as J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace and the small list of
novels that have unanimously carried off[8] the Man Booker prize for fiction. In the week that a divided jury awarded the 2006 prize to
Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, what is astonishing is that Mr Amis's publishers did not even s________ his book for
consideration.
J.M. Coetzee
2006
[QUIZ]
1.
o_______v. to say or write what you have noticed about a situation
e_______n. an occasion when you meet someone, or do something with someone you do not know
A________adj. relating to the most northern part of the world
f________n. a part of someone's face, such as their eyes, nose etc
s________v. to give a plan, piece of writing etc to someone in authority for them to consider or approve
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. gulag n.
2. conjugal adj.
3. deux adv.
4. pogrom n. ()
5. parallel n.
6. come-hither n.come-hither look
7.warp v.
8. carry off
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. observed

encounter
Arctic
features
submit TEXT 71
Pinched bellies

Oct 19th 2006 | SEOUL
1A NUCLEAR capability may be the toast of North Korea's leaders, but it is a blight[1] on their poor countrymen's bellies. Even
before fresh sanctions were imposed against the rogue nation this week, ______ response to its nuclear test on October 9th, North Korea
could not feed itself. The latest international strictures[2] are not supposed to inflict further damage on its food supply. But with few
trustworthy observers in the countryand the level of aid it gets from China hard to ascertaindamage may be done nonetheless.
10 9
To feed itself, North Korea needs 5.5m tonnes of grain a year. It cannot produce anything like this, even with a bumper harvest last year.
2 That crop was sufficient, however, to embolden the regime of Kim Jong Il last December to force the UN's World Food
Programme (WFP) to leave the country, because it felt humiliated by its dependence on emergency relief. To fill the hole dug by this
moronic[3] policy, the regime had some success improving its food distribution. It was also counting ______ getting food aid from South
Korea, its biggest donor. That changed after the regime tested missiles in July, and South Korea froze its humanitarian aid. After the nuclear
test, the South reaffirmed its decision.
550 9
WFP
For ordinary North Koreans, the loss of aid from the South may be a disaster. 3In May, as hunger bit in the countryside, workers
were ordered from idle factories to go and help on the land. Even the armed forces, which Mr Kim favours above all, have felt the pinch.
A general is reported to have ordered soldiers to eat locally-found potatoes, rather than expect grain. This presumably increased pressure on
local food supplies. North Koreans have told aid workers that they dread sending their sons to army units that are known to have especially
high rates of malnutrition.
5
4 As if this were not bad enough, ten days after its offending missile tests, North Korea suffered its worst flooding in recent
memory. Relentless rains destroyed crops and, in central North Korea, sent mudslides into villages and towns, as terraces on denuded[4]
hills collapsed. The army was ______ no state to help: it was on a near-war footing in response to the passage of a UN resolution
condemning the tests. Good Friends, a Buddhist NGO in South Korea that collects reports from the North, says that 55,000 people, including
many soldiers, drowned or went missing in the floods. Others dispute this figure.
5.5
5 To alleviate the crisis, South Korea said it would make flood relief an exception to its suspension of aid. But only half of a
promised 100,000 tonnes of grain had arrived before the nuclear test, whereupon South Korea suspended the rest. In the next year, aid
workers say, North Korea may fall short of at least 800,000 tonnes of grain. The WFP, which has returned and resumed operations with a
staff one-fifth its former size, has the regime's permission to feed 1.9m North Koreans. But it has funds to help only 1m, in 30 of North
Korea's 200-odd counties. The WFP says it has brought in just 75,000 tonnes of food this year, and that it will run out of milk powder in
November and flour and cooking oil next January. Western powers seem unfussed by this shortage. This week, Condoleezza Rice, America's
secretary of state, said America would not contribute ______ the WFP's operation in North Korea because of a lack of transparency in the
countryas if the UN could fix this.
10
80 WFP
4/5 WFP 190 200 30
100 WFP 7.5 11 1
WFP
6 There is meanwhile a hoary[5] assumption that China will not let North Korea collapse by suspending the aid it is often
supposed to have supplied: it is said to have sent 500,000 tonnes of grain in 2005. Yet household surveys by the WFP last year found no
Chinese grain. Even before the proliferation crisis, the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, concluded from research in China that its
food aid was minuscule. It is probably now smaller still.
2005
50 WFP
By contrast, North Korea's trade with China (including in food) has grown fast. Last year the country imported over $1 billion-worth of
Chinese goods. New UN sanctions against it may change that. This week branches of the Bank of China close to the border stopped doing
North Korea-related business, either ______ their government's decree or because of concerns that their loans could soon go bad.
10
North Koreans are somewhat more protected today than they were before the great famine of the mid-1990s, in which perhaps 1m died.
Many can smuggle, trade, bribe, and grow food on individual plots. Still, according to the UN, a third of North Korean women with children
under 24 months are malnourished or anaemic, and more than a third of children under six are stunted. 7One outlet for the hungry in
the 1990s was China, to which 50,000-100,000 North Koreans crossed. That route is now closing, at least for those without money. In
the past month, authorities in China's north-east have cracked down with dawn raids _______ neighbourhoods in search of North Koreans.
This week, a barbed-wire[6] fence was going up along the border. China is taking no risks.
20 90 100
24
6 20 90 510
[QUIZ]
1.

2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. blight n.
2. stricture n.
3. moronic adj.
4. denude v.
5. hoary adj.
6.barbed-wire
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. in (response to)
counton
in (no fit state to do sth.)
contribute to
at ones decree
crack down on
2.
TEXT 72
Chimney sweeps under fire

Oct 19th 2006 | FRANKFURT
1GERMANY'S chimney sweeps-hallowed as bringers of good luck, with their black top hats and coiled-wire brushes-are under attack.
Last week the European Commission's directorate[1] for the internal market revived proceedings against an antiquated German law that
protects sweeps against competition.
The country's chimney sweeps enjoy a near-perfect monopoly. Germany is divided into around 8,000 districts, each ruled by its own master
sweep who usually employs two more sweeps. Although this is a private enterprise, the maintenance and inspection service provided is
c_______ and prices are set by the local authority: sweeps cannot stray outside their district, nor can householders change their sweep
even if they loathe him. 2This rule cuts both ways. "There are some customers I can't stand either," says one Frankfurt sweep.
8000
2
"
"
The r_______ is simple: chimney-sweeping and related gas and heating maintenance in Germany are treated as a matter of public safety.
Annual or semi-annual visits are prescribed, keeping the sweeps busy all year round.
--
3 For centuries, chimney-sweeps in Europe were a wandering breed. But in 1937 the chimney-sweep law was revised by Heinrich
Himmler, then the acting[2] interior minister. His rules tied chimney sweeps to their districts and decreed that they should be German, to
enable him to use sweeps as local s______.

1937
4The law was updated in 1969, leaving the local monopolies in place but opening up the profession, in theory at least, to non-Germans.
But in practice few apply. Four years ago a brave Pole qualified as a master in Kaiserslautern, according to a fellow student, and this year an
Italian did so in the Rhineland Palatinate. But he, like most newly qualified German masters, will spend years on a waiting list before he gets
his own district.
1969
The European Commission would like to see a competitive market in which people can choose their own sweeps, just as they choose builders
or plumbers[3]. It first opened infringement proceedings in 2003, and the German government of the time promised to change the law but
failed to do so. 5 And despite the huffing and puffing[4] from Brussels, the government is still reluctant to dismantle its antiquated
system on safety grounds. The number of deaths from carbon-monoxide poisoning in Germany is around one-tenth that in France or
Belgium, claims the Frankfurt sweep. So Germans are likely to be stuck with their neighbourhood Schornsteinfegers-whether they can stand
each other or not-for some time to come.
2003
--
[QUIZ]
1.
c_______adj. mandatory
r_______n. the reasons for a decision, belief etc
s________n. someone whose job it is to find out secret information about another country, organization, or group
2.
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. directorate n.
2. acting adj.
3. plumber n.
4. huff and puff
a) to breathe out in a noisy way, especially when you do something that involves a lot of physical effort He was huffing
and puffing by the time he got to the top.
b) to show clearly that you strongly disagree with or are annoyed about something:
After a lot of huffing and puffing, he eventually gave in to our request.
5. Schornsteinfegers n. []
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. compulsory
rationale
spies

2.TEXT 73
Marketmaker

Nov 2nd 2006
EARLIER this year Ukraine became a market economy. 1That might surprise many Ukrainians, who were under the impression
they had been living with free enterprise since prices were deregulated in 1991, the currency became convertible in 1996, and the
government began to off-load its assets, leaving about two-thirds of the economy now in private hands. But on February 17th, David
Sampson, America's Deputy Secretary of Commerce, was delighted to announce in Kiev that in his government's eyes Ukraine was now a
market-based economy.
1991 1996
2/3
2 17
Vietnam may have to wait until 2019 for a similar benediction. On October 26th it finally agreed a deal to become the 150th member of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) once formalities are completed around the turn of the year. Almost 12 years of talks, resulting in 880 pages
of policy commitments, have picked over many bones of contention[1], including Vietnam's textile export subsidies, which it has promised
to eliminate, and its banking system, which it has pledged to open up by next April. 2There was also time over the past 12 years to
broach less weighty, but equally delicate matters, such as Vietnam's import ban on Harley Davidsons, and fears that it might block
imports of the Bible because it contains culturally reactionary and superstitious material.
2019 10 26
WTO 150 12 880
4 12
The WTO is built on the principle that members will treat each other alike. But as one price of entry Vietnam agreed to remain on a list of socalled non-market economies, alongside China and several other WTO members, most of them former Soviet republics. This stigma has
one practical consequence. It makes it harder for Vietnam to defend itself against the charge of dumping.
WTO WTO
WTO
Dumping occurs when an exporter sells a product abroad for less than it charges at home, or for less than it costs to make. 3Rather than
welcoming these bargains, importing countries tend to cry foul[2] and raise anti-dumping duties. But how do they know that an import
is too cheap? In a non-market economy, America's Department of Commerce argues, prices are not set by supply and demand so they cannot
be trusted. Instead, it comes up with its own calculation of normal value based on costs in other surrogate countries.
America is Vietnam's biggest market and one of the more prolific users of anti-dumping duties. But it is not the only place to brand its
trading partners as unmarket-like. Last month the European Union (EU) confirmed that Vietnam was dumping leather shoes, based on what it
costs Brazilthe chosen surrogateto make them. Last year it imposed duties on Vietnamese bicycles, after comparing them with bikes
made in San Luis Potos, Mexico.
10 EU
The most notorious case remains, however, Vietnamese catfish, or basa fish as they are now labelled so as not to upset fish-farmers in the
Deep South[3]. In 2003 America's Department of Commerce hit imports of the fish with duties of 37-64%. 4It reached this decision
after calculating what Vietnam's fillets would cost if they were reared on a fish farm in the Kishoregonj region of Bangladesh, using
water bought in India, transported by Bangladeshi truckers, with labour purchased at a price the department thinks should prevail
in Vietnam, based on its income per head.
2003 3764
What must Vietnam do to shake off the non-market label? The EU, the Americans and others each have their own requirements. America
wants to see the removal of price-fixing and currency controls, even more foreign investment, free wage bargaining, and limited government
ownership.
But the economic logic is invariably something of a faade[4], argue Adam McCarty and Carl Kalapesi of Mekong Economics, a
consultancy in Hanoi. The only criterion that really matters is that America's retailers, who like Vietnam's cheap merchandise, lobby harder
than its garment-makers and catfish farmers who hate it. 5It is mostly those with something to fear from open markets who accuse
other countries of falling short of them.

[QUIZ]
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. bones of contention n.
2. cry foul to protest because you think something is wrong or not fair
3. the Deep South
4. faade n. facade
TEXT 74
Mood music

Nov 9th 2006 | SYDNEY
THE embattled chief executive of Telstra, Sol Trujillo, helped pay his way through college in America by playing the trumpet in his family's
Mariachi band. But his past 16 months as the head of Australia's biggest telecoms firm have seen him reaching for the violin. His sorrowful

refrain[1] has become as familiar to fund managers in Sydney as it is to policy wonks in Canberra. Mr Trujillo bemoans an overbearing
government which is both his firm's main shareholder and its regulator.
Telstra
16
Trujillo
1In recent months, Mr Trujillo has grappled with the government over board nominations; his A$8.7m ($6.7m) pay packet; and,
most seriously, a thicket of regulations designed to ensure that the former monopoly continues to provide rural telephone services
across a vast country with the world's sixth-largest landmass but only the 52nd-largest population. Even the flashy launch of Telstra's
advanced third-generation mobile-phone network, completed months ahead of schedule, struck an awkwardly discordant note. As Mr Trujillo
strutted his stuff[2] on stage, a sprinkler malfunctioned, dousing[3] his audience in foul-smelling water.
870 670
52 Telstra
It is hardly the ideal background for a share offering called T3, the third and final phase of Telstra's partial privatisation, a drawn-out affair
which began in 1997. At the T2 offering in 1999, in the midst of the telecoms boom, Telstra shares sold for A$7.40. Now they are trading at
A$3.97. Over the same period, the Australian stockmarket has grown by some 93%.
T3 T3 1997 Telstra
1999 Telstra 7.4 T2 3.97
93
2Burned by the T2 offering, many of the 1.6m retail investors who bought shares last time around have shied away, despite a
variety of sweeteners to lure them backnot least a 28% dividend on the A$2 first instalment. But as the deadline to apply for shares
passed on November 9th, it appeared that wealthier retail investors had offset this weakness in demand, seemingly confident they are being
offered decent value for money. Better still, there has also been a positive response from institutional investors in advance of their own offer,
which opens on November 15th.
160 Telstra T2
2 28 11 9
11
15
It is a timely vote of confidence in Mr Trujillo's five-year transformation plan. 3A veteran of the telecoms industry who earned his
spurs[4] at US West in America and then at Orange, a European mobile operator, Mr Trujillo has set about drastically streamlining
a famously unwieldy[5] corporation. With the help of hired guns from his previous firmsthree senior executives were drafted in from US
Westhe is trying to eliminate 80% of Telstra's 1,252 separate computer systems. He has also laid off 12,000 of the firm's 52,000
employees.
US West
Orange
US West Telstra 1252
80 52000 12000
Customer service has improved, too. 4Much to the surprise of Telstra's long-suffering customers, technicians now make calls in
the evenings and at weekends, a revolutionary change. Most arrive dressed in cheery fluorescent yellow bibs[6], trumpeting BigPond, the

company's market-leading broadband service. Telstra claims it is well positioned to offer customers all kinds of whizzy new services across a
range of platforms. Transformation is well on track, says Greg Canavan, an analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney. The big wild card[7] is
regulation.
Telstra
Bigpond"Telstra
Fat Prophet
Regulation is Mr Trujillo's main gripe with the government. In August Telstra abandoned a flagship project to build a high-speed fibre-optic
network in the country's five largest cities after a poisonous regulatory dispute with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
Agreement could not be reached on how much the company could charge competitors for access to its new network. Telstra grumbles that it
is forced to offer rivals, such as Optus, cheaper access to its networks in cities than in rural areas. This places Telstra at a disadvantage when
competing for profitable urban customers.
8 Telstra
Telstra 5 Telstra
Telstra Optus
Telstra
Despite the wrangling with regulators, Telstra's shares are trading at their highest in six months. They are still below A$5.02, where they
stood when Mr Trujillo took over in July 2005. 5 But Telstra's transformation is clearly starting to impress investors cause,
perhaps, for a modest toot on the trumpet.
Telstra 6 1 5.02
Telstra
[QUIZ]
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. refrain n. part of a song or poem that is repeated, especially at the end of each verse
2.strut ones stuff to show ones skill at doing something, especially dancing or performing
3. douse v.
4. earn/win ones spurs to show that you deserve to succeed because you have the right skills
5. unwieldy adj.
6. bib n.
7. wild card 1a playing card that can represent any other card
2someone whose behaviour or effect on a situation is difficult to guess
TEXT 75
Playing a long game

Nov 16th 2006 | LONDON, NEW YORK AND TOKYO
Can the PlayStation 3 revive the ailing electronics giant?
PS3
THINGS have not been going well for Sony lately. Last month senior executives at the Japanese electronics giant issued an unprecedented
apology after discovering that 9.6m laptop batteries, supplied to other computer-makers, were faulty and would have to be recalled at a cost

of $436m. Sony's Blu-ray high-definition technology, launched this summer, has suffered from delays and component shortages, and is
embroiled in a standards war with the rival HD-DVD format.1 American regulators began investigating the company last month as
part of an inquiry into allegations of price-fixing in the memory-chip market. And having long been the world's most valuable
electronics firm by stockmarket value, Sony's market capitalisation has fallen to less than half that of Samsung, its South Korean rival. They
really need some good news, says Paul Jackson of Forrester, a consultancy.
10 960
4.36
Blue-ray HD-DVD
DVD
Forrester
2 So a lot is riding on the PlayStation 3 (PS3), the latest incarnation of Sony's industry-leading games console, which was
launched with much fanfare[1] in Japan on November 11th. In Akihabara, Tokyo's neon-lit electronics district, stores drafted in extra
workers to cope with easily the biggest product launch of the year. At the Yurakucho flagship store of Bic Camera, one of Japan's largest
electronics retailers, hundreds of gamers queued through a cold, damp night. Ken Kutaragi, who runs Sony's gaming division, was there to
welcome them in the morning.
PS311 11 PS3 PS3
At Yodobashi Camera in the southern city of Fukuoka, 3half of the 400 people queuing were Chinese immigrants with orders to
snap up[2] the store's assignment for resale online in China. Across Japan, the PS3 had sold out by lunchtime. Similar scenes were
expected at its American launch on November 17th. On Tuesday there were already over 100 people camping outside Sony's New York store.
400
PS3 11 17 PS3 11 14 100
Not so fast
Sony needs the PS3 to succeed for three reasons: to maintain its lucrative dominance of the games industry; to seed the market for Blu-ray
and establish Sony in the emerging market for internet video downloads; and to demonstrate that the turnaround being led by Howard
Stringer, who took over as chief executive in 2005, is working and that Sony's gaming, electronics and content divisions really can work
together. Despite the enthusiasm of the PS3's early buyers, success in each of these areas is far from assured.
PS3
2005 CEO
PS3
In gaming, Sony faces far stronger competition than it did when it launched the PlayStation 2 in 2000. The PS2 went on to sell over 100m
units, giving Sony 70% of the market. 4But gaming is a cyclical business, and success in one round does not guarantee success in
the next. Microsoft has already sold over 6m of its Xbox 360 consoles, launched a year ago, and expects to have sold 10m by the end of
2006. Nintendo, Sony's other rival, will launch its new console, the Wii, on November 19th, and expects to sell 4m units by the end of the
year. Manufacturing problems delayed the PS3's launch from May and meant that only 93,000 consoles were available for the Japanese

launch. Sony hopes to sell 2m by the end of the year, but even if it does so, it will start the race in third place.
2000 PS2 PS2 1 70
Xbox 360 600 2006
1 11 19 Wii 400
PS3 5 9.3 200 PS3
Availability is one weakness; pricing is another. The PS3 is available in two configurations, costing $500 and $600 in America, and 50,000
($425) and 60,000 ($510) in Japan. That is far more than rival consoles (the Xbox 360 starts at $300 and the Wii costs $250) and is due to
the inclusion of a Blu-ray optical drive in every PS3.
PS3 500 600 5
425 6 510 Xbox 360 300 Wii 250
PS3
Sony will lose money on each PS3 sold for the first couple of years until higher volumes and design improvements reduce costs. But it will
make money by taking a cut of every game sold. Worryingly, however, less than one game was sold per PS3 in Japan this week, which
suggests that some buyers regard the PS3 as a subsidised Blu-ray playerwhich it is. Dedicated Blu-ray players start at around $750.
5The PS3, in short, will not be the moneyspinner[3] that the PS2 was for quite some time, and it seems unlikely to achieve the
market share of its predecessors.
PS3
PS3 PS3
750 PS3 PS2
PS2
The PS3 is also meant to ensure that Blu-ray triumphs over HD-DVD as the high-definition successor to the DVD video format. The idea is
that millions of PS3s bought by gamers will seed the market for Blu-ray, providing it with critical mass and ensuring that Hollywood studios,
which are reluctant to back two rival standards, plump[4] for Blu-ray over HD-DVD. 6But instead of riding the PS3 as a Trojan
horse, Blu-ray has instead hobbled it by increasing its price and delaying its introduction. The battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD
may even prove irrelevant, as internet downloads become the medium of choice for high-definition video. Both Sony and Microsoft plan to
sell high-definition video downloads via their consoles.
PS3 HD-DVD DVD
PS3
HD-DVD PS3
PS3
HD-DVD
Finally, the PS3 is a litmus test for Sir Howard's turnaround effort, one of the aims of which is to get Sony's various divisions to co-operate
more fully. (A spat between its electronics and content units left the field open for Apple's iPod.) The company insists that despite recent
problems such as the battery recall, the turnaround is going well behind the scenes. Sony has improved margins in its electronics business
and reduced headcount by 10,000 ahead of schedule. It is also on track with factory closures, asset disposals and winnowing[5] its product
line-up to focus on champions such as Cyber-shot digital cameras, Bravia televisions and, of course, the PS3. Sir Howard even suggested
this week that the battery fiasco had helped by making it easier for him to convince doubters within Sony of the need to change.
PS3
iPOD
Cyber-shot Bravia

PS3
7 Yet it will be some time before it is possible to tell whether the PS3 can rescue Sony. Beneath the short-term troubles, the
company is playing a long game. This is not a battle that's just about this Christmas, says Rob Wiesenthal, the finance chief of Sony's
American division. Sony is betting that the PS3's advanced technology will sustain the company for a decade by extending the PlayStation
franchise beyond gaming. So a few teething problems in the early days are nothing to worry about; besides, the PS2 was also criticised for
being expensive, over-engineered and unreliable when it first appeared. But having achieved 70% market share last time around, Sony is
certain to lose ground this time. The only question is how much.
PS3
PS3 PS
PS2
70
[QUIZ]
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. fanfare n. a lot of activity, advertising, or discussion relating to an event
2. snap up to buy something immediately, especially because it is very cheap
3. moneyspinner . a project that generates a continuous flow of money =moneymaker, cash cow
4. plump for
5. winnow v. to make a list, group, or quantity smaller by getting rid of the things that you do not need or want
[= whittle down]
TEXT 76
Start of the long march

Nov 16th 2006 | BEIJING AND HONG KONG
Charles Prince gambles on a rickety Chinese bank
IF, AS seems likely, consumer banking in China takes a great leap forward, Guangdong Development Bank has obvious appeal. It has 13m
customers, 500 branches, a strong franchise in the manufacturing hub near Hong Kong and a national licence that could permit years of
formidable growth. 1So Citigroup's chief executive, Charles Prince, must have been thrilled to fly into Hong Kong this week on
unrelated business to find that a bidding consortium led by his bank was about to win control of Guangdong after a bruising[1]
auction that lasted more than a year. It beat Socit Gnrale, a French bank.
1300
500
The deal marks the first time foreigners have been allowed into the driving seat of a big, potentially national, Chinese bank. But the main
reason the authorities gave Mr Prince and his partners such access is because Guangdong is a wreck. Its most recent audited statement in
2003 showed that non-performing loans represented an alarming 22% of its portfolio. A report in the government-backed China Daily agency
put non-performing loans[2] at 25% in 2005. That suggests its performance may be getting worse even as China booms.
2003

222005 25
To win Guangdong, Citigroup initially bid for outright control at the request of the local authorities. 2The offer was withdrawn under
national government pressure because of limits on the stake of any foreign investor in a Chinese bank to 20%, and of total foreign
investment to 25%. An awkward consortium was assembled which includes IBM, China Life (the country's biggest insurance company),
State Grid (an electrical utility), and Citic Trust (a government-backed holding company). Citigroup's lead role is implicit but not explicit,
which may do it no favours when it attempts to bash Guangdong into shape.
20 25
IBM
The group is expected to pay $3.1 billion for 85% of Guangdong. Typically banks are valued as a multiple of book value[3]. Realistically,
Guangdong may have no book value or even a negative one. But the bidders are betting on opportunity, not an institution. This is not a
banking deal, says a lawyer whose client lost out in an earlier round of bidding. It is a China deal.
31 85
Many banks are eager for such deals but their ways of going about it differ. Some have invested passively, praying that the Chinese banks
manage themselves well. Bank of America bought 9% of China Construction Bank in 2005 for $3 billion; that stake has tripled in value.
Goldman Sachs has made a similar fortune with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. 3Other big banks believe that pouring
money into any institution with credit and operating problemswhich is the case for every Chinese bankis madness if it doesn't
also bring control. That has been the view of JPMorgan Chase.
2005 BOA 30 9
Until now, Citigroup has taken a more ad hoc[4] approach. It has half-a-dozen branches of its own and a franchise serving multinationals. It
has a joint venture with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, a small regional bank that allows it to issue credit cards. Citigroup plans
quietly to lift its stake in that bank from 5% to the maximum 20%.
6
5 20
Its first challenge with Guangdong will be to improve operations. 4IBM, which has a huge business serving banks but has had its
own sales challenges in China, will presumably be of help transforming Guangdong's lousy[5] IT systems. It is seen as a temporary
partner and Citigroup is thought to have the first right of repurchase for IBM's shares.
IBM IT
IBM IBM IBM
Ideally, Guangdong would be folded into Citigroup, with branches fanning out[6] across China to offer services to the growing middle class,
investment products and corporate banking, such as payroll and cash management. 5For Mr Prince, getting Guangdong (and thus
China) right could, by itself, kickstart what has so far been an undistinguished tenure for him. If not, it could be a great leap

backwards.
[QUIZ]
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. bruising adj. difficult and unpleasant, and leaving you feeling tired or emotionally harmed
2. non-performing loan
3. book value the value of something that a company owns, which it lists in its accounts
4. ad hoc adj. not planned, but arranged or done only when necessary
5. lousy adj. of very bad quality
6. fan out spreads out in many directions
TEXT 77
The Georgian knot

Nov 23rd 2006 | TALLINN
Russia's membership of the WTO is not quite a done deal
WTO
1 NOBODY can fault the Georgians' courage. Judgment is another matter. America has dropped its objections to Russia's
membership of the World Trade Organisationseemingly in return for support on Iran and North Korea. But Georgia, an ardently proWestern ex-Soviet republic, has withdrawn its own agreement with Russia and is blocking the multilateral talks needed to conclude Russia's
entry into the WTO. The trade body relies on unanimity, giving vetoes even to pipsqueaks[1]at least in theory.
WTO
WTO WTO
2Georgia has plenty to complain about: Russia subjected it to trade sanctions and raised its gas prices in protest at the public
humiliation of some Russian spies. But the real issue, according to the prime minister, Zurab Nogaideli, is another one: control of
commerce into two separatist enclaves that border on Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Trade (legal and illegal) flows freely.
Georgia wants these borders either sealed or run by its own customs officials. That may be reasonable in theory but it sounds fanciful in
practice. The two frozen conflicts have remained stubbornly unthawed[2] for a decade, and Georgia's lack of Western support has already
been bleakly[3] exposed in recent months. 3 Foreigners are wowed by Georgia's warp-speed economic reformwhich has
produced double-digit GDP growthbut dismayed by its erratic and hot-headed politics and diplomacy.
GDP

America laments Georgia's tactics. It wants Russia in the WTO, which will help speed Ukraine, a country that it is trying to coax[4] back into
a pro-Western stance, along the same path. 4America and the EU will stamp Georgia into the ground on this, says a government
adviser. They seem to think that they can provoke us into supporting them, says a top EU official despairingly.
WTO
Mr Nogaideli claims that the Kremlin is backsliding[5]. If Russia doesn't want to honour this agreement, they shouldn't have signed it, he
says. 5Georgia hopes that the many loose ends in Russia's WTO application mean that other countries too will welcome a chance
to apply a bit more pressureon pricey rail freight costs, for example.
WTO
Perhaps. But the usual outcome in trade talks is that big countries' arm-twisting[6] is effectiveand painful.
[QUIZ]
[NOTES]()
1. pipsqueak n.
2. unthawed adj.
3. bleak adj.
4. coax v.
5. backslide v.
6. arm-twisting n.
Gordian knot
Cut the Gordian knot
TEXT 78
Trouble clicks

Nov 23rd 2006
Click fraud could undermine the boom in online advertising
INTERNET advertising is booming. The industry has gone from $9.6 billion in revenue in 2001 to $27 billion this year, according to Piper
Jaffray, an investment bank. And it is still early days. The internet accounts for only 5% of total spending on advertising, but that figure is
expected to reach at least 20% in the next few years. 1The single largest category within this flourishing industry, accounting for
nearly half of all spending, is pay-per-click advertising, which is used by firms both large and small to promote their wares.
Piper Jaffray 2001 96 270
5 20
It works like this. Advertisers bid on keywords that they believe potential customers will be interested in. This enables internet firms such as
Google, the market leader, and Yahoo!, its smaller rival, to display advertisements alongside the results of internet searches. Somebody
searching for a particular type of wine, for example, might see advertisements from wine merchants. Google, Yahoo! and other firms also
place ads on affiliates' websitesso wine merchants' advertisements might also appear on a wine-appreciation site. The advertiser pays only
when a consumer clicks on an ad; the owner of the website where the ad was displayed then receives a small commission[1].
Google
Yahoo Google
GoogleYahoo
2 The benefits of the pay-per-click approach over traditional advertising (television, radio, print and billboards) are obvious.
Since advertisers pay only to reach the small subset who actually respond to an advertisement, the quality of the leads generated is
very high, and advertisers are prepared to pay accordingly. The price per click varies from $0.10 to as much as $30, depending on the
keyword, though the average is around $0.50. Mesothelioma[2], for instance, the name of an asbestos-related illness, is an especially
valuable keyword, because lawyers are prepared to pay a lot to make contact with sufferers in the hope of representing them in a lucrative
compensation lawsuit. Google made most of its $6.1 billion in revenue last year from pay-per-click advertising.
0.5
0.1 30 Mesothelioma
Google 61
3But as pay-per-click advertising has grown into a huge industry, concern has mounted over so-called click fraudbogus[3]
clicks that do not come from genuinely interested customers. It takes two main forms. If you click repeatedly on the advertisements on
your own website, or get other people or machines to do so on your behalf, you can generate a stream of bogus commissions. Click fraud can
also be used by one company against another: clicking on a rival firm's advertisements can saddle it with a huge bill. Bogus clicks are
thought to account for around 10% of all click traffic, though nobody knows for sure.
10
Bill Gross, the entrepreneur who pioneered the pay-per-click model back in 1998, was aware of the problem even then. (Yahoo! subsequently
acquired his firm, known at the time as Overture.) He installed a three-layered defence system: a filter to weed out clicks from known
fraudsters at the outset, statisticians and software to spot suspicious click patterns, and co-operation with advertisers to enable them to
analyse the leads generated and sound the alarm if necessary.
Bill Gross 1998 Yahoo
Overture
But generally the industry adopted a rather cavalier[4] attitude to click fraud.4Eric Schmidt, the boss of Google, caused uproar a few
months ago when he seemed to suggest that the perfect economic solution to click fraud was to let it happen. He was responding
to a theoretical question during a debate at Stanford University, but his response reinforced the perception that Google had higher priorities
than addressing the problem.

Google Eric Schmidt
5Such a flippant[5] attitude has not gone down well with advertisers, who are up in arms about the problem. Some have even
resorted to legal action. Google reached a settlement in March with Lane's Gifts and Collectibles, a gift shop based in Arkansas, and agreed
to offer refunds to advertisers who claim they have been charged for bogus clicks. Such refunds are capped at $90m, however, so many
observers think Google got off lightly[6]. And in June Yahoo! promised to intensify its efforts to fight click fraud as part of a settlement with
CheckMate, a fraud-detection firm. As well as offering refunds for clicks determined to be fraudulent, Yahoo! agreed to appoint a trafficquality advocate to voice advertisers' concerns within the company.
3 Google
Lanes Gifts Collectibles Google
9 Google 6
Checkmate Yahoo Yahoo
In the wake of these legal challenges, Google and Yahoo! recently joined a working group at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a
trade association, which will establish standards for pay-per-click advertising, including the introduction of industry-funded auditing and
certification, by the middle of 2007. I believe Google and Yahoo! are now taking the issue very seriously, says David Jones, chief
executive of Euro RSCG, an advertising company. But Rishad Tobaccowala, head of innovation at Publicis, one of the world's biggest
advertising groups, says it is too early to say whether the measures being taken against click fraud will be enough to satisfy advertisers.
Google Yahoo IABIAB 2007
Euro RSCG
David Jones Google Yahoo Publicis
Rishad Tobaccowala
A few months ago Mr Gross pioneered an alternative to the pay-per-click model. 6In February Snap, a search engine backed by Mr
Gross, launched pay-per-action, a new model in which advertisers pay only if a click on an ad is followed by an action such as a
purchase or a download. Google is testing a similar model and Turn.com, another ad network, adopted the pay-per-action model a few
weeks ago.
Gross 2 Gross Snap
PPAGoogle
Turn.com PPA
Might this put an end to click fraud? Don't bet on it, says Mike Zeman at Starcom, an advertising agency. Pay-per-action will be a niche, he
predicts, since converting a click into an action depends on a variety of factors such as the ease of use of the advertiser's website. Google and
its peers will be reluctant to be so dependent on factors outside their control. But Mr Tobaccowala thinks pay-per-action could become a real
alternative to pay-per-click. As bigger companies spend more on internet advertising, they will demand more accountability and a wider
range of options, he says. 7At the very least, that means clamping down on click fraud; but it also presents an opportunity for
entrepreneurs to invent new models that are less vulnerable to abuse.
Starcom Mike Zeman
PPA Google
Tobaccowala PPA

Leads Leads
80%
Leads
[QUIZ]
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. commission n.
2. mesothelioma n.
3. bogus adj.
4. cavalier adj.
5. flippant adj.
6. get off get off lightly
TEXT 79
The universal diarist

Nov 23rd 2006
Mena Trott of Six Apart is at the forefront of the shift from mass media to intimate media
Six Apart Mena Trott
IT ALL began five years ago with a blog entry about a banjo. 1Mena Trott had recently graduated as an English major from college
and, at 23, was living as an under-employed designer with her husband Ben in San Francisco, passing her time by keeping a personal
online diary. Called Dollarshort, it was a blog about her childhood, her pets and that sort of thing. One day, on a girly whim[1], she wrote
that she wanted to buy a banjo but that her husband, ever the tyrant, wouldn't let her. Mena's friends and family, knowing that Ben is the
sweetest guy in the world, recognised the humour, says Ms Trott. But all sorts of strangers suddenly blogged back with angry feminist
advice, advising her to get a separate bank account, to tell off her bullying husband, and even to leave him. Ms Trott was livid. Why can't
people take a joke, and who are these people anyway? she wondered.
Mena Trott Ben
Dollarshort
Trott Ben
Trott
It was the seed of a profound insight: that the era of mass media was ending and a new era of intimate media had begun. Mr Trott had
written some software to make it easier for his wife to update her blog, and they realised that other people might find it useful too. It was an
instant success upon its release onto the internet in 2001, and the Trotts have since built their company, called Six Apart (because their
birthdays are six days apart), into the largest independent provider of blogging tools and hosting services. 2 Ms Trott is Six Apart's
president and public face, while Mr Trott, who is shy and retiring[2], runs the technical side of things and seasoned executives handle
the management. Six Apart's flagship products, Movable Type and TypePad, are popular among power bloggers with large audiences, and
its third product, LiveJournal, is big among teenage girls who blog for their friends. Collectively, Six Apart's products are used by over 30m
bloggers around the world.
Trott
2001 Trott

Six Apart 6 Trott Six Apart
Trott
Six Apart Movable Type TypePad
LiveJournal 3000 Six Apart
These days, however, the Trotts are most excited about their newest product, Vox, which was launched last month. For if a blogging service
can have a personality, then Vox has Ms Trott's. Like Ms Trott, Vox is unpretentious and accessible. By contrast with rival services, users
need not worry about having to understand technical matters, such as the HTML formatting language in which web pages are encoded, in
order to incorporate whizzy features into their blogs. They can upload pictures, video clips and songs with just a few clicks on a simple,
colour-coded page. 3 Also like Ms Trott, Vox celebrates the frivolous[3] and mundane[4]. Much of Ms Trott's personal blog,
VoxTrott, is devoted to images of her beloved dog Maddy, while Mr Trott, a dilettante[5] cook, likes to post disgusting pictures of
good food on his blog. Many ordinary people are scared of blogging because they feel that they have nothing to say, says Ms Trott. So her
message is that mundane is interesting; it's OK to talk about your sandwich. To a handful of people in the world it may mean a lot.
Trott Vox Vox
Trott Vox Vox
HTML
Trott Vox Trott VoxTrott
Maddy Trott Trott
The other thing that keeps many people from blogging is fear for their privacy, she thinks. Hence the third and most important characteristic
of Vox. It is intimate. For every item on Voxa text paragraph, a photo, a linkbloggers can determine if it is to be public or private and, if
it is private, exactly who can see it. Ms Trott, for instance, keeps one part of VoxTrott for communicating only with her mother, who has an
insatiable[6] appetite for information about certain minutiae of Ms Trott's life. 4 She also has a daily Yay Me Update just for
herself, in which she uploads self-portraits from her mobile phone in order to preserve a chronicle of her life for her descendants
uninterrupted except for that time when she gained a bit more weight than she cared to commit to memory and conveniently forgot
to post for a few days.
Vox
Vox
Trott
Yay Me Update
5 But despite its homely origins Six Apart is ultimately a business, so somewhere in this vision there must be money. The
daunting challenge it faces is to monetise the product without ruining the feeling of intimacy for its users. Like most online media,
Vox is funded by advertising, but the advertising is so subtle that a lot of users don't even know where it is, says Andrew Anker, the
product manager for Vox. A blogger might, for instance, write about her favourite novels and include a link to the books on Amazon, a big
online retailer. Within a small social circle, such personal recommendations are a powerful form of marketing. If somebody clicks on these
links, lands on Amazon's website and completes a purchase, Amazon will share 7% of the proceeds with Six Apart. Similar arrangements
exist with an online video service, and Mr Anker hopes to add deals with online music stores and other partners in future.
Six Apart
Vox Vox
Andrew Anker
Amazon

Amazon Six Apart 7 Amazon
Anker
Putting the me into media
As a firm, Six Apart expects to break even only next year, and it is tiny when compared with giants such as Google, which has a rival
blogging service called Blogger, or News Corp, a media conglomerate that offers blogging as one of many features on MySpace, its socialnetworking site. So the surprise is how well Six Apart holds its own against these industry titans. 6For some of the large internet
companies, blogging seems like a checkbox, says Ms Trottie, something to have because it is fashionable, without caring much
about it. She and her husband, however, sincerely regard blogging as a way of life.
Six Apart Google Six Apart BloggerNews
Corp Myspace Six Apart
Trott
7Her commitment to the social, not just the commercial, potential of blogging has made Ms Trott an unofficial spokeswoman for
the wider phenomenon of new media. Ms Trott is 29 but appears even younger; she is currently practising how to speak clearly with new
braces in her mouth. And yet she increasingly has the attention of elder statesmen who are baffled by the rise of blogging and need help in
getting it. At a big conference this year, Ms Trott regaled[7] a large audience of digerati[8] with her family photos and other tales.
Spotting Al Gore, the first person I ever voted for, in the first row, she turned shy for just a moment. America's former vice-president then
sat spellbound[9] through the remainder of her speech.
Trott
Trott 29
Trott
Al Gore
[QUIZ]
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. whim n. 2. retiring adj.
3. frivolous adj. 4. mundane adj.
5. dilettante adj. ;;6. insatiable adj.
7. regale v. 8. digerati n. 9. spellbound adj.
TEXT 80
Salty tales

Nov 16th 2006
JOHN JULIUS NORWICH is the author of more than a dozen books on Norman Sicily, the Sahara, Mount Athos and the Venetian
and Byzantine empires. 1 Yet even his immense knowledge is not enough to keep his latest chronicle of 5,000 years of
Mediterranean historyfrom appearing somewhat lopsided[1].
-

Lord Norwich's first test, he notes in his introduction to The Middle Sea, was to compensate for an ignorance of Spain. He records that he
was fortuitously invited to dinner by my dear friend the Spanish ambassador to London and a few weeks later there came an invitation for
my wife and me to spend ten days in Spain. 2It is hard to believe that was all the effort he made, for he acquits himself well, even
in the convoluted[2] diplomacy that ended in the war of the Spanish succession.
Lord Norwich's second task was to strike a balance over time. The Middle Sea reaches from ancient Egypt to the first world war. Like
many long, chronological narratives, it becomes progressively more detailed, though it is debatable whether this is a good thing. 3Few
people have changed the region as much as the Romans, yet their republic's five centuries get only a page more than the great siege
of Gibraltar which began in 1779.
1977
4Lord Norwich's final, and arguably most important, challenge is the area that is most likely to engage modern readers: the
intermittent, but frequently savage, conflict between Muslims and Christians. Impatient with the notion, echoed most recently and
disastrously by Pope Benedict, that the Koran sanctions the spreading of Islam by the sword, Lord Norwich is no Islamophobe. He is hostile
to the Crusades and fulsome[3] in his praise of that traditional Western schoolbook villain, Saladin.
Yet his account remains disappointingly focused from Christendom[4] outwards. 5It is true that Muslims do appear in his book
usually in battlebut they rarely speak. Only two items in the 170-volume bibliography are by Arab scholars and only one is by a Turk.
This is unabashedly history of the old school: Eurocentric (Octavian, the author declares without irony, was the undisputed master of
the known world) and largely uninterested in what other economic, social and technological changes may have shaped events.
170 2 1
What fires Lord Norwich is recounting the doings of princes and preachers, warriors, courtiers and courtesans[5]. And he does it with
consummate[6] skill. He spices his narrative liberally with entertaining anecdotes, deft portraits and brisk judgments. Aristotle, for example,
is given short shrift[7] as one of the most reactionary intellectuals that ever lived. Lord Norwich's control of his vast and complex subject
matter is masterly. And the subject matter itself is as colourful as history can get. No sooner have readers bidden farewell to a short, fat,
dissolute sultan, Selim the Sot, than they encounter the piratical Uskoks, a heterogeneous, but exceedingly troublesome community.
6Although few will resist the temptation to keep turning the pages, readers will close this monumental work exhilarated and
informed, but with plenty of questions still unanswered.
[QUIZ]
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. lopsided adj. 2. convolute v. 3. fulsome adj.
4. Christendom n. 5. courtesan n. 6. consummate adj.
7. give short shrift to
Sicily 8
3
11
1860
Mount Athos 2,034 6,670
10
Saladin 1187 (1189-1192
Octavian 27 14 31
29 27
Uskok ,

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a.good for the environment:environmentally friendly , eco-friendly , sustainable ,

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Jul 26th 2006 | DELHI

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4. exaction n. 5. pit against 6. hole up

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5. brain drain 6. lax adj. slack7. maxim n.

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1991 1991 alas

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4. monkish adj. 5. echelon n. 6. leverage n.

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play off one against another

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1997 2002 124

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6. arable adj.arable land

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1995 0.6 2005 2.2 1

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of doing something illegal

f________adj. very definite

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