ВВЕДЕНИЕ

Настоящий сборник тематических текстов представляет собой набор аутентичных текстов из британских и американских периодических изданий. Сборник предназначен для эффективной организации самостоятельной работы студентов языковых вузов, а также для всех желающих усовершенствовать навыки чтения оригинальной литературы. 
Основной целью пособия является дальнейшее совершенствование речевых умений и навыков устной и письменной коммуникации. Пособие включает 7 разделов, соотносящихся с актуальными темами, обсуждаемыми  в современных учебниках.
Тексты подобраны согласно следующей тематики: 
1.	Английский как мировой язык.
2.	Путешествия.
3.	Здоровый образ жизни. Традиционная и нетрадиционная медицина.
4.	Страны третьего мира. Демографическая ситуация.
5.	Семейные проблемы.
6.	Расовые предрассудки.
7.	Женщины и современное общество.

Представленные тексты значительно облегчат студентам процесс работы над презентациями, подготовку к дискуссиям на указанные темы, а также обогатят их речь, расширят и углубят понимание данных тем.
Пособие дает возможность преподавателю использовать альтернативные виды заданий, а также может послужить основой для проведения занятий с использованием инновационных методов обучения.

Unit I. ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS A WORLD LANGUAGE

INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH

Millions of people are learning English. One billion people speak English. That's 20% of the world's population. 400 mln people speak English as their first language. For the other 600 min it's either a second language or a foreign language.
In other countries it is used as a second language: it is a way in which people who have different languages communicate with each other. This is especially true in many parts of Africa and India. In these countries and former British colonies like Malta and Hong Kong, as well as some countries like the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, English is an "official language'.
Why? Because it's the most important international language in the world. But how did it become so important?
Did you know that English is a member of a language family that includes ancient languages like Ancient Greek and Latin, languages such as Urdu and Persian, Slavonic languages such as Russian and Polish as well as most European languages including French, Spanish, Swedish and German?
It is called a "family" of languages because all of the languages in that group have the same original roots. The family that English belongs to is the Indo-European family, and English began to develop in about A.D. 450, when Anglo-Saxon invaders came from Germany. Before this invasion, the spoken language in England was a form of Celtic, similar to Welsh or Gaelic (the language spoken in Ireland). By about A.D. 700, the Anglo-Saxon tribes had occupied almost all of England as far as the borders of Wales, Scotland and Cornwall, and their language dominated. Thus Old English is sometimes called Anglo-Saxon, and the word England means 'land of the Angles'. 
As Anglo-Saxons were farmers, many of their words are still in the dictionary today: sheep, earth, dog, field, work, the, is, you. Latin appeared in Britain first when the Romans came in A.D.43, but only a few Latin words entered then the Celtic language. Hundreds of Latin and Greek words flooded old English when Saint Augustine brought Christianity to Britain in A.D. 597.
Old English was clearly a Germanic language – it was more like modern German and Dutch than modern English. It was affected by the languages of other invaders such as the Vikings, who came from Scandinavia in the ninth century, and the Normans who came from France in 1066. The Normans used Latin for official business, but spoke French in daily life, so at this time there were three languages used in England. Because the rulers used French and Latin, many specialized words, especially those connected with government, law, learning or the army, have come into English from French or Latin, while words for more everyday things are from Old English.
In the next 200 years, OE with all its new Norse, Latin and French vocabulary changed and became 'Middle English". Two great names are connected with it: Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare had a vocabulary of 30,000 words. In his time only 6 or 7 mln people spoke English.
The export of English began in the Elizabethan Age' (1558-1603) due to Sir Francais Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh who brought England a lot of land, money and power and who spread English to the new world and the West Indies. The English language went also to Australia with Captain Cook (1770). In 1620 "Mayflower" sailed to America, in the next 30 years more than 250,000 people from all over Britain followed the pioneers".
Between 1800 and 1900 Britain became the richest country in the world and the most powerful. The British Empire included many foreign countries like New Zealand, Nigeria, India, Canada, South Africa; English was an important language on every continent. At the same time the USA and its language – both grew very quickly in the 19th century. These were the days of cowboys, Indians, gold and railways. 6 mln Europeans began new lives in America. They came from Italy, Germany, Ireland, Scandinavia and Central Europe, having brought new words and expressions to American English. Finally by the 1950s America was the English-speaking superpower.
In fact American English is growing faster now that ever before. The new words come from people of South-east Asia and Central America, from scientists and teenagers. Over 70% of the World's scientists read English. And 90% of all information is stored in English. English is used for many purposes. Vocabularies, grammatical forms and ways of speaking and writing have emerged influenced by technological and scientific developments, economics and management, literature and entertainment genres.
English is the language of summit meetings and the UNO. English is also becoming increasingly the language of international trade: nearly 50% of all the companies in Europe communicate with each other in English. 75% of all international telexes and letters are in English. 80% of all information in the world's computers is in English. Pop singers writing their songs often use lyrics or phrases in English. America and Britain export 1000s of films and TV programmes every year. The International Olympic Committee meets in Lausanne, the official language of all the meeting is English. Now English words have started to become a part of other languages, too. In France, this new vocabulary is called "Franglais" (the mixture of English and French words); in Spain – Spanglish, in Japan – Japtish, in Sweden – Swinglish.
So, English is slowly becoming more than one language. English is changing in many countries of the Third World – which Were once a part of the British Empire – now they're independent. For example in Jamaica. There are 2 kinds of English in this West Indian Island. One is standard – the language of the government and newspapers and the other is Creole – the day-today language of the people.
In Sierra Leone they speak Krio – 80% of the words in the Krio dictionary come from English. In India you can hear 3 languages: Hindi, Indian English and the local Indian language. 1/3 of the world's population lives near the Pacific Ocean in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Hawaii, California, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia. English is an important first, second or foreign language in all these countries.
So, English is becoming more than one language, but it doesn't mean the end of Standard English and the stronger position of local dialects in the future.
People will still need Standard English for international communication in the 21st century. The future isn't local or standard, it is local and standard. English has been an international language for only 50 years. The world is in transition and English may take new forms, but it may also supplement or co-exist with languages by allowing strangers to communicate across linguistic boundaries. It may become one tool that opens widows to the world, unlocks doors to opportunities and expands our minds to new ideas.

Answer the questions:
1.	What are the main trends in the development of English as international language?
2.	What spheres has the international English found its application in modern world?

THE TRANSATLANTIC CONNECTION

Do Americans and Englishmen really speak the same language? It isn't only a question of accents. Spelling and vocabulary are different on either side of the Atlantic, too. Some people would say that the differences are getting fewer. The now 'language' we call 'Transatlantic English' is helping to bridge the gap between our two countries. It's a mixture of British and American characteristics in accent and vocabulary, invented by the increasing number of tourists and businessmen who cross the Atlantic frequently.  
But wouldn't it be a pity if we all started talking English in exactly the same way? Variety is the spice of life and it's impossible to say that British or American English is wrong or right. Let's hope that we can go on being inventive in our own individual ways on both sides of the Atlantic.
The differences in spelling are well known -for "instance, words like 'colour', 'honour' and 'neighbour' are spelt without the 'u' in the United States. While the British have kept the original spellings of many foreign words now used in the English language, Americans have made a point of simplifying spellings and often change them in ways that seem curious to their more conservative British cousins, catalogue' becomes 'catalog', and even 'cigaret' has been seen for 'cigarette'.
Some of the differences in vocabulary could lead to amusing situations. Did you know that American buildings have no ground floor? This does not mean you have to jump up ten feet to get into them, simply that what the British call the 'ground floor' is what Americans call the 'first floor' and so on - useful to remember in a department store!
If an American says he is wearing his new 'pants' and 'vest' to a party - do not be alarmed. He is not going in his underwear, but 'pants' tad 'vest' are the American words for 'trousers' tpd 'waistcoat'. On the other hand, if a British person wears his 'mackintosh' and 'Wellingtons' on a rainy day, he will have to explain to his American cousin that these are his 'raincoat' and 'galoshes' or 'rubbers. In the USA a raincoat is even called a 'London fog', something which no longer exists in London.
When an Englishman goes on his 'holidays', an American will go 'on vacation'. And whereas an Englishman will be 'ill in hospital', an American will be 'sick in the hospital'. Americans are more ready to accept new ideas and new customs than their British cousins, and the same goes for new words.
In some cases the British seem more modern in their use of English than the Americans – some American English dates back to the language of the Pilgrim Fathers and hasn't been used in Britain since the seventeenth century. The word 'fall' is considered archaic, in Britain, where we use 'autumn' instead. In the USA people use the old-fashioned past participle of 'get' and say 'He has gotten, thin' or 'I could have gotten here sooner' when in Britain we would always use 'got'.
How American or English is either of our languages anyway? We both owe a lot to languages from other countries and words that have been absorbed into English tell us much about the histories of Britain and America. Many 'English' words used in Britain actually come from countries of the British Empire, such as 'dinghy' (a small boat) and 'bungalow' (a house on one level), both from India. American English has words taken from all the different nations which have contributed to the formation of North America: 'hooch' meaning 'whisky', is an American Indian word; 'cockroach' (the insect) and 'stampede' (when a herd of cattle runs in panic) come from the original Spanish; the Dutch contributed words such as 'dumb' (stupid) and 'boss' (chief); and it is to the Germans that Americans owe that vital word 'hamburger'.

Answer the questions:
1.	What is expected to contribute to bridging the gap between the UK and the USA?
2.	What kind of  amusing situations can differences in vocabulary lead to?

ENGLISH, THE LANGUAGE, RECONQUERING POLYGLOT INDIA

After three decades of often bitter squabbling over what the national language of this country of many languages should be, it appears that English is winning.  Despite longstanding official attempts to make Hindi the country's chief language at all levels, the language of the British colonisers has become the voluntary, preferred choice of urban Indians and India's educated, rapidly burgeoning middle class.
English is also the language of commerce, finance, science, technology and the social sciences. And, as even a casual look suggests, it is the main language of advertising, the most influential newspapers, the rapidly growing magazines and the budding national television network.
No longer a language strictly for the British-educated elite of pre-independence years, authorities say, English is now permeating areas it never reached before. Working-class urban fathers who speak it a little are sending their children to school to learn to speak it fluently in the hope that better jobs will lift them into the middle class.
Schools in which English is the medium of instruction are springing up everywhere and cannot seem to keep ahead of demand. In the relatively affluent Punjab, there are said to be 5,000 such schools, although many are of uncertain quality, catering to that state's substantial middle class.
"Even the poorest person would like to send his child to a school where the medium is English," said Dr. S. P. Bakhshi, the head of such an institution. Dr. Bakhshi, principal of New Delhi's Modern School, which has 1,100 applicants a year for 200 places, added, "They say, 'I'll cut back to only one meal a day to pay for it if you'll let my child in.'"
Fluency in English greatly enhances the marriageability of middle-class daughters. And a sort of English chic has developed. "It is the fashion to learn English in the same way it is to have stereos and radios and electronic gadgets," Dr. Akhileshwar Jha, a linguist at Delhi University and a recognized authority on the subject, said recently. English commands respect, as Rama Jha, a university English teacher and the wife of Dr. Jha, finds when she rides on city buses. "The conductor is very polite when you use English," she said, "but unpleasant and uncooperative otherwise."
Many authorities cite more substantial and possibly more durable causes for the resurgence of English. One is that to the extent that English is becoming the language of the world and,' particularly, of world commerce, science and technology, it is to the advantage of Indians to speak it.
Some authorities say further that the structure, vocabulary and flexibility of English give it an innate advantage over Hindi, which, according to Dr. Jha, "is not able to cope with the experiences of the modern world." Finally, English is widely and increasingly viewed as a vital key to good jobs, financial and personal advancement. 
"Some of the people believe now that if you don't study English you're going to be a nobody, an ordinary person," Dr. Bakhshi said. "For urban jobs in the private sector," Dr. Jha said flatly, "English is a must."Whatever the reasons, English is spoken the length and breadth of the land by many in India's modern sectors. "Infinitely more than Hindi," Dr. lha wrote recently, English "has quietly established itself in India as its de facto national language".            
'Not all experts agree with that conclusion. Some point out that even though English may be the premier language of emerging India, it is still spoken by only 15 million to 20 million of the country's 700 million people.
Furthermore, linguists say, Hindi hag spread rapidly in the traditional largely rural world in which most Indians live. As many as 150 million Indians may now speak Hindi, far more than those who speak any other language. It is being more widely accepted in non-Hindi regions, authorities say, not least because it dominates the movies.
"Only 10 to 20 percent of the people in all of India cannot understand Hindi at all" B. N. Tiwari, another Delhi University linguist, maintained. He and others believe that Hindi therefore has a better claim to be the "link language" in a country with at least 50 major regional languages, 14 of which are officially recognized.
Some analysts see the strong emergence of English in India's modern sectors, and the parallel establishment and spread of Hindi, as one expression of a deeper conflict between modern India and traditional India. Unless and until this conflict is resolved, they speculate, India will probably never have a truly national language-and it may not have one in any case.
Some who favor English as the single national language argue that democracy demands it. Since the decisions that affect the lives of the most Indians are now primarily made in English, they argue, and the most trenchant discussions about what is going on in the country are carried on in the English news media, most Indians are increasingly cut off from public life.
Hindi and English are both established as official national languages for governmental use. Originally, Hindi was to stand alone. But opposition over. the years from states where Hindi is not spoken, particularly in the south, has enabled English to hold its own in central Government use.
Analysts on both sides of the argument concur that, for all the new vigor and popularity of English, it faces a quality problem: although the use of English is increasing, authorities say, it is frequently spoken badly, and is even more frequently read and written with poor fluency.
Indian English has adopted many local words and expressions, as is the case in many other countries where the use of English has expanded. Conversely, in a kind of cross-fertilization that may be producing a sort of "Hindish," Hindi has incorporated many English words. Some authorities place the proportion of English in Hindi as high as 30 percent.

Answer the questions:
1.	What does the role of English in modern India consist in?
2.	What are the visible perspectives for Hindi and English in India?

SIMPLICITY
William Zinsser

William Zinsser was born in New York City in 1922. After graduating from Princeton University, he worked for the New York Herald Tribune, first as a feature writer and later as its drama editor and film critic. Currently the executive editor of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Zinsser has written a number of books, including Pop Goes America (1966), The Lunacy Boom (1970), Writing with a Word Processor (1983), Willie and Dwike: An American Profile (1984), and Writing to Learn (1988), as well as other social and cultural commentaries. In this selection from his popular book On Writing Well, Zinsser, reminding us of Thoreau before him, exhorts the writer to "Simplify, simplify. "Notice that Zinsser's paragraphs are unified and logically developed, and consequently work well together to support his thesis.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon. 
Who can understand the viscous language of everyday American commerce and enterprise: the business letter, the interoffice memo, the corporation report, the notice from the bank explaining its latest "simplified" statement? What member of an insurance or medical plan can decipher the brochure that describes what the costs and benefits are? What father or mother can put together a child's toy – on Christmas Eve or any other eve – from the instructions on the box? Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important. The airline pilot who announces that he is presently anticipating experiencing considerable precipitation wouldn't dream of saying that it may rain. The sentence is too simple – there must be something wrong with it.
But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what – these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur, ironically, in proportion to education and rank.
During the late 1960s, the president of a major university wrote a letter to mollify the alumni after a spell of campus unrest. "You are probably aware," he began, "that we have been experiencing very considerable potentially explosive expressions of dissatisfaction on issues only partially related." He meant that the students had been hassling them about different things. I was far more upset by the president's English than by the students' potentially explosive expressions of dissatisfaction. I would have preferred the presidential approach taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he tried to convert into English his own government's memos, such as this blackout order of 1942:
Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination.
"Tell them," Roosevelt said, "that in buildings where they have to keep the work going to put something across the windows."
Simplify, simplify. Thoreau said it, as we are so often reminded, and no American writer more consistently practiced what he preached. Open Walden to any page and you will find a man saying in a plain and orderly way what is on his mind:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it.
How can the rest of us achieve such enviable freedom from clutter? The answer is to clear our heads of clutter. Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other. It's impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English. You may get away with it for a paragraph or two, but soon the reader will be lost, and there's no sin so grave, for the reader will not easily be lured back.
Who is this elusive creature, the reader? The reader is someone with an attention span of about sixty seconds – a person assailed by forces competing for the minutes that might otherwise be spent on a magazine or a book. At one time these forces weren't so numerous or so possessive: newspapers, radio, spouse, home, children. Today they also include a "home entertainment center" (TV, VCR, video camera, tapes and CDs), pets, a fitness program, a lawn and a garden and all the gadgets that have been bought to keep them spruce, and that most potent of competitors, sleep. The person snoozing in a chair, holding a magazine or a book, is a person who was being given too much unnecessary trouble by the writer.
It won't do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If the reader is lost, it's usually because the writer hasn't been careful enough. The carelessness can take any number of forms. Perhaps a sentence is so excessively cluttered that the reader, hacking through the verbiage, simply doesn't know what it means. Perhaps a sentence has been so shoddily constructed that the reader could read it in any of several ways. Perhaps the writer has switched pronouns in midsentence, or has switched tenses, so the reader loses track of who is talking or when the action took place. Perhaps Sentence B is not a logical sequel to Sentence A – the writer, in whose head the connection is clear, hasn't bothered to provide the missing link. Perhaps the writer has used an important word incorrectly by not taking the trouble to look it up. The writer may think that "sanguine" and "sanguinary" mean the same thing, but the difference is a bloody big one. The reader can only infer (speaking of big differences) what the writer is trying to imply.
Faced with such obstacles, readers are at first remarkably tenacious. They blame themselves – they obviously missed something, and they go back over the mystifying sentence, or over the whole paragraph, piecing it out like an ancient rune, making guesses and moving on. But they won't do this for long. The writer is making them work too hard, and they will look for one who is better at the craft.
Writers must therefore constantly ask: What am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don't know. Then they must look at what they have written and ask: Have I said it? Is it clear to someone encountering the subject for the first time? If it's not, that's because some fuzz has worked its way into the machinery. The clear writer is someone clearheaded enough to see this stuff for what it is: fuzz.
I don't mean that some people are born clearheaded and are therefore natural writers, whereas others are naturally fuzzy and will never write well. Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force upon themselves, just as if they were embarking on any other project that requires logic: adding up a laundry list or doing an algebra problem. Good writing doesn't come naturally, though most people obviously think it does. The professional writer is constantly being bearded by strangers who say they'd like to "try a little writing sometime"–  meaning when they retire from their real profession, like insurance or real estate. Or they say, "I could write a book about that." I doubt it.
Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this as a consolation in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do.

I. Answer the questions:
1.	What exactly does Zinsser mean by clutter? How does Zinsser feel that we can free outselves of clutter?
2.	In paragraph 3 Zinsser lists a number of "adulterants" that weaken English sentences and claims that "they usually occur, ironically, in proportion to education and rank." Why do you suppose this is true?
3.	What is the relationship between thinking and writing for Zinsser?
4.	In paragraph 11, Zinsser says that writers must constantly ask themselves some questions. What are these and why are they important?
5.	How do Zinsser's first and last paragraphs serve to introduce and conclude his essay? (Glossary: Beginnings and Ending)
6.	What is the function of paragraphs 4-6 in the context of the essay?

II. Suggested writing assignments:
1.	The following pages show a passage from the final manuscript for Zinsser's essay. Carefully study the manuscript and Zinsser's changes, and then write several well-developed paragraphs analyzing the ways he has eliminated clutter.
2.	If what Zinsser writes about clutter is an accurate assessment, we should easily find numerous examples of clutter all around us. During the next few days, make a point of looking for clutter in the written materials you come across. Choose one example that you find – an article, an essay, a form letter, or a chapter from a textbook, for example – and write an extended analysis explaining how it might have been written more simply. Develop your paragraphs well, make sure they are coherent, and try not to "clutter" your own writing.

Unit II. TRAVELLING

The Art Of Travelling Abroad

Though recent years have witnessed a great improvement, it must be confessed that many people still betray woeful ignorance of the veriest rudiments of the art of travelling abroad. One should bear in mind that one cannot reasonably expect the manners of the people among whom one is staying to be altered for one's particular benefit, and that it is not the nationality which makes the gentleman, but his actions.
Wherever you decide to go, it is sensible, unless you are an experienced traveller, to consult some friend who has been there before as to the kind of climate you may expect, the kind and quantity of clothes you will need and to get any advice he may be able to give you in general which may add to the ease and comfort of your trip. Your friend will not be at all bored by the questions as there are few topics more welcome to anyone who has "been there before!"
When travelling abroad it is odious perpetually to be instituting comparisons. It is discourteous to those with whom you may be temporary thrown; and it detracts from your own comfort and pleasure. You may dislike this, that, or the other thing, but all the grumbling in the world is not likely to alter it. The matter complained about may, and very likely does, exactly suit the taste of the foreigner, and as he prefers his own taste to yours, you must either accept it or remain in your own country. What is more, by grumbling you display your ignorance of the habits and customs of foreign countries. The true traveller, if dining on salt fish in Iceland, would never tell the Icelanders that roast beef is better, whatever he might think.
And this attitude should apply to everything. The women may not dress so tastefully, according to your notions, as your sisters or daughters at home. The men may be too noisy or too quiet. The houses may be ridiculously inconvenient, or clumsily built. No matter wherein lies the difference, institute no comparisons. Remember you are in a strange country, where you must expect to see strange things. Be especially careful not to say or do anything that will touch the pride of the people, or show disrespect of their religion. 
Remember too, that, though in some respects the comparisons you may be mentally drawing may be flattering to your own country, the reverse will be true, over and over again if you study, things dispassionately.

Answer the questions:
1.	What amazed you while you were travelling abroad?
2.	What seems strange to foreigners about your country?

ZANZIBAR: TOURISM AND CONSERVATION

Islands make up only a small part of the world’s land area, but some of the most endangered species of plants and animals in the world are found on islands. Islands species are especially vulnerable to the threat of extinction for a number of reasons. Many of them are endemic, which means that they are only found in that particular place. This is often because they have evolved in isolation, but it also means that they are particularly susceptible to introduced competitors, diseases and predators. The small physical size of islands also means that human activities can rapidly degrade large parts of them and can have a great impact on relatively small island populations.
Zanzibar, an archipelago of Tanzanian islands in the Indian Ocean, is home to several rare animal species. Five of the Earth’s seven remaining species of sea turtle have been spotted in Zanzibar’s waters, including the endangered green and hawksbill turtles. giant tortoises are found on one of Zanzibar’s islands, Changuu, one of only two islands that are home to this species. Zanzibar’s forests also contain a number of rare animals found nowhere else on Earth. These include the Zanzibar red colobus monkey, the Zanzibar leopard, a type of antelope known as Ader’s duiker, the pemba flying fox, and the pemba scops owl.
Many of these species are endangered because of human action. Forests have been cut down for the expansion of agriculture (both for cash crops, such as cloves, and for subsistence crops) and to provide firewood, charcoal and building poles. The population of giant tortoises has been hit hard by poachers supplying the international pet trade. New beachfront hotels as well as illegal fishing by local people have contributed to the destruction of turtle habitats. tourism in Zanzibar has boomed in recent decades and, although the money brought in by tourists may help with protection of threatened species, the influx of foreign visitors has also contributed to the dangers such species face.

Giant tortoises
 Zanzibar has long played an important tole in trade between East Africa and Arabia, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was a major slave-trading depot. Untruly slaves were held on Changuu (prison) island, a small outpost they shared with a population of giant tortoises. The tortoises were brought to Changuu from aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles, probably by seafarers some time in the early nineteenth century.
When a treaty with the British in 1873 abolished the slave trade in Zanzibar, the tortoises were left to roam Changuu alone. But in recent years Changuu’s giant tortoises, which grow to over a metre long and a third of a tonne in weight, have become targets for poachers. In the 1950s the island’s tortoise population was 200, but by 1990 their number had dropped to 50. It became clear that tortoises were being stolen, probably to supply the international trade in exotic pets.
A survey in 1996 found that just nine adults remained on the island, and only three of them were female. In response to the crisis, 84 babies were relocated to a fenced compound on the main Zanzibar island, but further poaching incidents followed. Soon after the arrival of the babies, more than half of them were stolen from their compound and another two adults (a male and a female) were removed from Changuu. A $500 reward was offered for information on the disappearance of the tortoises. As a result, several arrests were made and some tortoises recovered.
Changuu’s endangered giant tortoises have since been returned to their island, where they live in fenced compounds part-financed by the British-based charity World Society for the Protection of Animals. Tourist dollars are also helping to secure the tortoises’ future. Day-trippers pay $5 to visit Changuu and see this unique group of gigantic reptiles. Visitors are allowed to enter the tortoise compound and for a few Tanzanian shillings more they can buy papaya and spinach to hand-feed the tortoises. The fees help to cover the costs of tortoise protection, which now includes inserting a microchip under the skin of each animal so that it can be traced if it is stolen.
A local education programme is also up and running, organising school visits from the main Zanzibar island. This involves local children in conservation activities, and also creates publicity for the tortoise project, because the school visits are filmed for Zanzibar television.

Red colobus monkeys
The alliance forged between tourists and species conservation on Changuu is mirrored in the Jozani Forest-Chwaka Bay Conservation Area on the main Zanzibar island. The area is home to five different ecosystems, including mangrove forest, coral rag forest and marine sea grass, and is also a haven for the world’s last remaining 1.500 Zanzibar red colobus monkeys, one of Africa’s rarest primates.
Although legally protected, Jozani-Chwaka Bay is still under pressure from human activities. The area supplies firewood and charcoal to Zanzibar town, and the forest areas provide building poles and fuel for lime burning, both of which are in heavy demand hotel construction. Protection of the red colobus monkey has also been a greater challenge to conservations than protecting Changuu’s giant tortoises. Farmers bordering Jozani view many of the forest’s wild animals, including the rare monkey, as pests. Even today, the red colobus monkey is known as kima punju, or ‘poison monkey’, because of its michievous destruction of fruit trees and crops. In retaliation, animals caught outside the park’s limits are sometimes poisoned or shot at by irate farmers, while their habitat suffers at the hands of Zanzibar’s growing population, hungry for shrinking amounts of farmland and timber.
Securing the future of Jozani-Chwaka Bay and its red colobus monkeys has not been easy. Discussions between field staff and communities bordering the forest continued for many months after Jozani was officially made a protected conservation area in 1995. The talks were often tense, but eventually a deal was struck. In return for local help in protecting the forest and its wildlife, the government pledged development assistance and a share of tourism revenue. In the following 3 years, a visitors’ centre was built, a hiking trail was hacked through the dense forest, and a wooden boardwalk was constructed through the most spectacular section of Jozani’s mangrove swamp.
Tourists pay $10 a head to visit the park and gate receipts at Jozani more than tripled from about $12.000 to $63.000 a year between 1995 and 1997. About 80% of this revenue goes to an endowment fund set up to support local community development. The park further serves local communities by rearing fruit-tree saplings that are sold on to farmers.
Endangered animal species in Zanzibar have faced a variety of threats to their continued survival. Securing their future is a delicate task when a growing human population is competing with wildlife for limited resources. The examples of the red colobus monkeys and Changuu’s giant tortoises illustrate how money brought to the islands by tourism can help species conservation. 

Answer the questions:
1.	Is tourism in your opinion of any good to the country?
2.	 What is done in your country in order to save endangered animal species?

Ecotourism In Amazonia

Ecuador is a less economically developed country (LEDC) in South America. It takes its name from the equator, which runs through it. Like many of the world's poorer countries Ecuador relies on primary products for its trade with the outside world. Oil, bananas and coffee are three of its most important commodities, and roses have recently been added to the list.
Like many LEDC countries, Ecuador is keen to develop tourism as an alternative source of income. Payment for tourist activities is usually in US dollars rather than the national currency, the sucre, which has little value outside Ecuador. Tourism is currently Ecuador's seventh most important source of earnings. The government is hoping to increase its importance because tourism provides a valuable source of employment, as well as foreign earnings.

Ecotourism
Ecuador contains 2% of the Amazon rainforest within its borders, and this is an area which could be developed for tourism. Tropical rainforests are the richest habitat on Earth, supporting a greater variety of plants and animals than any other habitat. The hot, wet climate encourages trees and plants to grow quickly. The rainforest typically has a layered structure.
Tributaries of the River Amazon rise in the Ecuadorian Andes and How eastwards to the Amazon basin. The main tributary in this region is the Aguarico River which itself has three main tributaries: the Cuyabeno, Sablo and Pacuyacu Rivers. The Ecuadorian government and the indigenous people of this area are keen to develop tourism because it will provide jobs and income.
They are also anxious to protect the rainforest and maintain the traditional way of life of local peoples. They believe this can be done through ecotourism, which is tourism 'directed towards exotic, often threatened natural environments, especially intended to support conservation efforts'. This is a form of sustainable development because it does not, in theory, harm the environment.
Ecotourism is not mass tourism. It is aimed at smaller groups of people who have particular interests – wildlife enthusiasts, bird watchers, botanists and photographers. It is this type of visitor that Ecuador would like to attract to the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve.

Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve
The reserve is considered to be a 'hot spot' of biodiversity, undamaged and remote. Small groups of visitors are welcomed and looked after by guides from the indigenous Cofane and Cuyaheno tribes. Access is difficult. From Quito, the capital of Ecuador, a 35 minute flight to Lago Agrio is followed by a 2 hour bus journey to the Aguarico River. A 3 hour speed-boat trip then takes visitors to their accommodation on a 22-room floating hotel.
From their base on the 'Hotel' guides take visitors on expeditions to see the plant and animal life. These expeditions are either on foot or by dugout canoe. Local Cofane guides explain the medicinal uses of plants and trees in the rainforest, and trained naturalists guide tourists along the trails and waterways, where they point out the many species of mammal, reptile, insect and bird which can be seen and heard. These include sloths, jaguars, monkeys, parrots, toucans, caimans and anacondas. 
A further 2 hours by boat takes visitors on to a base camp in the forest where they spend nights in the jungle under nets, but open to the elements.
One of the aims of these activities is to make people aware of the natural world and give them respect for the environment of the indigenous people. At the Cofane interpretation centre tourists can see how local people live in harmony with their environment. Visitors are not allowed to take-photographs because this would be too intrusive. They can buy items such as beads made from local seeds which have been strung together.
The income gained from this type of ecotourism is used not only to help local people earn money, but also to maintain the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. Places like this cannot support large-scale tourism but it is hoped that those who are able to visit will realise the importance of such unique natural environments.

Answer the questions:
3.	What is ecotourism? 
4.	Why can LEDCs benefit from it?

Eight Ways To Protect Your Health While Travelling

You're finally on your way. By now, you should have taken all recommended precautions for the area you're visiting. These eight tips represent good general advice for anyone who is travelling beyond Canada or Western Europe, although they may be more applicable for some destinations than others.
Packing: Be sure to pack all prescription medications and other health-related supplies and documentation in a carry-on bag, in case your luggage gets lost or stolen. Carry the drugs in their original containers, and keep a copy of the prescription for emergency refills, if needed. This may sound like common sense, but keep your destination(s) in mind as you pack. Sunny, warm climates require sun-protective eyewear and clothing (hats, lightweight long-sleeved shirts and pants) and maximum SPF sunblock. If insect-borne diseases such as malaria are common, long sleeves and pants and closed shoes are a must-and don't forget to take your preventive anti-malaria medication as prescribed. For colder climates, be sure to pack sufficiently warm clothing.
Air travel: On long international trips, be sure to get up and walk around the cabin every hour or two. This helps prevent the formation of blood clots in the legs, a condition known as deep-vein thrombosis. Drink plenty of water.
Jet lag and medications: Just as crossing time zones can throw off your sleep patterns, it can complicate medication schedules. Ask your doctor's advice about dealing with this problem.
Food- and water-borne illnesses: Taking precautions when you drink and eat overseas can help guard against traveler's diarrhea and more serious conditions such as cholera, typhoid, and hepatitis A. Sanitation standards overseas often aren't as rigorous as they are here in the U.S., and some developing countries use human waste as fertilizer. Thus, the usual advice to ‘not drink the water’ isn't sufficient because foods can be contaminated, too. The following tips should help you guard against illness:
•	Canned or bottled carbonated drinks are safest. If you have to drink tap water, make sure it has been boiled or that you filter or purify yourself using approved equipment. Bottled water can be risky because you don't know the actual source; however, that's a judgment call you'll need to make. 
•	Do not ingest ice cubes or tap water in any amount. Do not brush your teeth with tap water or drink any accidentally while showering. 
•	Avoid street vendors as much as possible. When eating out, your best choices are well-cooked, very hot entrees, pasteurized dairy products, and fruits you can peel yourself. Avoid pre-prepared salad items, warm or homemade dairy products, seafood, and premade foods that have been reheated, like casseroles and lasagna.
Realize that even the most careful travelers can develop a case of diarrhea. If that happens, make use of the medications and rehydration solutions in your first-aid kit and drink plenty of fluids. If your symptoms are severe, seek medical attention immediately in case you have something more serious than traveler's diarrhea, like cholera or typhoid. That leads us to the next piece of advice . 
Seek medical attention: Don't let fear keep you from seeking medical attention overseas if you have symptoms that indicate possible severe illness. What you think is the flu or a stomach bug could be something more serious and even life threatening, like malaria or cholera.
Travelling by car and bus: Motor vehicle accidents are one of the leading causes of death among international travelers. Always wear your seatbelt and avoid taxis or buses that seem unsafe or too crowded.
Water safety: Avoid swimming or even dipping your feet and hands in freshwater lakes or ponds, which can lead to infection by water-borne parasites. One of the most common examples is schistosomiasis, which occurs when the eggs of the blood fluke Schistosoma penetrate the skin. It is treatable, but it can cause damage to internal organs. Also, use caution when swimming or boating. Drowning actually causes more fatalities among international travelers than infectious diseases do.
Avoid insect bites: This is absolutely essential for preventing diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, dengue fever, and leishmaniasis (also called sand fly disease). You should take preventive measures throughout the day to decrease your risk of infection. The most effective insect repellents contain diethyltoluamide (DEET) as an active ingredient. This is a powerful chemical, so it's best to use it sparingly on all exposed skin (avoiding cuts and sores) and only when spending time outdoors. Wash it off when you return indoors, and use a non-DEET repellent such as permethrin for clothes and other surfaces. When outdoors, especially at night, wear long pants and long sleeves. Protect yourself overnight by draping mosquito netting over your bed-although your need for this may be determined by your accommodations. Enclosed, air-conditioned rooms are generally considered safe .

Answer the question:
1.	What should you take into account while travelling? 

YOUR WAY TO AMERICA

From the sunkissed beaches of Hawaii to the spectacular scenery of the Rockies, the sophistication of cosmopolitan New York and the laughs and thrills of the theme parks, the U.S. offers excitement, variety and beauty in large measures. And what better way to experience the wonders of this vast country than with American Airlines Holidays. As part of American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, we can offer the most comprehensive flying programme acroos the Atlantic, backed up by an extensive network of internal flights. Then there’s our immense buying power which helps keep our prices down. And of course, as specialists we can offer in depth product knowledge and high standards of personal service. Great Variety, Great Value, Great Service – just three simple reasons why American Airlines Holidays are your best bet for a superb American adventure.

Travel in Style
Let your holiday begin the moment you step on board the plane. All our flights are operated by American Airlines whose fleet of LuxuryLiners and LuxuryJets is one of the youngest in the world. Complimentary cocktails, steamed towels prior to every meal and printed menus from which to choose your entree are all part of the international service. Even the seats have been specially designed for the utmost comfort, and of course there’s that extra bit of leg room afforded on a scheduled service.
American Airlines fly direct from Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow nonstop to 7 U.S. gateway airports and our comprehensive domestic network which serves over 200 cities throughout the country – so you can travel in style all the way to your ultimate destination. Great Holidays begin with a Great Airline.

Answer the questions:
1.	What for you is most important from an airline? Put the following in order of imporatnce: safety, comfort, punctual departures and arrivals, good food and wine, attentive cabin staff.
2.	Flying is probably one of the safest ways to travel, but there can be problems. Discuss what can go wrong on the ground and in the air.

AMSTERDAM

Choice
Travel: With daily departures throughout the year and a wide range of departure points, our holidays by air, rail, coach and car offer total flexibility at timings to suit you.
Accomodation: As the leading tour operator to Holland we offer the widest choice of carefully selected hotels from modest one star hotels for a budget break, to top of the range five star luxury for that very special occasion.
Flexibility: If the holiday you require is not in the brochure, we will be pleased to quote you a special price. We are happy to accept bookings for hotel accomodation only. We can arrange multi-centre holidays combining any of our featured destinations as well as holidays in conjunction with our sister companies specialising in Paris, Belgium and Disneyland Paris.

Value
Prices: Our excellent reputation, years of experience and position as market leader enable us to negotiate the best possible holiday prices.
Special offers: We offer you even better value for money with special offers at many hotels at certain times of the year e.g. 3 nights for the price of 2, reductions for midweek stays, free or reduced price meals. Please refer to individual hotel descriptions for details. 

Service
Reservations: Instant reservations and late bookings even up to the day of departure are our speciality. Our friendly specialist staff have all been thoroughly trained to offer you expert assistance. Every one of them knows Amsterdam and will be pleased to answer any query you may have.
Our Amsterdam Office: We have our own Representative Office in the centre of Amsterdam open 6 days a week. Our friendly staff are there to provide any help or information you may require during your stay. We also offer a 24 hour emergency telephone service providing assistance at any time – day or night.
Travel Pack: With your tickets you will receive full travel documentation including city map, detailed itineraries and our exclusive “Passport to Amsterdam” information booklet.

Answer the questions:
1.	What types of holidays have you been on and which do you like best? Why?
2.	Describe in details your last trip.

Unit III. HEALTHY WAY OF LIFE. TRADITIONAL AND NON-TRADITIONAL MEDICINE

Alternative Medicine

Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is a treatment method, which uses essential oils extracted from flowers, plants or trees. These are massaged into the body, inhaled, sprinkled in baths, or in some cases ingested.
Aromatic substances were used in healing throughout the ancient world notably by the Egyptians who buried jars of frankincense and myrrh alongside their pharaohs in their tombs, and who used the same perfumes for both medical and cosmetic effects. Proponents of aromatherapy have to this day developed the art for purposes as diverse as the healing of wounds, treating skin cancer and banishing wrinkles.
Having selected the appropriate oil the aromatherapist will probably want to spend some time preparing the skin because diet, pollution and make-up have dulled the receptivity of the modern skin. Inhalation is used for the treatment of head and lung complaints. About six to ten treatments may be required, although beneficial effects may be felt earlier.
As might be expected, aromatherapy is most effective used in the treatment of the skin, in healing wounds and burns, and treating shingles, acne, and conditions related to stress. The massage with which the oils are applied adds to therapeutic effect of the treatment.

Reflexology
This is a technique in which particular areas on the soles and .sides of the feet are seen to correspond to the organs of the body. These are massaged to promote the health of the organs. Refexology can also be used as a diagnostic tool. Treatment with the patient lying bare-footed on a couch reflexologist will feel for tiny lumps under the surface of the skin, which are believed to be crystalline deposits. The place on the foot where these are found indicates which organ is not functioning properly. For instance, the big toe corresponds to the top of the head and brain, and various parts of the heel to the bladder, sciatic nerve and sexual organs. The reflexologist will massage these spots, which can be surprisingly sensitive when touched, so it is not uncommon to feel some pain. Treatments continue until the spot is no longer sensitive.

T'ai Chi Chuan
In T'ai chi slow, flowing movements, which follow a set pattern enable practitioners to harmonize mind, body and spirit and become more deeply centred in themselves. Its applications can be a form of healing, for self-defence and as a spiritual discipline.
The emphasis in performing the movements is not on strength or exertion, but on relaxation, concentration and balance. The knees are kept bent and movement is achieved by shifting the greater part of the body's weight slowly from one foot to the other while the hands make careful and gentle pushing and circling gestures. Attention is also paid to correct breathing. Physically the aim is to develop muscle control, fluidity and grace.
Because of its relaxing effect, T'ai chi is often recommended therapeutically to those who suffer from tension and anxiety, high blood pressure and heart complaints. It can promote and maintain good health both physically and mentally.

Answer the questions:
1.	What kind of illnesses can be treated with the help of the alternative medicine?
2.	What are the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative medicine?

WHAT IS ACUPUNCTURE?

Do you enjoy having injections? Not, likely, you say. Well, how about voluntarily subjecting yourself to, not one, but multiple needles pricks, all in an attempt to relieve pain. If you think that only a masochist would allow such torture to his body, then you need to get up to scratch on acupuncture. Acupuncture originated in China some 250 years before the birth of Christ. The Chinese found that the insertion of fine needles stimulated or calmed certain parts of the body. Specifically, acupuncture was discovered to have the following effects: 
(1) Sedation: Prior to a tooth extraction, childbirth by Caesarean section or any number of medical procedures, acupuncture can sedate the patient without causing the none too pleasant side effects of vomiting and dizziness. 
(2) Relaxation: After treatment the patient feels as if a weight has been taken off his shoulders. His muscles feel loose and relaxed, as if he has just had a fantastic deep tissue massage. 
(3) Functional Modification: Muscular pain can be eased, if not eliminated, and functionally unhealthy conditions can be corrected. 
Sound pretty good, so far? Want to give it a try? Or, are you still not able to get over the needle thing? Well, calm down – it’s not that bad. Really. 
The acupuncture needles are, in fact, pleasantly unobtrusive. Although they vary in length from 5 to 7 centimetres, they are very fine. Made of silver or stainless steel, they have a thickness of just 0.1 millimetres. With a set of these tools and a metal guide tube the acupuncturist sets to work. Here’s the routine he’ll usually follow: 
a) As an aid to diagnosis he will take the patient’s pulse. He will also feel to determine the hardness of the muscles. He will then ascertain where the origin of a patient’s pain is. 
b) A needle will be inserted about an inch from the pain center. This will cause the nerves in that area to vibrate. Several smaller needles will be inserted around the same area. 
c) The acupuncturist will now use reflexology techniques to insert a needle in the foot such that the area affecting the pained muscle is affected. 
d) After treatment, the patient should rest for about 30 minutes before resuming with his day. 
The actual insertion of the needles is a matter of precision. The needle is placed in a guide tube held in the acupuncturist’s left hand. The guide tube is slightly shorter than the needle itself. The acupuncturist will now give a light tap with his right index finger and the needle is painlessly inserted into the skin at exactly the right spot. 
So, just how does acupuncture work? Well, that is a secret that its Oriental practitioners are not ready to divulge. The closest to an explanation came from a life-long acupuncturist who said, “Acupuncture is simply our way of treating illness. The patient likes the personal touch that is sometimes regrettably missing in Western medical treatment. Through acupuncture we can ease pain and correct an unhealthy condition – in other words, help one who is sick to regain reasonable health.” If you want to do just that, perhaps it’s time you went under the needle.

Answer the questions:
1.	What else would you like to know about acupuncture?
2.	What are the differences between Western and holistic medicine?

HOMEOPATHY

Although during the past 200 years many people in Britain, Europe and America have felt better for  consulting  a  homeopath, orthodox doctors are scornful. According to them, homeopathic remedies only work because the people who take them believe that they will work. Scientists are sceptical because they are convinced that the remedies do not contain enough of the substance to have any effect. But the idea of taking the smallest possible amount, or minimum dose, of the remedy is fundamental to homeopathy. The British Medical Association's 1986 report on alternative medicine rejected homeopathy out of hand - the theory of minimum dose was irrational.
Dr Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), the father of homeopathy, objected to the barbarous practices of allopathic medicine. 18th century doctors relied on blood letting and prescription of poisonous mixtures of drugs. Hahnemann noticed that substances which produced the same symptoms as a particular disease could be used to cure it. Hahnemann came across this, phenomenon (first described by Hippocrates) when he experimented with cinchona or Peruvian bark, from which quinine is derived. Knowing that the drug was effective against malaria, he took it and found that he developed all the symptoms of malaria. Through extensive testing on himself, friends, and family, he drew the drug pictures of hundreds of substances and established the law of similars, or treatment of like by like.
Since the substances were often toxic, Hahnemann began to experiment with methods of diluting them to find the smallest possible dose – a cure without side effects. He diluted one part of the substance with 99 parts of a mixture of water and alcohol and gave the result 100 powerful shocks, or successions. He called this dilution the first centesimal potency.
In the London cholera epidemic of 1854, the death rate in orthodox London hospitals was  53.2 per cent, compared with a death rate in the London Homeopathic Hospital of 16.4 per cent. This striking difference may be accounted for by other aspects of homeopathy – its emphasis on diet, exercise, and fresh air and the patient's spiritual, emotional, and intellectual wellbeing. Whether the minimum dose is vindicated or not, patients will continue to seek relief from the ailments conventional medicine cannot cure. And they will continue to benefit from the time and attention they receive from homeopathic practitioners. 

Answer the question:
1.	What do you know about the following alternative approaches to medicine: herbalism, osteopathy, faith healing?

THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY
Helen Keller

Helen Keller (1880-1968) was afflicted by a disease that left her blind and deaf at the age of eighteen months. With the aid of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, she was able to overcome her severe handicaps, to graduate from Radcliffe College, and to lead a productive and challenging adult life. In the following selection from her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1902), Keller tells of the day she first met Anne Sullivan, a day she regarded as the most important in her life. Notice that Keller states her thesis in the first paragraph and that it serves to focus and unify the remaining paragraphs.
The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the hurrying to and from in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch and fell on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.
I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me.
The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-1-1." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkeylike imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk. But my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name.
One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-1-1" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-1-1" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten – a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.
I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them – words that were to make the world blossom for me, "like Aaron's rod, with flowers." It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.

I. Answer the questions:
1.	What is Helen Keller’s thesis in this essay?
2.	What is Helen Keller's purpose in this essay? (Glossary: Purpose)
3.	What was Helen Keller's state of mind before Anne Sullivan arrived to help her? To what does she compare herself ?
4.	How was the "mystery of language" (7) revealed to Helen Keller? What were the consequences of this new understanding of the nature of language for her?

II. Suggested writing assignments:
1.	Think about an important day in your own life. Using the thesis statement "The most important day of my life was ...," write an essay in which you show the significance of that day by recounting and explaining the events that took place.
2.	For many people around the world, the life of Helen Keller stands as the symbol of what can be achieved by an individual despite seemingly insurmountanble handicaps. Her achievements have also had a tremendous impact uopn those who are not afflicted with handicaps, leading them to believe that they can accomplish more than they ever thought possible. Consider the role of handicapped people in our society, develop an appropriate thesis, and write an essay on the topic. 

FAST FOOD AND NUTRITION

Every second, an estimated 200 people in the United States order one or more hamburgers. The US National Restaurant Association estimates that on a typical day 45.8 million people – a fifth of the American population – are served at fast-food restaurants. The fast-food industry boasts phenomenal growth. From 1970 to 1980 the number of fast-food outlets increased from 30.000 to 140.000, and fast-food sales increased 300%. Fast-food chains have expanded to college campuses, military bases, and other countries. The menus have become more varied, and hours of operation have expanded to include breakfasts.
The trend toward increased consumption of fast foods by Americans has been attributed to the growing employment of women outside the home, the increasing number of people living alone, smaller families, the prevalence of less formal lifestyles, the increase in disposable income, and consumer’s desire and demand for convenience. These trends suggest a growing reliance on fast foods for more than one meal a day, beginning at young ages. Because such foods serve a need in a fast-paced society, they are probably a permanent part of the lifestyle of many Americans. We must, therefore, be concerned about the effect of fast foods in our health and nutritional status.... Fast-food dining has been so well accepted that recomedations to reduce or eliminate it are likely to meet with little or no success. The more efficacious approach is to improve the nutritional quality of fast foods and the eating practices of its consumers.
Fast-food chains should be regarded as one of many possible food sources, with advantages and limitations that must be considered within the context of one’s total diet. For such considerations, consumers need to be educated about how to choose foods, especially when eating out. Health professionals should be able to provide some advice, but much more could be done by the fast-food establishments themselves. First, in addition to diclosing the protein and vitamin contents of their foods, fast-food reastaurants should provide information on the number of calories and the levels of important minerals and fats (quantity and type), so that consumers can make informed choices. Second, they should provide printed menus for consumers wishing to restrict their intake of sodium, calories, or fats, indicating the best choices for such a meal. Third, they should expand their efforts to identify the nutrient contents of foods – for example, at salad bars. Fourth, they should make readily available such items as skim or low-fat milk, margarine, low-fat salad dressings, and 100% whole-grain buns, so that consumers will find it easier to make healthful choices. Finally, for the health of all of us, these important purveyors of food should work with experts to provide optimal nutrition for the public.

Answer the questions:
1.	What kind of fast food is available in your country? How would you rate this food in terms of nutritional value?
2.	Do you think it is possible to produce fast food that is healthy?
3.	What cultural differences or similarities exist between your country and the United States as reflected by the prevalence or scarcity of fast-food chains?  

Unit IV. THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES. DEMOGRAPHIC SITUATION

The World's Urban ExplosioN

By the reckoning of my fellow demographers, human population first reached the billion in the early 19th century. But it took little more than another hundred years for that figure to climb to two billion in 1930, and by 1975 the number doubled again. In the remaining years of this century world population will top six billion; by 2025, eight billion.
The lion's share of this increase will occur in the emerging nations, already home to most of mankind, and will be concentrated in cities overburdened by their current populations. Advances in technology and medicine that allow us longer, healthier lives have buoyed population size and growth rate – and thus created challenges of magnitudes the world has never before faced.
Urban authorities worldwide are declaring their regions to be in crisis situations with drastic shortcomings in housing, water, sewage, transportation, and job opportunities. Lagos, Nigeria, for example, with some five million people and one of the world's' highest growth rates, has so far been unsuccessful in planning construction of a citywide sewer system. 
Urban areas in developing countries are haphazardly spreading far beyond traditional boundaries to accommodate natural population increase and rural migration. Industrial and residential uses and speculation often take over valuable farmland. On the edges of Cairo, prime agricultural land is being lost to the destructive stripping of topsoil for brick making. 
Rapid population growth and urbanization will continue into the foreseeable future, with bleak consequences. Conditions today are only the opening scenes of a drama in which Third World cities, now home to more than one billion people, will hold nearly four billion residents by 2025.

The urbanization trend in developing nations 
Only seven urban centres held more than five million in 1950: New York, London, Paris, Germany's Rhein-Ruhr complex, Tokyo-Yokohama, Shanghai, and Buenos Aires. 'Labour supply and demand had grown in unison as these centres evolved over decades, if not centuries. The enduring architecture of London and Paris reflects slow, graceful development.
Today 34 cities boast more than five million residents. By 2025, the UN projects, there will be 93, and 80 of these will be in the emerging nations. Leisurely development and a low to moderate population growth rate are luxuries of the past.The upsurge in Third World urban populations has overwhelmed resources. Sprawling slums, massive traffic jams, chronic unemployment, regular failure of electric and water services, strained educational and recreational facilities, and skyrocketing food and fuel costs are the stuff of daily existence.
Though demographers warned that the population of Mexico City would double during the 1970s, few others believed such a rise could occur. Yet the metropolis did grow from 8 million to 14 million people, and it may reach 30 million by 2010. Similar projections for other developing nations are now being accepted as realistic.

The paradox of population growth
For most of mankind's history world population grew slowly, checked by epidemics, famine, and chronic malnutrition. Though the mortality rate was high, the birth rate was slightly higher, and with that small excess our numbers gradually increased.
Human population grows much like a savings account accruing compound interest – greater amounts yield greater amounts. English economist Thomas Malthus cited this fact in his 1798 "Essay on the Principal of Population," warning that human numbers – if unchecked – would soon outweigh the ability of the earth to feed them.
But Malthus was writing on the eve of a new era, when the industrial revolution would transform Europe. The continent's population did rise substantially during the 19th century as medical breakthroughs towered the death rate, but simultaneous agricultural advances also allowed food production to rise. And emigration to America helped siphon off population excess.
The newly widened gap between birth and death rates gradually began to close as smaller families become socially acceptable. That trend quickened in industrialized countries during the 20th century, and today the gap between births and deaths is once again small.
In the developing countries a far different history prevails. Only in the 1930s did the death rate begin to fall. but it fell dramatically as imported technology improved overall health and dietary conditions. The birth rate, however, remained high. Its decline depends largely on changing cultural norms, and family planning has made substantial inroads only within the past two decades. As the gap between deaths and births widened, the population exploded. Generally speaking, there were not more births – there were more survivors.With this considerable momentum, population expansions in these countries will continue. Even optimistic scenarios do not foresee a levelling off of growth until late in the 21st century.
Because the traditional birth-and-death-rate relationship has been broken in Third World countries only within the past few decades, they now hold very youthful populations, and the populations will continue to soar because there are more women of childbearing age. Hence the paradox of modern population growth: even as the birth rate continues to fall, the population will rise.
For every 100 Africans today, 55 are under 20 years of age. Among Europeans only 30 out of 100 are under 20. In 1975, 93 million African women were of childbearing age. The birth rate that year in Africa was 47 per 1,000, and 19 million children were born. The UN projects that by 2025 the African birth rate will fall to 25 per 1,000 - a reduction of almost half. But by then the number of reproductive-age women will have risen to 430 million, and even with a lowered birth rate 42 million children will enter the world that year.

A clouded crystal ball
How many people can the earth hold? Will birth and death rates continue to decline? Can food production keep apace of population growth? Can technology supplement or replace today's resources? What are the long-term effects of pollution on health, climate, and farm production?
Debate over such issues has spawned volumes, as scholars look to the future with varying degrees of optimism and gloom. In a lecture titled "The Terror of Change," Patricia Gulas Strauch cited three aspects of our future about which there is little disagreement: The speed of change will accelerate, the world will be increasingly complex, and nations and world issues will be increasingly interdependent.
The problem facing Third World megacities cannot be ignored by developed countries. We cannot look to the past for solutions; there is no precedent for such growth. We are in uncharted, challenging waters.

Answer the questions:
1.	What are the reasons of the population growth?
2.	What may be the consequences of the population growth?

TOO CROWDED FOR COmFORT?

On 12 October last year, somewhere in the world, a baby was born. Nothing very remarkable about that – one is born every 3 seconds. But this child had the distinction of bringing the world’s population to 6 billion. That’s 6 thousand million people alive on the planet at this moment.

Rapid population growth
It is only 13 years since the 5 billionth baby was born, in 1987. Yet it took all of human history until around 1650 to reach the first billion, 200 years to reach the second, 70 years to reach the third, and 44 years to reach the fourth. The human population is growing at an ever-increasing rate.
Before you start imaging a future world where you and your grandchildren only have room to stand elbow to elbow, be reassured that demographers (people who study populations) expect the world’s population to level off some time this century. Indeed the rate of increase is already slightly less rapid than it was in the 1980s. The latest estimates predict a world population levelling out somewhere between 9 and 12 billion by about 2070. That is still almost double today’s global population!

The demographic transition
A model called ‘the demographic transition’ helps explain why countries go through a surge of population growth as they develop economically, before levelling off.
Stage1: For much of human history, people had large families. This was partly owing to a lack of contraception, and partly because infant mortality was high – people had additional children as ‘insurance’ that some, at least, would survive to become adults.
Despite these large families, populations grew slowly because life expectancy was so short, particularly amongst poorer people. Poor sanitation and crowded living conditions meant that disease was easily transmitted; people had little resistance to illness because of poor diet; and lack of medical knowledge meant that treatment was often very hit and miss. The result was a high death rate, cancelling out the large number of births.
Stage 2:  As countries developed economically there were immediate improvements which meant that people were less likely to die at a young age. In the growing cities of Europe and North America at the start of the twenties century underground sewers and piped water, flush toilets and the increasing use of vaccinations all meant that disease was less likely to be generated and spread. Better diets helped people resist infection, and advances in medicine led to more effective treatment of disease.
Birth rates had more to do with social attitudes, and these take longer to alter. There was widespread controversy about the use of birth control, the role of women in middle-class homes as home-makers and childrearers, and a continuing sense of large families being ‘the norm’. As a result the birth rate remained high, particularly in rural areas, where there was still a real threat of children dying in infancy, and where they were needed on the farm to look after animals, do chores and help bring in the harvest. The consequence was a huge increase in population as births far out weighed deaths each year.
Many LEDCs (less economically developed countries) are passing through this stage now. This explains why global population is still growing rapidly, even though the MEDCs (more economically developed countries) have moved on to stages 3 and 4.
Satge 3: As social attitudes slowly changed, parents began to limit the number of children they had, and the rate of increase of the birth rate started to slow. In MEDCs the second half of the twentieth century saw family sizes reduce from an average of 3.5 to 2.1 children per family. A number of factors were involved: the widespread availability of family-planning methods, the fact that young people are required to attend school until their mid- to late teens and remain a financial burden often into their mid-twenties, and the desire for a more affluent lifestyle, which is restricted by having a lot of children. The rate of population growth in MEDCs started to reduce during the last 50 years even though the total population in those countries was still increasing.
Stage 4: Modern medical techniques have reduced the annual death rate in many MEDCs to less than 10 per 1000, and the birth rate has fallen to similar levels. When the two are in balance, the population stops growing and levels off. This is often a phase of population stability.
Stage 5: Some demographers believe that there is a fifth stage to the model, in which the birth rate and a population goes into decline. It is noticeable that in countries such as Italy – which has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe at 1.8 births per 1000 women of child-bearing age – not enough babies are being born to maintain the population level as people die.
Social attitudes have changed significantly in the last 20 years. Many women want to follow a carrer rather than devoting their time to raising children. Lifestyle choices also mean that having children may get in the way of the desired quality of life. As a result birth rates are continuing to fall in many European countries. It is not clear whether this is a temporary feature, as women choose merely to delay having children until they are into their thirties or forties, or whether it is a permanent trend, with people choosing not to have children at all.

Conclusions
The stages of transition described above pose population issues for countries around the world. This might mean planning for the anticipated explosion of population in LEDCs as they pass from stage 2 to stage 3 – Kenya currently has over half its population under the age of 18 and an average family of six children. Alternatively it might mean coping with an ‘ageing’ population in Japan, Canada and the UK as these countires enter a phase of population stability in stage 4. Countries such as Italy and Belgium in stage 5 may feel a need for action to reverse the current trend of a decline in population.
We can expect that, as more countries reach the later stages of demographic transition, the world’s total population will level off some time this century. What is uncertain is quite what number, and quite what date.

Answer the questions:
1.	What stage of transition is your country on?
2.	Is it possible to control the population growth?

Where The Third World Is First 

There are plenty of grim statistics about childhood in the Third World, showing that the struggle for survival is long and hard. But in the rich world, children can suffer from a different kind of poverty – of the spirit. For instance, one Western country alone now sees 14,000 attempted suicides every year by children under 15, and one child in five needs professional psychiatric treatment.
There are many good things about childhood in the Third World. Take the close and constant contact between children and their parents, relatives and neighbours. In the West, the very nature of work puts distance between adults and children. But in most Third World villages mother and father do not go miles away each day to do abstract work in offices, shuffling paper to make money mysteriously appear in banks. Instead, the child sees mother and father, relations and neighbours working nearby and often shares in that work.
A child growing up in this way learns his or her role through participation in the community's work: helping to dig or build, plant or water, tend to animals or look after babies – rather than through playing with water and sand in kindergarten, collecting for nature trays, building  with construction toys, keeping pets or playing with dolls.
These children may grow up with a less oppressive feeling of space and time than their Western counterparts. Set days and times are few and self-explanatory, dictated  mostly by the rhythm of the seasons and the different jobs they bring. A child in the rich world, on the other hand, is presented with a wrist-watch as one of the earliest symbols of growing up, so that he or she can worry along with their parents about being late for school times, meal times, clinic times, bed times, the times of TV shows. 
Third World children are not usually cooped up inside, still less in highrise apartments. Instead of fenced-off play areas, dangerous roads, 'keep off the grass' signs and 'don't speak to strangers', there is often a sense of freedom to wander and play. Parents can see their children outside rather than observe them anxiously from ten floors up. And other adults in the community can usually be depended on to be caring rather than indifferent or threatening.                                              
Of course twelve million children under five still die every year through malnutrition and disease. But childhood in the Third World is not all bad.

Answer the questions:
1.	What problems do the children from the Third World face?
2.	If you were brought up in the West, was your childhood like the one described in the article?

Rural-Urban Migration In Colombia

Over the past 20 years the population of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, has grown at an alarming rate, causing an array of social, economic and environmental problems. One noticeable effect of migration into the city is the growth of informal settlements around the fringes of  Bogota, especially to the south. Migrants leave their homes in rural areas for a variety of reasons, though a long and bloody civil war is one of the main trigger mechanisms.

Colombia
The Spanish conquistadors came to Colombia in the early 1500s looking for gold and the mythical city of El Dorado. Today foreign multinational companies have come to search for oil. Colombia also has the largest coal reserves in Latin America and huge hydroelectric potential. It earns an estimated 6.6 billion a year exporting coffee, bananas, sugar, flowers, coal, petroleum and emeralds, and an unknown amount from illicit drugs.
However, four decades of civil war have ripped the country apart. It is estimated that over 35,000 people have been killed in the conflict over the last 10 years, and more than 1.5 million have been displaced from their homes by the violence. Colombia has the third largest number of internally-displaced people in the world after Angola and Sudan.

A rapidly-expanding city
Bogota is a city striking contrasts in terms of wealth, quality of housing and access to services. The city has a north-south orientation and is bordered to the east by mountains that prevent further expansion in that direction. The north is characterised by middle- and upper-class residential areas, containing luxury apartment blocks, shopping malls and exclusive restaurants, while the south represents the other extreme with its illegal squatter settlements and poor-quality housing.
Each day, waves of migrants come to the city to start a new life. The majority settle in the poorer barrios (neighbourhoods) to the south. Bogota’s population has increased at a rapid rate, even for South America, and is estimated to have exceeded 10 mln by the year 2000. This rapid growth is the result of hight rates of natural increase and rural-urban migration. Migrants come looking for higher-paid jobs, improved housing and better access to health care and education, but perhaps the most important reason is to escape the vilence of the civil war in rural areas. They are refugees who have, in many cases, been forced to leave their homes. Because they have not crossed any international borders they are largely unrecongnised as refugees and are left to fend for themselves in the big city. In 1999, 30 % of displaced persons in Colombia had fled from the actions of armed groups.

The barrios of  Bogota
Bogota is a collection of neighbourhoods, or barrios in Spanish, varying in size, number of services and quality of life. The contrasts found within a city such as London are remarkable enough enough, but in South America the gap between rich and poor is astonishing.
Many informal settlements have been built on the steep slopes surrounding the central district. Egipto is one such barrio but, although it is a neighbourhood of poor, low-quality housing, the majority of houses are built from brick and have an electricity supply. In contrast, in districts to the south of the city houses are built from mud bricks, cardboard and pieces of corrugated iron, and there is little in the way of electricity or running water. Older barrios, like Egipto, have become more established and conditions have slowly improved, either through government assistance or the local community trying to improve its immediate surroundings.
These informal settlements usually begin as a result of invasion and building on vacant land. They are not recognised by the city authorities and, as a result, are not supplied with basic services such as water and electricity. If the community is not forced off the land by the police or landowners it can become established, with temporary dwellings being replaced by more permanent structures usinf bricks and cement. These poorer barrios often have a strong sense of community as neighbours help each other with construction and supply of materials. Sometimes an agreement is made with the landowner to pay rent, and services tend to improve as the community gains recognition and rights.

The migrants 
Geography textbooks contain numerous examples of stereotypical migrants, but do the stereotypes fir Colombia? Statisitics suggest that most of the migrants come from areas within  a 200 km radius of the city. Displaced persons usually head for the nearest municipal capital. If conditions become difficult there, they move to a larger city as Bogota, Cali or Medillin.
The majority of migrants forcibly displaced come from the agricultural sector and the vast majority of displaced families include children under the age of 18. The migrants are usually familiar with the city and have visited it many times before moving there. Initially they stay with family or friends until they can either rent, buy or consruct their own house.
Despite the rising urban population there are very few people begging or sleeping on the streets in Bogota. It is common to see people sleeping on the pavements in London, so why is it less visible in a city with extreme poverty? Some Colombians think it is because  the family structure is much stronger than in Europe, while others suggest that private gangs called limpiadores roam the streets at dark and are employed to clean them up in whatever way is necessary. 

Conclusion
A devastating civil war in Colombia has claimed thousands of lives and displaced over a million people from their homes and families. Rapid urbanisation is one effect of this violence. Bogota has grown at a rapid rate over the past two decades as informal settlements have expanded, and this has caused  a whole array of social, environmental and economic problems for the government. Huge urban inequalities exist in terms of housing and access to services. Despite peace negotiations the war continues and Bogota's population looks set to continue to grow. The rate of increase is dependent on the economic, social and political situation in the city and within Colombia. If peace is restored, resettling displaced families will be a further challenge for the government.
The world media depict Colombia as a country of drug cartels, lawless guerrillas and paramilitary groups, and a corrupt political system. Although it is difficult to see beyond this picture Colombia has a relatively strong and diversified economy, enormous energy reserves in the form of oil, gas and coal, a diverse range of cultural and ethnic groups, well-acclaimed writers, musicians and sports personalities and a beautiful and striking physical geography.
With each news story on killings, massacres and kidnappings from Colombia we should think of the innocent victims and refugees, the poor barrios of Bogota and their inhabitants, trying to survive and have a normal life. Although Colombia might provide an interesting case study of internal migration it is important to remember that these are real people who have, in many cases, had to face horrific events. Very few Colombians have been untouched by the war and it is sobering to think that for many of Bogota's inhabitants life in the poor barrios is preferable to that in the countryside.

Answer the questions:
1.	What are the reasons of migration in Colombia?
2.	What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in the country and in cities?

New Medicines For The Developing World

The twentieth century saw an explosion in the way human diseases could be controlled and prevented. These were the diseases caused by microorganisms (e.g. smallpox, tuberculosis and malaria) – the communicable or infectious diseases. This control was achieved in a variety of ways:
•	various public and individual health measures to prevent infection – for example sewage collection systems, clean drinking water, washing hands after using the toilet and using condoms
•	vaccines to prevent disease occurring – for example polio and measles, mumps and rubella
•	medicines (medicines rather than drugs, to avoid confusion with substances that have nothing to do with curing infectious diseases!) to treat disease that has actually developed – for example aciclovir to treat Herpes infections, the penicillins to treat bacterial infections and chloroquine to treat malaria
As a result of these measures, there was a time in the 1970s and 1980s when many people and organisations thought that communicable diseases were under control. The healthcare challenge for the twenty-first century was going to be the non-communicable diseases like heart disease and cancer. Few today would make such claims, not because non-communicable diseases are not a problem, but because major communicable diseases are making a comeback. In addition, new ones are emerging.
Infectious diseases that are on the increase again include tuberculosis and malaria – the microorganisms that cause them are becoming resistant to the medicines used to treat them. Emerging inieciious diseases include AIDS, which is now killing and disabling many people worldwide, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. These three diseases, together with acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases and measles, are having a devastating effect on the people of the world, not only in health terms, but also economically. Current estimates suggest malaria costs sub-Saharan African economies the equivalent of more than $8 billion every year.
The challenge for the twenty-first century 'So what?', you may be asking yourself. If the re-emerging infectious diseases have been controlled in the past, why can't new medicines be discovered? And these new medicines can then surely be used on newly emerging infectious diseases. We live in the age of genomics, bioinformatics, combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening! Surely these new technologies will solve the problems for us. Wrong!
New medicines are primarily being sought for the common diseases of the developed world. If you or someone in your family suffers from a relatively rare disease, such as cystic fibrosis, hairy cell leukaemia, multiple sclerosis or respiratory distress syndrome in newborn babies, it might not be easy to find medicines to treat the affliction. If, however, you live.in the developing world (particularly sub-Saharan Africa), and you have the misfortune to fall ill, then getting treatment will be a problem. Even if your illness is common where you live, but is uncommon in the developed world (e.g. malaria), you will still find it difficult to find an effective treatment.
Why is this so? The simple answer is economics. Pharmaceutical companies develop new medicines. They are not charities – they must make a profit in order to remain in business. The costs of research and development (R&D) necessary to put a new medicine on the market are enormous – sales of the new medicine must eventually recover these costs . Most of the profits will be made during the time the new medicine is protected by patent rights , when only the company that has the patent can market the medicine. For diseases rare in the developed world, there are too few patients to earn enough during the period of patent protection. For the infectious diseases of the poorer countries of the developing world, there are plenty of patients – but with no purchasing power. These countries could not even afford the new medicines at cost price, let alone at prices the industry needs to charge to fund the development of new products. Typically, a research-based pharmaceutical company invests 15% of its gross sales revenue from one year in the R&D programme of the following year.
For diseases in both the developed and the developing world, therefore, the second half of the twentieth century has seen the gradual withdrawal of the research-based pharmaceutical industry from active R&D programmes, or their refusal to undertake new ones.
Virtually all currently used medicines were discovered and developed by the international pharmaceutical industry, and the technologies to discover and develop new ones remain there. What is being done to get them to start working again on these 'non-profitable' diseases? The non-profitable diseases are divided into two categories: those that are relatively rare, called orphan diseases, and those that are common in the developing world (and rare in the developed world), called neglected diseases.

The solution for orphan diseases
Significant progress with orphan diseases has been made in recent years. The pioneering work was done in the USA and resulted in the 1983 Orphan Drug Act. Orphan diseases are defined in the Act as those that affect fewer than 200 000 people in the USA. R&D on such diseases attracts development grants and tax credits. There is also a guaranteed period of at least 7 years of patent protection for the new medidne. Japan passed a similar act in 1993. The UK, through an EU initiative, agreed to similar provisions in December 1999, and these have recently come into effect. It is generally agreed that such egislation is working in the USA and by the end of July 1999, 195 new products to treat orphan diseases had become available.

Towards a solution for neglected infectious diseases
What about neglected infectious diseases? There is no doubt new medicines are needed to treat them and, because they occur rarely in the USA, they qualify as orphan diseases. However, to July 1999, there were only 25 applications for approvals of new products, 10 of which were successful. The main reason for this is clear – most of those suffering from these diseases are poor people in the poorest developing countries of the world. They cannot afford to buy new medicines, even if these were priced only to recover production costs. In fact, even where medicines are given away free, the so-called access issue is not solved. For example, the pharmaceutical company Merck is currently donating, each year, millions of pounds worth of Mectizan for onchocerciasis (river blindness) control programmes in Africa. It costs nearly as much, however, to distribute the drug to the villages where the people live. Over the last 12 months. Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) has made substantial progress in increasing the availability of vaccines, but this has yet to be achieved in the medidnes area.
So what should be done about discovering new medicines for these diseases? There is at present no complete solution. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) opened talks with the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations in 1998 to address issues of common interest. An R&D working group was set up to see how best to remedy the situation. The group has identified the most urgently needed new drugs for neglected infectious diseases. These diseases include TB, malaria, African trypanosomiasis, Chagas' disease, leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis and schistosomiasis. It has also looked at the barriers hindering the industry and how these could be overcome. The group has confirmed low return on capital investment as a key barrier to pharmaceutical involvement. It has suggested a mixture of solutions to this problem. Discovery work should be encouraged by reducing R&D costs to 'push' more potential medicines into the development pipeline. Tax breaks could be offered on current private-sector R&D investment, and ncreased public-sector finance made available for new medicine-related R&D. 

And finally...
Implementation of what finally emerges from these discussions is by no means guaranteed. However, in the present global political climate, it is likely that the recommendations will be given serious  consideration. International agencies   such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are increasingly recognising the link between health and poverty – improvements in the health of the population lead to improvements in the standard of living. To consolidate this link, WHO has recently set up a Commission for Macroeconomics and Health, charged   with pulling together the evidence on   this point. This should provide just the sort of ammunition needed to guarantee early implementation of the    report and thus early re-engagement of the industry back into high-priority neglected diseases. Furthermore, individual initiatives have been developed for malaria and TB (e.g. the Medicines tor Malaria Venture). However, this will still leave the agenda unfinished', what can be done to bring along new products for diseases such as African sleeping sickness? The numbers are relatively small (a few hundred thousand clinical cases in a 'good' year), so global priority is low and there are few 'champions' prepared to argue for action. But if you or your family had sleeping sickness... 

Answer the questions:
1.	What are orphan and neglected diseases?
2.	What is the solution for these illnesses?

Unit V. FAMILY MATTERS

FAMILY LIFE

When Americans use the term "family'' they are usually referring to a father, a mother, and their children. This is the so-called "nuclear family." Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and others who might be labeled "family" in many other countries are "relatives" in American terminology. These usages reflect the fact that, for most Americans, the family is a small group of people, not an extended network. Like many other aspects of American life, families are changing. Many observers attribute the principal changes evident in American families in the mid-1980s to the feminist movement. Others say the difficult economic times are responsible. Whatever the reasons, the traditional father-dominated family is becoming less common. There are more and more houbeholds in which both parents work, and in which the males have taken on household responsibilities that used to be left to females. There are more single-parent families (that is, households containing only one parent – usually the woman – and one or more children). Larger numbers of teenage children are employed, and thus have a disposable income of their own. It is increasingly common to find unmarried couples living together, unmarried women having children, and "blended families" that are composed of a man, a woman, and both of their children from previous marriages.
Until very recently the divorce rate in the United States increased slowly and steadily for many decades. There are signs that the rate may have diminished slightly in 1986. Statistically, the "average family" (in 1985) had just 3.23 members. The average age at which people first marry has been increasing steadily since 1960. For males the average age at first marriage reached 25.5 in 1985, while for females it was 23.3. But the "average family" is hard to find in the real world. Generalizations one can make about the American family are few.
However modern or liberated (from tradition) a family may be, there is likely to be at least some reflection of the traditional male-female role division. Traditionally, the female was responsible for matters inside the house: cleaning, caring for the children, shopping for groceries and clothing, and preparing meals. The male was responsible for things outside the house: maintaining the family car (or cars) and the yard. The man would be expected to take care of  whatever home repairs and improvements were within his capabilities. 
The children are expected to contribute at least in some : measure to home maintenance. They are responsible for certain "chores," such as washing dishes, vacuuming carpets, and keeping their rooms clean. Children of different sexes may have responsibilities that reflect the traditional household responsibilities of  their sex. Thus, boys are more likely to be responsible for mowing the lawn (under the father's supervision) and girls for washing dishes or elementary cooking (with the mother's guidance).
The children are not as heavily involved in schoolwork as children in many other countries are. American public schools tend to be less demanding than those in many other countries, and there are no standardized school-leaving examinations to give focus to children's academic efforts. Academic achievement gets less emphasis from the average American family than it does from families in many other places. The children get considerable attention. Many American homes are what sociologists call "child-centered''. That is, the children's perceived needs, interests and preferences strongly influence the way in which the parents spend their time and money. Parents play with their young children. They send them to "preschool" and enroll them in lessons and classes of many kinds (music, dance, sports, arts). They arrange for their children to get together with other children their own age. They buy things their children want. They talk to their children as though the children were simply small adults, asking their opinions and, in some measure, taking those opinions into account when making decisions that affect the entire family. These child-centered families seem very busy, since each child has a'schedule of lessons, practices, and social engagements.
The degree to which families are "child-centered" varies. From the viewpoint of most foreigners, though, American families are generally more child-centered than families in their  own countries.There is also variation in the degree to which American families are male-dominated. In some, the male holds the traditional dominant role. In others, the female and perhaps also the children have an active role in family decision-making.
Foreign visitors are often surprised to see how many American teenagers have jobs. The teenagers earn their own money for entertainment, clothes, or a car by delivering newspapers, cooking or washing dishes in a fast-food restaurant, mowing lawns, or other menial activity. Some save at least part of their income for college expenses. Frora the parents' viewpoint, having a job gives their children valuable training in acting independently, managing their time and money, and accepting responsibility for their own decisions. Having to get up early on a cold Sunday morning to deliver newspapers is conceived of as "good training" for a 13-year-old.
This discussion of American family life illustrates the manner in which some of the values and assumptions described are manifested in the family. Notions about independence, individuality, equality, and informality are all embodied in what takes place in families. Another notion that underlies American family dynamics is that of the "rebellious teenager." Americans assume that adolescence is inherently a period of turmoil. Teenagers are expected to be self-centered, moody, and uncooperative while they seek to "find themselves" or "establish their personal identities" as individuals separate from others in  the family.
American parents generally expect that their children's lives will be at least as comfortable materially as their own, if not more so. When they think about their children's futures, they think about them mainly in terms of the jobs their children will get and how much income those jobs will produce. Once again, then, the basic values and assumptions underlying the culture – in this case the importance placed on achievement, work, and acquiring material goods – are taught and reinforced through the family.
In the stereotypic "average family," the children are ready to move out of the parents' house by the age of 18 – that is, when they have completed secondary school. They may "go to college" [Americans use the term "college" to refer to any post-secondary educational institution] or they may seek a job. They might stay with the parents' for another year or two, but after that they are expected to be "on  their own." 
Americans use the term ''empty nest syndrome" to refer to the psychological impact on the parents, particularly the mother, of the last child's departure from home. If the parents have long devoted major attention to their children and the children eventually leave, the parents confront a sort of vacuum in their lives. What are they supposed to do with their extra time and energy? The "empty nest syndrome" is a combination of boredom, depression, and feeling of purposelessness that parents who no longer have their children around them on a daily basis. As an antidote, many women, after their children leave, are entering or re-entering the work-force or pursuing some social or political interest.
Sometimes the empty nest fills up again, at least temporarily. A child who has gone away to college may come home ior the summers. A child who has gotten a job may lose it and be left without income to support a separate household. A child who got married may encounter marital difficulties or even get a divorce and return, sometimes with the grandchildren, to live in the parents' house. 
Another major  turning point in family life is likely to come when the parents' parents becorne enfeebled or die. Mr. Wilson's mother lived in a nursing home, a situation that is not unusual. Many aged parents live alone for as long as they possibly can before moving to a nursing home or taking up residence with one of their children. It is usually considered a difficult or awkward situation when an aged parent is living with grown children. Ideals about independence arid self-sufficiency are so deeply imbued in most Americans that a situation of enforced dependency can be extremely uncomfortable for the elderly, infirm parent as well as for  the children.

Answer the questions:
1.	Describe a typical family in your country according to the following values: family patterns, divorce, generation gap, working mothers etc.
2.	Are teenagers spoilt, egocentric and selfish today?

Better To Stay Married For Children’s Sake

A generation ago, most of us believed that parents in unhappy marriages should stay together for the sake of their children. Today, most people, including virtually all professionals who study and counsel families, have abandoned that belief. The prevailing view is that parental unhappiness is worse for children than divorce: better for parents to separate than expose their children to ongoing conflict. As family scholars Philip and Carolyn Cowan of the University of California at Berkeley recently wrote in the New York Times: "Children are at risk when their parents fight a lot – and it is this conflict, not divorce, that is so harmful to children."
An important new book fundamentally challenges this view. In A Generation at Risk, just published by Harvard University Press, Paul Amato of the University of Nebraska and Alan Booth of Penn State University painstakingly analyze data from a large national sample of families, seeking especially to isolate the independent effects of divorce on children from the effects of pre-existing marital conflict. The results call into question the rationalizations of our high divorce rate.
That many children are harmed by parental conflict is not in doubt, nor is the fact that some children benefit from parental separation because it lessens their exposure to conflict. But Amato and Booth estimate that at most a third of divorces involving children are so distressed that the children are likely to benefit. The remainder, about 70 per cent, involve low-conflict marriages that apparently harm children much less than do the realities of divorce.
Moreover, Amato and Booth estimate that as the threshold of dissatisfaction at which divorce occurs becomes ever lower, an even higher proportion of future divorces will involve low-conflict situations in which divorce will be worse for children than the continuation of the marriage. This reasoning leads to a startling conclusion, especially coming from two liberal social scientists: for the majority of marriages in trouble that are not fraught with conflict, "future generations would be well served if parents remained together until children are grown."
No one study is definitive, and this book will not be the last word on the exact proportion of parents in troubled marriages who would benefit their children by staying married. The 70 per cent figure may turn out to be too high or too low. However, if the correct percentage is 60 or even 50, it is still much higher than we would ever guess by listening to those who maintain that the desires of parents are almost never in conflict with the needs of children. The uncomfortable truth seems to be that such conflict is present in a substantial proportion, probably a majority, of those cases today in which child-rearing parents contemplate divorce.
There is clear appeal in the notion that whatever parents do to be happy is best for their children. But this belief may be little more than self-comforting denial. The contemplation of divorce often involves choices between self-interest and self-giving, between desires and obligations.
Simply recognizing this moral tension does not solve it. We do not argue, nor do Amato and Booth, that children's needs must always prevail over adult priorities. As we look at the suffering of so many children in the United States, which is plagued with the world's highest divorce rate, we concur with the book's conclusion:"Spending one-third of one's life living in a marriage that is less than satisfactory in order to benefit children – children that parents elected to bring into the world – is not an unreasonable expectation."
This remarkably countercultural conclusion will provoke many predictable reminders about toxic marriages and many repetitions of the familiar bromide that marital unhappiness, not "divorce per se" is the real problem. But because of this book, we also will have a more informed discussion of the moral dimensions of the decision to divorce. Amato and Booth have helped us to recognize more clearly the potential conflicts between parental responsibility and adult desires for freedom, romance, sexual gratification and self-actualization. 

Answer the questions:
1.	What are the consequences of the divorce for children?
2.	How do you understand Diogene’s words: ‘Marriage is the greatest earthly happiness when founded on complete sypmpathy’?

The Problems Of A Family

There are families in our country which have the same model as the families in the USA. Fathers work and mothers look after their children. But it is not an usual thing. Almost all women in our country work. There are two main reasons why women work today. One reason is that women have more opportunities today than, for example, sixty years ago. They have education and want to devote themselves to the favourite work. The other reason is that women must earn money to support their families. The majority of women say they work because it is an economic necessity. In short, if women didn't work it would be difficult to feed children, because fathers' salaries are not very big.
Certainly, when both parents work, they have less time to spend with their children and with each other. Often families stop eating their meals together and thereby lose an important time to share the events of the day. What happens to children whose parents work? Nearly half of these children are cared for in kindergartens or by babysitters. The rest are cared for by a relative, such as a grandparent. Our government tries to help working parents by offering flexible work hours. This allows one parent to be at home with the children, while the other parent is at work. But if parents spent more time with their children their families would be happier and stronger.
It should be noted that we see the increase in the number of families that are headed by only one person, usually the mother. Many divorced men are reguired by law to help their wives support their children, but not all of them fulfil this responsibility. That's why many women often have financial difficulties. Some of these difficulties are relieved by government programmes providing help to low-income families, but still, poverty affects the way in which the children in these families grow up. If children in those families didn't suffer of poverty they wouldn't commit any crimes.
About half of all marriages in Belarus end in divorce. These numbers are very high, as they are in many other industrialized countries. The number of divorces has grown steadily in our country for many years. Our law allows men and women to escape bad marriages, that's why getting a divorce is not very difficult but it is one of the most stressful events in the life of grown-ups. Children also suffer during a divorce. Nevertheless, most people think that living with one parent is better for children than living with two parents who unhappy with one another and fight most of the time.
Some people very often talk about a "generation gap" – a gap between the views of the younger generation of teenagers and the views of their parents. But talk about a generation gap is sometimes exaggerated. When parents and teenagers argue, usually it is about simple things. The most common reason for their arguments is the teenagers' attitude towards other family members. One more common reason is that parents want their children to help more about the house. The third most common basis for arguments between parents and teenagers is the quality of the teenagers' schoolwork. Some other traditional disagreements are the friends with whom the young people spend their leisure time. However, there exist some more serious problems. Peer pressure, changing family conditions, mobility of families and unemployment are just a few reasons why some young people may try to escape reality by turning to alcohol or drugs. Some young people have problems with drinking, drug habits, teen pregnancies or juvenile delinquency. About 8 % of our teenagers now drink some alcohol and many drink too much. Drinking becomes a more serious problem when combined with driving. The main cause of death for teenagers is motor vehicle accidents.
About one million young people run away from home each year. Most return after a few days or a faw weeks, but some turn to crime and become juvenile delinquents. Why are young people committing  crimes? Among the causes are poor family relationships (often the children were abused or neglected while growing up), bad neighbourhood conditions and peer pressure. However, for every teenager having such problems many more are making positive, important contributions to their communities, schools and society. Thousands of young people help to take care of the elderly, the handicapped and hospital patients, many help clean up the natural environment. Usually these young people are from stable, happy families. Such families are similar in many ways whether they are rich or poor. Stable, happy families spend time together. After dinner, for example, members of those families may take walks together or play games. Happy families also talk about their problems. They may even argue, but this keeps problems from getting too big to solve. Finally, when problems arise, happy families work together to solve them.

Answer the questions:
1.	What problems does a happy family face?
2.	Why will the family remain in one’s heart for ever?

THE MARRIAGE DEBATE

In the 2001 general election the main political parties differed in a number of important ways in terms of policies, but all of them were keen to promote policies for the family. Marriage as a means of arganising family life also drew widespread political approval. This is all interesting, because since the early 1960s in Great Britain ‘traditional’ households consisting of a couple with dependent children have been in declina, from 38% of all households in 1961 to just 23% in 1999. Lone-parent (mainly female) households have also trebled over the last 30 years, from around 8% of all households in 1971 to 24% by the end of the last century.
Marriage is still the usual form of partnership between men and women, but the total number of marriages peaked back in 1972. First marriages are lasting for progressively shorter periods, especially for those who marry early and following the introduction of the Divorce Reform Act in 1971, which removed partners’ ‘guilt’ from decisions about divorce. By the late 1980s almost one quarter of all women who married when under 20 were separated within 5 years of marriage. In 1973 more than two thirds of all British women in their late twenties were married with children; by 1996, the proportion had fallen to less than one third.
So, why marry at all? After all, it is often a short-lived arrangement and the flexibility and mobility demanded from life today might also recommend against it. The old stigma against cohabiting has largely been removed these days. It also seems that more and more people are happier to live alone. The British Social Attitudes Survey for 1998 suggests that only 8% of all people now think sexual relations outside marriage are ‘always wrong’, so not much opposition there.
Ethnic diversity plays a part here. Ironically, the ‘old-fashioned’ structure of British family life is most likely to be a feature of ‘new’ British Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. According to Richard Berthoud at the Institute of Social and Economic research at the University of Essex, ‘The key feature of family life in south Asian communities is the very high rate of marriage. Around three-quarters of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are in partnerships by the age of 25, compared with just over half of white women, and virtually all south Asians with a partner are in formal marriages.’ According to this research, black Britich people are now least likely to seek out marriage, followed by whites and then south Asians, though all groups are moving in the same direction at different rates – away from marriage.

For marriage
Bob Rowthorn, left-wing Professor of Economics at Cambridge University, recently came out, surprisingly, in favour of marriage and against prevailing trends. Part of his case for marriage is about the lower mortality rates for married people, and arguments that abuse of children is less a feature of a stable marriage than it is for a child who lives with a step-parent. But there are other, even bigger, issues at stake. Rowthorn and Ormerod state:
Married men work harder, earn more and are more likely to have a job than other men. Their stable families create a network between generations, siblings and spouses. Despite the growth of nursing homes and social services, care for old or sick adults in our society is mainly the resposibility of close relatives. Friends and neighbours hardly figure. Modern family trends mean that millions of extra men and women in the future will have no close relative prepared to care for them in sickness or old age. On every measure of achievement and emotional condition, children living with their married parents usually do better than other chodren... Part of this gap is explained by the fact than lone parents as a group are relatively poor, but much of it is due to other disadvantages associated with lone parenthood.
As these authors hint towards the end of their statement, it is aften hard to distinguish between the effects of marriage and other factors, such as poverty and racism. however, Patricia Morgan, author of Marriage-lite, the Rise of Cohabtitation and its Consequences, is right with Rowthorn on the benefits of marriage. She says:
Marriage provides someone to monitor a person’s well-being and encourage self-regulation. Attachment and obligations to others inhibit risky behaviours. cohabitation offers none of this, and neither, compared to marriage, is it a safe environment. Rates of domestic violence and conflict are much higher for cohabitees and lone parents... Marriage is an institution in which the pursuit of individual objectives is replaced by joint goals... There is 80-90% public support for marriage as a life goal.

Against marriage
There is much to argue about above. Feminist Joan Smith has written recently about the ‘unrealistic’ expectations we have these days about prospects of life-long, monogamous relationships of the sort promoted by marriage. She argues that in an era of greater sexual freedom, especially for women, the Church of England position that ‘Lifelong marriage or lifelong celibacy are the two options commended by the Holy Scriptures and by the tradition of the Church’ is simply out of touch. At different points in the life cycle people need different things in relationships, perhaps from new partners. Smith asserts that the responsible mutual care of children, rather than life-long marriage, is the really important issue for partners today. What this requires is a ‘separation in our attitudes about marriage and our attitudes about parenthood.’
Feminist writer Beatrix Campbell is also a sceptic when it comes to the case for promoting marriage over other forms of family arrangement. She rejects suggestions that parenting is any worse in non-married families as a whole group, and argues that the new political interests of the Labour Party and others in promoting marriage is really about disciplining untruly children and about promoting the inerests of men.
What research among parents has revealed is that their priorities are about pressure on parents (too much of it), child care (too little of it) and safety in the streets and in public spaces. The mania for marriage is more than social conservatism sponsored by fear of crime. It is a reaction against politicians’ security and status as men, all those inruly mothers who risk poverty rather than put up with a partner who won’t cooperate or take care of anyone but himself... There is no popular swell for what these politicians call ‘traditional’ family life.
Campbell certainly seems correct in this last point, as families become more complex and more flexible in their structures. She is also critical of the way in which debates about ‘traditional’ family values usually exclude reference to same-sex partners who, according to research, she claims, usually produce very well balanced and ‘successful’ children. Generally, she argues, mothers and fathers in all sorts of partnerships are much more connected and caring than ever before, especially when marriage conventions dictated that unhappy spouses remained tied miserably to each other.

Debate
So, is the promotion of marriage by the stare an unwanted interference in morals and sexual manners, and one which is simply moving against current social preferences on the basis of prejudice and fear? Or, is the promotion of marriage against countervailing trends a powerful means of reducing social and personal tensions and limiting future problems of care for the elderly and the infirm?

Answer the questions:
1.	Why do people marry?
2.	Organise a classroom debate on this issue based on argument and evidence.

Unit VI. RACIAL PREJUDICE

The ETHNIC DIMENSION

The ethnic minority communities in Britain are about 5.7 per cent of the total population but are likely to rise to about 7 per cent in the early years of the 21st century, on account of their higher birth rate. Black immigrants first started coming to Britain in substantial numbers from 1948 onwards, in response to labour shortages. At first almost all came from the West Indies, but during the 1960s and 1970s a large number came from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There were already several thousand non-white Britons, mainly in ports like Liverpool, Bristol and Cardiff. Some families dated back to the eighteenth century and slave trading. They were used to discrimination.
The immigrants arriving in waves in the 1950s and after soon discovered that they were the target of discrimination in class and status. Black people have generally had the worst paid jobs, lived in the worst housing and encountered hostility from white neighbours. The initial view that black immigrants would assimilate into the host community was quickly proved wrong. In the mid 1960s the government introduced the first of three Race Relations Acts in order to eliminate racial discrimination. The 1977 Race Discrimination Act sought to prevent discrimination in employment, housing and other areas, and to prevent the publication of any material likely to stir up racial hatred. At the same time, however, laws were introduced to restrict immigration. Although these laws were not specific, it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that they were particularly aimed at coloured or black immigrants. Over the years the situation for the ethnic minorities has not improved.
Before she came to power, Margaret Thatcher promised that a Conservative government would "finally see an end to immigration". Implicit in these words was the aim of bringing to an end the arrival of coloured or black immigrants, for she also spoke sympathetically of the fears of white Britons that they might be "swamped by people with a different culture". During the 1980s her government restricted immigration further, and ended the automatic right of anyone born in Britain to British citizenship.
The other charge frequently levelled against the ethnic minority communities is their "failure to integrate". Integration is difficult in a hostile climate. The ethnic minority communities feel that they face hostility not only from the white people amongst whom they live but also from the authorities. A Home Office survey of two police stations indicated that in some areas a young black man was ten times more likely to be stopped in the street by police than the average white citizen. Black people feel harassed by such treatment, particularly since a growing number of black youths, the main target of the police, were born in Britain. 
Discrimination, or at least a failure to involve the ethnic minority groups adequately, is apparent in many institutions. The army is a good example. In 1988 only 1.6 per cent of applicants were black, and only one out of 881 people recruited as officers was black. Moreover, it was only after Prince Charles had drawn attention to the absence of black recruits in the Brigade of Guards. By 1988 two black guardsmen had been recruited, one of whom complained of "intolerable racial abuse and bullying". These cases were not unique. Other cases of racial bullying and abuse in the army and the police force were periodically reported in the press.
Because the police force is perceived as hostile to the ethnic minority communities, and because of the racial abuse experienced by the few who have joined, recruitment is very low. By 1989 coloured police officers made up only 0.9 per cent of the police in England and Wales. At a popular level Afro-Caribbeans and Asians experience disadvantage. It may merely be that they find greater difficulty getting a job. One controlled experiment, using two actors, one white, the other black, demonstrated that a white is ten times more likely to obtain a job than a black. A black is likely to find it harder to obtain credit from a bank or a loan to purchase a house. Even in the provision of housing, there is widespread discrimination, with a tendency for councils to allocate their better housing to whites.
At a more serious level Afro-Caribbeans and Asians are frequent targets for verbal abuse, harassment or even attack. The experience of the Meah family from Bangladesh is a good example. Mr Meah had been in London since 1963 but brought his family to Britain in 1981, and obtained a council flat. Within weeks, gangs of white youths began to spit, swear and jostle Mrs Meah and her daughters whenever they left their flat. Their car wind-screen was repeatedly smashed. Sometimes they were hit or had their hair pulled. Volunteers stayed with the Meah family to give them support and to call for help. Eventually the ringleaders were taken to court and the Meahs were left alone. But elsewhere many Asian people go on suffering harassment.
Difficulties for ethnic minority children begin when they go to school. Most members of the ethnic minorities live in deprived inner city areas where the quality of the schools is worse than elsewhere and where teachers may have lower expectations. Low expectations from their teachers and a sense of alienation from the majority white community are serious disadvantages. 
It is hardly surprising that those aged between fifteen and twenty-five feel the greatest anger. They discover prejudice at school and on the streets, and when they leave school they find it is far harder for them to find work than it is for whites. In some places the barriers have begun to be broken down, but it has required determination. When the Afro-Caribbean footballer, John Barnes, began to play for Liverpool Football Club, he was met with racist abuse from spectators. When play took him to the edge of the pitch he was spat upon and showered with bananas. Bames refused to react, and slowly won the respect of the crowds. More black players have become a frequent sight in football matches. But the suspicion remains, in the words of one newspaper that, like other black players, Barnes "has not so much been accepted as being black as forgiven for it".
Economic success has helped a number of Asians move into a more secure position in the middle class. Some remain firmly committed to the Labour Party, traditionally more sympathetic to the position of the ethnic minority communities than the Conservatives. But an increasing number of successful Asians have begun to vote Conservative.Successive governments have introduced legislation that promises absolute equality for non-white British citizens. But the promise has remained unfulfilled. Government has not done enough to implement functional equality in the areas over which it has direct control, and white Britons have not yet accepted Afro-Caribbeans and Asians who are born and grow up here as being as British as themselves. Reporting on the Brixton riots of 1981, Lord Scarman wrote, "We must create a black British middle class ... black and brown as well as white faces must be seen not only on the production line but also in positions of authority and influence at all levels of society."

Answer the questions:
1.	Many people in Britain feel that they do not enjoy their rightful share of power and wealth. Who do you think they are? Why do they feel as they do?
2.	Both women and ethnic minorities suffer disadvantages in Britain. Do you think those disadvantages are comparable? 

Sport, Racism And Inequality

There is a popular belief that sport is a meritocratic arena largely free from the damaging effects of racism. There is also a widespread assumption that sport provides empirical evidence of racial and biological differences between white and Asian athletes. Isn’t this just too simplistic?

There have been important transformations in British sport in recent times. There have now been black captains of the men's England football team and the Great Britain rugby league team; black women have represented England at rugby union and at football; Asian players have represented England in rugby league; and most sports now have large numbers of Asian and, particularly, black players involved in the game, at both the recreational and top-performance levels. Even Britain's 'privileged' sports are being changed from within. In the summer of 1999, 20-year-old, Hitchin-born Arvind Parmar became the first British Asian to compete in the tennis championships at Wimbledon, while Nasser Hussain became the first cricketer of South Asian descent to captain England. Arguably, such achievements have had a powerful symbolic effect in challenging 'common-sense' racisms, which suggest that Asians and blacks do not quite fully belong to the British nation.
Over the past decade we have also witnessed repeated eruptions of racial incidents in sport – be it racial chanting from the terraces, stereotyping in the media, racial abuse on the field or racial discrimination from managers and administrators – which suggests that a 'culture of racism' is deeply ingrained in sport. In football, racial taunts directed at black players are less common than they were 10 or 20 years ago, but they are still a commonplace experience for many black and Asian players at all levels of the game, especially in non-league football (Long et al. 2000). Eradicating such abuse through a combination of education and legislation is one of the aims of the 'Kick It Out' campaign, supported by the Football Association and a range of other football-related bodies.
During the 1990s, cricket, too, was engulfed by racial controversies. For example, in 1995 the reputable Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine published an article which argued that black and other foreign-born players should not play for the England team because they would not try as hard for England as their white team-mates. However, the spurious evidence provided for these claims owed more to nationalistic prejudices against 'non-white' cricketers than it did to any serious discussion about nationality and sport. In the wake of this and other mounting evidence of racism in cricket, the campaign to 'I lit Racism for Six' was established to lobby the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to address racism in the game. The publication in 2000 ' of Clean Bowl Racism – which committed the ECB to combat racism throughout the game – was a welcome acknowledgement of their responsibility for addressing racism and racial inequalities in English cricket.
Concerns over national and racial identities are often expressed through sport because it is one of the clearest and most public ways in which tensions about 'British-ness' and Britain as a multicultural nation are revealed. Sociologists have shown, over the past few decades, the ways in which expressions of racism have moved from a crude 'biological racism' (based on the mistaken belief that biologically discrete 'races' exist, each having its own innate characteristics) towards a new 'cultural racism' (based on notions of absolute cultural differences between ethnic groups). Cultural racism argues that different ethnic groups are culturally distinct; each group has its individual lifestyle, customs and ways of seeing the world. Racial signifiers, such as language, dress, musical preferences, sporting identifications and religion, become key cultural markers in distinguishing 'insider' and 'outsider' groups.

Sport and racisms
Sport, then, is a particularly useful and interesting site for examining the changing context and content of contemporary British racisms. Note the use of the plural here. Racism does not just take the form of physical and verbal violence against black and Asian minorities; it comes in other more discreet and subtle forms that are often overlooked or misunderstood. For example, is the dearth of black professional football managers, some 30 years after the first significant influx of black players into the game, a reflection of a lack of interest or lack of motivation from black ex-players or is it evidence of a perception on the part of club directors that black players lack strategic and leadership qualities? Is the widespread pattern of Asian-dominated cricket teams and leagues in Britain a product of a 'stick-to-our-own' mentality by these clubs, or a consequence of a culture of racial exclusion by white-dominated official league structures? Was the violent behaviour of a significant number of English fans at the World Cup Finals in France in 1998 the work of a few drunken thugs with no interest in football, or a product of a culture of belligerent English nationalism that takes racist and xenophobic forms in foreign countries?
The problem is that racism in sport has many guises: sometimes it is nakedly overt and unambiguous, but, as the examples raised here illustrate, most often it is concealed or masked in practices and ways of speaking that actually reject the language of racism.

Sport and the mythology of 'race'
Sport is widely believed to be an open, fair and meritocratic arena, even if it sometimes falls short of these values in practice. This idealised view, combined with the reality that certain sports tend to be either over-represented (in boxing and sprinting) or under-represented (in swimming) with black athletes, is probably what invites sport to (mis) inform people's perceptions of natural and obvious racial difference.
We might pause here to consider exactly what we mean when we talk about 'race'. We often hear people refer to somebody else as belonging to a particular 'race' or as being 'white', or 'Asian', by which they often mean that the other person is in some way physically different. This 'fact' seems obvious when we look at the people around us, but sociology teaches us that what sometimes appears so obvious as to require no further analysis is often not the case. In fact, biologists and geneticists have shown that the notion of biologically discrete races, each with its own characteristics, is a fallacy. The distribution of genes shows that we are just as alike to somebody of a different 'race' from the same country as we are to somebody apparently from the same 'race' who lives in a different country. As the biologist Steve Rose explains (1998):
Modern population genetics makes the concept 'race' in the human context biologically meaningless, although still socially explosive. The definition of race is essentially a social one, as in reference to Blacks or Jews. While there are differences in gene frequencies (that is, differences in the proportions in which particular genetic variants occur) between population groups, these do not map onto the social criteria used to reference race.
The idea of 'race' emerged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a way of justifying Western slavery of black Africans and the subsequent periods of colonial domination by European countries over those from Asia and Africa. Black people were perceived as 'less human' than whites, as being closer to the behaviour of animals and therefore less intelligent – but with greater physical prowess than whites. The 'science' used to justify this hierarchy was often invented and owed more to the prevailing political views of the day than to any proper notions of genetic science.
Modern science has shown such views to be based purely on prejudiced views about black and Asian people, yet the legacy of this historical period is that the belief in the existence of biological 'races' persists, even as the available scientific evidence suggests that we should not understand 'race' in biological terms.
To use 'race' as a means to explain sporting performance is to misunderstand that 'race' is a social, not a biological category. As the sport scientist Claude Bouchard (1988) concluded:
One can observe, based on the evidence.. .that racial differences in performance are probably quite limited in comparison to the individual differences seen within each race. The trends currently observed in the world of elite athletes may have more to do with opportunities and socioeconomic conditions than with true biological differences between races.
The fact that for most of the 1990s the white English athlete, Jonathan Edwards, broke all known records for the triple jump, jumping further than any other human being in history, did not lead people to reconsider their mistake in assuming the 'natural' advantages of black athletes (nor, of course, did it lead to a public discussion as to whether white Englishmen had a gene or genes for jumping long distances). In fact, we shouldn't ask whether blacks (in contrast to whites and Asians) possess 'special genes' for running and jumping (the evidence suggests they don't); it trivialises their achievements as their skill is seen to be 'natural' and not worked at. Instead we should ask why such successes seem to trouble and preoccupy white Western societies and to encourage them to speculate on the 'hidden secrets' apparently encased within black (usually male) athletic bodies.

Sociological research on sport and 'race'
Much of the earlier sociological research on sport and 'race' came from America. US scholars have shown how 'stacking' (the disproportionate placing of blacks into team positions that require speed and strength, but few mental skills) has occurred in many US sports from American football to baseball. Stereotyping of black players within the sports media, discrimination in players' salaries, and the inability of blacks to attract sponsorship or to progress into senior management positions have also been noted. The greater focus on these issues by American scholars is not surprising when we look at how many of the 'great' American sports, such as athletics, baseball and basketball, were often formally segregated along 'race' lines until the 1950s and 1960s (Coakley 2001).
Until recently there was little research into the effects of racism in British sport and even less research on the experiences of black and Asian women in sport. The work that did emerge, such as Ellis Cashmere's (1982) Black Sportsmen, looked at how black male athletes were discriminated against and sometimes pushed into sports at school because of beliefs that black students would 'naturally' excel in school sports and so should be encouraged into these areas by teachers, often at the expense of their academic subjects.
This focus on black male athletes has recently been supplemented by a small but developing concern with sport and South Asians in Britain. A significant text, Comer Flags and Corner Shops by Bains and lohal (1998), challenged the widespread assumption that lack of interest or ability underlay the absence of British Asians from sports such as professional football. The authors demonstrated that there is plenty of enthusiasm in Asian communities for playing football, but they also found that racial abuse was a regular problem experienced by the majority of Asian teams.
Why had so few Asians broken through the ranks into professional clubs? Bains and Johal showed that 55% of football club officials thought, wrongly, that British Asians were just not interested in playing, while 86% of professional club officials thought that Asian footballers were 'definitely' or 'possibly' less talented than players drawn from other groups. In providing a unique window on Asian involvement and passion for the game, the authors succeeded in moving the spotlight of blame away from the Asian community and towards the football authorities.
This type of analysis highlights the fact that powerful organisations, such as national governing bodies and Sport England, must take more responsibility for combating racism and promoting racial equality policies in sport .
Analyses of 'race' and sport tend to fall into one of two categories. The more popular of the two is the naive belief that sport improves 'race relations', simply through inter-racial contact. The second, more pessimistically, argues that sport simply perpetuates biological racial ideologies and inequalities: it increases racism. We need to see 'sport and race' as a contested issue in a way which undercuts both the naivety of the optimists and the fatalism of the pessimists. It must also stress the importance of policy interventions.
After years of inactivity by key sports organisations, there are now encouraging policy developments in place. For example, Sporting Equals, a body created in 1998 by Sport England and the Commission for Racial Equality to tackle racial inequality in sport, has published a strategic document, Achieving Racial Equality: The Standard for Sport, which sets out how to make racial equality a policy objective for all governing bodies in sport. The task facing Sporting Equals can be gauged by the results of a survey it conducted, which found that half the sports governing bodies in the UK claimed that racial discrimination is not a problem in their sport. Arguably, this culture of denial amongst the controllers and administrators of sport represents the biggest obstacle in developing an effective anti-racist policy for sport. The success of Sporting Equals will depend on its ability both to reassure those governing bodies which are defensive about discussing 'race' and to educate them about the complex and subtle ways in which racism can operate in sports and sports administration.
In order to be effective, policy initiatives need to be set alongside the development of a culture of intervention and a real debate about the nature and extent of racism in sport. Crucially, this means that teachers and lecturers have to take the study of sport and ‘race’ more seriously on sociology courses: it would not only advance the level of understanding of the complex and subtle ways in which racism operates in sport, but it could also offer sociologists some interesting insights into the changing and contested nature of cultural identities in Britain today.

Answer the questions:
1.	When did the idea of ‘race’ emerge?
2.	What is the difference between biological and cultural racism?

FRY AIMS “TO BUILD A RAINBOW WORLD”

Asked about the choice of South Africa as the venue for the conference, Multiculturalism Minister Hedy Fry said: “This is the country of (former president) Nelson Mandela and Durban is the city of Mahatma Ghandi (who lived there before leading the fight for India’s independence from Britain). South Africa is a rainbow nation of people striving to work together, so it is very fitting, because we want to build a rainbow world.

Answer the questions:
1.	How do you understand Fry’s words?
2.	What is the problem raised in the text? Is it acute nowadays?

POLICIES OF RACE STILL HAUNT SOUTH AFRICA

DURBAN, South Africa – A "torch of tolerance" has been lit in Durban as a publicity gimmick for the conference on racism. But many people in the post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation" are unimpressed. Seven years after the formal end of apartheid, the legacy of white racist rule seeps into every aspect of life in South Africa.
President Thabo Mbeki likes to evoke the "two nations" concept of rich whites and poor blacks. Yet most South Africans seem impatient with the politics of race. A recent survey found racism ranked ninth on the list of most important issues the country faced, behind more pressing priorities such as employment, law and order, clean water and housing.
As if to underline the point, the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions called a two-day general strike against privatization plans – timed to coincide with the summit's opening.
At the conference, South Africa will be hailed as a model of how to overcome racism: "The fountainhead of tolerance and multi-culturalism," as one government official put it. But in a country with high unemployment and poverty rates, perhaps the most consistent public response to the meeting is: "How much does it cost and who will pay for it?" 
Critics have queried whether Pretoria is right to agree to meet 80 per cent of the $25 million cost of the Durban jamboree, which will be attended by an estimated 14,000 foreign delegates and activists, including at least 30 heads of state and 160 foreign ministers.
Joe Seremane, the black chairman of South Africa's main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, described the conference as "an expensive mental exercise." He said: "I wouldn't spend this kind of money on such a thing when we have such immediate problems in our own country – those of poverty, AIDS and crime. I can't think there is a realistic chance of achieving anything by going down this route."

Answer the questions:
1.	Where do the roots of race discrimination lie?
2.	What do you think must be done to eliminate this problem? Why is it dangerous?

Unit VII. WOMEN AND MODERN SOCIETY

a social profile: GENDER

Many women would argue that there is a different half of the nation which gets less than its share of power, freedom and wealth: the female sex. In spite of the considerable change in social attitudes since 1945, and particularly since the feminist revolution which began in the 1960s, women are still singnificantly disadvantaged. It is true that women have entered employment in increasing numbers. In 1971 52% of women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four were economically active, a figure which rose to 70% by 1989, and is set to rise to 75% by 1989, and is set to rise to 75% or more in the 1990s. Nevertheless, their position relative to men in employment has improved only slightly.
The reasons are complex, but largely to do with the fact that man continue to control the positions of power and of wealth and are slow to share these with women. In spite of having a female monarch, and having had a female Prime Minister for over a decade, the difficulties beginat the top. During the whole of the 1980s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher only ever had one other female Cabinet minister, and she lasted for less than a year. In 1989 the Labour Party decided to adopt a system of positive action in favour of women, whereby MPs voting on the composition of the Shadow Cabinet would be compelled to vote for at least three women (out of 18 nominees to Cabinet posts).
Following the 1987 election forty-one women were elected as MPs, more than ever before, but holding only 6.2% of seats in the Commons. The Commons 300 Group is an all-party national organisation working towards a minimum of 300 women MPs. Even that would be less than representative of the proportion of women (52%) in the country. At least in local government, women hold 20% of available seats.
If one looks at the senior positions of power in the country virtually none are held by women. At the beginning of 1990, of the ten judges who form the highest court of appeal none was a woman, and there was only one (out of 27) at the next senior level. In the Civil Service there was no female Permanent Secretary, the senior rank, although there were an increasing number at senior, but lower, levels. The situation is not much better in local government.
Discrimination ranges well beyond government. No woman has ever been appointed as a police Chief Constable. Fewer than 3% of university professors are women. While 25% of qualifying docotrs are women, only 2% of surgeons are women. It is difficult to think of many successful women in business or industry. Those whose names come to mind, Anita Roddick of the Body Shop and the late Laura Ashley, reached their position by creating their own businesses. They did not climb to the top of a carrer ladder in an already established company. Women in career structures sense that a ‘glass ceiling’ exists which prevents them reaching the top. As Ann Watts, equal opportunities director at the Midland Bank, remarked, “We can see the opportunities and goals but at the same time something we cannot pin down is holding us back.”
Women are also paid less than men. On average women earn between two thirds and three quarters of men’s pay. The main reasons for the difference is the segregation of employment by gender, so that it is possible to pay those categories of work in which women predominate significantly less, and the confining of women to the lower grades of a particular industry – which then become considered ‘women’s work’. This is particularly true of clerical work, welfare and primary education.
Another reason is that married women rather than their husbands suffer the career penalties of producing and raising children. A small but growing number of employers ensure that mothers can resume their careers without any damage to their careers prospects after having a baby. Few employers provide creches for young children in order to encourage women to work for them.
For those women who do work, there is an added penalty. Although on average they work shorter hours than men, there has been no substantial adjustment of the domestic burden.
The problems begin early with the assumptions made both by parents and by schools. Although girls tend to perform better at school, they are often encouraged to specialise in humanities subjects, for example modern languages, rather than the sciences. 
Undoubtedly perceptions are changing, but they are doing so mainly as a result of economic pressures, which are likely to encourage more women to work in the 1990s, with the possibility that they may win a fairer slice of power and wealth that should come with work. In the 1980s the Conservative government encouraged young mothers to stay at home with their children, but this was largely ignored. By 1985 more than a quarter of mothers with children aged three or under were at work, and almost half of those with children aged four or five. The shortfall in manpower will push public opinion towards giving women greater freedom to work.  

Answer the question:
1.	Many British people feel that they do not enjoy their rightful share of power and wealth. Who do you think they are? Why do they feel as they do?

‘Impossible’To Rape Woman In Jeans, Italian Court Rules

ROME – Female lawmakers wore jeans to parliament yesterday to protest a ruling by Italy's highest appeals court that it is impossible to rape a woman wearing jeans. "Jeans: An alibi for rape," read the sign held up by five deputies. The court overturned Wednesday a rape conviction against Carmine Cris-tiano, a 45-year-old driving instructor sentenced in 1996 to two years and eight months in prison for the rape of his 18-year-old student.
"It is common knowledge ... that jeans cannot even be partly removed without the effective help of the person wearing them and it is impossible if the victim is struggling with all her force," the court explained.Mr. Cristiano's lawyers insisted the woman had consented to having sex with him and that there had been no evidence of violence.
"This ruling is shameful. It offends the dignity of women," said Alessandra Mussolini, a deputy of the rightist National Alliance. "Women are already scared of reporting rapes, this just makes it worse. "It is a dangerous signal for all women in Italy and we will wear jeans until it is overturned," Ms. Mussolini added.

Answer the questions:
1.	Does the problem of woman maltreatment exist in your country?
2.	What are the ways of solving this problem?

Is Feminism Still Important?

The new millennium has been a time for reflection on the ideas and movements that have shaped British politics and influenced sociology. Feminism has not escaped examination. On the contrary, the question of the relevance of feminism has become an important issue since the late 1990s. This is partly a generational reassessment; 30 years after the second feminist wave (the Women's Liberation Movement) feminism is facing a real test. Are its ideas and theories relevant to twenty-first century life? What can feminism offer those women (and men) who were not even born when it was last at its height? Three recent books offer some answers: Natasha Walter's The New Feminism, Germaine Creer's The Whole Woman and Imelda Whelehan's Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism.

Equality feminism
Natasha Walter is sure feminism is still relevant today. In The New Feminism (1998) she makes her case by citing structural factors such as pay inequalities: women still earn only 60-80% of the male wage. Women may fail to get jobs or promotion as they are viewed, economically, as a 'bad risk', who will cost employers money because of maternity leave. At the end of the twentieth century women still constituted only 18% of hospital consultants, 7% of university professors and 4.5% of company directors.
It could be argued that women are not getting these top jobs because they lack relevant qualifications or experience. Yet, with more girls doing well in education – better than boys in some cases, this seems unlikely to be true. It is clear that without affordable childcare women who are mothers find it very difficult to undertake paid work. But some research suggests that much of this absence of women from top jobs is still due to sexual discrimination.
Walter identifies legal inequalities also, for example the way in which women in rape cases have been made to face prolonged interrogation about their sexual past (as if to 'prove' their consent) whereas their alleged attackers are not subjected to the same scrutiny.
Walter's feminism could be termed 'equality feminism', for the key focus of her book is that women must have formal and material equality – financially, educationally, legally – with men. Walter believes that most women want this and that there is a new feminism among young British women. However, she thinks that, although many women are sympathetic to this 'new' feminism, they are often reluctant to call themselves feminists for fear of association with the old, negative stereotype of feminist – the man-hating, miserable woman. Walter argues that this stereotype has arisen through the ideas feminists put forward in the 1970s, most notably the notion that 'the personal is political'.
This famous slogan was intended to demonstrate that personal experiences, such as sexuality and motherhood, were the site of unequal power relationships. It illuminated the ways in which the understanding of domestic responsibilities as 'women's work' prevented women from earning money outside the home. Most importantly, it made 'private' issues such as domestic violence and rape within marriage visible, and led to the provision of refuges and to new legislation to protect women (Jowett 2000).
However, in Walter's opinion, the slogan is a hindrance to modern feminism. Although it was successful in giving women the knowledge and ability to ensure that they were not oppressed in their personal lives, it diverts attention from real inequality and it loses the women who would call themselves feminists if it were not for the unattractive stereotype. By hanging on to the slogan, feminism loses out twice.

Is the personal still political?
Walter's attempt to divorce this slogan from 'new' feminism has met with some criticism. Katharine Viner (1999) has argued that many aspects of women's personal lives remain political, for example the fact that women are judged more harshly than men if they have many sexual partners, being labelled 'slag', as a term of abuse, rather than 'stud', the 'complimentary' name for a sexually active man. (Indeed, the example of legal inequality Walter identifies in rape cases could be seen as both personal and political.)
Viner accepts that feminism may have become unpopular because it has been associated with a stereotype of dogmatic women who tried to tell other women how to run their personal lives. But she says that this stereotype is both inaccurate and unfair (Viner 1999):
The personal as the political was never meant to be a prescription of how to live your life. It was never meant to be a rallying cry to shave off your hair and take up with the lady next door. But what it was really meant to do was create an awareness of how our personal lives are ruled by political factors...To accept that the personal is still political is to be realistic. It is not to say that political changes – equal pay, childcare, welfare support for single mothers – are not important...But the personal – body image, intimate relationships, women's portrayal in the media – cannot be ignored.
Imelda Whelehan echoes Viner in sensing a danger in the work of Walter, which seems to view this stereotype of feminism as an accurate image of past feminists. Whelehan (2000) says that Walter's optimism for the future is infectious: 'It is just regrettable that the feminism of the future is being built upon a certain amnesia about the past.'

Liberation feminism
Cermaine Creer's influential book. The Female Eunuch (1970), is credited as one of the key works of the Women's Liberation Movement, and Greer has spoken and written about feminism for many years. As a result, her new book, The Whole Woman (1999), was awaited with much anticipation. Greer agrees with Natasha Walter that feminism remains necessary in modem Britain. But Greer's key contention is that aiming for 'equality' with men is simply not enough. She says that although equality legislation has been in place for decades, women still face oppression in their personal lives; for example, they feel pressured into trying to look slim or feminine. Greer argues that 'equality legislation could not give me the right to have broad hips or hairy thighs, to be at ease in my woman's body'.
Moreover, Greer asks' 'Who do women want to be equal to?' This may remind us all that not everything is perfect for men and that they can suffer oppression through their class, their 'race', their sexuality, their (dis) ability, and even their gender – when, for example, they lose out in custody cases because they are automatically seen as the secondary parent. Greer writes: The notion of equality takes the male status quo as the condition to which women aspire...the visionary feminists of the late sixties and early seventies knew that women could never find freedom by agreeing to live the lives ofunfree men.'
Imelda Whelehan echoes Greer's critique of Walter when she says that within Walter's feminism 'the only possible aim is equality within patriarchy'.

Liberation or equality?
Greer suggests that women should be aiming for a feminism based upon 'liberation' rather than 'equality'. Liberation, she argues, is about asserting the differences between men and women, and trying to work out just what women's (and men's) lives would be like if they were not weighed down by gendered ideas such as 'masculinity' and 'femininity'.
The disagreement between those who favour focusing upon the differences between men and women and those who wish to argue that men and women are inherently equal is an important one. Feminists have often been seriously divided between those who believed that women and men should be treated the same and those who believe that women have different needs and priorities.
For some, the drive to argue that men and women are equal degrades women's special qualities and roles, particularly as mothers and carers. For others, the danger in focusing on women's differences is the potential for those differences to be used as a reason to deny women the same opportunities and freedoms as men.
The concept of 'liberation' may seem a great idea, but it is difficult to isolate just what it means or to translate it into a workable plan of action. After all, the formal, structural successes of the feminist movement – the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts – were achieved by equality feminists who worked at a grassroots level to make sure that women enjoyed the same formal status and privileges as men.

Popular culture and the future of feminism
Imelda Whelehan in her new book, Overloaded (2000), is as strong as Natasha Walter and Germaine Creer on the question of feminism's importance: she feels it is still relevant and necessary. Whelehan is particularly interested in the ideas of 'choice' and 'control' in relation to feminism. She argues that popular culture – magazines, newspapers, television – is laden with the idea that young women have control over their lives and the ability to make choices over their lifestyles. Whelehan thinks that this focus on lifestyle choices detracts from the continued existence of important structural barriers which work against equality, such as unequal pay and lack of childcare. She also thinks it encourages the false idea that women can choose to do whatever they like, regardless of their position and circumstances, when in reality women are variously discriminated against through their class, 'race', sexuality and (dis)ability as well as their gender.
Whelehan wants us to question whether some apparent 'choices' for women are real ones. An example could be that of tabloid page-3 models. Is becoming a page-3 model really a choice, freely taken, or are the women who do it simply persuaded by money? And even if they are not directly pressured, perhaps we should ask what it says about the value of women's intelligence and their hard work when some women get paid more for exposing their naked bodies than they do for working in a shop, an office, a classroom or a courtroom?

The future of feminism - the same old story?
Like Walter, Whelehan thinks that many young women actually agree with the ideas of feminism but are reluctant to identify themselves as feminists. Whelehan argues that this problem for feminism is linked to the ideas of 'choice' and 'control' we hear so much about. Because we know that some things have improved a lot for women over the last 30 years and because we are continually told that women can 'control' their own lives, when we hear feminists talk about the power imbalances between men and women or the idea that women have less 'choice' than they think they have, we see them as silly, out of date and patronising. Whelehan comments that women who are sympathetic to feminism 'are baffled to find that, despite commonplace assertions that women's lot has improved immeasurably, many feminists are still busily claiming that things are no better'.
It may be that feminist achievements have created a space for further critical thought, through which other issues have emerged for consideration. It is not that things haven't improved for women but that we all think more carefully about gender now: the work of feminists and sociologists has pointed out how important the issue is within society.
Despite her own recent intervention in the debate, Cermaine Creer (1999) comments that it is up to women in each generation to devise their own agenda, based upon what they feel is important. Both Walter and Whelehan sense that young women desire a modern feminism of their own, which they themselves will define. As Whelehan speculates: 'A new generation's engagement with feminism may throw up some surprising results in the next century.'

Answer the questions:
1.	What is your attitude to feminism and emancipation of women’s rights?
2.	In what spheres are men and women still not equal?

WHY I WANT TO HAVE A FAMILY
Lisa Brown

When she wrote the following essay, Lisa Brown was a junior majoring in American Studies at the University of Texas. In her essay, which was published as a "My Turn" column in the October 1984 issue of Newsweek on Campus, she uses a variety of transitional devices to put together a coherent argument that many women in their drive to success have overlooked the potential for fulfillment inherent in good relationships and family life.
For years the theory of higher education operated something like this: men went to college to get rich, and women went to college to marry rich men. It was a wonderful little setup, almost mathematical in its precision. To disturb it would have been to rock an American institution.
During the '60s, though, this theory lost much of its luster. As the nation began to recognize the idiocy of relegating women to a secondary role, women soon joined men in what once were male-only pursuits. This rebellious decade pushed women toward independence, showed them their potential and compelled them to take charge of their lives. Many women took the opportunity and ran with it. Since then feminine autonomy has been the rule, not the exception, at least among college women.
That's the good news. The bad news is that the invisible push has turned into a shove. Some women are downright obsessive about success, to the point of becoming insular monuments to selfishness and fierce bravado, the condescending sort that hawks: "I don't need anybody. So there." These women dismiss children and marriage as unbearably outdated and potentially harmful to their up-and-coming careers. This notion of independence smacks of egocentrism. What do these women fear? Why can't they slow down long enough to remember that relationships and a family life are not inherently awful things?
Granted that for centuries women were on the receiving end of some shabby treatment. Now, in an attempt to liberate college women from the constraints that forced them almost exclusively into teaching or nursing as a career outside the home – always subject to the primary career of motherhood – some women have gone too far. Any notion of motherhood seems to be regarded as an unpleasant reminder of the past, when homemakers were imprisoned by husbands, tots and household chores. In short, many women consider motherhood a time-consuming obstacle to the great joy of working outside the home.
The rise of feminism isn't the only answer. Growing up has something to do with it, too. Most people find themselves in a bind as they hit their late 20s: they consider the ideals they grew up with and find that these don't necessarily mix with the ones they've acquired. The easiest thing to do, it sometimes seems, is to throw out the precepts their parents taught. Growing up, my friends and I were enchanted by the idea of starting new traditions. We didn't want self-worth to be contingent upon whether there was a man or child around the house to make us feel wanted.
I began to reconsider my values after my sister and a friend had babies. I was entertained by their pregnancies and fascinated by the births; I was also thankful that I wasn't the one who had to change the diapers every day. I was a doting aunt only when I wanted to be. As my sister's and friend's lives changed, though, my attitude changed. I saw their days flip-flop between frustration and joy. Though these two women lost the freedom to run off to the beach or to a bar, they gained something else – an abstract happiness that reveals itself when they talk about Jessica's or Amanda's latest escapade or vocabulary addition. Still in their 20s, they shuffle work and motherhood with the skill of poker players. I admire them, and I marvel at their kids. Spending time with the Jessicas and Amandas of the world teaches us patience and sensitivity and gives us a clue into our own pasts. Children are also reminders that there is a future and that we must work to ensure its quality.
Now I feel challenged by the idea of becoming a parent. I want to decorate a nursery and design Halloween costumes; I want to answer my children's questions and help them learn to read. I want to be unselfish. But I've spent most of my life working in the opposite direction: toward independence, no emotional or financial strings attached. When I told a friend – one who likes kids but never, ever wants them – that I'd decided to accommodate motherhood, she accused me of undermining my career, my future, my life. "If that's all you want, then why are you even in college?" she asked.
The answer's simple: I want to be a smart mommy. I have solid career plans and look forward to working. I make a distinction between wanting kids and wanting nothing but kids. And I've accepted that I'll have to give up a few years of full-time work to allow time for being pregnant and buying Pampers. As for undermining my life, I'm proud of my decision because I think it's evidence that the women's movement is working. While liberating women from the traditional child-bearing role, the movement has given respectability to motherhood by recognizing that it's not a brainless task like dishwashing. At the same time, women who choose not to have children are not treated as oddities. That certainly wasn't the case even 15 years ago. While the graying, middle-aged bachelor was respected, the female equivalent –tagged a spinster – was automatically suspect.
Today, women have choices: about careers, their bodies, children. I am grateful that women are no longer forced into motherhood as a (unction of their biology; it’s senseless to assume that having a uterus qualifies anyone to be a good parent. By (he same token, it is ridiculous for women to abandon all maternal desire because it might jeopardize personal success. Some women make the decision to go childless without ever analyzing their true needs or desires. They forget that motherhood can add to personal fulfillment.
I wish those fiercely independent women wouldn’t look down 10 upon those of us who, for whatever reason, choose to forgo much of the excitement that runs in tandem with being single, liberated and educated. Excitement also fills a family life; it just comes in different ways.
I’m not in college because I’ll learn how to make tastier pot 11 roast. I’m a student because I want to make sense of the world and of myself. By doing so, I think I’D be better prepared to be a mother to the new lives that I might bring into the world. I’ll also be a better me. It’s a package deal I don’t want to turn down.

I. Answer the questions:
1.	What is Brown arguing for in this essay? What does she say prompted a change in her attitude? (Glossary: Attitude)
2.	Against what group is Brown arguing? What does she find wrong with the beliefs of that group?
3.	What reasons does she provide for wanting to have a family?
4.	Identify Brown's use of transitions in paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9. How do these help you as a reader to follow her point?
5.	What are the implications for you of Brown's last two sentences in paragraph 6: "Spending time with the Jessicas and Amandas of the world teaches us patience and sensitivity and gives us a clue into our pasts. Children are also the reminders that there is a future and that we must work to ensure its quality"?
6.	For what audience do you think this essay is intended? Do you think men would be as interested as women in the author's viewpoint? Explain. (Glossary: Audience)

II. Suggested Writing Assignments:
1.	Write an essay in which you argue any one of the following positions with regard to the women's movement: it has gone loo far; it is out of control; it is misdirected; it hasn't gone far enough or done enough; it needs to reach more women and men; it should lower its sights; a position of your own different from the above. Whichever position you argue, be sure that you provide sufficient evidence to support your point of view.
2.	Fill in the following statement and write an argument in support of it: The purpose of a college education is to ____________.

Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………3
I. English language as a world language…………………………………4
International English……………………………………………………4
The transatlantic connection.......................................................................6                        
English, the language, reconquering polyglot India...................................8
Simplicity...................................................................................................10
II. Travelling..................................................................................................15
The art of travelling abroad.......................................................................15
Zanzibar: tourism and conservation..........................................................16
Ecotourism in Amazonia...........................................................................19
Eight ways to protect your health while travelling...................................20
Your way to America................................................................................23
Amsterdam................................................................................................24
III. Healthy way of life. Traditional and non-traditional medicine...........25
Alternative medicine.................................................................................25
What is acupuncture?................................................................................26
Homeopathy..............................................................................................28
The most important day............................................................................29
Fast food and nutrition..............................................................................32
IV. Third World countries. Demographic situation....................................33
The world’s urban explosion....................................................................33
Too crowded for comfort?........................................................................36
Where the Third World is first..................................................................39
Rural-urban migration in Colombia..........................................................40
New medicines for the developing world.................................................43
V. Family matters...........................................................................................47
Family life...........................................................................................47
Better to stay married for children’s sake...........................................50
The problems of a family..........................................................................52
The marriage debate..................................................................................54
VI. Racial prejudice.......................................................................................57
The ethnic dimension................................................................................57
Sport, Racism And Inequality.............................................................60
Fry aims “to build a rainbow world”........................................................65
Policies of race still haunt South Africa...................................................65
VII. Women and modern society..................................................................66
A social profile: gender.............................................................................66
Impossible to rape woman in jeans, Italian Court Rules..........................69
Is feminism still important?......................................................................69
Why I want to have a family?...................................................................74