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VOICE TWO: Medical science today saves many more lives. But this can also mean major debt. Government programs provide health insurance to the poor and elderly. Others depend on private insurance. Companies guarantee to pay part or all of the costs of care. But the more the policy covers, the higher the price. VOICE ONE: Around sixty percent of working Americans have health insurance through their jobs. Their employers usually pay at least part of the cost. But, as those costs increase, employers feel the pressure. The Department of Health and Human Services reported this month on health care spending for two-thousand-two. It says spending rose nine percent that year, to one-point-six million-million dollars. Health costs per person averaged more than five-thousand-four-hundred dollars. Some employers no longer offer health coverage. Others have increased the share paid by their employees. Getting insurance can be difficult for those who work only part time. The same is true for people who are already sick. VOICE TWO: Some Americans have no health insurance. The Census Bureau says fifteen percent of the population had no coverage in two-thousand-two. The number was forty-three-point-six million people. Last week a committee of experts called for health coverage for all by two-thousand-ten. The report was from the Institute of Medicine, one of the National Academies. The report says about eighteen-thousand people each year die unnecessarily because of lack of insurance. The experts also estimated how much money the United States loses as a result of poor health and early deaths of uninsured adults. The estimate is between sixty-five-thousand-million and one-hundred-thirty-thousand million dollars a year. A top official in the Bush administration, however, says it is not realistic to expect universal health coverage by two-thousand-ten. VOICE ONE: Some uninsured people get care at university teaching hospitals. A number of religious and humanitarian agencies like the Salvation Army offer free or low-cost care. But hospital emergency rooms are where many poor people go even for minor problems. This adds to hospital costs. The largest number of poor get medical help through public programs at several levels of government. The federal government and the states jointly offer an insurance program called Medicaid. States also administer a program to aid children whose families earn too much to receive Medicaid. However, budget problems have led some states to reduce their services. Florida, for example, has thousands on a waiting list for the State Children's Health Insurance Program there. VOICE TWO: Another issue for a lot of people is the cost of prescription medicine, drugs only a doctor can order. Drug companies say new medicines cost a lot to develop and market. The industry notes that about one-tenth of every dollar spent on health care in the United States goes to prescription medicines. It says these drugs represent only a small part of health care spending. VOICE ONE: Both major political parties have offered plans to improve the health care system. The candidates for the Democratic nomination for president have proposed their own ideas. And President Bush recently won approval of big changes to Medicare. Medicare is the government insurance program for people age sixty-five and older. It also helps pay for some younger people who are disabled. Congress approved Medicare in nineteen-sixty-five. Lyndon Johnson was president. Johnson proposed Medicare as one of the social reforms in a plan he called the Great Society. VOICE TWO: President Bush signed the Medicare reform act in December. The bill received the support of an influential activist group. The group is called AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons. Members of AARP are age fifty and older. As the nation gets older, voters get older. So this issue is important politically. Parts of the new law will take effect at different times. Forty-million elderly or disabled people will receive help to buy medicine, starting in two-thousand-six. And seniors will get a chance to establish tax-free health accounts to save money for future care. VOICE ONE: The cost of the new Medicare law is estimated at four-hundred-thousand-million dollars over ten years. Critics say that is too much. Labor unions and other groups also argue that the changes are better for drug companies than for seniors. Supporters of the new Medicare act say this is not true. They say it is important that seniors will get their first help from Medicare to pay for medicine. The new law also lets private health plans and insurance companies play a bigger part in Medicare. Opponents say letting these companies compete with the government will damage the system. They say seniors will pay more, not less. Supporters say competition means better choices. VOICE TWO: Under the new Medicare law, patients will have choices about their drug plan. They can stay in traditional Medicare for their doctor and hospital costs, and choose a drug policy to go with this. Or, they can join a completely private plan. This would pay for hospital treatment and doctors in addition to medicines. Wealthier Medicare patients are to pay more than others for their medicines. But the poorest seniors would pay only a few dollars for each prescription. VOICE ONE: When some Americans buy medicine, they do not go to the local drugstore. Some travel to Canada or Mexico to save money. Others use the Internet to order prescription drugs from Canadian suppliers. Canada negotiates for and buys large amounts of American-made drugs. Prices controls in Canada mean that drugs often cost much less there. Some people think this drives up American drug costs. The United States Food and Drug Administration say importing drugs is dangerous and illegal. It says this is true even if the drugs are re-imported. That is, they were made in America and then shipped for sale outside the country. VOICE TWO: But some public officials in the United States say they, too, will try to save money. Officials in Boston, Massachusetts, say they will buy drugs from Canada for seven-thousand current and retired city employees. The governor of New Hampshire says his state will use medicine from Canada for prisoners and poor people. Another state, Illinois, has appealed to the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington. Illinois wants to import drugs from Canada legally. Illinois officials argue that the new Medicare law permits this if the drugs meet American safety requirements. VOICE ONE: Tom Daschle of South Dakota leads the Democratic minority in the Senate. Senator Daschle says the new Medicare law is bad legislation. He says seniors will demand many changes. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California was among Democrats who voted for the law. Senator Feinstein called it a step in the right direction. The president of A-A-R-P had stronger praise. He says it represents a victory for older citizens. What do those people think? Many would probably agree with this retired nurse from Rockville, Maryland. She says: “We will find out when the changes take effect.” VOICE TWO: Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson, produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember. VOICE ONE: And I’m Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for another report on life in the United States on the VOA Special English program, THIS IS AMERICA. 
Chapter 35 40 th Annıversary of Martın Luther Kıng Jr’s Death
TEXT Forty years ago, African-American civil rights leader, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, was shot and killed. He died on April fourth, nineteen sixty-eight, in Memphis, Tennessee. On Friday, in that city, presidential candidates, civil rights leaders, labor activists and thousands of citizens came together. They honored Doctor King for leading the struggle for racial equality and economic justice. During the nineteen fifties and sixties, Doctor King had led a campaign of nonviolent protests. His work was aimed at ending racial separation and discrimination against African-Americans. His efforts led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four. That year, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Forty years ago, Doctor King was in Memphis to organize a strike for workers' rights. The sanitation workers in the city were protesting their low wages and poor working conditions. Doctor King was thirty-nine years old at the time, and had become the nation’s chief civil rights leader. His murder incited riots in more than one hundred American cities. The race riots lasted for days. Many African-American neighborhoods burned. The government ordered about fifty thousand soldiers to help control the violence. An estimated twenty-one thousand people were arrested. Almost fifty people were killed. And millions of dollars in property was damaged or destroyed. His murder also brought about a divisive and difficult period for race relations in the United States. In the years since his death, Doctor King has often been called one of the most honored Americans in history. But for many, his work for racial equality remains unfinished. In the past forty years, African-Americans have become successful in education, business, entertainment and politics. The rise of Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama is a powerful sign of racial progress. If elected in November, Mister Obama would become America’s first black president. Yet experts say the black population as a whole has not reached equality with white people socially and economically. Black Americans experience greater rates of poverty and crime than whites. Civil rights leaders say that forty years after his death, many African-Americans still seek Doctor King’s dream of equality and opportunity. Martin Luther King Junior is best remembered for his nineteen sixty-three “I Have a Dream” speech. It brought together millions of people in the United States and around the world to work for racial justice. Chapter 36 A GIft of Clear VIsIon in DevelopIng CountrIes
TEXT0 Millions of people need eyeglasses to see clearly but lack the resources to get them. A group called Give the Gift of Sight provides free eye care and glasses in developing countries. This nonprofit organization is based in the United States. The executive director, Greg Hare, says clear vision is a basic human right. Give the Give of Sight has helped poor communities in Central and South America, Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. This year, the group is planning to visit thirteen countries. These include Thailand, Mexico, Cambodia, Romania and Guatemala. About twenty thousand people are expected at each clinic. Eye-care professionals hold clinics for two weeks. Patients receive an eye exam and a used pair of glasses, if needed. Give the Gift of Sight held its first clinic in nineteen ninety-one in Costa Rica. More than eight thousand people came. Since then, the group has helped two and a half million people in thirty-two developing nations. Give the Gift of Sight uses volunteers. It works with Lions Clubs International and other groups in each country. These partner agencies help collect and restore used eyewear. They also identify where clinics will be held and prepare for them. The group depends on local Lions Clubs to identify people in need and to transport them to the clinics. Italy's Luxottica Group, a leader in prescription eyewear, launched Give the Gift of Sight twenty years ago. The company collects used eyewear donated at its stores worldwide. Volunteers clean and sort the glasses. Greg Hare says Give the Gift of Sight hopes to collect more than one million pairs of eyeglasses this year. And there is a plenty of need. The World Health Organization estimates that more than one hundred fifty million people live with three common eye disorders. Their poor vision is uncorrected but completely treatable. They are nearsighted, farsighted or have astigmatism. A nearsighted person has difficulty seeing objects clearly in the distance. A farsighted person has trouble seeing things up close. For a person with astigmatism, objects appear blurry at any distance. Chapter 37 Behind the Prıce of Rıce
TEXT- Poor families in some countries spend as much as eighty percent of their money on food. They have watched helplessly as rising prices in recent months have created the worst food crisis in more than thirty years. The United Nations World Food Program says high food prices could push one hundred million people into hunger. Half the world's people depend on rice as a main part of their diet. Yet the price has tripled in the past year. Inflated costs for fuel and fertilizer have played a part. Economist Nathan Childs at the United States Agriculture Department says another reason is the falling value of the dollar. This has hurt the ability of some nations to buy food. But he says the main reason is export limits in some rice-growing nations. This means less rice on the world market. Nathan Childs is an expert on rice markets. He notes that the harvest for the latest growing season was the largest on record. But India, Vietnam and others have restricted exports to keep prices down at home and protect supplies. Thailand's agriculture minister says his country will never restrict rice exports. He told the Reuters news agency Thursday that Thailand has enough supplies to meet demand at home and for export. Thailand is the world's largest rice exporter. Recent signs of an increase in supplies have helped ease record prices for Thai rice. Prices rose last week above one thousand dollars a ton. Vietnam, the second biggest exporter, has banned exports until June. And Vietnamese officials have now warned that non-food traders who buy rice for speculation will be severely punished. Speculators try to predict future price movements. They take greater risks than average investors. Experts say speculation is a necessary part of market activity. But the head of the U.N. Environment Program blames it for the high food prices. "We have enough food on this planet today to feed everyone," Achim Steiner told the Associated Press. Earlier, a member of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission rejected the idea that speculators are the main cause. Bart Chilton blamed reduced harvests and grain supplies and the falling value of the dollar. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called heads of major international agencies to a meeting this week in the Swiss capital, Bern. He says high food prices could harm world trade, economic growth, social progress and political security.
TEXT Saint Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy, is known for its historic buildings and its pigeons. Tourists have long enjoyed feeding the birds. As a result, the pigeon population has grown and grown. But local officials say all those droppings are not good for the buildings or the people in the square. As of this month, police will fine people who feed the pigeons. But a listener named Phillip Ghee has another thought about how to control pigeon populations. He asks, why not catch the birds and export them to crisis areas to supply protein to people in danger of starvation? He says good farming and science could probably breed out any diseases that may be harmful to humans. "No offense against pigeons but they seem, in their current numbers, such an unnecessary bird," he says. Others may disagree with his opinion. In any case, we put the question to two squab producers. After all, young pigeons, called squab, have been raised for centuries for food. Tony Barwick is president of the Palmetto Pigeon Plant in South Carolina. He says that aside from any questions about health risks, including from pollution, adult pigeons are not that easy to catch. And, he says, exporting them would not be as cost-effective as exporting other forms of protein, such as chicken. Suppose you have a dollar, he says. Half that dollar would be spent catching the pigeon and the other half processing it. With that same dollar, he says, you could buy a processed chicken that offers more meat. Bob Shipley is president of the Squab Producers of California. These producers are a group of seventy-seven independent squab farms in northern California. They process about one million birds a year. Bob Shipley says exporting smoked squab would not be a solution either. In the smoking process, squab meat becomes very soft, almost like paste. The meat also breaks down if it is overcooked. Squab from the United States is generally exported frozen, so there would be a need for refrigeration. And there is something else to consider about raising pigeons as a food source. Both men said it takes a lot of food to raise squab. Generally it takes more than three and a half kilograms of grain to get half a kilogram of meat. Chapter 39 GRADUATION in AMERICA
TEXT A new report says only about half of all students in the main school systems of America's largest cities finish high school. The report notes higher rates of graduation -- more than seventy percent -- in areas surrounding the cities. The Editorial Projects in Education Research Center prepared the report. Researchers studied high school graduation rates from the two thousand three, two thousand four school year. They also identified the nation's fifty largest cities. The largest, New York City, had a population of more than eight million. The smallest city was Wichita, Kansas. It had about three hundred sixty thousand people. Researchers used a system of measurement called the cumulative promotion index to find graduation rates. School officials in many of the cities studied say the resulting numbers were too low. That is because different areas use different methods to find graduation rates. Critics say many methods do not give a true picture of the number of students who leave high school before finishing. Other studies have put the national graduation rate at about seventy percent. But experts agree that too many students are not completing high school. They estimate the number at more than one million each year. The report was prepared for America’s Promise Alliance. The private group aims to help children receive services they need to succeed. General Colin Powell was chairman of America's Promise Alliance when it was formed in nineteen ninety-seven. He attended the press conference Tuesday where the report was released. He said studies have shown that the United States must do more to educate the leaders and work force of the future. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings also spoke. She said the government will propose that states use the same methods when reporting graduation rates. Alliance officials also announced the start of a nationwide campaign to improve graduation rates. It is to include a series of meetings to be held in every state over the next two years. The meetings will bring together elected leaders, business owners, students, parents and education officials. They will develop plans to increase the number of Americans who finish high school. Chapter 40 Serıes on Learnıng Dısabılıtıes
TEXT Experts say the problem is not with intelligence or the willingness to work hard. The problem, they say, is that some people's brains process information differently. B
Different people can have different kinds of learning disabilities. One person may have difficulty with language development. Another may have problems with reading or writing. Still another may have trouble working with numbers. People can have more than one disorder, but reading is the most common area of difficulty. Learning disabilities are neurological disorders that affect the brain's ability to store, process and communicate information. The National Center for Learning Disabilities estimates that fifteen million Americans, or five percent, are affected. The group says three million students in the United States receive some kind of special help in school because of learning disabilities. There are different names for different disorders. For example, a person who has difficulty reading may have dyslexia. Someone who has trouble with mathematics may have dyscalculia. Learning disabilities may help explain why some students do not perform as well in school as intelligence tests suggest they should. People with a learning disability may have trouble following directions. Or they may not know how to start a task. Children who have problems connecting letters with sounds or understanding what they read may be showing signs of learning disabilities. But since these are a group of disorders, there is no one single sign to look for. Experts say learning disabilities cannot be cured. But people can learn ways to deal with their disorders. Teachers and parents can provide support that will help students learn successfully. In the next few weeks, we will discuss different learning disabilities as well as other disorders that interfere with learning. We will provide advice from experts about ways to deal with them. And we will examine some of the political issues raised by special education programs.
TEXT We started to talk last week about college recruiting companies. Their business is to connect students and schools. Who pays them? It depends. The college might, if the recruiter was working for the college. Or the student might, if the recruiter was working for the student. S
Such relationships between colleges and recruiters worry some people who work in international education. They question how well the interests of students are being served in finding a college that is best for them. These critics say taking money from colleges limits the information that recruiters provide. One company that says it only accepts money from students is the American Universities Admission Program. AUAP is based in Florida and has been in business since nineteen ninety-five. President Jean-Noel Prade says it has helped almost three thousand foreign students attend American colleges. The company charges two thousand five hundred dollars. It suggests four schools where a student is likely to be accepted. Students receive help with the admissions process, and a guarantee that they will be accepted by at least one of the four. If not, Jean Prade says, AUAP returns eighty percent of the money. Two years ago, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers took AUAP to court. The company was an association member. But it was accused of trademark violations over unapproved use of the association's name. Both sides claimed victory. The company left the association, but a judge denied the association's request for damages. Free information about American colleges and universities can be found at Education USA centers. The State Department has about four hundred fifty of them around the world. Advisers work with students in their search for a school. The centers also have information about financial aid, admissions tests and visa requirements. And some have information programs for students who are preparing to leave for the United States. The Education USA Web site is educationusa.state.gov. For a link, go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find other information about getting into an American college or university. Click on the Foreign Student Series link at the bottom of the front page.
TEXT Forty-two of the fifty American states offered some kind of public online learning this past school year. One state, Michigan, now requires all students to have an online learning experience before they finish high school. Even the idea of a school has changed since the rise of the Internet in the nineteen nineties. A new report from the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University says eighteen states have full-time virtual schools. There are no buildings. All classes are online. Online learners might work at different times. But there might be set times for class discussions -- by text, voice or video -- and virtual office hours for teachers. Florida started the first statewide public virtual school in the United States in nineteen ninety-seven. Today, the Florida Virtual School offers more than ninety courses. Fifty-six thousand students were enrolled as of December. Almost sixty percent were female. The school’s Web site says each student was enrolled in an average of two classes. Two-thirds were also enrolled in public or charter schools. Charter schools are privately operated with public money. Other students are home-schooled or in private school. Florida Virtual School has now opened the Florida Virtual Global School. Students in other countries pay for classes. Janet Heiking teaches an English class. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her students live as far away as Africa and Japan. She says they are taking her Advanced Placement class to prepare for attending an American college. They can earn college credits by passing the A.P. test. So how good are virtual schools? Studies have shown mixed results, as that new report from Indiana University notes. For example, students at Florida Virtual School earned higher grades than those taking the same courses the traditional way. And they scored higher on a statewide test. But virtual school students in Kansas and Colorado had lower test scores or performed at a lower level than traditional learners. Studies also find that virtual schools may not save much in operating costs. Education experts say the mixed results suggest the need for more research to find the best ways to teach in virtual schools. Also, they say schools of education need to train more teachers to work in both physical and virtual classrooms.
TEXT A yearly meeting of all the member countries in the World Health Organization is this week in Geneva, Switzerland. Delegates from the one hundred ninety-three countries discuss progress and set policy for the coming year. The W.H.O., a United Nations agency, is sixty years old this year. But Director-General Margaret Chan, as she opened the World Health Assembly, noted that the delegates are meeting at a time of tragedy. She expressed sympathy to the millions of people affected by the recent cyclone in Burma, also known as Myanmar, and the earthquake in China. Doctor Chan said three crises lie ahead that are international security threats and will all affect human health. One is food security, another is climate change and the third is the threat of a worldwide outbreak of influenza. She said the world produces enough food to feed everyone -- in fact, she added, far too many people are overfed. Yet now, food prices have risen sharply. She noted that the crisis hits the poor the hardest, and that the more a family spends on food, the less it has for health care. The W.H.O. chief said climate change will also hit the poor the hardest but, to a greater or lesser extent, will affect all countries. She said more droughts, floods and storms mean greater demands for humanitarian aid. And she warned it will mean a growing number of environmental refugees. And, thirdly, Doctor Chan warned of a continued threat of pandemic influenza. She said it would be very unwise for governments not to prepare. She urged delegates to support a W.H.O. resolution on the sharing of influenza viruses for research and to make vaccines widely available. The W.H.O. this week also released its World Health Statistics report for two thousand eight. Agency officials say fewer people are dying of infectious diseases. In more and more countries, they say, the chief causes of death are conditions such as heart disease and stroke. By two thousand thirty, non-communicable conditions are expected to cause more than three-fourths of all deaths. Almost one-third of all deaths will result from cancer, heart disease and traffic accidents. The number one cause of preventable deaths is tobacco. More than eight million tobacco-related deaths are predicted in two thousand thirty -- eighty percent of them in developing countries. Chapter 44 Schools Look to Save Money with Four-Day Week
TEXT As we said last week, American schools are looking for ways to save money on bus transportation because of high fuel prices. More children may have to walk, ride their bikes or find other ways to get to school. ut, as another effect of the high prices, they may not have to go to school as often. S 
ome schools, especially in rural areas, are changing to a four-day week. That means longer days instead of the traditional Monday through Friday schedule. Beginning in the fall, students in the Maccray school district in Minnesota will be in school Tuesday through Friday. Each school day will be sixty-five minutes longer. Superintendent Greg Schmidt says the district expects to save about sixty-five thousand dollars a year in transportation costs. The district has about seven hundred students living in an area of nine hundred square kilometers. State officials have approved the plan for three years. They may change their mind before then if learning suffers. In Custer, South Dakota, students have been going to school Monday through Thursday since nineteen ninety-five. Superintendent Tim Creal says the change has saved an estimated one million dollars over just the past eight years. But he sees other benefits, too. Students get more instructional time. And activities that used to interfere with classes are now held on non-school days. He says that in the future, the growth of online classes could make it possible to require even fewer days in school. High fuel prices are driving college students to take more online classes. And in some states, high school students can take them, too. A four-day school week sounds like a great idea for students and teachers. But working parents may have to pay for child care for that fifth day. In agricultural areas, though, it can mean an extra day of helping on the family ranch. In New Mexico, the first school district changed to a four-day week in nineteen seventy-four because of the Arab oil boycott. Now, seventeen out of eighty-nine districts use it. The Lake Arthur School District has just one hundred sixty students. Lake Arthur used a four-day schedule for twelve years. But a few years ago it went back to five days. Michael Grossman heads the district. He says two studies there failed to show any real educational improvement using the four-day week. And he says not much instruction was taking place during the last hour of school, because teachers and students were too tired. Chapter 45 UN Seeks $187 Mıllıon in Aıd for the Vıctıms of Cyclone in Burma
TEXT The United Nations is appealing to its members for one hundred eighty-seven million dollars in aid for victims of Cyclone Nargis in Burma. The powerful storm hit the country also called Myanmar a week ago. Friday's emergency appeal said the aid would help meet the needs of more than one and a half million people over the next six months.
United Nations officials say deaths are likely to rise sharply unless food, clean drinking water, shelter and medicine arrive quickly. On Friday the military government seized two planeloads of food and equipment flown in by the United Nations World Food Program. The government has said it wants to distribute foreign aid itself. The seizure led the World Food Program to suspend its flights. But agency officials later decided to send in two flights as planned on Saturday. Also, American officials said Burma agreed to let the United States send a single planeload of supplies to the country on Monday. Burmese officials say the cyclone left more than one million people homeless. About twenty-four million people live in the five areas struck by Cyclone Nargis. Complete villages were destroyed, and many roads are blocked. The Irrawaddy Delta River area was hit the worst. Burmese reports say more than twenty thousand people are dead and forty thousand missing after the cyclone. American and other officials have warned that the number of dead could reach one hundred thousand because of disease. The Indian Ocean tsunami in two thousand four killed more than two hundred thousand people in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Weather experts in India say they warned Burma of the cyclone in enough time to save lives. Burma is one of the world’s most closed societies. The military has controlled the country since nineteen sixty-two. On Saturday the ruling generals plan to carry out a vote for a new constitution. The vote will be delayed in disaster areas until May twenty-fourth. State media carried messages Friday reminding citizens that it was their patriotic duty to approve the new constitution. The leaders of Burma say the constitution is part of what they call a "road map to democracy" that will lead to general elections in two years. The opposition National League for Democracy says the constitution will only strengthen military control. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the government to postpone the vote nationwide. He says all available resources should go into efforts to recover from Cyclone Nargis. Chapter 46 THE VIOLENCE IN KENYA a.
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TEXT The violence this week in Kenya has thrown the usually peaceful country into crisis. Its economic and democratic progress may be in danger. The crisis began Sunday after election officials declared President Mwai Kibaki the winner of a second term. On Friday Kenya's main opposition party, the Orange Democratic Movement, called for a new election. Its candidate in the December twenty-seventh election, Raila Odinga, held the lead in early vote totals. He says the narrow victory for Mister Kibaki was the result of cheating. A spokesman for the president said the government will accept another election if a court orders a new vote. On Thursday, Kenya's attorney general, Amos Wako, called for independent confirmation of the election results. But he said only a court had the power to cancel Mister Kibaki's victory. Kenyans first elected him in two thousand two on a promise to fight corruption. More than three hundred people have been killed in Nairobi, the Rift Valley and Mombasa. The violence has involved fighting between police and protesters and between ethnic groups. There are fears of wider conflict between Luos, who support Mister Odinga, and Kikuyus, who support the president. Both sides have accused each other of acts of genocide. On Tuesday, a mob set fire to a church in Eldoret, in the Rift Valley. At least thirty Kikuyu children and adults burned to death. They had gone to the church seeking safety. The United Nations said the unrest has displaced two hundred fifty thousand people within Kenya. Several thousand people are believed to have fled to Uganda in recent days. Kenya became independent from Britain in nineteen sixty-three. It has the largest economy in East Africa, and in recent years has been the area's most politically secure country. Kenya has held multiparty elections since nineteen ninety-two. But Kikuyus have long ruled the country, both politically and financially. The Kikuyu tribe is the largest of more than forty ethnic groups in Kenya. Twenty-two percent of Kenya's estimated thirty-seven million people are Kikuyu. The United States at first had congratulated President Kibaki on his re-election. Later it withdrew the statement as European Unions observers and others questioned the fairness of the election. The United States announced it was sending its top diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, to Kenya to appeal for political discussions. Mister Kibaki says he is open to talks with his opponents after the violence has ended. In some of Kenya's poorest areas, people have begun to say it is time for peace. Kenya has had riots and ethnic conflict in past years. But there are concerns that foreign investors might now lose trust in the country. The World Bank says it is concerned that the unrest threatens recent gains in economic growth and poverty reduction. A statement from the bank and other development agencies noted that Kenyan media have launched a "Save Our Beloved Country" campaign. Chapter 47 Technology Key to Producıng More Food
TEXT When farmers in northern India's Uttar Pradesh state harvested their wheat in the past, they usually had to sell to local middlemen at whatever price was offered. Now, thanks to the Internet, they can get higher prices for their crops. In villages in Uttar Pradesh and eight other states, farmers can go to an Internet kiosk where they have access to a network set up by the India Tobacco Company. On the network, known as e-Choupal, they can check prices and sell their crops online. In the village of Hathras, the local e-Choupal hub coordinator, Raj Kumar Sharma, says the Internet has all kinds of uses. He says the benefits of e-Choupal are that they not only get price information but weather forecasts as well. So farmers know in advance when the weather is right to apply pesticides. More than 6,000 Indian villages are now connected to the e-Choupal network, an example of how technology is changing the lives of farmers. The Green Revolution, which got underway in the 1960s, is the most well-known example of how technological advances led to the development of high-yield crops that dramatically boosted farm production. Harvests of rice, wheat and corn increased substantially because of improved seed varieties and the use of fertilizer and pesticides. "The Green Revolution had an overwhelmingly positive impact in terms of huge increase production in Asia and to some extent in Latin America, significant increases in farmer incomes and contributing to a rapid reduction in poverty and food insecurity in Asia in particular," says Mark Rosegrant, who heads the Environment and Production Technology Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington. "It has had some negative side effects, such as increased runoff from fertilizer and pesticides, some overuse of water for irrigation in some areas, but those are much counterbalanced by the positive benefits of the Green Revolution." Rosegrant says that by the 1990s, productivity gains began to wane. He says a decline in investment in agriculture also has hurt. "What you've seen now is more maintenance research and trying to adapt to new pest varieties that come along, new insects that come and attack the varieties," adds Rosegrant. "So there's a lot going on in research, but the investment hasn't been high enough to generate another round of very rapid productivity growth." However, one promising area of research is the effort to develop "biofortified" crops - varieties bred for increased mineral and vitamin content to help reduce malnutrition. The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines is breeding strains of rice with high iron and zinc concentrations. The edible root cassava is being fortified with beta-carotene at the Tropical Agriculture Research Center in Cali, Colombia. Scientists at other research centers are experimenting with breeding varieties of wheat and corn with iron and other vitamins. The goal of this international research effort, organized under a coalition called Harvest Plus, is to improve the nutritional quality of staple foods. Bonnie McClafferty, a Harvest Plus communications coordinator, says these biofortified staples will help millions of people in developing countries who do not get enough vitamins in their diet. "You've got a situation in the developing world where you have millions, if not billions, of people who are micronutrient deficient," says McClafferty. "We often think of hunger and malnutrition in terms of energy or calories, but in truth there are several times the number of people who have micronutrient malnutrition and what that leads to are problems with growth, problems with immune systems, problems with cognitive development. It's a hidden hunger and it's quite insidious. So, what we're attempting to do is to breed the nutrients directly into staple foods." Soaring food prices and grain shortages - which have recently been causing unrest around the globe - have created a new urgency for growing more food. Resistance to genetically-modified crops, which contain genes from other organisms, no longer seems to trigger as many protests as in the past. Experts say reliance on these transgenic crops is likely to grow as the need increases for crops bred to withstand drought and other effects of climate change. "You're really going to have to target things like heat tolerance, drought tolerance, and also salinity or salt tolerance, to make up for some of those negative consequences but also to address the future challenges," says Rosegrant. "To do that, some of that is still going to come through conventional plant breeding, but also I think you're also going to have to see a greater reliance on genetic modification or transgenics in the future, to get these kinds of traits tailored to the difficult environments that we're going to see," he adds. 
Chapter 48 EAGLES- HOTEL CALIFORNIA On a dark desert __ _HIGHWAY_ 1 (main road), cool wind in my hair Warm __SMELL_ 2 (aroma, perfume) of colitas, rising up through the air Up ahead in the _DISTANCE__ 3 (space between two points), I saw a shimmering light My head grew _ heavy_ 4 (difficult to lift, very large) and my sight grew dim I had to _STOP_ 5 (pause during a journey) for the night There she stood in the _DOORWAY_ 6 (entrance, entry); I heard the mission bell And I was thinking to _MYSELF_ 7 (for my part), 'This could be _HEAVEN_ 8 (paradise, our external world) or this could be _HELL_ 9 (place of punishment)' Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way There were voices _DOWN- 10 (not up) the corridor, I thought I heard them say... _WELCOME_ 11 (greeting warmly), to the Hotel California Such a _LOVELY_ 12 (attractive, pretty) nice place Such a _LOVELY_ 13 (attractive, pretty) face _PLENTY_ 14 (a lot of, much, many) of room at the Hotel California Any time of year, you can _FIND- 15 (come across) it here Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends How they dance in the courtyard, _SWEET_ 16 (loveable, gentle and loving) summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some dance to __FORGET_ 17 (not recall) So I called up the Captain, 'Please bring me my wine' He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine' And still those voices are calling from _FAR_ 18 (distant, very) away, Wake you up in the _MIDDLE_ 19 (central) of the night Just to hear them say... Welcome to the Hotel California Such a __ LOVELY _ 20 (attractive, pretty) place Such a __ LOVELY _ 21 (attractive, pretty) face They livin' it up at the Hotel California What a nice surprise, bring your alibis Mirrors on the ceiling, The pink champagne on ice And she said 'We are all just __ PRISONERS_ 22 (criminal) here, of our own device' And in the master's chambers, They __GATHERED_ 23 (bring together, collect) for the feast The stab it with their steely knives, _BUT_ 24 (yet) they just can't kill the beast _LAST_ 25 (final) thing I remember, I was Running for the door I had to find the _PASSAGE_ 26 (way, channel) back To the place I was before 'Relax,' said the night man, We are programmed to _RECEIVED_ 27 (get, obtain). You can __CHECKOUT__ 28 (depart, leave) any time you like, but you can never leave! Chapter 49 MYSTRY of TIME a.
b.
TEXT (THEME)
ANNCR: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember. This week our program is about a mystery as old as time. Bob Doughty and Sarah Long tell about the mystery of time. (THEME) VOICE ONE: If you can read a clock, you can know the time of day. But no one knows what time itself is. We cannot see it. We cannot touch it. We cannot hear it. We know it only by the way we mark its passing. For all our success in measuring the smallest parts of time, time remains one of the great mysteries of the universe. VOICE TWO: One way to think about time is to imagine a world without time. There could be no movement, because time and movement cannot be separated. A world without time could exist only as long as there were no changes. For time and change are linked. We know that time has passed when something changes. VOICE ONE: In the real world -- the world with time -- changes never stop. Some changes happen only once in a while, like an eclipse of the moon. Others happen repeatedly, like the rising and setting of the sun. Humans always have noted natural events that repeat themselves. When people began to count such events, they began to measure time. In early human history, the only changes that seemed to repeat themselves evenly were the movements of objects in the sky. The most easily seen result of these movements was the difference between light and darkness. The sun rises in the eastern sky, producing light. It moves across the sky and sinks in the west, causing darkness. The appearance and disappearance of the sun was even and unfailing. The periods of light and darkness it created were the first accepted periods of time. We have named each period of light and darkness -- one day. VOICE TWO: People saw the sun rise higher in the sky during the summer than in winter. They counted the days that passed from the sun's highest position until it returned to that position. They counted three-hundred sixty-five days. We now know that is the time Earth takes to move once around the sun. We call this period of time a year. VOICE ONE: Early humans also noted changes in the moon. As it moved across the night sky, they must have wondered. Why did it look different every night? Why did it disappear? Where did it go? Even before they learned the answers to these questions, they developed a way to use the changing faces of the moon to tell time. The moon was "full" when its face was bright and round. The early humans counted the number of times the sun appeared between full moons. They learned that this number always remained the same -- about twenty-nine suns. Twenty-nine suns equaled one moon. We now know this period of time as one month. VOICE TWO: Early humans hunted animals and gathered wild plants. They moved in groups or tribes from place to place in search of food. Then, people learned to plant seeds and grow crops. They learned to use animals to help them work, and for food. They found they no longer needed to move from one place to another to survive. As hunters, people did not need a way to measure time. As farmers, however, they had to plant crops in time to harvest them before winter. They had to know when the seasons would change. So, they developed calendars. No one knows when the first calendar was developed. But it seems possible that it was based on moons, or lunar months. When people started farming, the wise men of the tribes became very important. They studied the sky. They gathered enough information so they could know when the seasons would change. They announced when it was time to plant crops. VOICE ONE: The divisions of time we use today were developed in ancient Babylonia four-thousand years ago. Babylonian astronomers believed the sun moved around the Earth every three-hundred-sixty-five days. They divided the trip into twelve equal parts, or months. Each month was thirty days. Then, they divided each day into twenty-four equal parts, or hours. They divided each hour into sixty minutes, and each minute into sixty seconds. VOICE TWO: Humans have used many devices to measure time. The sundial was one of the earliest and simplest. A sundial measures the movement of the sun across the sky each day. It has a stick or other object that rises above a flat surface. The stick, blocking sunlight, creates a shadow. As the sun moves, so does the shadow of the stick across the flat surface. Marks on the surface show the passing of hours, and perhaps, minutes. The sundial works well only when the sun is shining. So, other ways were invented to measure the passing of time. VOICE ONE: One device is the hourglass. It uses a thin stream of falling sand to measure time. The hourglass is shaped like the number eight --- wide at the top and bottom, but very thin in the middle. In a true "hour" glass, it takes exactly one hour for all the sand to drop from the top to the bottom through a very small opening in the middle. When the hourglass is turned with the upside down, it begins to mark the passing of another hour. By the eighteenth century, people had developed mechanical clocks and watches. And today, many of our clocks and watches are electronic. VOICE TWO: So, we have devices to mark the passing of time. But what time is it now. Clocks in different parts of the world do not show the same time at the same time. This is because time on Earth is set by the sun's position in the sky above. We all have a twelve o'clock noon each day. Noon is the time the sun is highest in the sky. But when it is twelve o'clock noon where I am, it may be ten o'clock at night where you are. VOICE ONE: As international communications and travel increased, it became clear that it would be necessary to establish a common time for all parts of the world. In eighteen-eighty-four, an international conference divided the world into twenty-four time areas, or zones. Each zone represents one hour. The astronomical observatory in Greenwich, England, was chosen as the starting point for the time zones. Twelve zones are west of Greenwich. Twelve are east. The time at Greenwich -- as measured by the sun -- is called Universal Time. For many years it was called Greenwich Mean Time. VOICE TWO: Some scientists say time is governed by the movement of matter in our universe. They say time flows forward because the universe is expanding. Some say it will stop expanding some day and will begin to move in the opposite direction, to grow smaller. Some believe time will also begin to flow in the opposite direction -- from the future to the past. Can time move backward? Most people have no trouble agreeing that time moves forward. We see people born and then grow old. We remember the past, but we do not know the future. We know a film is moving forward if it shows a glass falling off a table and breaking into many pieces. If the film were moving backward, the pieces would re-join to form a glass and jump back up onto the table. No one has ever seen this happen. Except in a film. VOICE ONE: Some scientists believe there is one reason why time only moves forward. It is a well-known scientific law -- the second law of thermodynamics. That law says disorder increases with time. In fact, there are more conditions of disorder than of order. For example, there are many ways a glass can break into pieces. That is disorder. But there is only one way the broken pieces can be organized to make a glass. That is order. If time moved backward, the broken pieces could come together in a great many ways. Only one of these many ways, however, would re-form the glass. It is almost impossible to believe this would happen. VOICE TWO: Not all scientists believe time is governed by the second law of thermodynamics. They do not agree that time must always move forward. The debate will continue about the nature of time. And time will remain a mystery. (THEME) ANNCR: Our program was written by Marilyn Christiano and read by Sarah Long and Bob Doughty. I'm Steve Ember. Listen again next week for Science in the News, in VOA Special English. Broadcast: January 6, 2004 By Marilyn Christiano 
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