9. No place to call home (1600 p.C.) China’s migrant workers

There’s plenty of work, but nowhere to live

To prepare for the Olympic Games Beijing’s authorities are removing old dwellings. Old villages surrounded by the expanding city are being demolished. With them goes cheap housing, vital to the city’s huge pool of migrant workers. China does not like to admit it has slums. But it does, and it will find it needs them.

In the past two years or so, cities across China have announced plans to «transform» these «villages within cities». Because of the Olympics Beijing faces a particularly tight deadline. The aim is to «renovate» 171 urban villages. When the campaign was launched, 114 of them were thus transformed.

33,935 households in 231 villages would be moved out. But these are only the «permanent residents», i.e., the villages’ original inhabitants. They are heavily outnumbered by rural migrants, most of whom work as traders or in the city’s service and construction industries. Their numbers have increased as Beijing has boomed.

In a city of fast-rising house prices, the former villages offer affordable accommodation. Rents are as low as $25 a month. The villagers in shabby single-storey brick houses in the north-east of the city lost their fields several years ago, but their houses are large by city standards. They have roofed over their courtyards and partitioned their homes into tiny, dark rooms, which they rent out. Conditions in the village are grim. Many villages within cities had become «Chinese-style slums». There is the rapid influx of rural labour into the cities (by official estimates an average of 8.4m people a year between 2001 and 2005, bringing the total to around 120m).

Many of the villages have turned into not just slums but also criminal enclaves with black market drugs, gamblers and prostitution – a «time-bomb» of disorder.

Police powers try to detain any migrant found without the correct permits. Such people were often put in prison camps for days or weeks and then sent home.

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Notes:

Beijing — Пекин permanent resident — постоянный

migrant — переселенец житель

rural — сельский slum — трущоба

to outnumber — превосходить to roof — накрывать крышей

численно to partition — разгораживать

affordable — приемлемый to detain — задерживать

10. Finding Oil or Saving Bears? (1800 p.C.)

The oil industry is taking part in some court battle to maintain its stake in Alaska’s oil-rich fields now that the U.S. Interior Department has listed polar bears as a threatened species.

About 15 per cent of America’s oil is produced in Alaska, and increasing prices for the commodity are pushing companies to look farther and farther offshore to the Chukchi sea, which is frozen much of the year.

At a news conference to announce the listing, Interior Secretary was armed with slides and charts showing the dramatic decline in sea ice over the last 30 years and projections that the melting of ice – a key habitat for the bear – would continue and may even quicken. He said that means the polar bear is a species likely to be in danger of extinction in the near future.

Major oil companies stand to lose the most; they either have huge stakes in current North Slope production or have their eye on future exploration.

The executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association said she is concerned last decision will drive prolonged court battles over oil future production.

We now have a species threatened which is both healthy in size and population; the real risk is litigation that will follow.

Lawsuits will continue to be filed opposing individual operations, lease sales and permits, and that could have a significant impact on business.

The Interior Department outlined a set of administrative actions and limits to how it planned to protect the polar bear with its new status

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so that it would not have wide-ranging adverse impact on economic activities from building power plants to oil and gas-exploration.

The oil industry operates under rules of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and that an Endangered Species Act provision will allow oil and gas activities to continue under the MMPA’s stricter standards.

This rule, effective immediately, will ensure the protection of the bear while allowing us to continue to develop our natural resources in the arctic region in an environmentally sound way.

The ruling comes at a time when the oil industry has its eye on resource-rich offshore fields.

Shell Oil Co has big plans for offshore drilling, especially after a recent lease sale conducted by the Interior Department.

Notes:

to maintain stake — застолбить species — вид

участок lawsuit — судебный процесс

Interior Department — Мини- litigation — тяжба

стерство внутренних дел impact — воздействие

to have one’s eye on — следить за power plant — электростанция

decline — уменьшение

habitat — естественная среда

обитания

ИСПОЛЬЗОВАННАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА

1. L i l i a R a i t s k a y, S t u a r t C o c h r a n e . «Macmillan. Guide to Economics».

2. К а ш а е в а А.А. «Основы делового английского языка, the ABC of business English. — М.: Высшая школа, 2007

3. Ш е в е л е в а С.А. «Английский язык». — М.: ЮНИТИ, 2006

4. English reader for the students of Economics. Basic macroeco-nomic concepts. — М., 2004.

5. П о т р у г а л о в В.Г. Учебник по английскому языку. Economics. — М.: ACТ, 2007.

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6. Г л у ш е н к о в а Е.В., К о м а р о в а Е.Н. Aнглийский язык для студентов экономических специальностей. — М.: Астрель, 2007.

7. А в а н е с я н Ж.Г. English for economists. Английский для экономистов. — М.: ОМЕГА-Л, 2008.

8. К о л е с н и к о в а Н.Н., Д а н и л о в а Т.В., Д е в я т к и н а Л.Н. Английский для менеджеров. — М.: ACADEMIA, 2008.

9. Журналы «The economist», «Speak out».

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