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Файл:Перевод и реферирование общественно-политических текстов из средств массовой информации. Учебное пособие
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Unit 4. The West begins to stir over China’s massive abuse of Muslims
Через Синьцзян-Уйгурский автономный район, большинство жителей
которого исповедуют ислам, по мнению китайского правительства, в страну
проникают радикально настроенные исламисты из Пакистана и Афганистана. Меры китайского правительства направлены на противодействие терроризму и контроль мусульманского населения СУАР [17].
Лента.Ру
14 сентября, 2018
31
Unit
5
Read and translate the article
Harm reduction is the right way to treat drug abuse
Twenty years ago Lisbon’s Casal Ventoso neighbourhood was the biggest
open-air drug market in Europe. But since 2001, when Portugal decriminalised
most drug use, the number of addicts has plummeted, and these days one has
to know where to find them. One recent evening, three outreach workers from
CRESCER, a charity that helps drug users, trudged up a hillside carrying bags of
clean syringes, saline solution and pastries. In a grove of cane plants, half-a-dozen
people were smoking crack or injecting heroin. A gaunt man leant over a friend’s
face, helping him plunge a needle into his neck.
Marta Correia, a psychologist at CRESCER, is friendly with many of Casal
Ventoso’s drug users, but the thin fellow was unfamiliar. “Call me John Doe,” he
joked, grinning. He had been shooting heroin for 25 years, since he was 15, he
said. Ms Correia gave him a pastry and some syringes, accepting used ones in
return. Other users got sheets of tinfoil for their pipes, and were encouraged to
enter treatment.
At the height of the epidemic in the 1990s, authorities estimated that about
100,000 Portuguese, or 1% of the population, were heroin users. “It cut across all
social classes. Nearly every family had someone,” says Dr João Goulão, head of
SICAD, the agency that directs Portugal’s addiction programmes. That generated
the political will to take the fight against drugs out of the justice ministry and give it
to the health ministry. Under the law of 2001, illegal drugs remain illegal and dealers
are prosecuted. But possession for personal use is an administrative offence, not
a criminal one. Anyone caught with a 10-day supply or less is ordered to visit the
local Commission for Dissuasion of Drug Addiction. Rehabilitation programmes and
opiate substitutes, such as methadone, are available to all users who want to quit.
32
Unit 5. Harm reduction is the right way to treat drug abuse
First, do no harm
Since then, the number of problem heroin users has fallen to about 33,000.
The government can claim only partial credit; drug epidemics tend to fizzle. But
decriminalisation and treatment helped cut Portugal’s overdose rate to one of the
lowest in Europe. As for America, in 2016 it had 63,600 fatal overdoses. In Portugal
there were 27.
Portugal’s policies are based on “harm reduction” approaches pioneered in
countries such as Switzerland in the 1980s. The idea is to emphasise treatment
and prevention more than punishment, says Brendan Hughes of the European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Most European
countries now have some form of harm-reduction policy, though the east is more
conservative.
(fig. 1) source: author based on https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/11/24/
Some countries take things further. Many have safe injection rooms, supervised
by medical professionals who check the drugs for safety. In Germany, the
Netherlands and Switzerland, addicts who repeatedly fail methadone programmes
may even receive free, government-prescribed heroin. “Heroin-assisted treatment”
has been shown to reduce crime and deaths. And it appears not to recruit new users:
shooting up at a government facility under a nurse’s gaze is hardly glamorous.
33
Перевод и реферирование общественно-политических текстов из средств массовой информации
But lately Europe is facing different drugs. Cocaine use is up; in Barcelona,
residues in wastewater suggest it more than doubled between 2011 and 2018.
Most overdose deaths in the Netherlands are caused not by opiates but by party
drugs like amphetamines or synthetic cannabinoids, or by ecstasy, which can
cause dehydration. The drug GHB raises your libido, but can knock you out; it
accounted for two-thirds of Dutch drug-related emergencies in 2016.
For stimulants like these, notes the EMCDDA’s Andrew Cunningham, “there are
no substitute treatments like methadone”. The same goes for methamphetamines,
rare in most of Europe but common in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. (They
are still known there as “Pervitin”, a brand of amphetamines distributed to Nazi
soldiers.) In the past few years Czech meth has spread across Germany, mainly in
paste form. The more dangerous crystal variant has popped up as well, often sold
at t-shirt stands along the German border.
Resistance to decriminalisation can come from many sides. Moralistic Sweden
has tough laws against even small quantities of drugs. That is one reason, critics
say, why its overdose death rate is the second-highest in Europe after Estonia’s:
users are afraid to call for help. Poland has needle exchanges, but under its
present conservative government, the number of syringes distributed mysteriously
dropped by half in 2016. In Copenhagen last summer police repeatedly raided
the anarchist community of Christiania, where cannabis dealing had long been
unofficially tolerated.
Getting tough on cannabis seems strange at a time when countries and
American states are legalising it. Harm reduction began with cannabis in the 1970s,
when the Dutch government began tolerating retail reefer sales in designated
“coffee shops”. But tellingly, it never decriminalised the business of supplying the
coffee shops, so the wholesale trade stayed illegal. “It makes no sense at all,” says
Peter Schouten, a Dutch lawyer who hopes to become one of the country’s first
legitimate marijuana farmers when a pilot programme is launched next summer.
Many of Europe’s decriminalisation and harm-reduction efforts remain
unfinished. Américo Nave, head of CRESCER, criticises Portugal’s government for
failing to create safe injection rooms and barring outreach workers from carrying the
drug naloxone, which can save heroin users who have overdosed. Last December,
Ms Correia says, she watched a man die, knowing that naloxone might have saved
him. Still, that is one of just a few dozen such deaths in Portugal in the past year.
In Sweden, there may be ten times as many. [53]
The Economist
November 24, 2018
34
Unit 5. Harm reduction is the right way to treat drug abuse
Vocabulary Practice
1. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and phrases from the article.
Plummet, outreach workers, trudge up a hillside, half-a-dozen people, sheets
of tinfoil, opiate substitutes, claim partial credit, “harm reduction” approaches, have
safe injection rooms, “heroin-assisted treatment”, dehydration, to be unofficially
tolerated, the wholesale trade, to overdose.
2. Explain and expand on the following sentences from the text.
1) Twenty years ago Lisbon’s Casal Ventoso neighbourhood was the biggest
open-air drug market in Europe.
2) That generated the political will to take the fight against drugs out of the
justice ministry and give it to the health ministry.
3) First, do no harm.
4) Portugal’s policies are based on “harm reduction” approaches pioneered in
countries such as Switzerland in the 1980s.
5) Most European countries now have some form of harm-reduction policy,
though the east is more conservative.
6) “Heroin-assisted treatment” has been shown to reduce crime and deaths.
7) In the past few years Czech meth has spread across Germany, mainly in
paste form.
8) Resistance to decriminalisation can come from many sides.
9) Getting tough on cannabis seems strange at a time when countries and
American states are legalising it.
10) Many of Europe’s decriminalisation and harm-reduction efforts remain
unfinished.
3. Give your understanding of the headline. What could one infer from it?
4. Give а summary of the arguments in support harm reduction as the right way to
treat drug abuse.
35
Перевод и реферирование общественно-политических текстов из средств массовой информации
5. Render the following into English.
Арт-протест:
парковки «только для наркодилеров» появились в Лондоне
Парковки «только для наркодилеров» и дорожные знаки «Уступи дилеру
дорогу» появились в восточном Лондоне.
Местные жители наняли художников из группы Columbia Road Cartel, чтобы таким образом привлечь внимание к наркопреступности в округе ТауэрХамлетс.
По словам местных жителей, ситуация с наркотиками резко ухудшилась
в последние годы: на улицах стало все больше дилеров и наркоманов, которые разбрасывают использованные иглы в подъездах.
Коммунальные службы оперативно сняли установленные в рамках акции
«дорожные знаки».
Пенни Крид, зампредседателя ассоциации жильцов Columbia Road рассказал, что наркоманы на этой улице собираются в группы по восемь-десять
человек и ждут дилеров.
«Машины и мопеды заезжают на тротуар, у них очень опасное вождение.
Сына одного местного жителя сбил такой наркодилер».
По словам Крида, наркоманы заходят в жилые дома. На лестницах в
подъездах остаются их иглы и даже кровь.
В соцсетях жители района возмущаются, что уже несколько недель ждут
замены ламп фонарей, которые разбил наркоторговец. Но снять знаки, установленные в рамках акции, коммунальные службы приехали уже через несколько часов.
«Ко мне подходили наркоманы и спрашивали, продаю ли я что-то. А продавцы наркотиков подходили и спрашивали, не хочу ли я у них что-то купить», – рассказал Би-би-си другой житель района.
Пресс-секретарь местного совета сказал, что они с полицией работают
над решением проблемы.
«Как и остальной Лондон, округ Тауэр-Хамлетс иногда сталкивается с вопиющими случаями наркоторговли. Мы понимаем недовольство жильцов».
По словам чиновника, совет округа выделил £3 млн (почти $4 млн) дополнительных средств на полицию. Эти деньги призваны компенсировать
сокращение расходов на правоохранительные органы, которое ранее одобрило правительство.
36
Unit 5. Harm reduction is the right way to treat drug abuse
Пресс-секретарь также сообщил, что уже 160 наркодилеров были аресто-
ваны в этом районе в рамках полицейской операции Continuum.
Мэр округа Тауэр-Хамлетс Джон Биггс назвал ситуацию недопустимой и
у себя в «Твиттере» раскритиковал решение правительства урезать бюджет
полиции [34].
BBC News – Русская служба
20 сентября, 2018
37
Unit
6
Read and translate the article
Why taxing robots is not a good idea
Bill Gates’s proposal is revealing about the challenge automation poses
BILL GATES is an unlikely Luddite, however much Microsoft may have
provoked people to take a hammer to their computers. Yet in a recent interview
with Quartz, an online publication, he expressed scepticism about society’s ability
to manage rapid automation. To forestall a social crisis, he mused, governments
should consider a tax on robots; if automation slows as a result, so much the better.
It is an intriguing if impracticable idea, which reveals a lot about the challenge of
automation.
In some distant future robots with their own consciousnesses, nest-eggs and
accountants might pay income taxes like the rest of us (presumably with as much
enthusiasm). That is not what Mr. Gates has in mind. He argues that today’s robots
should be taxed – either their installation, or the profits firms enjoy by saving on
the costs of the human labour displaced. The money generated could be used to
retrain workers, and perhaps to finance an expansion of health care and education,
which provide lots of hard-to-automate jobs in teaching or caring for the old and
sick.
A robot is a capital investment, like a blast furnace or a computer. Economists
typically advise against taxing such things, which allow an economy to produce
more. Taxation that deters investment is thought to make people poorer without
raising much money. But Mr. Gates seems to suggest that investment in robots is
a little like investing in a coal-fired generator: it boosts economic output but also
imposes a social cost, what economists call a negative externality. Perhaps rapid
automation threatens to dislodge workers from old jobs faster than new sectors
can absorb them. That could lead to socially costly long-term unemployment,
38
Unit 6. Why taxing robots is not a good idea
and potentially to support for destructive government policy. A tax on robots that
reduced those costs might well be worth implementing, just as a tax on harmful
blast-furnace emissions can discourage pollution and leave society better off.
Reality, however, is more complex. Investments in robots can make human
workers more productive rather than expendable; taxing them could leave the
employees affected worse off. Particular workers may suffer by being displaced by
robots, but workers as a whole might be better off because prices fall. Slowing the
deployment of robots in health care and herding humans into such jobs might look
like a useful way to maintain social stability. But if it means that health-care costs
grow rapidly, gobbling up the gains in workers’ incomes, then the victory is Pyrrhic.
The thorniest problem for Mr. Gates’s proposal, however, is that, for the moment
at least, automation is occurring not too rapidly but too slowly. The displacement
of workers by machines ought to register as an increase in the rate of productivity
growth – and a faster-growing economy. But since a burst of rapid productivity
growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s, America’s economy has persistently
disappointed on these measures. Mr. Gates worries, understandably, about
a looming era of automation in which machines take over driving or managing
warehouses. Yet in an economy already awash with abundant, cheap labour, it
may be that firms face too little pressure to invest in labour-saving technologies.
Why refit a warehouse when people queue up to do the work at the minimum
wage? Mr. Gates’s proposal, by increasing the expense of robots relative to human
labour, might further delay an already overdue productivity boom.
When faster automation does arrive, robots might not be the right tax target.
Automation can be understood as the replacement of labour with capital. To save
humans from penury, the reasoning goes, a share of the economy’s capital income
needs to be diverted to displaced workers. Expanding capital ownership is one
strategy; people could own driverless vehicles that operate as taxis, for instance,
and rely on the flow of fares for part of their income. Taxing robots and redistributing
the proceeds is another.
But as machines displace humans in production, their incomes will face the
same pressures that afflict humans. The share of total income paid in wages –
the “labour share” – has been falling for decades. Labour abundance is partly
to blame; the owners of factors of production in shorter supply – such as land in
Silicon Valley or protected intellectual property – are in a better position to bargain.
But machines are no less abundant than people. Factories can churn out even
complex contraptions; the cost of producing the second or millionth copy of a piece
of software is roughly zero. Every lorry driver needs individual instruction; a capable
39
Перевод и реферирование общественно-политических текстов из средств массовой информации
autonomous-driving system can be duplicated endlessly. Abundant machines will
prove no more capable of grabbing a fair share of the gains from growth than
abundant humans have.
A new working paper by Simcha Barkai, of the University of Chicago,
concludes that, although the share of income flowing to workers has declined in
recent decades, the share flowing to capital (i.e., including robots) has shrunk
faster. What has grown is the markup firms can charge over their production costs,
i.e. their profits. Similarly, an NBER working paper published in January argues
that the decline in the labour share is linked to the rise of “superstar firms”. A
growing number of markets are “winner takes most”, in which the dominant firm
earns hefty profits.
Large and growing profits are an indicator of market power. That power might
stem from network effects (the value, in a networked world, of being on the same
platform as everyone else), the superior productive cultures of leading firms,
government protection, or something else. Waves of automation might necessitate
sharing the wealth of superstar firms: through distributed share-ownership when
they are public, or by taxing their profits when they are not. Robots are a convenient
villain, but Mr. Gates might reconsider his target; when firms enjoy unassailable
market positions, workers and machines alike lose out. [61]
The Economist
February 25, 2017
Vocabulary Practice
1. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and phrases from the article.
Society’s ability to manage rapid automation, nest-egg, the challenge of
automation, human labour displaced, expansion of health care, a blast furnace,
advise against taxing, socially costly long-term unemployment, blast-furnace
emissions, expendable, the deployment of robots, herding, maintain social stability,
looming era of automation, overdue productivity boom, penury, labour abundance,
shrunk faster, share-ownership, negative externality, to bargain.
2. Fill the gaps with the missing prepositions in the following wordings.
1) to take a hammer … the computers
40
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