many other minerals, including copper, gold, aluminium, iron, and lead. The United States grows wheat, corn, and other crops and raises many cows, pigs, and chickens.
However, the USA is also a major consumer of resources. This means, for example, that the United States must import much of the fuel it uses. Not surprisingly, international trade is important to the United States. Major exports include machinery, high-technology equipment, chemicals, cars, aircrafts, and grains. Major imports include machinery and telecommunications equipment, oil, cars, metals, and chemicals.
From the Economic Survey of the United States published on 29 May 2007 (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/us): Economic performance has improved considerably in the past decade or so. This is most manifest in the marked acceleration in productivity, the major determinant of standards of living. More recently, economic growth has remained fairly solid. There are a number of longer-term challenges facing the economy. Potential growth is slowing as demographic changes weigh on labour supply while there are considerable public spending pressures as the population ages. Tax reform is also essential, both for efficiency reasons and better targeting those in need. Finally, improvements in the education system, which produces mixed results, are important to long run productivity growth and competitiveness.
Ethnic and racial diversity - the "melting pot" - is celebrated as a core element of the American ideology. The 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed racial and other discrimination, but race continues to be a live issue with affirmative-action programmes - intended to remedy past discrimination - and housing segregation sparking debate. Immigrants come and change America and are changed by America.
1. Answer the questions:
1)What is the capital of the USA?
2)What system is the United States economy based on?
3)Why has the active role of the government increased?
4)What fields of economy have increased?
5)What mineral resources is the country rich in?
6)What does the USA import?
7)What does the USA export?
8)What challenges does the economy of the USA face?
9)How should taxes be reformed?
10)Are improvements in the education system important for the economy of the country?
11)How can you explain the meaning of the last sentence “Immigrants come and change America and are changed by America”?
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Text 26
AUSTRALIA. ECONOMY
Full name: Commonwealth of Australia; population: 20.6 million (official estimate, 2006); capital: Canberra; largest city: Sydney; area: 7.7 million sq km (2.9 million sq miles); major language: English; life expectancy: 78 years (men), 83 years (women) (UN); monetary unit: 1 Australian dollar = 100 cents; main exports: ores and metals; wool, food and live animals; fuels, transport machinery and equipment; GNI per capita: US $32,220 (World Bank, 2006); Internet domain: .au; Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II, represented by Governor-General Michael Jeffery; Prime minister: John Howard.
Australia is a relatively affluent, industrialized nation but much of its wealth still comes from agriculture and mining. It has a small domestic market and its manufacturing sector is comparatively weak. Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of the population is employed in manufacturing, and for much of Australia's history it has been argued that these industries need tariff protection from imports to ensure their survival. The strong,
services-based economy has seen sustained growth; mining and agriculture provide the lion's share of exports
One of the features of the socio-economic development in Australia is that key areas of the economy are dominated by foreign capital. More and more Australians are employed in factories today than on the land. Industries, which are concentrated around the ports, include shipbuilding, textiles, aeroplanes and chemicals.
Efforts are being made to increase Australia's international competitiveness. This has become more important as prices of traditional primary exports have become more volatile.
An important source of income is the tourism industry, with the numbers of visitors rising each year and projections for even greater numbers in the future. The other bright spot is the booming economies of South-East Asia, with Australia perfectly positioned to enter these markets—55% of Australia's exports go to the Asian region. Agriculture, formerly the cornerstone of the Australian economy, today accounts for about 4% of production, while mining contributes about 8% and manufacturing about 16%.
Major commodity exports include wool (Australia is the world's largest supplier), wheat, barley, sugar, coal and iron ore. Japan is Australia's biggest trading partner, but the economies of China, Korea and Vietnam are becoming increasingly important. Regionally, Australia recently initiated the establishment of the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, a body aimed at furthering the economic interests of the Pacific nations.
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Answer the questions:
1)What are traditional industries of Australia’s economy?
2)Does Australia have a strong domestic market?
3)How can the country protect its domestic industries?
4)What does Australia export?
5)What countries does Australia export its goods to?
6)How is tourism industry developed in the country?
7)What does the abbreviation APEC stand for?
8)What is the role of foreign capital in the economy of the country?
Text 27
CANADA
Facts. Full name: Canada; population: 32 million (UN, 2005); capital: Ottawa; area: 9.9 million sq km (3.8 million sq miles); major languages: English, French (both official); life expectancy: 77 years (men), 82 years (women); monetary unit: 1 Canadian dollar = 100 cents; main exports: machinery and equipment, automotive products, metals and plastics, forestry products, agricultural and fishing products, energy products; GNI per capita: US $32,600 (World Bank, 2006); Internet domain: .ca; Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II, represented by Governor-General Michaelle Jean; Prime minister: Stephen Harper
Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russia. Its population is only about one-fifth of Russia's however. Nearly 90% of Canadians live within 200 km of the border with the United States, which means that Canada contains vast expanses of wilderness to the north. The relationship to its powerful neighbor is a defining factor for Canada. The US and Canada have the world's largest trading relationship.
Immigration has helped to make Canada one of the world's richest nations, and the country is largely free of racial tension. Many recent newcomers hail from Asia. Canada's indigenous peoples make up less than two per cent of the population.
Economy. Canadians enjoy the high standard of living that major Western countries are accustomed to and tend to take for granted. Maintaining the wealth experienced by the previous generation is becoming ever more difficult, even elusive. The Canadian economy is based, as it always has been, on abundant natural resources. These natural renewable and nonrenewable riches include fish, timber and wood products, minerals, natural gas, oil and hydroelectricity. Although only 5% of
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the land is arable, the agricultural sector, primarily in wheat and barley, accounts for much of the Canadian export total.
Manufacturing has long been a weak component of the economy and today employs just 14% of the country's workers. The most important manufactured product is motor vehicles. Hi-tech industries and developers in the space and computer fields are recent additions to this area. By far the largest part of the economy at a whopping 75% is in services, which include an enormous civil service. Banking, insurance, education, communication and consulting bring in foreign exchange. The rest of the service sector does not.
The country's major trading partner is the USA although business people are increasingly strengthening ties to Japan, China and other countries of the Pacific Basin. Mexico, too, is poised to become a major trading partner. The North American Free Trade Agreement, involving Canada, the US and Mexico, has brought a trade boom for Canada. But thorny issues abound. American moves, which impact on Canadian exports, in the form of tariffs on Canadian timber and increased subsidies for US farmers, have created particular tension.
The high degree of foreign ownership of Canadian business has also been problematic, drawing profits away from the country. Overall, about 40% of the country's industry is owned by non-Canadians, led by US interests. Currently unemployment hovers around 10% with regional variations, and the inflation rate is about 2.5%. Today nearly half the work force is women and by far the majority of households have two incomes.
1. Answer the questions:
1)What is the capital of Canada?
2)What are the official languages of Canada?
3)Does Queen Elizabeth II rule the country?
4)What is the currency of Canada?
5)What is Canadian economy based on?
6)How is the population dispersed in the country?
7)What does Canada export?
8)What industries are developed in the country?
9)How does the USA influence the economy of Canada?
10)What problems of Canadian business are connected with foreign ownership?
Text 28
CHELYABINSK REGION ECONOMIC PROFILE
The Chelyabinsk Region occupies the southern part of the Urals and the adjacent plain. 3,678,000 people live on the territory of 85,000 square kilometers. Chelyabinsk, the region centre, is the eighth largest Russian city with the population of 1.1 million people.
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The region is rich in natural resources. The most important of them are iron, titanomagnetite, copper and zink ores, nickel, bauxite, graphite and gold. The beauty of the Ural stones can be appreciated in the restored Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral – it is decorated with marble from Koelga .
The Chelyabinsk Region is also one of the most advanced industrially developed Russian provinces: its 5,000 enterprises employ 535,000 people. A total of 93 percent of all firms are in the heavy industry. The region ranks third in terms of per capita production.
The region’s economic profile is formed by such sectors as metallurgy, mechanical engineering, metalworking, construction, and the fuel and energy and agricultural sectors. Mechanical engineering and metallurgy are the key industries accounting for some 80 percent of the region’s production and employing over 40 percent of its workforce.
The Metallurgical complex accounts for 241 enterprises that output 59% of total industrial volume.
There are about 30 enterprises and organizations of defense industrial complex in Chelyabinsk region.
As to the scientific and industrial level the Chelyabinsk region ranks among the first ten regions in Russia. The total number of large and medium-sized enterprises is more than 4 thousand. More than half of them represent the branches of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy as well as machine-building industry. Machine-building production in the region comprises the enterprises of automobile industry including tractor and agriculture machines production, the output of metallurgical, road construction, technical and mining equipment, instrument and tool production. The region exploits deposits and reprocesses the mineral resources. In the Chelyabinsk region there are:
ithe biggest in Russia metallurgical complex – Magni togorsk Iron and Steel Integrated Works;
ithe Copper Electrolytic Plant in Kyshtym founded by Nikita Demidov in 1757;
iChelyabinsk Pipe-Rolling Plant; ithe Urals Automobile Works;
∙“Kristall” in Yuzhnouralsk, where artificial cryst als for production purposes are grown.
The unique centres of the atomic energy industry as well as the centres of rocket production and space equipment are situated on the Northwest of the region.
As an industrial territory, the Chelyabinsk Region has great opportunities to develop its agricultural sector. The region is 70 to 80 percent self-sufficient in food supply.
The Southern Urals has developed economic ties with other regions as well as with CIS and foreign countries. The major export items are ferrous and nonferrous metals, ferrous alloys and machines.
The region boasts a most favorable situation for attracting both domestic and foreign capital.
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The Chelyabinsk Region has all the elements of investments potential: industrial, financial, laboring, consuming, institutional and innovational. The infrastructure element decreases the total rating. Risk elements such as political, economical, financial ones are rather low.
The Chelyabinsk region is among the 10 Russian regions of most dynamical development as well as most investment volume.
Some 50 percent of the 520 companies with foreign stakes are engaged in production. Ferrous metallurgy, trade, transport and communications are the most attractive sectors to foreign partners. The bulk of investments come from Germany, Ireland, Canada, Switzerland and Britain. Regional authorities support the domestic industrialists and entrepreneurs in establishing contacts with business people at home and abroad.
1. Answer the questions:
1)What are the key industries of the Chelyabinsk region?
2)Name the most important enterprises.
3)What mineral resources is the region rich in?
4)Does the region have elements of investment potencial?
5)What products does the region import/export?
6)Is small business developed in the region?
7)What part of the capital and manpower is concentrated in metallurgy and machine building?
2.Speak on the economy of the region you come from. Use the facts from the text in your stories.
Text 29
THE CAPITAL OF THE SOUTHERN URALS
Chelyabinsk is the capital of one of Russia’s largest and most developed regions. It is 1,600 kilometers east of the Russian capital, on the border of European Russia, Siberia, and Kazakhstan.
At the beginning of the last century the city was among Russia’s largest grain, tea, and meat trading centres. It had an exchange, customs, over a dozen banks, major firms and trade houses, both Russian and foreign. The camel in the city coat of arms symbolizes commerce. “The ship of the steppe a nd desert” personified trade with Asia.
Chelyabinsk has completely changed since then, now it is an important an industrial centre. The population is over 1.1 million. It is a megapolis boasting the world-class metallurgical, engineering, and defense industries. Chelyabinsk has about 150 major industrial enterprises making the city Russia’s fifth largest – after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhni Novgorod, and Yekaterinburg – in production volume.
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Metals account for some 40 percent of the city’s output. Chelyabinsk produces some 35 percent of the country’s ferrous alloys, 20 percent of the pipes, and almost 100 percent of the large-diameter pipes, heavy crawler tractors and road-building machinery, super heavy-duty trailers, unique metal structures, and instruments.
Chelyabinsk exports its products to 60 countries around the world. Private business has been vigorously developing recently: over 20,000 private companies have been registered. Chelyabinsk is a major transport junction.
Over 30 banks providing a whole set of up-to-date banking and financial services to businesses operate in Chelyabinsk.
The Chelyabinsk Region boasts of 3 concert companies and 12 theatres. Amongst these there are well recognized in Russia and abroad Chelyabinsk Academic Drama, Chelyabinsk Ballet and Opera Hall, Drama Chamber Theatre, Russian folk instruments orchestra “Malakhit” and t he only one in the Urals Chamber Music and Organ Hall.
The system of public education in the City is represented by universities, academies, institutes, colleges training specialists for different fields of industry, agriculture, business, science, culture.
1. Answer the questions:
1)Where is Chelyabinsk situated?
2)When was it founded?
3)What is the population of the city?
4)Why is there a camel in the city coat of arms?
5)What well-known entrepreneurs do you know? What fields (trade, production, services) do they work in?
6)What do you know about economic links of the city with other countries?
7)Is the unemployment rate high or low in the region / city?
8)Are there any social problems in the city?
9)Where can people get vocational training and higher education?
10)What can you say about the cultural life of the city?
Text 30
EUROPE’s CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON THE UNITED STATES
By Martin Walker
Imagine a New Yorker who wakes up and breakfasts on Nescafe coffee and shaves with a Braun razor, drives his Mercedes to his Wall Street bank of Credit Suisse First Boston and switches on his Olivetti terminal to check the currency markets on the Reuters network. He lunches at Burger King, buys a raincoat at Burberry’s, his shoes at Church’s and his tie at He rmes on Madison Avenue. He meets a friend for an evening scotch and soda at the Carlyle hotel, dines at the Parker Meridien, and goes to see “Phanton of the Opera” at a Broadway theatre. He checks
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into the Drake hotel for the night before catching an early business flight on Northwest airlines in the morning.
Every move he made, and every penny he spent was with a European-owned company. And if our New Yorker watched the Public Broadcasting Network on TV before going to sleep, he probably watched a show from Britain’s BBC network.
This is Soft Power the phrase devised by Harvard University’ Joseph Nye to define the new forms of cultural influence in a world where power comes out of a TV screen or a strong national currency rather more decisively than it comes out of the barrel of a gun. More than the hard military power of the old world of geo-politics, in the new world of geo-finance, the soft power of money and cultural influence works both ways.
“When one country gets other countries to want what it wants, that is Soft power in contrast to the Hard Power of ordering others to do what it wants,” Nye argued.
And a very great deal of what America now wants is European: French perfumes and German cars, Dutch beer and Italian pasta, Spanish wines and Danish furniture, Scotch whiskey and British TV. And with European tastes and European styles come European ideas and novels, stage plays and movies, news magazines like The Economist and fashion magazines like the British or Italian versions of Vogue.
What is remarkable about this cultural interchange is that America is strongest at exporting its popular culture, and Europe does rather better at exporting its elite culture. America has Hollywood, but European films go into the art houses. American TV shows run on Europe’s popular networks, while British TV runs on America’s up-market PBS. All Europeans wear jeans; affluent and trendy Americans buy French wine and European clothes. The global consumer market has its own class distinctions.
Europe’s influence in the world of ideas reaches the American mass culture through the medium of American elites, and particularly those opinion-formers and policy-makers who went to Oxford and the Sorbonne.
The fastest growing new component of the American melting pot is another kind of European culture, the Spanish-speaking communities of Mexico and Central America. Over 11 million Americans identified themselves as coming from Mexico alone. Five hundred years after Columbus landed in the New World, the Hispanic tradition is becoming increasingly important. And the North America Free Trade Agreement, which makes one single market of Mexico, the US and Canada, intensifies the economic links between North and Latin America. And looking at the foreign investment flowing into Mexico, the biggest investors after the US are Britain, Germany, Spain, France and Italy, in that order.
Family roots, the language and literary culture, the English-based legal and political system are all powerful influences from Europe, which still exert a strong magnetic force on America.
(From The GUARDIAN)
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1. Answer the questions:
1)What European-owned companies does the author name at the beginning of the text?
2)What is the difference between “soft power” and “hard power”?
3)What is especially remarkable about cultural interchange between America and Europe?
4)How do European ideas influence Americans?
5)What does the expression “the American melting p ot” mean?
6)Why are there so many Spanish-speaking communities in the USA now?
2. Speak about American influence on Russia.
Text 31
ARE WE HEADED TOWARD A SINGLE WORLDWIDE LANGUAGE?
By Bill Gates
Because the Internet makes the world a smaller place, the value of having a common language is greatly increased. This enhances the importance of English as a second language. I don't, however, expect English to replace or even diminish any of today s primary languages.
From a technical standpoint, there is no reason that English works better than other languages on the Internet. A technology called “Unicode,” which can represent every character in every written language, is now used in the leading Web browsers.
Unicode, which is widely endorsed by the computer industry, uses 16 rather than 8 bits of information to store each character. This lets Unicode represent up to 65,535 characters, making it possible to simultaneously handle all of the thousands of characters in languages such as Chinese and Japanese, to say nothing of English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew and other tongues.
Many major software applications can spell-check multiple languages within a single document, provided the appropriate dictionary files are installed. In short, today's information technology doesn't play favorites among languages - although people and companies publish a lot more software and electronic content in some languages than in others.
I understand the concern some people have that the Internet's heavy reliance on content from English-speaking countries may undermine other cultures. Fortunately, the Internet also allows ethnic values to be reinforced. It will enable French, Greek, Italian, Chinese and other ethnic communities dispersed around the globe to celebrate and reinforce their heritage, for example. The Internet will allow even small ethnic groups to collect and pass on their cultural traditions, as students at a Muckleshoot Indian tribal school are beginning to do in my home stale of Washington.
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Someday software will translate both written and spoken language so well that the need for any common, second language could decline. That day is decades away, though, because flawless machine translation is a very tough problem.
Software that does inelegant but often useful translations already exists. Web pages translated with software of this sort can be understood surprisingly well if all you're trying to do is figure out what product is being offered or get a sense of what is being discussed. But if you're trying to negotiate a contract or discuss a scientific discovery where subtleties matter, today's translation software is all but useless. Count on English to remain valuable for a long time as a common language for international communication.
Text 32
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Some Definitions
“A concept, originating in the USA, based on the ob servation that language contains words and phrases that express such prejudices as racism, sexism, and hostility to homosexuals; to avoid the slightest risk of giving offence, it is argued, extreme care must be taken to avoid all such phrases. Most reasonable people would accept that offensive words should not be used. However, the extremes of political correctness can easily lend themselves to ridicule (e.g. by insisting on such terms as humankind and differently abled, to replace the traditional mankind and disabled). The term is now widely used in a pejorative sense to indicate overzealous liberal attitudes in general. (The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001)
“The concept that racism, sexism, or other prejudic es should not be allowed expression in colloquial language. While it would not be acceptable, i.e. politically correct, to describe someone as working like a nigger, the concept of political correctness can be stretched to unreasonable limits by those who find the word mankind sexist. Perhaps the criterion should be that one should not use words or idioms that disparage, even by implication, a minority group. ( Oxford Paperback Encyclopedia)
“...marked by or adhering to a typically progressiv e orthodoxy on issues involving esp. race, gender, sexual affinity, or ecology. Abbr.: P.C.” (Random House)
“…conforming or adhering to what is regarded as ort hodox liberal opinion on matters of sexuality, race, etc.: usually used disparagingly to connote dogmatism, excessive sensitivity to minority causes, etc.” (Webster’s New World College)
“Conforming to a prevailing body of liberal opinion , esp. in avoiding language, behaviour, etc., which might conceivably be regarded as discriminatory or pejorative to racial or cultural minorities or as reflecting implicit assumptions.”
(Oxford Encyclopeadia English)
“Political correctness, or PC, is the avoidance of words, phrases, or actions that may be deemed offensive by a particular section of society, such as ethnic
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