1. Discuss different opinions of the threat of population growth on our planet.

From the very start I want to admit that population growth, as well as other global problems in the world, is an urgent one. For decades the population explosion has been giving people nightmares. The world’s population increases by 3 every second and by a billion – every decade. With figures such as these, the gloom is understandable.

There school of thought that the battle to feed all the humanity is over. The world will undergo famines soon; hundreds of millions of people are going to starve in spite of the crash programmes embarked upon now. The crisis has been deferred, not avoided. The humane race will ultimately outgrow its ability to feed itself.

Some doubters claim it was erroneously predicted. So dramatic have been changes in population growth, that it’s increasingly difficult to predict future population levels.

Indeed, world population is still rising fast, but it’s already plain, that the worst forecast will never become reality. Far from reaching 15 billion, the odds are that it may never get to 10 billion. So with some coercion or without it the birthrate is now well below replacement level in most of Europe. But the Green Revolution will enable food production to stay ahead of population growth. It combines classical plant breeding methods with genetic technologies making a huge boost.

Economic growth has always marched in step with population growth. When population declines there are fewer people of working age to support those in retirement; also, it may prove much harder to recruit people to do unpopular jobs.

Those who have painted a rosy picture of an environment recovering its natural beauty as the impact of human numbers declines could find the opposite is nearer the truth.

Paradoxically, the greatest problems may come out not from soaring population but from the declines now beginning to become evident in some developed countries.

2. TALK ABOUT THE PROBLEMS A NEWLY-INDEPENDENT STATE IS CONFRONTED WITH.

Chinese people say that the worst thing is to live in the time of changes. With the rich choice of possible way of further development comes a bunch of problems as well. It’s especially true for newly-independent states. I’d like to illustrate this on the example of Samoa.

For centuries time stood still in Samoa. The people worked at banana plantations and respected the customs that the family chiefs presented absolute authority. They owned land community and administrated justice in each village.

So, when progress came and Samoa faced many development schemes, they were naturally confused. When all that development schemes are completed and Samoa one of the world’s poorest nations in cash terms, is forced into the 21^st century, what is to become of its culture. That’s the main problem. Samoa is a poor country and some change must come, but Samoans want the modern amenities, but they don’t want to throw away their culture to get them. In many ways their culture retards development. The tradition of communal land ownership stultifies individual incentive and has resulted in neglect of the land. The exodus to New Zealand creates a false economy and results in thousands of Samoan families ignoring the land living off the earnings of their expatriate children and the question the people are asking is “what is a balance between the past and the future?”

Indeed, Western Samoa has traveled a long way in the 12 years since independence. It has political stability and people who are 90% literate. It offers investors a cheap labour force and a land that is 80% uncultivated. It offers visitors the most uncorrupted Polynesian culture less anywhere today.

3. TALK ON HOW PARENTS FEEL ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN TRAVELLING ON THEIR OWN FOR THE FIRST TIME.

It goes without saying that parents is always get worried when their children go abroad to visit new places and get to know other ways of living. Without any doubt traveling is necessary for all of us as it broadens our minds and horizons, it’s kind of relaxation and a wonderful opportunity to get away from it all. When children go on a journey they relax their body, refresh their spirits and renew the energy. But they may not even guess that their parents can’t sleep for a while thinking of them. Just imagine, a father or a mother helps the child to get ready for the first travel abroad. At the luggage store they want to buy him a suitcase, but he heads for the duffels and says that suitcase are more for old people.

The American boy went to London and called his father and reported that London was like no place in America. The boy was really fascinated by visiting new place in Europe, he hiked though a crowd of Scottish sheep and climb the mountain in a rainstorm. In France he tried to speak French, but French he learned from the cassette didn’t hold the water in Paris.

His father asked himself what it was all like. He was never been himself outside the US and when he was young he made a list of experiences he intended to have before he reached 21, but he had never done them. So when his son called, he sat down all the kitchen table and hung on every word. He just sat and listened. He had never listened to a telephone sp intently and with such pleasure as he did then. It was wonderful and moving for him to hear news from his son that was so new for him.

And when his 15-year-old son returned home from abroad with a dozen rolls of exposed films and a hundred dollars in uncashed traveller’s cheeks, he sat amazed. Father says that the night when your child returns with dust on his shoes from a country you’ve never seen is a night you would gladly prolong into a week.