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.

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.

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 21st 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.