Russia Gem Firm Close to Deal with De Beers

MOSCOW - The Russian diamond monopoly, Almazy Rossii-Sakha, and De Beers Centenary AG of South Africa have started the latest round of talks in a long-delayed gem trade agreement, ARS said Wednesday.

Vyacheslav Shtyrov, the ARS president, said the trade agreement was ready for signing. «The signing of the agreement could take place as early as this month,» he said.

Serarately, South Africa gold mining companies signed a two-year wage deal with the National Union of Mineworkers that links pay rises to increases in output and productivity. (Reuters, Bloomsberg, International Herald Tribune)

Assignment 10.

The paragraphs in the following article have been arranged out of order (a scrambled text). Renumber the paragraphs in the inverted-pyramid format.

Russian Religious Riches in Atlanta

By David Zimmerman USA Today

1. The exhibition begins with the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The first Russian czar lavished the Novodevichy Convert near Moscow with money, land and elaborate objects, making it one of the richest religious institutions in Europe. The show features objects from the convert, as well as from St. Basil's, Russia's well known landmark.

2. The show illustrates "the incredible influence of religion on Russian history, art and culture", says Gudmund Vigtel, director of cultural activities for the exhibition. He notes that many of the objects haven't been seen outside Russia.

3. An unprecedented exhibition of religious art spawned by the Russian culture will be unveiled in Atlanta Saturday in a 10-week show expected to draw 300,000 visitors.

4. The show illustrates how sacred art began its decline with Peter the Great's attempts to westernize Russian culture. Art moved toward the worldly with landscapes and narrative painting, and the use of precious metals and gems became statements of wealth rather than religious splendour as Russia became a world power.

5. The Sacred Art exhibition at the Cobb Galleria Centre was brought to Atlanta by the Georgia International Cultural Exchange and the State Historical Museum in Moscow. Some proceeds will help preserve Russian art objects.

6. The Sacred Art of Russia From Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great includes rare wood and stone icons from the 13^th century, along with the spectacular altar screen from the Cathedral of Smolensk at Novodevichy Convert. The 375 works in the show also include 59 ecclesiastical robes and crucifixes, chalices and other objects decorated with gold, silver and jewels as well as manuscripts and Scriptures.

2.4. Editorials

Editorials are articles of comment or opinion usually on the editorial page. The editorial page materials carry opinion of the newspaper, its columnists and its readers. The latter usually express their opinions in letters to the editor.

Traditionally the editorial function has been separated from news gathering to distinguish clearly between fact and opinion. The idea belonged to Horace Greeley who founded New York Tribune in 1841. He hired others to handle the business side of the newspaper and concentrated his efforts on editorial work. He developed the editorial page as we know it today.

The function of the editorial is to influence the reader by giving an interpretation of certain facts. According to I.R.Galperin, editorials belong to evaluative writing and hence the use of emotionally coloured language elements, both lexical and structural - colloquial words and expressions, slang, linguistic imagery. Emotional colouring in editorial articles is achieved with the help of various stylistic devices - metaphors, epithets, traditional periphrases (Fleet Street for the London press), similes, allusion, etc. The emotional effect is often enhanced by the use of various syntactical stylistic devices such as parallel constructions, repetition, rhetorical questions and others. Such devices prove to be a powerful means of appraisal, of expressing a personal attitude, of producing the necessary emotional effect on the reader. Yet, according to the author, the role of expressive language means and stylistic devices in the editorial should not be over-estimated since they are for the most part trite. He believes that original forms of expression and fresh genuine stylistic means are comparatively rare in newspaper articles, including editorials.

Assignment 11.

The following editorial from the «Counterpoints» section of the USA Today is an emotionally charged anti-war passage. Read the material trying to get the writer’s message and his attitude towards war.