Real crime and pseudo crime!

In the traditional English detective story, written by someone like Agatha Christie, the crime is nearly always murder. It often takes place in a country house, and the local inspector, who undertakes the investigation, is incapable of solving the case, and needs the help of a private detective. The detective begins by making a series of inquiries and looking for clues. The suspects are usually upper class, and have a motive for killing the victim. The detective eventually resolves the mystery by inviting all those under suspicion to meet. He sets a trap for the murderer, and establishes his guilt by going through the evidence. The murdered obligingly gives himself away, and confesses, providing the proof of the detective's accusation. The grateful police inspector arrives to make the formal charge and put the murderer under arrest.

In real life, the crime is usually not murder but an offence against property, on a scale ranging from shoplifting through theft to burglary and robbery with violence. Other offences involving money, like fraud and forgery, are also much more common than murder. If the case is solved, it is usually because the police receive information that puts them on the track of the criminal or he leaves traces behind him such as fingerprints. Sometimes offering a reward helps to convict someone. But few thieves or robbers confess unless they know they will be found guilty and hope to get a lighter sentence, and the police seldom invite them to a party with other suspects!

T E X T 5

MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME

“Organized crime weakens the very basis of government. There can be no good governance without the rule of law.” Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director, United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention ountries throughout the world face an unprecedented challenge. Transnational organized crime, taking full advantage of the globalization of the world economy and the profound telecommunication, has expanded the scope of its activities to reap ever-increasing the scope illegal profits.

Never before has there been so much economic opportunity for so many people, but never before has there been so much opportunity for criminal organizations to exploit the system.

Criminal groups traffic in human beings, particularly in women and children, for economic slavery and prostitution. They smuggle arms and ammunitions, launder huge sums of money, commit fraud on a global scale, and traffic in illegal drugs and nuclear material. They corrupt and bribe public officials, politicians and business leaders. They murder people.

Governments acting individually or through traditional forms of international cooperation can no longer meet this challenge, now the greatest non-military threat to national security.

T E X T 6

From the history of terrorism

Terrorist acts date back to at least the 1^st century, when the Zealots, a Jewish religious sect, fought against Roman occupation of what is now Israel. In the 12^th century in Iran, the Assassins, a group of Ismailis (Shiite Muslims), conducted terrorist acts against religious and political leaders of Sunni Islam. Through the 18^th century, terrorists generally acted from religious zeal. Beginning in the 19^th century, terrorist movements acquired a more political and revolutionary orientation. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, anarchists in Italy, Spain, and France used terrorism. Prior to the outbreak of World War I in 1914 the Russian revolutionary movement also possessed a strong terrorist element in its struggle against Russian royalty and aristocracy.

In the latter half of the 20^th century acts of terror multiplied, driven by fierce nationalist and ideological motivations and facilitated by technological advances in transportation, communications, microelectronics, and explosives. The conflict between Arab nations and Israel following the end of World War II in 1945 produced successive waves of terrorism in the Middle East. In the 1970s and 1980s organized terror spilled into Western Europe and other parts of the world as supporters of Palestinian resistance to Israel carried their was abroad and as domestic conflicts gave birth to terrorist organizations in countries such as West Germany (now part of the Federal Republic of Germany), Italy, and Japan. In the United States, terrorism consisted chiefly of attacks by isolated individuals who violently oppose state and corporate power. For example the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Before September 11, 2001 it had been the worst act of terrorism in United States history, killing 168 people and injuring 850 others. In June 1997 former U.S. soldier Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of the bombing and given a sentence of death.

Who are terrorists?

Perhaps surprisingly, they are not the scum of the earth, at least as far as their background goes. Researchers claim that “to be a successful terrorist a university degree is almost mandatory”. Such deeds are carried out almost invariably by young people (almost never by those of middle-age or older) who are intensely resentful and committed to some cause or ideology. Not all terrorists are males; indeed, about half of two notoriously violent groups, the Baader-Meinhof gang of Germany and the Japanese Red Army, have at times been women. They must be ready (even eager) for martyrdom, and they must be devoid of any pity or compassion, since their victims will include innocent and defenseless people - possibly even children. They justify this random violence in some cases by claiming that death is appropriate for all who are “part of the problem” - that is, all who are not active supporters of the terrorists’ cause. For people of this sort, ordinary methods of social control have no effect whatever.

Since some terrorists are apparently capable of unlimited violence, the possibility must not be overlooked that a group of them will eventually try to build and use nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, this prospect cannot be ruled out as impossible.

A much greater political commitment will be required if we are to ensure that nuclear blackmail or the use of such weapons for revenge will not become the next stage of terrorism.

(Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2002.

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