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Tác giả sưu tập những bài báo tiếng Anh về những chủ đề về kinh tế, khoa học, xã hôi, thể thao ở trên những trang web báo nước ngoài (ví dụ: www.economist.com, www.asiasentinel.com, www.wired.com, www.foreignpolicy.com). Các bài báo là những sự kiện cập nhập nhất theo thời gian, ngoài ra cũng có một số bài là những phát biểu của người nổi tiếng trên mạng xã hội (ví dụ: Facebook) bằng tiếng Anh.Mục đích sưu tầm là để có thể luyện đọc tiếng Anh để chuẩn bị cho các kì thi tiếng Anh quan trọng. Chú ý là đề thi IELTS thường lấy các bài báo ở trên trang economist làm đề thi của mình. Thời gian sưu tầm các bài báo từ tháng 11 năm 2013 đến tháng 8 năm 2014.
L.M.H FREEMAN TỔNG HỢP MỘT SỐ BÀI BÁO BẰNG TIẾNG ANH HAY TRÊN MẠNG Từ T11/2013 đến T8/2014 LỜI GIỚI THIỆU Tác giả sưu tập những bài báo tiếng Anh về những chủ đề về kinh tế, khoa học, xã hôi, thể thao ở trên những trang web báo nước ngoài (ví dụ: www.economist.com, www.asiasentinel.com, www.wired.com, www.foreignpolicy.com). Các bài báo là những sự kiện cập nhập nhất theo thời gian, ngoài ra cũng có một số bài là những phát biểu của người nổi tiếng trên mạng xã hội (ví dụ: Facebook) bằng tiếng Anh. Mục đích sưu tầm là để có thể luyện đọc tiếng Anh để chuẩn bị cho các kì thi tiếng Anh quan trọng. Chú ý là đề thi IELTS thường lấy các bài báo ở trên trang economist làm đề thi của mình. Thời gian sưu tầm các bài báo từ tháng 11 năm 2013 đến tháng 8 năm 2014. Tác giả 2 CONTENTS Gift-giving in rural areas has got out of hand, further impoverishing China’s poor Nov 30th 2013 | POPU VILLAGE, GUIZHOU PROVINCE IT WAS a big week for Wang Wei. On a recent Wednesday she had two weddings to attend, then on Saturday, two funerals. Each involved a banquet, and by custom she was obliged /bat buoc, cuong bach/ to bring cash gifts. That was no hardship a decade ago, when the going rate for four banquets was the equivalent of $5-10. And a decade before that, she would have just brought rice or corn from the family plot. It is a hardship now. The cost of gift-giving in rural China has gone up much faster than incomes. This week Ms Wang’s outlays added up to 350 yuan, or close to $60—about a month’s income. A pleasant, open-faced woman of 41, she says it is money she could have used to buy basic appliances. A water heater would be nice, she says, so her husband, in-laws and two teenage children wouldn’t have to boil water to bathe. A fridge would be splendid. But these are 3 extravagances/hang dat do/. Giving gifts for big occasions is an inescapable, and increasingly onerous, obligation for hundreds of millions of China’s farmers. Much attention has been paid recently to gift-giving in urban China. In the past year the Communist Party under Xi Jinping has cracked down on excessive official banqueting. Such unseemly displays of consumption are well-known opportunities for bribery/su dut lot/. But the banqueting culture in rural and small-town China is a more vexing problem. If officials’ lavish parties are a symbol of social inequality, they are not a significant cause of it. The gift-giving practices of everyday weddings (such as the one pictured above), funerals and milestone birthdays are doing much more to deepen actual inequality. Exchanging gifts at such occasions has been a part of village life in China for centuries. The practice survived Mao’s political campaigns and indeed took on more importance. Yunxiang Yan, an anthropologist at UCLA, observes that Mao’s attacks on clans as bases of power broadened the network of gift-giving to friends and, in the post-Mao reform era, to guanxi, or connections, outside the village. As Chinese incomes rose, the widening networks for giving gifts—and the obligation never to give less than you last received—have fed a sharp upward spiral in gift amounts, a ruinous development for the poor. An academic study of gift-giving in Guizhou, a poor south-western province, found that from 2005 to 2009 average gift amounts in three rural villages grew by 18-45% annually, compared with 10% annual income growth. The average share of income spent on gifts more than doubled —from 8% to 17%—while the share of income spent on food dropped, from 48% to 42%. One of the study’s authors, Xi Chen of the Yale School of Public Health, concluded that this had a detrimental/co hai/ impact on antenatal health, as poor pregnant mothers cut back on food to keep pace with gift-giving. The root of the problem is that the social model of rural gift-giving ignores income, and conforming is not simply a matter of saving face /du the dien/. The rural poor continue to give even when they cannot afford it, says Mr Yan, because of a powerful imperative of renqing, or personal feelings. Failure to fulfil the obligation of reciprocity, or to show consideration for others’ feelings and emotional responses, is regarded as “an immoral act and thus a violation of renqing ethics,” he says. The burden /trach nhiem/imposed by renqing is a painfully public one, since the giving is done publicly. At a typical banquet guests line up to give cash at a reception table, where someone records the amount and the name of the guest in the family’s gift ledger. No matter how little you earn, you are expected to give the prevailing /chiem chu yeu/ amount. And if your guanxi with the host is close, you must give more, regardless /khong quan tam/of income. The careful record-keeping system also puts pressure on people to match previous gifts, a dynamic that ensures the prevailing standard will only keep rising. Any factor that channels more income to some in a village but not all—migrant workers’ remittances, a windfall from government compensation for using local land, or, as with some of Ms Wang’s neighbours, from farming a cash crop like tobacco—increases the obligations for everyone. In Popu village, where 4 the average annual income is less than $1,000, close friends and relatives must give at least 100 yuan ($16), compared with 10 or 20 yuan a decade ago. There is not necessarily a benefit for those who host banquets either: the study on which Mr Chen worked found that banquet expenses have increased too. They can cost the hosts several times as much as they collect in gifts. Still, some banquets can be moneymakers, and in bigger towns there are more of them, with many more guests, than in the past: 80th birthdays, one- month birthdays for babies, parties for children going to college, housewarmings. (In the mountains of Hubei province, some farmers hold banquets when their pigs give birth.) If Ms Wang wants to try earning her money back, she is out of luck for now, lacking an occasion. Her oldest son is 17, and sons are costly to marry off anyway: the bride’s family expects a house in the bargain /khe uoc, keo uoc/. She has not held a banquet since 2005—when her family moved into its new house—and the take was a pittance, a few hundred dollars before expenses. She expects she will give more in gifts this year (perhaps $1,000 in all) than she earns in income from odd jobs and farming her third of an acre of corn and rice, and that she will have to borrow to make up the difference. Attending banquets without giving is not an option, she says. Not attending is the only way to avoid giving. That is possible in big cities, where relations are more fragmented, but not in a village, says Ms Wang. The ties that bind more tightly can pinch more tightly too. A giant passes Dec 5th 2013, 22:22 by The Economist The greatness of Nelson Mandela challenges us all 5 AMONG Nelson Mandela’s many achievements, two stand out. First, he was the world’s most inspiring example of fortitude/su kien cuong/, magnanimity /hao hiep/and dignity /thai do duong hoang/in the face of oppression /su dan ap/, serving more than 27 years in prison for his belief that all men and women are created equal. During the brutal/hung ac, tan bao/ years of his imprisonment on Robben Island, thanks to his own patience, humour and capacity for forgiveness, he seemed freer behind bars than the men who kept him there, locked up as they were in their own self-demeaning prejudices /y kien, thanh kien/. Indeed, his warders/cai tu/ were among those who came to admire him most. Second, and little short of miraculous/huyen dieu, than dieu/, was the way in which he engineered and oversaw South Africa’s transformation from a byword for nastiness and narrowness into, at least in intent, a rainbow nation in which people, no matter what their colour, were entitled to be treated with respect. That the country has not always lived up to his standards goes to show how high they were. Exorcising/tru ta (ton giao)/ the curse /loi nguyen rua, tai uong, tai hoa/of colour As a politician, and as a man, Mr Mandela had his contradictions/su mau thuan/ (see article). He was neither a genius nor, as he often said himself, a saint/vi thanh/. Some of his early writings were banal Marxist ramblings /su ko mach lac sao rong cua chu nghia Max/, even if the sense of anger with which they were infused /ngam/was justifiable. But his charisma /me luc/was evident from his youth. He was a born leader who feared nobody, debased himself before no one and never lost his sense of humour. He was handsome and comfortable in his own skin. In a country in which the myth of racial superiority was enshrined in law, he never for a moment doubted his right, and that of all his compatriots, to equal treatment. Perhaps no less remarkably, once the majority of citizens were able to have their say he never for a moment denied the right of his white compatriots to equality. For all the humiliation/su lam nhuc, lam be mat/ he suffered at the hands of white racists before he was released in 1990, he was never animated /co vu, lam cho song/ by feelings of revenge /bao thu/. He was himself utterly without prejudice /phien dien/, which is why he became a symbol of tolerance and justice across the globe. Perhaps even more important for the future of his country was his ability to think deeply, and to change his mind. When he was set free, many of his fellow members of the African National Congress (ANC) remained dedicated /cong hien/ disciples /mon de/ of the dogma /tin nguong/promoted by their party’s supporter, the Soviet Union, whose own sudden /thinh linh/implosion/am khep, su dinh huong vao trong/ helped shift the global balance of power that in turn contributed to apartheid’s demise/su chet, ket thuc/. Many of his comrades were simultaneously members of the ANC and the South African Communist Party who hoped to dismember /chia cat/ the capitalist economy /nha kinh te tu ban/ and bring its treasure trove /vat tim ra/of mines and factories into public ownership. Nor was the ANC convinced that a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy/dang dan chu/—with all the checks and balances of bourgeois institutions/thiet lap giai cap tu san/, such as an independent judiciary /tu phap/—was worth preserving, perverted as it had been under apartheid. Mr Mandela had himself harboured /nuoi duong (y nghi xau)/such doubts. But immediately before and after his release from prison, he sought out a variety of opinions among those who, 6 unlike himself, had been fortunate /tot so/ enough to roam /di choi rong, di lang thang/ the world and compare competing systems. He listened and pondered /tram tu, suy nghi, can nhac ve/—and decided that it would be better for all his people, especially the poor black majority, if South Africa’s existing economic model were drastically altered but not destroyed, and if a liberal democracy /dang ty do/, under a universal franchise /quyen tham chinh/, were kept too. That South Africa did, in the end, move with relatively little bloodshed to become a multiracial free-market democracy was indeed a near-miracle for which the whole world must thank him. The country he leaves behind is a far better custodian of human dignity than the one whose first democratically elected /duoc chon/ president he became in 1994. A self-confident black middle class is emerging. Democracy is well-entrenched, with regular elections, a vibrant /chan dong/ press, generally decent /dung dan/ courts and strong institutions. And South Africa still has easily sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest and most sophisticated /nguy bien ?? having a lot of experience and knowledge about the world/ economy. But since Mr Mandela left the presidency in 1999 his beloved country/dat nuoc yeu quy cua ong/ has disappointed under two sorely flawed/nhuoc diem/leaders, Thabo Mbeki and now Jacob Zuma. While the rest of Africa’s economy has perked up, South Africa’s has stumbled. Nigeria’s swelling GDP is closing in on South Africa’s. Corruption and patronage within the ANC have become increasingly flagrant. An authoritarian and populist tendency in ruling circles has become more strident. The racial animosity /chau han/that Mr Mandela so abhorred is infecting public discourse/thao luan chinh thuc/. The gap between rich and poor has remained stubbornly /kho chua, buong binh, ngoan co/wide. Barely two-fifths of working-age people have jobs. Only 60% of school-leavers get the most basic high-school graduation certificate. Shockingly for a country so rich in resources, nearly a third of its people still live on less than $2 a day. Without the protection of Mr Mandela’s saintly aura /tinh hoa phat tiet (nguoi)/, the ANC will be more harshly /khac nghiet, cay nghiet/judged. Thanks to its corruption and inefficiency, it already faces competition in some parts of the country from the white-led Democratic Alliance. South Africa would gain if the ANC split, so there were two big black-led parties, one composed /ket hop/of communists and union leaders, the other more liberal and market-friendly. Man of Africa, hero of the world The ANC’s failings are not Mr Mandela’s fault. Perhaps he could have been more vociferous/to tieng, am i/ in speaking out against Mr Mbeki’s lethal misguidedness on the subject of HIV/AIDS, which cost thousands of lives. Perhaps he should have spoken up more robustly against the corruption around Mr Zuma. In foreign affairs he was too loyal to past friends, such as Fidel Castro. He should have been franker /thang than, boc truc/in condemning /chi trich/Robert Mugabe for his ruination of Zimbabwe. But such shortcomings—and South Africa’s failings since his retirement from active politics— pale into insignificance when set against the magnitude of his overall achievement. It is hard to think of anyone else in the world in recent times with whom every single person, in every corner 7 of the Earth, can somehow /ly do chua xac dinh/ identify. He was, quite simply, a wonderful man. Very good on paper Dec 12th 2013, 9:40 by M.I. | HANOI Education in Vietnam ON SATURDAY morning, December 14th, America's secretary of state, John Kerry, will travel to Vietnam. One of his talking points, according to the State Department, will be the "empowering /tang them /role of education”. But it seems like Vietnam has already taken the message. On December 3rd, the OECD released the results from its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an exam administered every three years to 15- and 16-year-olds in dozens of countries. Vietnam recently joined the test for the first time, and it scored remarkably well— higher in maths than America and Britain, though not as high as Shanghai or Singapore. Nguyen Vinh Hien, a deputy minister for education, characterised Vietnam's overall 17th-place ranking out of 65 countries and economies as a pleasant “surprise.” The PISA scores, as they are known, measured how a half-million students from randomly selected schools answered written and multiple-choice questions in a two-hour test. Mathematics was the primary focus, but students were also evaluated on reading, science and problem- solving. Coverage /viec dua tin/ of the scores by the Western news media suggested that the impressive maths performance by Vietnam, where per-capita GDP is only about $1,600, was 8 perhaps a bit humbling /xau ho/ for education officials in Washington, London and other self- regarding world capitals. What explains Vietnam's good score? Christian Bodewig of the World Bank says it reflects, among other positive things, years of investment in education by the government and a "high degree of professionalism /trinh do chuyen mon, nghiep vu/ and discipline in classrooms across the country”. But Mr Bodewig adds that the score may be impressive in part because so many poor and disadvantaged Vietnamese students drop out of school. The World Bank reports that in 2010 the gross enrolment rate at upper-secondary schools in Vietnam was just 65%, compared with 89% and 98% in America and Britain, respectively. South Korea's rate was 95%. A chorus of Vietnamese education specialists say that Vietnam's PISA score does not fully reflect the reality of its education system, which is hamstrung by a national curriculum that encourages rote memorisation over critical thinking and creative problem-solving. "Every child in this country learns the same thing," and nationwide tests merely reinforce the intellectual homogeneity that results, in the lament /loi than van/of To Kim Lien, the director of the Centre for Education and Development, a Vietnamese non-profit in Hanoi. Ms Lien reckons that instead of catalysing educational reform, the score might provide a convenient excuse for complacency in matters of policy. And the old-fashioned, inward-looking /tu dong cua/ Ministry of Education and Training, she adds, is a past master at complacency /tu man/. Another systemic problem is a general lack of “integrity” in Vietnam's education sector, in the words of Nguyen Thi Kieu Vien of the Global Transparency Education Network, a new initiative of Transparency International, a watchdog based in Berlin. In a recent survey the organisation found that 49% of Vietnamese respondents perceived their education sector to be "corrupt" or "highly corrupt”. The percentage was higher than that found in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia. Corruption is plainly evident /bang chung ro rang/ at elite Vietnamese schools, where slots for pupils are routinely sold for $3,000 each. Yet it also exists on a smaller scale, in subtler forms. Many Vietnamese teachers hold extra tuitions, outside of regular school hours, for a small fee of between $2.50 and $5 per lesson. Not all parents can afford to pay these fees, and so the practice tends to exacerbate inequality /lam te hai them su khong cong bang/. In November some top-ranking national officials passed a resolution calling for reform in the education sector /cai cach giao duc/. Kim Ngoc Minh, an education researcher in Hanoi, says the resolution is the most comprehensive and ambitious /tham vong/ in a generation. Other education specialists however wonder whether the resolution, which calls for reform in broad stokes, will translate into actual policy changes. Actual changes are badly needed /nhung su thay doi da khong duoc quan tam/. In 2008, researchers from Harvard reported that Vietnam's higher-education system was in "crisis", and that it lagged far behind the systems of Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, to say nothing of those in China, Taiwan and South Korea. As a warning, they pointed to the comparative lack of articles published by Vietnamese researchers in peer-reviewed international journals. The Harvard memo also said the government was awarding research funding "uncompetitively”, and that there was a vast difference between what graduates had learned and what prospective employers wanted them to know. 9 These shortcomings can be linked to others in primary and secondary schools. Ms Lien of the Centre for Education and Development says that a basic reform package might begin with the younger age group, by including parents in a decision-making process that has long been dominated by the education ministry. Nearly two years ago, she was among a dozen senior educators who submitted paperwork to the ministry requesting permission to establish a national parent-teacher association. Their group still has not received an official response. Perhaps the ministry is afraid of what Vietnamese parents might say, if they had a platform. (Picture credit: AFP) http://www.cenedella.com/leonardo-da-vincis-resume/ Leonardo da Vinci’s Resume On January 29, 2010 by Marc Cenedella “Most Illustrious Lord, Having now sufficiently considered the specimens of all those who proclaim /tuyen cao/ themselves skilled contrivers /nguoi phat minh/ of instruments of war, and that the invention and operation of the said instruments are nothing different from those in common use: I shall endeavor, without prejudice /phien dien/to anyone else, to explain myself to your Excellency/cac ha/, showing your Lordship my secret, and then offering them to your best pleasure and approbation /n. phe chuan, tan thanh/to work with effect at opportune moments /thoi gian thich hop/on all those things which, in part, shall be briefly noted below. 1. I have a sort of extremely light and strong bridges, adapted to be most easily carried, and with them you may pursue, and at any time flee from the enemy; and others, secure and indestructible by fire and battle, easy and convenient to lift and place. Also methods of burning and destroying those of the enemy. 2. I know how, when a place is besieged, to take the water out of the trenches, and make endless variety of bridges, and covered ways and ladders, and other machines pertaining/quan he/ to such expeditions./quan sat/ 3. If, by reason of the height of the banks, or the strength of the place and its position, it is impossible, when besieging a place, to avail /loi ich/oneself of the plan of bombardment, I have methods for destroying every rock or other fortress, even if it were founded on a rock, etc. 4. Again, I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment/ton hai/ and confusion/hoang loan/. 5. And if the fight should be at sea I have kinds of many machines most efficient for offense and defense; and vessels which will resist/chong lai/ the attack of the largest guns and powder and fumes. 6. I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to reach a designated spot/diem xac dinh/, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river. 10 [...]... prefecture of Okinawa/dia hat cua Okinawa/ Some Chinese nationalists call not only for the Senkakus’ return, but for Okinawa too In the late 1970s China and Japan agreed to kick the dispute into/dam phan, tranh luan/ the long grass But China’s attitude has hardened, especially since September 2012, when the Japanese government bought from their private owner three of the islands it did not already own It . Merkel, even after a personal disappointment in 2010, when the chancellor did not nominate her for federal president as she had hoped. She also cultivated an image as the social conscience of her. Cambodia. Corruption is plainly evident /bang chung ro rang/ at elite Vietnamese schools, where slots for pupils are routinely sold for $3,000 each. Yet it also exists on a smaller scale, in subtler. $2.50 and $5 per lesson. Not all parents can afford to pay these fees, and so the practice tends to exacerbate inequality /lam te hai them su khong cong bang/ . In November some top-ranking national