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谦行天下UID: 2797557

6-2
Another twist
Jul 15th 2010, 13:48 by The Economist online | PARIS
EACH day seems to bring yet another twist in what French call the Bettencourt affair. This is a party-donations and alleged tax-evasion scandal centred on Liliane Bettencourt, billionaire heiress to the L’Oréal cosmetics empire, which has been gripping the country for the past month. Sure enough, on July 15th, the affair took a fresh turn when the police brought into custody four figures: Patrice de Maistre, Mrs Bettencourt’s wealth manager; François-Marie Banier, a society photographer who received gifts worth nearly 1 billion ($1.3 billion) from Mrs Bettencourt; Fabrice Goguel, her former tax lawyer, and Carlos Vejarano, manager of a Seychelles island of obscure ownership.
The four will be questioned as part of a preliminary inquiry into tax evasion. Mr de Maistre has already confirmed the existence of two Swiss bank accounts, holding 78m, which had not been declared to the French tax authorities. The island in the Seychelles also appears to have been overlooked, although it is not clear who owns this. Mrs Bettencourt has said that she intends to put all her tax affairs in order, and declare all foreign assets.
An affair which began as a dynastic lawsuit, brought by Mrs Bettencourt’s estranged daughter against Mr Banier for “abuse of frailty”, has since become a political affair too, with a trail that could reach to the heart of French power. The heiress was a (legal) donor to the ruling UMP party, but her ex-accountant, Claire Thibout, alleges that she gave 150,000 ($190,000)—way over the legal limit—to help finance Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign. Mr de Maistre denies this, as does Eric Woerth, the UMP party treasurer, who allegedly received the money on Mr Sarkozy’s behalf. Mr Woerth is currently labour minister (and in charge of a controversial pension reform, which was passed by the cabinet on July 13th).
To add to the mesh of connections, Mr Woerth's wife, Florence, was employed by Mrs Bettencourt as an investment manager, though she has since resigned and also denies knowing anything about his former employer's tax affairs. This week, Mr Woerth said he would quit his job as party treasurer, but denies that he has done anything wrong. An internal inquiry by the tax inspectorate did indeed clear him, but only of  “ordering, thwarting or orienting” any tax audit of Mrs Bettencourt.
In a bid to defuse the political crisis, President Sarkozy went on prime-time television this week for an hour-long interview. He denounced as “calumny and lies” the allegations against him and Mr Woerth. He had indeed, he said, dined at Mrs Bettencourt’s mansion in Neuilly, the posh Paris suburb where for many years he was mayor. But he described as “slander” the idea that he ever left with an envelope of cash to help his political career. Mrs Bettencourt’s ex-accountant, who first made this claim, has since retracted it—under pressure, says her lawyer—insisting that she never said Mr Sarkozy “regularly” collected money, and never saw money change hands. Even so, the affair has hurt the president's approval ratings.
Many questions, however, remain unanswered. For one thing, Mr Sarkozy was not asked during his interview about the alleged 150,000 donation, nor about meetings he is said to have held with Mrs Bettencourt while president. For another, it is unclear under what conditions Mrs Woerth was hired by Mr Bettencourt, given that at the time Mr Woerth was budget minister and leading a campaign against tax evasion. Mr Sarkozy implicitly acknowledged the potential for a conflict of interest by this week advising Mr Woerth to quit his job as party treasurer, and by calling on parliament to clarify the rules governing conflict of interest in public life.
Much hangs now on the judicial investigations: three separate ones are currently underway into various aspects of the affair. There is some concern that the presidency is uncomfortably close to Philippe Courroye, the public prosecutor in the case. Mr Courroye told Le Monde this week that he was acting with strict impartiality. Pressure to do so may have mounted thanks to the close scrutiny the case has drawn, in France and beyond.

zhangxiaohang1UID: 2705669

GRE words 
new words 

good expression 
Proper Noun or Questions 
5-1【7月15 日作业】
 
The disappearing scientist 
Jul 13th 2010,15:28 by The Economist online | NEW  YORK
 
WHY has an Iranian nuclear scientist turned up in the Iranian interests section of Pakistan's embassy[Variant of ambassy ] in Washington? Two starkly different accounts exist of the strange case of Shahram Amiri. In one, touted[To solicit or importune] by Iran, the Iranian scientist was nabbed by the CIA and Saudi intelligence officers while making the hajj pilgrimage[朝圣] in Saudi Arabia, injected with a tranquiliser【镇静剂】 and hauled to the United States. In the other, Mr Amiri came to America voluntarily to study. The source of both, oddly, is Mr Amiri, in two duelling videos on the internet. The one claiming he was abducted【绑架】 is of poor quality. The one in which he says he is studying in Arizona is slickly【圆滑】 produced, with a leather-and-dark-wood-filled study behind him, while Mr Amiri seems to be reading from a prompter[刺激物]. The truth remains murky.
The kidnap theory was lent credence by the apparent assassination[ to injure or destroy unexpectedly and treacherously] of a professor of physics in Tehranearlier this year. But if Mr Amiri had truly been kidnapped as Iran says, the notion that he would have had a chance to make and upload a video is far-fetched【牵强的】. Americahas, if nothing else, proven its ability to hold valuable prisoners incommunicado.[?]This makes it seem more likely that Mr Amiri has been in America semi-voluntarily. Some believe that he is co-operating with American efforts to gather information on Iran's nuclear program. Obama administration sources have told reporters that information from Mr Amiri was crucial to the passage of a recent new round of sanctions at the United Nations Security Council[安理会]. Such intelligence apparently concerns work on nuclear weaponisation[核武器化], not just uranium【铀】 enrichment.
Whatever information America showed its partners at the UN seems to have been fairly persuasive. Not long before the sanctions vote Turkey and Brazil thought they had put a stop to the sanctions push by getting Iran to send some of its enriched uranium abroad in return for fuel rods【燃料棒】 for a medical reactor【反应堆】. America continued with its sanctions push, and convinced 12 of the 15 Security Council members to agree—including Russia and China, which weakened but did not seek to stop the sanctions. The only countries to vote against were Turkey and Brazil themselves, while Lebanon, closely tied to Iran through Hizbullah, abstained【放弃】.
David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security【科学与国际安全研究所】
says sources in the administration have told him that Mr Amiri had been helping America. Mr Albright adds that Mr Amiri seems to have been in the right place to know what was going on in Iran: the university where he worked is across the road from FEDAT, the headquarters of an alleged secret facility working on weaponisation under Iran's ministry of defence.  (The university is also said to be tied to the Revolutionary Guards【革命卫队】.)

How did Mr Amiri turn up at Pakistan's embassy【大使】, then? It sems unlikely that the 32-year-old physicist escaped from the CIA. This leaves the possibility that America is seeking some kind of swap[To trade one thing for another.]. Perhaps having extracted[榨取] as much as was feasible from Mr Amiri, they are allowing him to claim that he was kidnapped in order to protect his family back in Iran. If he is allowed to leave the country, America might seek the return of three American hikers Iran has been holding for a year. Iran says they are spies.
If some kind of swap takes place, the truth may never emerge. Typically, both countries involved stick resolutely[坚决的] with their story: that they are kindly releasing foreign spies in exchange for their innocent citizens held abroad. But if there is no talk of a swap in the works, an awkward stand-off lies ahead. Mr Amiri cannot leave Pakistan's embassy and American territory without American permission. That would further heighten the tensions between America and Iran. The case of Mr Amiri, like the recent exchange of Russian and American alleged spies, would make for great spy fiction, but the dangerous impasse[僵局] between the West and Iran over the nuclear issue is all too real.

 
5-2 
Tibet and XinjiangMarking time at the fringes
A calendar like a minefield Jul 8th 2010 | Beijing

AS IT struggles to strengthen its grip【控制】 on the restive【不安静】 minority regions at its periphery, China usually feels that time is on its side. In both Buddhist Tibet and Muslim Xinjiang, China hopes that economic development, improved infrastructure【基础设施】 and steady demographic shifts will gradually ease the ethnic tensions that periodically erupt into violence. 
But in one sense, time works against Beijing. Sensitive dates have often been catalysts for renewed trouble. This week saw both July 5th, the first anniversary of deadly riots that shook Xinjiang’s capital city of Urumqi, and, the following day, the 75th birthday of Tibet’s exiled【被流放的】 leader, the Dalai Lama, reviled by Beijing as a conniving splittist【阴谋分裂】. 
Both Xinjiang and Tibet this week remained in the quiet but tense state that has become the norm. The authorities are betting【确信】 that a heavy police presence and the aggressive prosecution of activists can stave off【暂时阻止】 serious unrest without big concessions to ethnic-minority grievances. These include government interference in religious affairs, discrimination in economic opportunities, and a steady influx【流入】 of Han Chinese【汉族】 that threatens to erode both regions’ cultural identity. 
China seems to calculate that the eventual death of the Dalai Lama, a charismatic and internationally popular figure, will make its job in Tibet easier. Each passing birthday brings that day closer. But it also offers supporters of the Dalai Lama and his cause a chance to sing his praises. This year, a crowd of 5,000 joined him for a birthday celebration at his base in India.
Asked by a reporter about the occasion, a Chinese government spokesman, Qin Gang, said he was thinking instead of two other important dates: May 23rd 1951, the day of Tibet’s “peaceful liberation”【和平解放】, and March 28th 1959, now marked as “Serf Emancipation Day”【农奴解放日】. Many foreign historians see the earlier event as a one-sided military rout【溃败】 in which 5,000 Tibetans were killed, and the later one as an important date in the brutal suppression of an uprising, which led to the flight of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 of his followers into exile【流放】 in India. In 2008 demonstrations marking the anniversary of the 1959 uprising led to more violence in Lhasa【拉萨】, resulting in at least 19 deaths and hundreds of injuries. Most victims were Han Chinese attacked by Tibetan rioters. 
Last year’s violence in Xinjiang killed nearly 200 people and was followed by a severe crackdown that saw mass arrests of accused【指控】 rioters and a near-total shutdown of the internet and international telephone service, lifted only two months ago. In a recent report Amnesty International, a human-rights watchdog【监察者】, accused the Chinese authorities of using excessive force and torturing detainees【被拘留的人】. 
Tibet, too, is still enduring a crackdown. In two recent verdicts, brothers who had once basked【晒阳光，享受】 in official praise for their environmental work were convicted on charges which, say their families, were contrived【精心设计的】. On July 3rd Rinchen Samdrup received a five-year prison sentence for inciting subversion【颠覆】. In late June his younger brother, Karma Samdrup, a wealthy antique collector pictured on the previous page, was sentenced to 15 years on previously dismissed charges of robbing graves【坟墓】. 
Activists fear that such cases—against men who had studiously shunned involvement in Tibet’s fraught【难过的】 ethnic politics—mark a widening of the net by China to include any prominent Tibetans. This may indicate Chinese insecurity, but officials insist otherwise. Hao Peng, China’s second-ranking official in Tibet, has told a group of visiting journalists that Beijing has “the ability and confidence to maintain stability in Tibet for ever”. 


Correction: An earlier version of this article had reversed the dates of the anniversary of Tibet's “peaceful liberation” and its “Serf Emancipation Day”. This was corrected on July 12th 2010.

zhangxiaohang1UID: 2705669

GRE words new words good expression Proper Noun or Questions

6-1


BanyanDammed if they do
China's hydropower plans are a test of its avowed good neighbourliness Jul 8th 2010

IN YUNNAN in south-west China the biggest floods in a dozen years have ended a long, brutal drought. For months here in Xishuangbanna, a glassy Mekong【湄公河】 had merely sauntered【stroll,漫步】 towards the border with Laos. River trade came to a halt as vessels ran aground【搁浅】. But for two or three weeks now the Mekong has been back to its usual roiling brown, and the cargo boats throw up a huge bow wave as they inch upstream【逆流】.
Full rivers are good news for everyone, but especially for China’s dam-builders【大坝建设者】. They have huge ambitions for hydropower from the three great rivers—the Salween, the Mekong and the Yangzi—that come roaring out of the Tibetan plateau and tumble【跌倒，翻滚】 down through northern Yunnan in steep parallel gorges, each a mountain ridge apart. The rivers then wend their separate ways before reaching the sea in very different places: the Salween in Myanmar, the Mekong in southern Vietnam and the Yangzi near Shanghai. In Yunnan these rivers and their valleys form one of the world’s most remarkable hotspots【热点】 of biodiversity【生物多样性】. 
To the engineers who dominate China’s leadership, the rivers’ wildness must seem an impertinence. On the Mekong alone China has planned or built eight dams. In Xishuangbanna the new Jinghong dam has just started operating. Further up, Xiaowan dam will be finished by 2013. It will be the highest arch dam in the world, and China’s biggest hydropower project after the Three Gorges on the middle Yangzi. The reservoir【蓄水池】 behind it is already filling up.
On the Salween are proposals for 13 dams【水坝】. Unusually vociferous protests【强烈反对】 about their social and environmental costs led the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, to call a halt. Yet many locals have already been resettled, and it is surely a matter of time before at least some of the proposals are dusted off[ To restore to use].
In general, scrutiny of China’s water projects is scant[Barely sufficient], and the government is in a hurry. It wants to add electricity-generating capacity, lest China’s breakneck growth be impeded. Giant hydropower companies, with impeccable political connections, add their own layer of secrecy. Risks attend those who question the lack of transparency[透明物]. Perhaps 500,000 locals, mainly ethnic minorities, are being displaced and forcibly resettled. Those who protest are threatened with less compensation, if not jail.
The Chinese press steers clear of dams with a barge-pole[?]. Academics and NGO representatives who oppose the dam-building on social or environmental grounds do not want their names published. In private even academics in favour of hydropower development complain that nearly all relevant information, even the amount of rain that reaches them, is treated as a state secret. (Though, they add, at China’s meteorological[气象学的] and rivers bureaus【气象和水利部门】, even state secrets can be imparted if the price is right.)
Until recently China was no less communicative towards downstream neighbours, who have seen a sharp drop in Mekong levels in recent years. Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam complain that China neither consults nor informs them about what it is up to. For all that it preaches【宣扬】 harmony and good neighbourliness, China comes across as a regional bully, with its foot on the Mekong’s throat. The Mekong basin is the greatest inland fishing region in the world. Distraught【发狂的】 Thai, Laotian and Cambodian fisherman and farmers blame Chinese dams for killing off fish stocks, cutting irrigation and disrupting livelihoods. Recently a Bangkok Post editorial accused China of “Killing the Mekong”.
In March China broke its silence over dams, denying that it was responsible for reducing the Mekong’s flow reaching downstream neighbours. It blamed instead the drought, from which China has suffered as much as anyone. The truth lies somewhere in between. Less than one-sixth of the total Mekong catchment is in China, but that upstream flow is crucial to neighbours during the dry season. China has held some of the dry-season flow back.
The monsoon rains of the past month will help draw some of the criticism’s sting. So too, perhaps, will a possible easing of Chinese secrecy. In April China defended itself (another first) at the Mekong River Commission, the inter-governmental body supposed to resolve disputes. And last month China took officials from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to view both Xiaowan and Jinghong dams. Banyan had less luck. Near Jinghong nervous policemen ordered him to leg it before he got so much as a glimpse of the structure.
Still, the shift in public diplomacy may mark a slightly broader approach towards what China perceives to be in its national interest. At the very least, the countries resentful of China’s dams are also those to which it hopes to sell the electricity. But a cynic might further conclude that to the extent that upriver dams smooth a flow’s seasonal extremes, China’s upriver projects actually make ones in downstream countries more feasible, too. There are nearly a dozen plans to dam the lower Mekong, and Chinese state construction companies want to be involved.

Those in glassy waters shouldn’t throw stones
Such plans suggest that though China is getting all the brickbats[criticism], downstream countries should face much closer scrutiny too. China, says a water expert at the Asian Development Bank, is not to blame for all their woes[calamity,misfortune]. For instance, the alarming salinisation[盐化] of the Mekong delta, Vietnam’s rice-basket, appears to be happening not because of China, as some Vietnamese claim, but at least in part because of Vietnam’s own hydropower projects nearby. Laos is expected soon officially to announce its intention to build at least one Mekong dam, with potentially devastating consequences for the migratory fish species that, among other things, provide essential protein for many Cambodians. Pity the poor wild rivers and their amazing diversity: dammed if the riparian【Of, on, or relating to the banks of a natural course of water.】 neighbours fail to co-operate, and damneder if they do.


Economist.com/blogs/banyan


6-2

Another twist
Jul 15th 2010, 13:48 by The Economist online | PARIS

EACH day seems to bring yet another twist in what French call the Bettencourt affair. This is a party-donations and alleged tax-evasion【逃税】 scandal centred on Liliane Bettencourt, billionaire heiress to the L’Oréal【欧莱雅】 cosmetics empire, which has been gripping the country for the past month. Sure enough, on July 15th, the affair took a fresh turn when the police brought into custody【羁押】 four figures: Patrice de Maistre, Mrs Bettencourt’s wealth manager; François-Marie Banier, a society photographer who received gifts worth nearly ?1 billion ($1.3 billion) from Mrs Bettencourt; Fabrice Goguel, her former tax lawyer, and Carlos Vejarano, manager of a Seychelles island of obscure ownership.

The four will be questioned as part of a preliminary inquiry into tax evasion. Mr de Maistre has already confirmed the existence of two Swiss bank accounts, holding ?78m, which had not been declared to the French tax authorities. The island in the Seychelles also appears to have been overlooked, although it is not clear who owns this. Mrs Bettencourt has said that she intends to put all her tax affairs in order, and declare all foreign assets.

An affair which began as a dynastic lawsuit[诉讼], brought by Mrs Bettencourt’s estranged daughter against Mr Banier for “abuse of frailty”, has since become a political affair too, with a trail that could reach to the heart of French power. The heiress was a (legal) donor to the ruling UMP party, but her ex-accountant, Claire Thibout, alleges that she gave ?150,000 ($190,000)—way over the legal limit—to help finance Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign. Mr de Maistre denies this, as does Eric Woerth, the UMP party treasurer[司库], who allegedly received the money on Mr Sarkozy’s behalf. Mr Woerth is currently labour minister (and in charge of a controversial pension reform, which was passed by the cabinet on July 13th).

To add to the mesh of connections, Mr Woerth's wife, Florence, was employed by Mrs Bettencourt as an investment manager, though she has since resigned and also denies knowing anything about his former employer's tax affairs. This week, Mr Woerth said he would quit his job as party treasurer, but denies that he has done anything wrong. An internal inquiry by the tax inspectorate[检察人员] did indeed clear him, but only of  “ordering, thwarting or orienting”[?] any tax audit【An examined and verified account.】 of Mrs Bettencourt.

In a bid to defuse the political crisis, President Sarkozy went on prime-time television this week for an hour-long interview. He denounced as “calumny【流言蜚语】 and lies” the allegations against him and Mr Woerth. He had indeed, he said, dined at Mrs Bettencourt’s mansion in Neuilly, the posh Paris suburb where for many years he was mayor. But he described as “slander【诽谤】” the idea that he ever left with an envelope of cash to help his political career. Mrs Bettencourt’s ex-accountant, who first made this claim, has since retracted[收回] it—under pressure, says her lawyer—insisting that she never said Mr Sarkozy “regularly” collected money, and never saw money change hands. Even so, the affair has hurt the president's approval ratings.

Many questions, however, remain unanswered. For one thing, Mr Sarkozy was not asked during his interview about the alleged ?150,000 donation, nor about meetings he is said to have held with Mrs Bettencourt while president. For another, it is unclear under what conditions Mrs Woerth was hired by Mr Bettencourt, given that at the time Mr Woerth was budget minister【预算部长】 and leading a campaign against tax evasion. Mr Sarkozy implicitly acknowledged the potential for a conflict of interest by this week advising Mr Woerth to quit his job as party treasurer, and by calling on parliament to clarify the rules governing conflict of interest in public life.

Much hangs now on the judicial investigations: three separate ones are currently underway into various aspects of the affair. There is some concern that the presidency is uncomfortably close to Philippe Courroye, the public prosecutor in the case. Mr Courroye told Le Monde this week that he was acting with strict impartiality. Pressure to do so may have mounted thanks to the close scrutiny the case has drawn, in France and beyond.

agnes2010UID: 2794922

6-1
by Agnes

BanyanDammed if they do
China's hydropower plans are a test of its avowed[openly declared as such;'an avowed enemy'] good neighbourliness Jul 8th 2010

IN YUNNAN in south-west China the biggest floods in a dozen years have ended a long, brutal drought. For months here in Xishuangbanna, a glassy Mekong had merely sauntered[ walk leisurely and with no apparent aim] towards the border with Laos. River trade came to a halt as vessels ran aground. But for two or three weeks now the Mekong has been back to its usual roiling brown, and the cargo boats throw up a huge bow wave as they inch[ advance slowly, as if by inches] upstream.

Full rivers are good news for everyone, but especially for China’s dam-builders. They have huge ambitions for hydropower from the three great rivers—the Salween, the Mekong and the Yangzi—that come roaring out of the Tibetan plateau and tumble down through northern Yunnan in steep parallel gorges, each a mountain ridge apart. The rivers then wend their separate ways before reaching the sea in very different places: the Salween in Myanmar, the Mekong in southern Vietnam and the Yangzi near Shanghai. In Yunnan these rivers and their valleys form one of the world’s most remarkable hotspots of biodiversity.

To the engineers who dominate China’s leadership, the rivers’ wildness must seem an impertinence[an impudent statement]. On the Mekong alone China has planned or built eight dams. In Xishuangbanna the new Jinghong dam has just started operating. Further up, Xiaowan dam will be finished by 2013. It will be the highest arch dam in the world, and China’s biggest hydropower project after the Three Gorges on the middle Yangzi. The reservoir behind it is already filling up.

On the Salween are proposals for 13 dams. Unusually vociferous[consipicuously and offensively loud, given to vehement outcry] protests about their social and environmental costs led the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, to call a halt. Yet many locals have already been resettled, and it is surely a matter of time before at least some of the proposals are dusted off[长期搁置后 重新使用】.

In general, scrutiny[ the act of examining something closely (as for mistakes)] of China’s water projects is scant[less than the correct or legal or full amount often deliberately so], and the government is in a hurry. It wants to add electricity-generating capacity, lest[以免】 China’s breakneck growth be impeded[受阻】. Giant hydropower companies, with impeccable[without fault or error] political connections, add their own layer of secrecy. Risks attend those who question the lack of transparency. Perhaps 500,000 locals, mainly ethnic minorities, are being displaced and forcibly resettled. Those who protest are threatened with less compensation, if not jail.

The Chinese press steers clear of【避开 绕开】dams with a barge-pole. Academics and NGO[non-governmental organization] representatives who oppose the dam-building on social or environmental grounds do not want their names published. In private even academics in favour of hydropower development complain that nearly all relevant information, even the amount of rain that reaches them, is treated as a state secret. (Though, they add, at China’s meteorological and rivers bureaus, even state secrets can be imparted if the price is right.)

Until recently China was no less communicative towards downstream neighbours, who have seen a sharp drop in Mekong levels in recent years. Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam complain that China neither consults nor informs them about what it is up to. For all that it preaches[ The old man preached temperance to young people] harmony and good neighbourliness, China comes across as a regional bully, with its foot on the Mekong’s throat. The Mekong basin is the greatest inland fishing region in the world. Distraught Thai, Laotian and Cambodian fisherman and farmers blame Chinese dams for killing off fish stocks, cutting irrigation and disrupting livelihoods. Recently a Bangkok Post editorial accused China of “Killing the Mekong”.

In March China broke its silence over dams, denying that it was responsible for reducing the Mekong’s flow reaching downstream neighbours. It blamed instead the drought, from which China has suffered as much as anyone. The truth lies somewhere in between. Less than one-sixth of the total Mekong catchment is in China, but that upstream flow is crucial to neighbours during the dry season. China has held some of the dry-season flow back.

The monsoon rains of the past month will help draw some of the criticism’s sting. So too, perhaps, will a possible easing of Chinese secrecy. In April China defended itself (another first) at the Mekong River Commission, the inter-governmental body supposed to resolve disputes. And last month China took officials from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to view both Xiaowan and Jinghong dams. Banyan had less luck. Near Jinghong nervous policemen ordered him to leg it before he got so much as a glimpse of the structure.

Still, the shift in public diplomacy may mark a slightly broader approach towards what China perceives to be in its national interest. At the very least, the countries resentful of China’s dams are also those to which it hopes to sell the electricity. But a cynic might further conclude that to the extent that upriver dams smooth a flow’s seasonal extremes, China’s upriver projects actually make ones in downstream countries more feasible, too. There are nearly a dozen plans to dam the lower Mekong, and Chinese state construction companies want to be involved.

Those in glassy waters shouldn’t throw stones
Such plans suggest that though China is getting all the brickbats[批评的话], downstream countries should face much closer scrutiny too. China, says a water expert at the Asian Development Bank, is not to blame for all their woes. For instance, the alarming salinisation of the Mekong delta, Vietnam’s rice-basket, appears to be happening not because of China, as some Vietnamese claim, but at least in part because of Vietnam’s own hydropower projects nearby. Laos is expected soon officially to announce its intention to build at least one Mekong dam, with potentially devastating consequences for the migratory fish species that, among other things, provide essential protein for many Cambodians. Pity the poor wild rivers and their amazing diversity: dammed if the riparian neighbours fail to co-operate, and damneder if they do.


Economist.com/blogs/banyan


Asia

谦行天下UID: 2797557

6-1【学习】

Banyan
Dammed if they do
China's hydropower plans are a test of its avowed公开承认的 good neighbourliness
Jul 8th 2010

IN YUNNAN in south-west China the biggest floods in a dozen years have ended a long, brutal残忍的 drought. For months here in Xishuangbanna, a glassy像玻璃一样的 Mekong had merely sauntered towards the border with Laos老挝. River trade came to a halt as vessels ran aground搁浅. But for two or three weeks now the Mekong has been back to its usual roiling brown, and the cargo boats throw up a huge bow wave as they inch upstream.
Full rivers are good news for everyone, but especially for China’s dam-builders. They have huge ambitions for hydropower from the three great rivers—the Salween, the Mekong and the Yangzi—that come roaring out of the Tibetan plateau and tumble down through northern Yunnan in steep parallel gorges, each a mountain ridge山岭 apart. The rivers then wend their separate ways before reaching the sea in very different places: the Salween in Myanmar, the Mekong in southern Vietnam and the Yangzi near Shanghai. In Yunnan these rivers and their valleys form one of the world’s most remarkable hotspots of biodiversity.
To the engineers who dominate China’s leadership, the rivers’ wildness must seem an impertinence粗鲁，无礼. On the Mekong alone China has planned or built eight dams. In Xishuangbanna the new Jinghong dam has just started operating. Further up, Xiaowan dam will be finished by 2013. It will be the highest arch dam in the world, and China’s biggest hydropower project after the Three Gorges on the middle Yangzi. The reservoir水库 behind it is already filling up.
On the Salween are proposals for 13 dams. Unusually vociferous强大的 protests about their social and environmental costs led the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, to call a halt. Yet many locals have already been resettled, and it is surely a matter of time before at least some of the proposals are dusted off抹去灰尘.
In general, scrutiny of China’s water projects is scant, and the government is in a hurry. It wants to add electricity-generating capacity, lest唯恐 China’s breakneck非常危险的 growth be impeded. Giant hydropower companies, with impeccable没有瑕疵的 political connections, add their own layer of secrecy. Risks attend those who question the lack of transparency.？？ Perhaps 500,000 locals, mainly ethnic minorities, are being displaced and forcibly resettled. Those who protest are threatened with less compensation, if not jail.
The Chinese press steers clear of避开 dams with a barge-pole. Academics and NGO representatives who oppose the dam-building on social or environmental grounds do not want their names published. In private even academics in favour of hydropower development complain that nearly all relevant information, even the amount of rain that reaches them, is treated as a state secret. (Though, they add, at China’s meteorological and rivers bureaus, even state secrets can be imparted if the price is right.)
Until recently China was no less communicative towards downstream neighbours, who have seen a sharp drop in Mekong levels in recent years. Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam complain that China neither consults nor informs them about what it is up to. For all that it preaches鼓吹 harmony and good neighbourliness, China comes across as a regional bully土霸王, with its foot on the Mekong’s throat. The Mekong basin is the greatest inland fishing region in the world. Distraught发狂的 Thai, Laotian and Cambodian fisherman and farmers blame Chinese dams for killing off fish stocks, cutting irrigation and disrupting livelihoods. Recently a Bangkok Post editorial accused China of “Killing the Mekong”.
In March China broke its silence over dams, denying that it was responsible for reducing the Mekong’s flow reaching downstream neighbours. It blamed instead the drought, from which China has suffered as much as anyone. The truth lies somewhere in between. Less than one-sixth of the total Mekong catchment集水 is in China, but that upstream flow is crucial to neighbours during the dry season. China has held some of the dry-season flow back.
The monsoon rains季风雨 of the past month will help draw some of the criticism’s sting. So too, perhaps, will a possible easing of Chinese secrecy. In April China defended itself (another first) at the Mekong River Commission, the inter-governmental body supposed to resolve disputes. And last month China took officials from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to view both Xiaowan and Jinghong dams. Banyan had less luck. Near Jinghong nervous policemen ordered him to leg it before he got so much as a glimpse of the structure.
Still, the shift in public diplomacy外交 may mark a slightly broader approach towards what China perceives to be in its national interest. At the very least, the countries resentful of China’s dams are also those to which it hopes to sell the electricity. But a cynic愤世嫉俗者 might further conclude that to the extent that upriver dams smooth a flow’s seasonal extremes, China’s upriver projects actually make ones in downstream countries more feasible, too. There are nearly a dozen plans to dam the lower Mekong, and Chinese state construction companies want to be involved.

Those in glassy waters shouldn’t throw stones
Such plans suggest that though China is getting all the brickbats批评的话, downstream countries should face much closer scrutiny too. China, says a water expert at the Asian Development Bank, is not to blame for all their woes. For instance, the alarming salinisation盐化 of the Mekong delta, Vietnam’s rice-basket, appears to be happening not because of China, as some Vietnamese claim, but at least in part because of Vietnam’s own hydropower projects nearby. Laos is expected soon officially to announce its intention to build at least one Mekong dam, with potentially devastating consequences for the migratory fish species that, among other things, provide essential protein for many Cambodians. Pity the poor wild rivers and their amazing diversity: dammed if the riparian neighbours fail to co-operate, and damneder if they do.
Economist.com/blogs/banyan
Asia

===================================================
6-2【学习】
Another twist
Jul 15th 2010, 13:48 by The Economist online | PARIS

EACH day seems to bring yet another twist in what French call the Bettencourt affair. This is a party-donations and alleged tax-evasion scandal centred on Liliane Bettencourt, billionaire heiress女继承人 to the L’Oréal cosmetics 化妆品empire, which has been gripping引人注意的 the country for the past month. Sure enough, on July 15th, the affair took a fresh turn when the police brought into custody看守 four figures: Patrice de Maistre, Mrs Bettencourt’s wealth manager; François-Marie Banier, a society photographer who received gifts worth nearly 1 billion ($1.3 billion) from Mrs Bettencourt; Fabrice Goguel, her former tax lawyer, and Carlos Vejarano, manager of a Seychelles island of obscure模糊的 ownership.
The four will be questioned as part of a preliminary初步的 inquiry into tax evasion. Mr de Maistre has already confirmed the existence of two Swiss bank accounts, holding 78m, which had not been declared to the French tax authorities. The island in the Seychelles also appears to have been overlooked忽视, although it is not clear who owns this. Mrs Bettencourt has said that she intends to put all her tax affairs in order, and declare all foreign assets.
An affair which began as a dynastic lawsuit, brought by Mrs Bettencourt’s estranged daughter against Mr Banier for “abuse of frailty意志薄弱”, has since become a political affair too, with a trail that could reach to the heart of French power. The heiress was a (legal) donor to the ruling UMP party, but her ex-accountant, Claire Thibout, alleges that she gave 150,000 ($190,000)—way over the legal limit—to help finance Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign. Mr de Maistre denies this, as does Eric Woerth, the UMP party treasurer, who allegedly received the money on Mr Sarkozy’s behalf. Mr Woerth is currently labour minister (and in charge of a controversial pension reform, which was passed by the cabinet on July 13th).
To add to the mesh网眼 of connections, Mr Woerth's wife, Florence, was employed by Mrs Bettencourt as an investment manager, though she has since resigned and also denies knowing anything about his former employer's tax affairs. This week, Mr Woerth said he would quit his job as party treasurer出纳员, but denies that he has done anything wrong. An internal inquiry by the tax inspectorate检查员 did indeed clear him, but only of  “ordering, thwarting or orienting” any tax audit of Mrs Bettencourt.
In a bid to defuse the political crisis, President Sarkozy went on prime-time黄金时段 television this week for an hour-long interview. He denounced被指责为 as “calumny诽谤 and lies” the allegations against him and Mr Woerth. He had indeed, he said, dined at Mrs Bettencourt’s mansion in Neuilly, the posh时髦的 Paris suburb where for many years he was mayor. But he described as “slander” the idea that he ever left with an envelope of cash to help his political career. Mrs Bettencourt’s ex-accountant, who first made this claim, has since retracted it—under pressure, says her lawyer—insisting that she never said Mr Sarkozy “regularly” collected money, and never saw money change hands. Even so, the affair has hurt the president's approval ratings.
Many questions, however, remain unanswered. For one thing, Mr Sarkozy was not asked during his interview about the alleged 150,000 donation, nor about meetings he is said to have held with Mrs Bettencourt while president. For another, it is unclear under what conditions Mrs Woerth was hired by Mr Bettencourt, given that at the time Mr Woerth was budget minister and leading a campaign against tax evasion. Mr Sarkozy implicitly暗中的 acknowledged the potential for a conflict of interest by this week advising Mr Woerth to quit his job as party treasurer, and by calling on parliament to clarify the rules governing conflict of interest in public life.
Much hangs now on the judicial investigations: three separate ones are currently underway into various aspects of the affair. There is some concern that the presidency is uncomfortably close to Philippe Courroye, the public prosecutor in the case. Mr Courroye told Le Monde this week that he was acting with strict impartiality公正. Pressure to do so may have mounted thanks to the close scrutiny the case has drawn, in France and beyond.

谦行天下UID: 2797557

7-1【7月17日作业】
China and Sri LankaThe Colombo consensus
Brotherly love, massive aid and no questions asked Jul 8th 2010 | Colombo

HITCHING up his clean white sarong, Basil Rajapaksa mounts a gleaming new motorcycle and has a breezy spin outside the office of his brother Mahinda, Sri Lanka’s president. As he brakes to a standstill by Yang Xiuping, China’s ambassador, both are wreathed in smiles. Mrs Yang has just presented more than 30 Chinese motorcycles to the younger Mr Rajapaksa, a minister in his brother’s cabinet, for use by officials in his constituency.
The bikes are just part of a huge infusion of donations, grants, investments and loans as China’s presence in Sri Lanka explodes. So often have they met over the past year that the Chinese ambassador and the president’s sibling, responsible for many of the government’s development initiatives, seem old chums.
There is no disguising China’s enthusiasm for good relations with Sri Lanka’s government, though the thinking behind it remains a topic of debate. One aspect is clearly commercial. Sri Lanka is a ready market for Chinese goods, services and labour, and runs a sizeable—and growing—bilateral trade deficit. But another is strategic. China is looking for a presence in the Indian Ocean—part of its “string of pearls” strategy of links with regional maritime nations, that it hopes may eventually help secure its supply routes. China also gains a staunch ally in international forums.
In Sri Lanka’s case, ties have historically been good—it was one of the first countries, in 1950, to recognise the People’s Republic. But as an article in the state-owned Sunday Observer newspaper noted in April, the “silky relationship” has reached new highs during the Rajapaksa era. From Sri Lanka’s point of view this is no mystery. As one government official puts it, China is “very generous”. It invests in big amounts and does not ask questions or impose conditions that are not directly related to the deals under discussion.
Last year, as Western nations harried Sri Lanka over the conduct of its brutal last-ditch battle with Tamil Tiger rebels, China moved in. Unlike the EU and America, it exerted no pressure on the government to stop the fighting. Indeed, by selling sophisticated weaponry, it helped Sri Lanka carry on. Military parades and exhibitions, of which there have been many since the victory in May 2009, are usually displays of towering Chinese battle tanks, armoured personnel-carriers and artillery.
The government often refers to China’s contribution towards the war, in contrast to the carping West. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, another sibling, who is the defence secretary, has noted that the president has visited China five times in office and three times before. Sometimes, he says, his brother speaks to China’s prime minister by telephone. “We have understood”, he boasts, “who is important to us.”
After starting with smaller undertakings, China is now financing nearly all of Sri Lanka’s biggest infrastructure projects. They include a new sea port at Hambantota, in the president’s constituency in the south, an oil-storage facility, a new airport, a coal-fired power plant and an expressway. China often provides cheap credit. It is also rebuilding the main roads in the war-shattered north and east, and is constructing a state-of-the-art performance-arts centre. It has sold diesel railway-engines and earthmoving equipment.
Government data show that in 2009 China was, in terms of commitments, Sri Lanka’s biggest aid donor, with $1.2 billion out of a total of $2.2 billion offered—hardly a huge amount for China. The Board of Investment reveals it is the biggest investor, too. Chinese companies have been investing in electronics, infrastructure projects, garment-making, and much else. The government has set up a free-trade zone for Chinese companies.
The blossoming of Sri Lanka’s relations with China comes as ties with some of her traditional trading partners have frayed over human-rights and labour concerns. The EU has just announced that Sri Lanka will not be eligible from August for preferential market access under the “GSP Plus” scheme, after the government rejected the EU’s conditions. America’s government has accepted a petition from an international trade union to review worker rights in Sri Lanka as part of its own GSP scheme.
This week hundreds of protesters laid siege to the United Nations’ compound in Colombo, trapping staff inside for eight hours. They were angered by a panel appointed by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, to advise him on possible human-rights violations during the war. The government has rejected this as unwarranted interference. Backing it, naturally, is its friend China. On July 1st a foreign-ministry spokesman told a press conference that China believed the Sri Lankan government and people were capable of handling their own problems.
Asia

谦行天下UID: 2797557

7-2【7月17日作业】
Gustav MahlerThe agony and the ecstasy
A new biography presents the composer as superhero Jul 8th 2010

“MY TIME will come,” Gustav Mahler used to say when he felt unappreciated. In his early days the composer often was. He described himself as “three times homeless”: born to a Jewish family in a German-speaking enclave in Czech-speaking Bohemia, and not feeling properly at home anywhere. Being Jewish, at a time of widespread anti-Semitism, was his “chief mistake”, as he put it to a friend. But his musical talent was so evident that at 15 he found himself at the Vienna Conservatory of music and afterwards embarked on a career as a conductor. By the time he was 37, he was artistic director of the Vienna Court Opera—though not before he had converted to Catholicism. He was also enjoying increasing fame as a composer.
Mahler’s life and his music were two sides of the same coin. His oeuvre was small: ten symphonies (the last one unfinished), a symphonic work for voices and orchestra (“Das Lied von der Erde”) and a number of songs. As a successful conductor he had little time to compose, fitting most of it in during long summer breaks spent by an Austrian lake. So one of his symphonies could be years in the making, but each of them packed a tremendous punch. For him, “the symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” That meant childhood memories and sleighbells, folk songs and frustrated ambition, love and death.
Much of the raw material was autobiographical, and there was a lot of biography to draw on. Apart from his professional ups and downs, Mahler was part of a large and close family of 14 children (though many of his siblings died in infancy), which provided its own running soap opera. He also had plenty of opportunity to meet young singers and got entangled in various romances. But the defining passion of his life was Alma Schindler, the musical daughter of a well-to-do Viennese family. When they met, he was 41 and she 22. He wooed her ardently, they were soon married and she quickly bore him two daughters. But the relationship was stormy. He wanted her to stop composing. She reluctantly complied, but got her own back in other ways, mainly by having blatant affairs. She also took charge of managing his public image, sometimes boldly adjusting the record to suit her story.
In many ways, though, Mahler led a charmed life, mixing with the musical and artistic elite of his day—composers such as Brahms, Richard Strauss, Busoni, Rachmaninov, Schoenberg, Wolf, Berg, many famous musicians, and artists from the Vienna Secession such as Gustav Klimt. When Alma took a lover, he was not just anybody but a young architect called Walter Gropius who went on to set up the illustrious Bauhaus school of art and design. When Mahler needed advice on his marital troubles, he booked a long session with Sigmund Freud.
The couple experienced joint tragedy when their elder daughter died young—not long after Mahler had composed his Kindertotenlieder (songs on the death of children), which his wife had feared would be tempting fate. The composer himself was in poor health, made worse by stress and constant overwork. After a particularly taxing stint conducting in New York, his heart condition deteriorated and he went home to Vienna to die at 50.
Norman Lebrecht, a British commentator on music and cultural affairs, became obsessed with Mahler in his mid-20s and soon embarked on a quest to retrace his every step. In 1987 he published “Mahler Remembered”, a portrait of the composer through the eyes of those around him. But his fascination continued. “Why Mahler?”, part musical biography, part homage, is an attempt to convert the rest of the world to his belief that Mahler is the most influential symphonist of our age, dethroning Beethoven. It comes on cue for the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth this year and the 100th one of his death in 2011.
There have been a fair number of books about and biographies of Mahler, which Mr Lebrecht briefly reviews. But none of them, he says, tells the story from a 21st-century perspective. His claims for his hero are towering: “The man and his music are central to our understanding of the course of civilisation and the nature of human relationships.” He cites a number of people who have undergone damascene conversions while listening to Mahler’s music. He himself has found each symphony “a search engine for inner truths” and “a fast track to deep-core emotion”. From Mahler the man, he says he has learnt lessons such as “the best is never good enough” and “dignity survives defeat”.
Mr Lebrecht’s admiration for the composer is a wonderful thing, but he is trying too hard to proselytise: other people may feel the same way about Bach or Mozart or Wagner. His book is very enjoyable to read, gossipy as well as learned, and it makes the man come to life. It provides an idiosyncratic but useful review of the main recordings. It even offers advice to newcomers on getting into Mahler’s music (go and hear the second symphony on your own). There was no need to hype it up.
Books and Arts

原文地址：http://www.economist.com/node/16536978

agnes2010UID: 2794922

6-2
by Agnes

Another twist
Jul 15th 2010, 13:48 by The Economist online | PARIS

EACH day seems to bring yet another twist[There's an unusual twist to the plot at the end of the book.] in what French call the Bettencourt affair. This is a party-donations and alleged tax-evasion scandal centred on Liliane Bettencourt, billionaire heiress to the L’Oréal cosmetics empire, which has been gripping the country for the past month. Sure enough, on July 15th, the affair took a fresh turn when the police brought into custody four figures: Patrice de Maistre, Mrs Bettencourt’s wealth manager; François-Marie Banier, a society photographer who received gifts worth nearly 1 billion ($1.3 billion) from Mrs Bettencourt; Fabrice Goguel, her former tax lawyer, and Carlos Vejarano, manager of a Seychelles island of obscure ownership.
The four will be questioned as part of a preliminary inquiry into tax evasion. Mr de Maistre has already confirmed the existence of two Swiss bank accounts, holding 78m, which had not been declared to the French tax authorities. The island in the Seychelles also appears to have been overlooked, although it is not clear who owns this. Mrs Bettencourt has said that she intends to put all her tax affairs in order, and declare all foreign assets.
An affair which began as a dynastic lawsuit[诉讼], brought by Mrs Bettencourt’s estranged[caused to be unloved] daughter against Mr Banier for “abuse of frailty”, has since become a political affair too, with a trail that could reach to the heart of French power. The heiress was a (legal) donor to the ruling UMP party, but her ex-accountant, Claire Thibout, alleges that she gave 150,000 ($190,000)—way over the legal limit—to help finance Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign. Mr de Maistre denies this, as does Eric Woerth, the UMP party treasurer, who allegedly received the money on Mr Sarkozy’s behalf. Mr Woerth is currently labour minister (and in charge of a controversial pension reform, which was passed by the cabinet on July 13th).
To add to the mesh of connections, Mr Woerth's wife, Florence, was employed by Mrs Bettencourt as an investment manager, though she has since resigned and also denies knowing anything about his former employer's tax affairs. This week, Mr Woerth said he would quit his job as party treasurer, but denies that he has done anything wrong. An internal inquiry by the tax inspectorate did indeed clear him, but only of  “ordering, thwarting or orienting” any tax audit of Mrs Bettencourt.
In a bid to defuse[remove the triggering device from] the political crisis, President Sarkozy went on prime-time television this week for an hour-long interview. He denounced as “calumny[an abusice attack on a person's character or good name] and lies” the allegations against him and Mr Woerth. He had indeed, he said, dined at Mrs Bettencourt’s mansion in Neuilly, the posh Paris suburb where for many years he was mayor. But he described as “slander[word falsely spoken that damage the reputation of another]” the idea that he ever left with an envelope of cash to help his political career. Mrs Bettencourt’s ex-accountant, who first made this claim, has since retracted it—under pressure, says her lawyer—insisting that she never said Mr Sarkozy “regularly” collected money, and never saw money change hands. Even so, the affair has hurt the president's approval ratings.
Many questions, however, remain unanswered. For one thing, Mr Sarkozy was not asked during his interview about the alleged 150,000 donation, nor about meetings he is said to have held with Mrs Bettencourt while president. For another, it is unclear under what conditions Mrs Woerth was hired by Mr Bettencourt, given that at the time Mr Woerth was budget minister and leading a campaign against tax evasion. Mr Sarkozy implicitly acknowledged the potential for a conflict of interest by this week advising Mr Woerth to quit his job as party treasurer, and by calling on parliament to clarify the rules governing conflict of interest in public life.
Much hangs now on the judicial investigations: three separate ones are currently underway into various aspects of the affair. There is some concern that the presidency is uncomfortably close to Philippe Courroye, the public prosecutor in the case. Mr Courroye told Le Monde this week that he was acting with strict impartiality. Pressure to do so may have mounted thanks to the close scrutiny the case has drawn, in France and beyond.

zhangxiaohang1UID: 2705669

GRE words
new words
good expression
Proper Noun or Questions


7-1【7月17日作业】
China and Sri Lanka【斯里兰卡】The Colombo consensus
Brotherly love, massive aid and no questions asked Jul 8th 2010 | Colombo

HITCHING up his clean white sarong, Basil Rajapaksa mounts a gleaming new motorcycle and has a breezy spin outside the office of his brother Mahinda, Sri Lanka’s president. As he brakes to a standstill by Yang Xiuping, China’s ambassador, both are wreathed【完全笼罩，做成花环】 in smiles. Mrs Yang has just presented more than 30 Chinese motorcycles to the younger Mr Rajapaksa, a minister in his brother’s cabinet, for use by officials in his constituency. 
The bikes are just part of a huge infusion of donations, grants, investments and loans as China’s presence in Sri Lanka explodes. So often have they met over the past year that the Chinese ambassador and the president’s sibling【兄弟姐妹】, responsible for many of the government’s development initiatives, seem old chums【挚友】.
There is no disguising China’s enthusiasm for good relations with Sri Lanka’s government, though the thinking behind it remains a topic of debate. One aspect is clearly commercial. Sri Lanka is a ready market for Chinese goods, services and labour, and runs a sizeable—and growing—bilateral trade deficit. But another is strategic. China is looking for a presence in the Indian Ocean—part of its “string of pearls” strategy of links with regional maritime nations, that it hopes may eventually help secure its supply routes. China also gains a staunch ally in international forums.
In Sri Lanka’s case, ties have historically been good—it was one of the first countries, in 1950, to recognise the People’s Republic. But as an article in the state-owned Sunday Observer newspaper noted in April, the “silky relationship”【如丝般的关系】 has reached new highs during the Rajapaksa era. From Sri Lanka’s point of view this is no mystery. As one government official puts it, China is “very generous”. It invests in big amounts and does not ask questions or impose conditions that are not directly related to the deals under discussion. 
Last year, as Western nations harried Sri Lanka over the conduct of its brutal last-ditch battle with Tamil Tiger rebels, China moved in. Unlike the EU and America, it exerted no pressure on the government to stop the fighting. Indeed, by selling sophisticated weaponry, it helped Sri Lanka carry on. Military parades【游行】 and exhibitions, of which there have been many since the victory in May 2009, are usually displays of towering Chinese battle tanks, armoured personnel-carriers and artillery.
The government often refers to China’s contribution towards the war, in contrast to the carping West. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, another sibling, who is the defence secretary, has noted that the president has visited China five times in office and three times before. Sometimes, he says, his brother speaks to China’s prime minister by telephone. “We have understood”, he boasts, “who is important to us.”
After starting with smaller undertakings, China is now financing nearly all of Sri Lanka’s biggest infrastructure【基础】 projects. They include a new sea port at Hambantota, in the president’s constituency in the south, an oil-storage facility, a new airport, a coal-fired power plant and an expressway【高速公路】. China often provides cheap credit. It is also rebuilding the main roads in the war-shattered【战争粉碎】 north and east, and is constructing a state-of-the-art performance-arts centre. It has sold diesel railway-engines and earthmoving equipment.
Government data show that in 2009 China was, in terms of commitments, Sri Lanka’s biggest aid donor, with $1.2 billion out of a total of $2.2 billion offered—hardly a huge amount for China. The Board of Investment reveals it is the biggest investor, too. Chinese companies have been investing in electronics, infrastructure projects, garment【服饰】-making, and much else. The government has set up a free-trade zone for Chinese companies. 
The blossoming of Sri Lanka’s relations with China comes as ties with some of her traditional trading partners have frayed【冲突】 over human-rights and labour concerns. The EU has just announced that Sri Lanka will not be eligible【合适合格的】 from August for preferential market access under the “GSP Plus” scheme, after the government rejected the EU’s conditions. America’s government has accepted a petition from an international trade union to review worker rights in Sri Lanka as part of its own GSP scheme.
This week hundreds of protesters laid siege to the United Nations’ compound in Colombo, trapping staff inside for eight hours. They were angered by a panel appointed by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, to advise him on possible human-rights violations during the war. The government has rejected this as unwarranted interference. Backing it, naturally, is its friend China. On July 1st a foreign-ministry spokesman told a press conference that China believed the Sri Lankan government and people were capable of handling their own problems.
Asia

7-2【7月17日作业】
Gustav MahlerThe agony and the ecstasy
A new biography presents the composer as superhero Jul 8th 2010

“MY TIME will come,” Gustav Mahler used to say when he felt unappreciated. In his early days the composer often was. He described himself as “three times homeless”: born to a Jewish family in a German-speaking enclave in Czech-speaking Bohemia, and not feeling properly at home anywhere. Being Jewish, at a time of widespread anti-Semitism, was his “chief mistake”, as he put it to a friend. But his musical talent was so evident that at 15 he found himself at the Vienna Conservatory of music and afterwards embarked on a career as a conductor. By the time he was 37, he was artistic director of the Vienna Court Opera—though not before he had converted to Catholicism. He was also enjoying increasing fame as a composer.
Mahler’s life and his music were two sides of the same coin. His oeuvre was small: ten symphonies (the last one unfinished), a symphonic work for voices and orchestra (“Das Lied von der Erde”) and a number of songs. As a successful conductor he had little time to compose, fitting most of it in during long summer breaks spent by an Austrian lake. So one of his symphonies could be years in the making, but each of them packed a tremendous punch. For him, “the symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” That meant childhood memories and sleighbells, folk songs and frustrated ambition, love and death.
Much of the raw material was autobiographical, and there was a lot of biography to draw on. Apart from his professional ups and downs, Mahler was part of a large and close family of 14 children (though many of his siblings died in infancy), which provided its own running soap opera. He also had plenty of opportunity to meet young singers and got entangled in various romances. But the defining passion of his life was Alma Schindler, the musical daughter of a well-to-do Viennese family. When they met, he was 41 and she 22. He wooed her ardently, they were soon married and she quickly bore him two daughters. But the relationship was stormy. He wanted her to stop composing. She reluctantly complied, but got her own back in other ways, mainly by having blatant affairs. She also took charge of managing his public image, sometimes boldly adjusting the record to suit her story.
In many ways, though, Mahler led a charmed life, mixing with the musical and artistic elite of his day—composers such as Brahms, Richard Strauss, Busoni, Rachmaninov, Schoenberg, Wolf, Berg, many famous musicians, and artists from the Vienna Secession such as Gustav Klimt. When Alma took a lover, he was not just anybody but a young architect called Walter Gropius who went on to set up the illustrious Bauhaus school of art and design. When Mahler needed advice on his marital troubles, he booked a long session with Sigmund Freud.
The couple experienced joint tragedy when their elder daughter died young—not long after Mahler had composed his Kindertotenlieder (songs on the death of children), which his wife had feared would be tempting fate. The composer himself was in poor health, made worse by stress and constant overwork. After a particularly taxing stint conducting in New York, his heart condition deteriorated and he went home to Vienna to die at 50.
Norman Lebrecht, a British commentator on music and cultural affairs, became obsessed with Mahler in his mid-20s and soon embarked on a quest to retrace his every step. In 1987 he published “Mahler Remembered”, a portrait of the composer through the eyes of those around him. But his fascination continued. “Why Mahler?”, part musical biography, part homage, is an attempt to convert the rest of the world to his belief that Mahler is the most influential symphonist of our age, dethroning Beethoven. It comes on cue for the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth this year and the 100th one of his death in 2011.
There have been a fair number of books about and biographies of Mahler, which Mr Lebrecht briefly reviews. But none of them, he says, tells the story from a 21st-century perspective. His claims for his hero are towering: “The man and his music are central to our understanding of the course of civilisation and the nature of human relationships.” He cites a number of people who have undergone damascene conversions while listening to Mahler’s music. He himself has found each symphony “a search engine for inner truths” and “a fast track to deep-core emotion”. From Mahler the man, he says he has learnt lessons such as “the best is never good enough” and “dignity survives defeat”.
Mr Lebrecht’s admiration for the composer is a wonderful thing, but he is trying too hard to proselytise: other people may feel the same way about Bach or Mozart or Wagner. His book is very enjoyable to read, gossipy as well as learned, and it makes the man come to life. It provides an idiosyncratic but useful review of the main recordings. It even offers advice to newcomers on getting into Mahler’s music (go and hear the second symphony on your own). There was no need to hype it up.
Books and Arts

谦行天下UID: 2797557

7-1【学习】 China and Sri Lanka The Colombo consensus Brotherly love, massive aid and no questions asked Jul 8th 2010 | Colombo HITCHING up扣住 his clean white sarong围裙, Basil Rajapaksa mounts爬上 a gleaming new motorcycle and has a breezy spin outside the office of his brother Mahinda, Sri Lanka’s president. As he brakes to a standstill停止 by Yang Xiuping, China’s ambassador, both are wreathed环绕 in smiles. Mrs Yang has just presented more than 30 Chinese motorcycles to the younger Mr Rajapaksa, a minister in his brother’s cabinet, for use by officials in his constituency. The bikes are just part of a huge infusion of donations, grants, investments and loans as China’s presence in Sri Lanka explodes. So often have they met over the past year that the Chinese ambassador and the president’s sibling民族成员, responsible for many of the government’s development initiatives, seem old chums密友. There is no disguising隐瞒 China’s enthusiasm for good relations with Sri Lanka’s government, though the thinking behind it remains a topic of debate. One aspect is clearly commercial. Sri Lanka is a ready market for Chinese goods, services and labour, and runs a sizeable—and growing—bilateral双边的 trade deficit. But another is strategic. China is looking for a presence in the Indian Ocean—part of its “string of pearls” strategy of links with regional maritime nations, that it hopes may eventually help secure its supply routes. China also gains a staunch坚定的 ally in international forums. In Sri Lanka’s case, ties have historically been good—it was one of the first countries, in 1950, to recognise the People’s Republic. But as an article in the state-owned Sunday Observer newspaper noted in April, the “silky relationship” has reached new highs during the Rajapaksa era. From Sri Lanka’s point of view this is no mystery. As one government official puts it, China is “very generous”. It invests in big amounts and does not ask questions or impose强加 conditions that are not directly related to the deals under discussion. Last year, as Western nations harried掠夺 Sri Lanka over the conduct of its brutal last-ditch坚持到最后的 battle with Tamil Tiger rebels, China moved in. Unlike the EU and America, it exert外漏ed no pressure on the government to stop the fighting. Indeed, by selling sophisticated weaponry, it helped Sri Lanka carry on. Military parades and exhibitions, of which there have been many since the victory in May 2009, are usually displays of towering卓越的 Chinese battle tanks, armoured装甲的 personnel-carriers and artillery大炮. The government often refers to China’s contribution towards the war, in contrast to the carping West. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, another sibling, who is the defence secretary, has noted that the president has visited China five times in office and three times before. Sometimes, he says, his brother speaks to China’s prime minister by telephone. “We have understood”, he boasts, “who is important to us.” After starting with smaller undertakings, China is now financing nearly all of Sri Lanka’s biggest infrastructure projects. They include a new sea port at Hambantota, in the president’s constituency in the south, an oil-storage facility, a new airport, a coal-fired power plant and an expressway. China often provides cheap credit. It is also rebuilding the main roads in the war-shattered打碎的 north and east, and is constructing a state-of-the-art performance-arts centre. It has sold diesel railway-engines and earthmoving equipment. Government data show that in 2009 China was, in terms of commitments承诺, Sri Lanka’s biggest aid donor, with $1.2 billion out of a total of $2.2 billion offered—hardly a huge amount for China. The Board of Investment reveals it is the biggest investor, too. Chinese companies have been investing in electronics, infrastructure projects, garment衣服-making, and much else. The government has set up a free-trade zone for Chinese companies. The blossoming of Sri Lanka’s relations with China comes as ties with some of her traditional trading partners have frayed over human-rights and labour concerns. The EU has just announced that Sri Lanka will not be eligible from August for preferential market access under the “GSP Plus” scheme, after the government rejected the EU’s conditions. America’s government has accepted a petition请愿书 from an international trade union to review worker rights in Sri Lanka as part of its own GSP scheme. This week hundreds of protesters抗议者 laid siege to包围 the United Nations’ compound in Colombo, trapping staff inside for eight hours. They were angered by a panel全体陪审团 appointed by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, to advise him on possible human-rights violations during the war. The government has rejected this as unwarranted interference. Backing it, naturally, is its friend China. On July 1st a foreign-ministry spokesman told a press conference that China believed the Sri Lankan government and people were capable of handling their own problems. Asia

Wow, China backing Sri Lanka and spoke agrainst EU and USA will lead to what kind to disasters. I quite afraid. Is China strong enough to stand against developed countries?
And what is the war mentioned in this article about?

==================================================
7-2【学习】
Gustav Mahler
The agony and the ecstasy
A new biography presents the composer as superhero
Jul 8th 2010

“MY TIME will come,” Gustav Mahler used to say when he felt unappreciated. In his early days the composer often was. He described himself as “three times homeless”: born to a Jewish family in a German-speaking enclave被……的包围地 in Czech捷克人-speaking Bohemia, and not feeling properly at home anywhere. Being Jewish, at a time of widespread anti-Semitism反犹太主义, was his “chief mistake”, as he put it to a friend. But his musical talent was so evident that at 15 he found himself at the Vienna Conservatory音乐学院 of music and afterwards embarked on从事 a career as a conductor乐队指挥. By the time he was 37, he was artistic director of the Vienna Court Opera—though not before he had converted转换至 to Catholicism. He was also enjoying increasing fame as a composer.
Mahler’s life and his music were two sides of the same coin. His oeuvre毕生之作 was small: ten symphonies交响曲 (the last one unfinished), a symphonic work for voices and orchestra管弦乐队 (“Das Lied von der Erde”) and a number of songs. As a successful conductor he had little time to compose, fitting most of it in during long summer breaks spent by an Austrian lake. So one of his symphonies could be years in the making, but each of them packed充满了 a tremendous punch. For him, “the symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” That meant childhood memories童年记忆 and sleighbells雪铃, folk songs and frustrated ambition, love and death.
Much of the raw material was autobiographical自传的, and there was a lot of biography to draw on. Apart from his professional ups and downs, Mahler was part of a large and close family of 14 children (though many of his siblings兄弟姐妹 died in infancy), which provided its own running soap opera. He also had plenty of opportunity to meet young singers and got entangled in various romances. But the defining起决定性作用的 passion of his life was Alma Schindler, the musical daughter of a well-to-do小康的 Viennese family. When they met, he was 41 and she 22. He wooed her ardently, they were soon married and she quickly bore him two daughters. But the relationship was stormy. He wanted her to stop composing. She reluctantly不情愿的 complied遵从了, but got her own back in other ways, mainly by having blatant俗丽的 affairs. She also took charge of managing his public image, sometimes boldly adjusting the record to suit her story.
In many ways, though, Mahler led a charmed life, mixing with the musical and artistic elite of his day—composers such as Brahms, Richard Strauss, Busoni, Rachmaninov, Schoenberg, Wolf, Berg, many famous musicians, and artists from the Vienna Secession such as Gustav Klimt. When Alma took a lover, he was not just anybody but a young architect called Walter Gropius who went on to set up the illustrious辉煌的 Bauhaus school of art and design. When Mahler needed advice on his marital troubles, he booked a long session with Sigmund Freud.
The couple experienced joint tragedy when their elder daughter died young—not long after Mahler had composed his Kindertotenlieder (songs on the death of children), which his wife had feared would be tempting fate玩命. The composer himself was in poor health, made worse by stress and constant overwork. After a particularly taxing stint节约 conducting in New York, his heart condition deteriorated恶化 and he went home to Vienna to die at 50.
Norman Lebrecht, a British commentator评论员 on music and cultural affairs, became obsessed with Mahler in his mid-20s and soon embarked on从事于 a quest to retrace重描 his every step. In 1987 he published “Mahler Remembered”, a portrait of the composer through the eyes of those around him. But his fascination魔力 continued. “Why Mahler?”, part musical biography, part homage, is an attempt to convert the rest of the world to his belief that Mahler is the most influential symphonist of our age, dethroning罢免 Beethoven. It comes on cue恰好在这个时候 for the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth this year and the 100th one of his death in 2011.
There have been a fair number of books about and biographies of Mahler, which Mr Lebrecht briefly reviews. But none of them, he says, tells the story from a 21st-century perspective. His claims for his hero are towering: “The man and his music are central to our understanding of the course of civilisation and the nature of human relationships.” He cites a number of people who have undergone damascene conversions while listening to Mahler’s music. He himself has found each symphony “a search engine for inner truths” and “a fast track to deep-core emotion”. From Mahler the man, he says he has learnt lessons such as “the best is never good enough” and “dignity survives defeat”.
Mr Lebrecht’s admiration for the composer is a wonderful thing, but he is trying too hard to proselytise使改变宗教信仰: other people may feel the same way about Bach or Mozart or Wagner. His book is very enjoyable to read, gossipy as well as learned, and it makes the man come to life. It provides an idiosyncratic特殊的 but useful review of the main recordings. It even offers advice to newcomers on getting into Mahler’s music (go and hear the second symphony on your own). There was no need to hype it up.
Books and Arts

原文地址：http://www.economist.com/node/16536978

谦行天下UID: 2797557

8-1【7月18日作业】
Forget it!
Jul 16th 2010, 10:52 by The Economist online
A study involving children's car seats suggests that consumers might be better at filtering out bad information than previously thought

IF YOU were told that a particularly delicious-looking ice-cream cone contained dangerous chemicals, then told soon after that it was safe to eat after all, would you still choose it for dessert? So far, studies by behavioural economists have suggested that people have a hard time unlearning what they have previously been told, even after being ordered to do so. In mock trials, for example, jurors are frequently unable to disregard evidence they are later told is inadmissible. But Uri Simonsohn, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, has a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Marketing suggesting that some consumers, at least, are indeed capable of letting go of wrong information.
Mr Simonsohn started by having to dismiss wrong information himself. In early 2007, shortly after he and his wife had bought a car seat for their first child, Consumer Reports magazine published a ranking of car seats according to safety. Unfortunately, the magazine had messed up its usually thorough testing procedure, with cars being crashed at much higher speeds than advertised. (At a 35-mph side-impact crash, the structure of the car seat can make a difference; at 70 mph, the infant’s safety depends much more on the structure of the car.) Two weeks later, Consumer Reports issued a retraction: several car seat brands (including the Simonsohns') were safer than the original rankings suggested.
Mr Simonsohn tracked online auctions of car seats after both the initial rankings and the retractions, to see how prices were affected. The car seats falsely charged with poor performance saw their prices drop, then rebound quickly. By contrast, one seat, which failed both Consumer Reports's original and revised tests, continued to sell more cheaply after the retraction was issued. The car-seat buyers were apparently able to disregard the flawed rankings and pay attention to the correct information. "I was shocked," he says. "Because if there's one product where I would expect people to be overly emotional, it would be child safety."
There are some caveats. It helps, Mr Simonsohn admits, that both the original rankings and the retraction were widely publicised: child-safety issues attract headlines. That the retraction was made swiftly may also have focussed consumers’ attention: a time lapse of months or more might have affected sales more profoundly. Furthermore, parents who buy car seats online may pay more attention to safety rankings than do their peers at a store.
But the results have led Mr Simonsohn to rethink the earlier tests of seemingly wrongheaded consumers. Perhaps the mock jurors refused to give up previous information not out of stubbornness or ignorance but because the experimenters failed to give them sufficient reason to change their minds. Car-seat buyers, in contrast, were willing to accept new information and discard old data because they trusted Consumer Reports—especially when the magazine was confessing a misstep.
This would have implications for more than just behavioural economics. Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children for fear of autism are also concerned about child safety, but have discounted the strong evidence that no link exists. The problem, Mr Simonsohn suggests, might lie not with the new information but with the source: few health agencies inspire as much trust as Consumer Reports.

谦行天下UID: 2797557

8-2【7月18日作业】
Arab autocracyThank you and goodbye
For good or ill, change is coming to Egypt and Saudi Arabia soon Jul 15th 2010


THE fate of the Arab world’s two most important states lies in the hands of ageing autocrats. Hosni Mubarak, an 82-year-old air-force general who has ruled Egypt since 1981, is widely reported to be grievously ill. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who assumed the throne of the Arabs’ richest country five years ago but has run the show for longer, is reckoned to be 86. The grim reaper will bring change in both places soon.
Maybe the old men will manage to control their succession. President Mubarak has been preparing the ground for his son, Gamal, to take over (see special report). King Abdullah’s anointed successor, Crown Prince Sultan, one of his 18 surviving brothers, has long been poorly, but there are plenty more where he came from (see article). Decades of repression have ensured that the opposition is quiescent in Egypt and virtually inaudible in Saudi Arabia. But they have also made these countries vulnerable to violent disruption. Transition in autocracies often means instability.
The fate of these two countries matters to the West for two big reasons: energy and security. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been reliable, if flawed, allies. Should they stumble, the West’s interests in the region will be imperilled. That is why those regimes need to be encouraged to liberalise their countries’ economic and political systems further and turn them into places where change brings hope not fear.
What’s wrong with them…
The problem of Arab governance is by no means confined to those big two. In the past few centuries the Arabs, once pre-eminent in a host of skills, from astronomy and algebra to architecture and engineering, have seen their societies stagnate and fester. Though blessed with natural resources, especially the oil that has enriched Arab dynasties and their subservient elites while often leaving the masses in penury, few Arab countries have seen their non-oil economies flourish or their people enjoy the public services or freedoms taken for granted elsewhere.
Of the Arab League’s 22 members, not a single one is a stable and fully fledged democracy. Fragile but sophisticated Lebanon may come nearest, despite its lethal rivalries between sect and clan and failure to get a single national army to control all its territory (see article). Post-Saddam Iraq has had genuine multiparty elections but is mired in corruption, violence and sectarian strife. The Palestinians had a fair election in 2006 but the winners, the Islamists of Hamas, were not allowed to govern. A handful of other countries, such as Morocco and Kuwait, have multiparty systems, but monarchs still rule the roost. And where they have given way to republicans, new dynasties, such as Syria’s today and Libya’s probably tomorrow, still hold sway. Even sub-Saharan Africa has a better record of electoral freedom.
The rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, ancient as they are, have made improvements. Egypt’s economy has belatedly begun to grow quite fast. The Saudi king is educating his people, even women—though he still won’t let them drive a car. He has spent more than $12 billion creating just one new university near the Red Sea port of Jeddah, while pouring many more billions into ambitious projects, such as high-speed railways, that should benefit everyone. But the closed political systems of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the uncertainties of dynastic power-mongering and the corruption inherent in patronage-ridden autocracies still often leads to plotting at the top and frustration that could spill over into anger at the bottom. That becomes more likely as the internet, mobile phones and easier travel make people far less easy to control.
It would be naive to urge or expect either country to become a full-blooded democracy in a trice. Each could descend into chaos, winding up with a fundamentalist version of Islamist rule that would make the present regimes look cuddly by comparison. Many Egyptians, including reform-minded professionals, fear that the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, the unofficial opposition, would never relinquish power once they had won it at the ballot box. Sensible Saudis know that those who sympathise with their compatriot Osama bin Laden would impose an incomparably nastier regime than the present one, if given the freedom to do so.
All the same, the suppression of Egypt’s Muslim Brothers, who have a large following, has been unwise as well as unjust. Thousands of them are in jail; many have been tortured. Leading Brothers repeatedly disavow violence and jihad, insisting that they, like Turkey’s mild Islamists, would hold multiparty elections if they ever won power—and would graciously bow out if the voters told them to. Mr Mubarak must seek to draw the Brothers openly into the parliamentary and perhaps even ministerial fold, and test their sincerity, at first by giving them a chance to run local councils. And in the presidential election due next year, all the obstacles that make it nigh-impossible for a relative outsider, such as Mohamed ElBaradei, a former head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, to compete, should be swept away. As for the Saudis, their king should at least encourage his Allegiance Commission, an inner family body of some 35 princes that is meant to oversee the succession, to skip a generation rather than plod down the geriatric line of the surviving sons of the founding king.

…and what’s to be done
Elections, though vital in the end, are not an early panacea. What the Arabs need most, in a hurry, is the rule of law, independent courts, freeish media, women’s and workers’ rights, a market that is not confined to the ruler’s friends, and a professional civil service and education system that are not in hock to the government, whether under a king or a republic. In other words, they need to nurture civil society and robust institutions. The first task of a new Saudi king should be to enact a proper criminal code.
In the Arab lexicon, the concept of justice means more than democracy. In the end, you cannot have the first without the second. But the systems that now prevail in the Arab world provide for neither.
Leaders

zhangxiaohang1UID: 2705669

GRE words
new words
good expression
Proper Noun or Questions


8-1【7月18日作业】

Forget it!
Jul 16th 2010, 10:52 by The Economist online
A study involving children's car seats suggests that consumers might be better at filtering out bad information than previously thought

IF YOU were told that a particularly delicious-looking ice-cream cone contained dangerous chemicals, then told soon after that it was safe to eat after all, would you still choose it for dessert? So far, studies by behavioural economists have suggested that people have a hard time unlearning what they have previously been told, even after being ordered to do so. In mock trials, for example, jurors are frequently unable to disregard evidence they are later told is inadmissible. But Uri Simonsohn, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, has a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Marketing suggesting that some consumers, at least, are indeed capable of letting go of wrong information.
Mr Simonsohn started by having to dismiss wrong information himself. In early 2007, shortly after he and his wife had bought a car seat for their first child, Consumer Reports magazine published a ranking of car seats according to safety. Unfortunately, the magazine had messed up its usually thorough testing procedure, with cars being crashed at much higher speeds than advertised. (At a 35-mph side-impact crash, the structure of the car seat can make a difference; at 70 mph, the infant’s safety depends much more on the structure of the car.) Two weeks later, Consumer Reports issued a retraction: several car seat brands (including the Simonsohns') were safer than the original rankings suggested.
Mr Simonsohn tracked online auctions of car seats after both the initial rankings and the retractions, to see how prices were affected. The car seats falsely charged with poor performance saw their prices drop, then rebound quickly. By contrast, one seat, which failed both Consumer Reports's original and revised tests, continued to sell more cheaply after the retraction was issued. The car-seat buyers were apparently able to disregard the flawed rankings and pay attention to the correct information. "I was shocked," he says. "Because if there's one product where I would expect people to be overly emotional, it would be child safety."
There are some caveats. It helps, Mr Simonsohn admits, that both the original rankings and the retraction were widely publicised: child-safety issues attract headlines. That the retraction was made swiftly may also have focussed consumers’ attention: a time lapse of months or more might have affected sales more profoundly. Furthermore, parents who buy car seats online may pay more attention to safety rankings than do their peers at a store.
But the results have led Mr Simonsohn to rethink the earlier tests of seemingly wrongheaded consumers. Perhaps the mock jurors refused to give up previous information not out of stubbornness or ignorance but because the experimenters failed to give them sufficient reason to change their minds. Car-seat buyers, in contrast, were willing to accept new information and discard old data because they trusted Consumer Reports—especially when the magazine was confessing a misstep.
This would have implications for more than just behavioural economics. Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children for fear of autism are also concerned about child safety, but have discounted the strong evidence that no link exists. The problem, Mr Simonsohn suggests, might lie not with the new information but with the source: few health agencies inspire as much trust as Consumer Reports.

8-2【7月18日作业】
Arab autocracyThank you and goodbye
For good or ill, change is coming to Egypt and Saudi Arabia soon Jul 15th 2010


THE fate of the Arab world’s two most important states lies in the hands of ageing autocrats. Hosni Mubarak, an 82-year-old air-force general who has ruled Egypt since 1981, is widely reported to be grievously ill. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who assumed the throne of the Arabs’ richest country five years ago but has run the show for longer, is reckoned to be 86. The grim reaper will bring change in both places soon.
Maybe the old men will manage to control their succession. President Mubarak has been preparing the ground for his son, Gamal, to take over (see special report). King Abdullah’s anointed successor, Crown Prince Sultan, one of his 18 surviving brothers, has long been poorly, but there are plenty more where he came from (see article). Decades of repression have ensured that the opposition is quiescent in Egypt and virtually inaudible in Saudi Arabia. But they have also made these countries vulnerable to violent disruption. Transition in autocracies often means instability.
The fate of these two countries matters to the West for two big reasons: energy and security. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been reliable, if flawed, allies. Should they stumble, the West’s interests in the region will be imperilled. That is why those regimes need to be encouraged to liberalise their countries’ economic and political systems further and turn them into places where change brings hope not fear.
What’s wrong with them…
The problem of Arab governance is by no means confined to those big two. In the past few centuries the Arabs, once pre-eminent in a host of skills, from astronomy and algebra to architecture and engineering, have seen their societies stagnate and fester. Though blessed with natural resources, especially the oil that has enriched Arab dynasties and their subservient elites while often leaving the masses in penury, few Arab countries have seen their non-oil economies flourish or their people enjoy the public services or freedoms taken for granted elsewhere.
Of the Arab League’s 22 members, not a single one is a stable and fully fledged democracy. Fragile but sophisticated Lebanon may come nearest, despite its lethal rivalries between sect and clan and failure to get a single national army to control all its territory (see article). Post-Saddam Iraq has had genuine multiparty elections but is mired in corruption, violence and sectarian strife. The Palestinians had a fair election in 2006 but the winners, the Islamists of Hamas, were not allowed to govern. A handful of other countries, such as Morocco and Kuwait, have multiparty systems, but monarchs still rule the roost. And where they have given way to republicans, new dynasties, such as Syria’s today and Libya’s probably tomorrow, still hold sway. Even sub-Saharan Africa has a better record of electoral freedom.
The rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, ancient as they are, have made improvements. Egypt’s economy has belatedly begun to grow quite fast. The Saudi king is educating his people, even women—though he still won’t let them drive a car. He has spent more than $12 billion creating just one new university near the Red Sea port of Jeddah, while pouring many more billions into ambitious projects, such as high-speed railways, that should benefit everyone. But the closed political systems of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the uncertainties of dynastic power-mongering and the corruption inherent in patronage-ridden autocracies still often leads to plotting at the top and frustration that could spill over into anger at the bottom. That becomes more likely as the internet, mobile phones and easier travel make people far less easy to control.
It would be naive to urge or expect either country to become a full-blooded democracy in a trice. Each could descend into chaos, winding up with a fundamentalist version of Islamist rule that would make the present regimes look cuddly by comparison. Many Egyptians, including reform-minded professionals, fear that the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, the unofficial opposition, would never relinquish power once they had won it at the ballot box. Sensible Saudis know that those who sympathise with their compatriot Osama bin Laden would impose an incomparably nastier regime than the present one, if given the freedom to do so.
All the same, the suppression of Egypt’s Muslim Brothers, who have a large following, has been unwise as well as unjust. Thousands of them are in jail; many have been tortured. Leading Brothers repeatedly disavow violence and jihad, insisting that they, like Turkey’s mild Islamists, would hold multiparty elections if they ever won power—and would graciously bow out if the voters told them to. Mr Mubarak must seek to draw the Brothers openly into the parliamentary and perhaps even ministerial fold, and test their sincerity, at first by giving them a chance to run local councils. And in the presidential election due next year, all the obstacles that make it nigh-impossible for a relative outsider, such as Mohamed ElBaradei, a former head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, to compete, should be swept away. As for the Saudis, their king should at least encourage his Allegiance Commission, an inner family body of some 35 princes that is meant to oversee the succession, to skip a generation rather than plod down the geriatric line of the surviving sons of the founding king.

…and what’s to be done
Elections, though vital in the end, are not an early panacea. What the Arabs need most, in a hurry, is the rule of law, independent courts, freeish media, women’s and workers’ rights, a market that is not confined to the ruler’s friends, and a professional civil service and education system that are not in hock to the government, whether under a king or a republic. In other words, they need to nurture civil society and robust institutions. The first task of a new Saudi king should be to enact a proper criminal code.
In the Arab lexicon, the concept of justice means more than democracy. In the end, you cannot have the first without the second. But the systems that now prevail in the Arab world provide for neither.
Leaders

zhangxiaohang1UID: 2705669

9-1 [7.19作业]
Curate's eggs


Jul 16th 2010, 14:37 by The Economist online | NEW YORK

THE second-quarter results posted so far by large American banks have been good in parts, bad in parts, though like the curate’s egg in the famous Punch cartoon, the bad somewhat outweighs the good. The relief that the worst of the crisis has passed—for them, if not their European peers—was palpable. But some dark clouds remain in the sky.

First the good news.  All three of the banks reporting this week (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) beat analysts’ expectations, for what that is worth. And all saw a clear improvement in their loan books, with non-performing loans and charge-offs (of loans viewed as no-hopers) both falling—at JPMorgan, for instance, by 3% and 28% respectively compared with the previous quarter. This has allowed the banks to release some of their loan-loss provisions, the reserves they set aside to cover soured credit.

This looks like more than just a flash in the pan. Citigroup’s net loan losses have now fallen for four straight quarters. That said on a conference call with journalists its chief financial officer, John Gerspach, was considerably more optimistic about emerging markets than America, where mortgage losses could remain stubbornly high. Brian Moynihan, BofA’s chief executive, said loan quality is improving faster than he had expected.

And the bad news? Demand for loans remains slack. Bankers are becoming “very worried” about asset growth in the medium to long term, says one consultant.

Worse, their securities and investment-banking businesses are no longer making money hand over fist, as they did in the first quarter and for much of last year. JPMorgan’s investment bank saw revenues fall by 44% sequentially and by 6% year-on-year. This was partly down to investors curbing their appetites for risk in response to the European debt crisis and the “flash crash”, a sudden market plunge on May 6th. These helped to send volatility to levels that were uncomfortable even for the big marketmakers. A longer-term worry is that higher capital charges and other restrictions will take a permanent chunk out of capital-markets profits.

Less revenue, more regulation
Pessimists will lock on to the fact that overall revenues are falling—at JPMorgan, for instance, by 9.4% from the previous quarter and by 2% from the year before. Perhaps the biggest worry for bankers is the continuing “deleveraging” of balance-sheets, both corporate and personal, and the threat of deflation. With large parts of their businesses still contracting, it is hard to be too optimistic.

Another source of uncertainty is regulation. Now that Congress has passed a financial-reform bill, it will be up to regulatory agencies to write hundreds of new rules. With this process only just beginning, it was hardly surprising that the banks had little new light to cast on the likely costs of this red tape in their earnings calls. These are unlikely to become clear until some time next year.

Read on: The banks' supposedly miraculous contribution to economic growth has been more of a mirage
============================================================================================================）
9-2[7.19作业]

A mirage, not a miracle
The banks' contribution to the economy has been overstated

Jul 15th 2010


THE huge sums earned by banks and their employees over the past 30 years is a recurring puzzle. How has finance done so well for itself and why haven’t its returns been competed away?

Andrew Haldane, the executive director for financial stability at the Bank of England, has co-authored another incisive contribution to this debate in a chapter of a new book* published by the London School of Economics on July 14th. Analysing the recent performance of the banking industry, he concludes that it has been “as much mirage as miracle”.

Mr Haldane and his colleagues start with a statistical oddity. The fourth quarter of 2008 almost saw the meltdown of the global financial system, with banks’ share prices falling by an average of 50%. Yet according to the British national accounts, the same quarter witnessed the fastest-ever increase in the contribution of the financial sector to the country’s economic growth.

That suggests there is something wrong with the calculations. The standard measure is gross value-added—the output of an industry minus the costs of production. That is a pretty easy sum to calculate when it comes to manufacturing. In finance, however, a lot of the gross value-added comes from making loans. Economists calculate this by measuring the difference between the rate charged on loans and a “reference rate”, which is pretty much the risk-free rate.

The consequence of this approach is that when interest margins rise for corporate borrowers, as they did in late 2008, the gross value-added of the banking sector appears to go up. But without adjusting for risk, this measure of the finance sector’s economic worth is meaningless. What really matters is whether the interest margin properly reflects the risk of default. As Mr Haldane comments: “A banking system that does not accurately assess and price risk is not adding much value to the economy.” That is a particular problem given that it seems clear the banks systematically underpriced risk in the period leading up to 2007.

You can look at the numbers in a different way. Was the finance industry using a larger share of the nation’s resources? In the British case, the industry’s share of labour and capital has been on a declining trend since 1990. Combine the gross value-added figure with the declining share of resources, and you might assume finance has enjoyed a productivity miracle over the past 20 years. This miracle could explain the very high returns on equity achieved by the banks and the very high wages given to bank employees (an international, not just a British, phenomenon).

But if the value-added figure is driven by a mistaken assessment of risk, a quite different picture emerges. Mr Haldane suggests that banks increased risk-taking by pursuing three different strategies: using more leverage, both on and off the balance-sheet; holding more assets on their trading books, where capital charges were lower and rising asset prices boosted profits; and writing “out-of-the-money” options, in other words selling insurance policies that offered steady returns in good times but disastrous losses in especially difficult times.

These greater risks brought little economic benefit. In the same book Adair Turner, the head of the Financial Services Authority (Britain’s soon-to-be-restructured regulator), points out that only a minority of bank activity concerns the channelling of savings to businesses investing in productive assets, what you might call the classic raison d’être of banking.

Instead, lending is dominated by the residential- and commercial-property cycle. These cycles are self-reinforcing: more lending pushes up property prices, which encourages more lending. At the margin, the property cycles might lead to the construction of better buildings, but such modest benefits are outweighed by the accompanying financial and economic instability.

The financial industry has done so well for itself, in short, because it has been given the licence to make a leveraged bet on property. The riskiness of that bet was underestimated because almost everyone from bankers through regulators to politicians missed one simple truth: that property prices cannot keep rising faster than the economy or the ability to service property-related debts. The cost of that lesson is now being borne by the developed world’s taxpayers.




* “The Contribution of the Financial Sector: Miracle or Mirage?” by Andrew Haldane, Simon Brennan a

zhangxiaohang1UID: 2705669

10-1 [7.20]
Where has all the greatness gone?
Some Americans want to feel exceptional again. Better not to talk about it

Jul 15th 2010

THIS column wishes respectfully to propose a temporary ban on references in political debate to both American greatness and American exceptionalism. This is not because Lexington denies that America is great and exceptional. It is. The case for the ban is that both terms have been emptied of serious meaning, converted into slogans and pressed into service, especially by the right, as a club with which to bludgeon political opponents. They should be put aside at least until America emerges from its present economic crisis, and perhaps for longer.

Implementing this ban will not be easy. Greatness is part of America’s birthright and lexicon. Its 18th-century founders had no doubt that they were embarking on a daring experiment inspired by the highest ideals of the Enlightenment. In the 19th century came Manifest Destiny, great migrations and the push to the West, civil war and the end of slavery. The 20th brought titanic struggles and famous victories against fascism and communism.

Even today, battered by recession, deep in debt, mired in war, Americans remain proud of their country, and justly so. America still towers over rivals in scientific virtuosity, military power, the vitality of democracy and much else. Polls show that Americans are still among the most patriotic people in the world. This summer 83% told Pew that they were “extremely” or “very” proud to be American.

But taking pride in one’s country and wittering on about its greatness are different things. Glenn Beck, a conservative broadcaster, ended a recent interview thus: “Do you think this is a country of divine providence? A country of American exceptionalism? If you believe those two things to be true, that means God has a special purpose for this land and freedom.”

Talk like this is tiresome. Mr Beck is not advocating piety so much as claiming a divine imprimatur for his own prejudice against big government. Just think what a relief it will be, once Lexington’s ban comes into force, to be able to debate the role of government on its merits, without bringing providence into it.

The ban will also liberate America’s politicians to speak like normal people. At present, failing to lard their speeches with God and greatness can get them into serious trouble.

When Barack Obama visited France last year a British reporter asked the president whether he believed in American exceptionalism. Mr Obama said he did—“just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” You may think that an agreeably tactful answer. And yet some conservatives have turned it into a profane text, one that proves Mr Obama’s unfitness for the great office he holds. More than a year after the event they are still banging on about it. In the Washington Post last week Charles Krauthammer wrote the latest of a stream of articles about the Perfidious Reply. With these words, say his detractors, Mr Obama showed his true colours as a man who does not believe genuinely in America’s greatness and is secretly reconciled to its eventual decline.

What is going on? The simplest explanation for this tempest in a teapot is that Mr Obama’s critics will seize on any perceived error. But it may be that those critics need to hear constant reaffirmations of American greatness because of the doubt planted in their own hearts by the country’s present travails.

This would not be the first time American intellectuals have been troubled by the sense of greatness slipping away. Previous episodes have not always coincided with hardship at home or testing foreign wars. Times of ease and plenty can bring on the same longing. In the 1950s, that golden age, Arthur Schlesinger Jr wrote “The Decline of Greatness”, lamenting the departure of great men and the nation’s descent into bland conformity.

This is why the greatness talk is not only divisive and obfuscatory but also sometimes dangerous. One antidote to ennui is war. In a recent history of American foreign policy, “The Icarus Syndrome”, Peter Beinart draws a comparison between the Kennedy administration and that of George W. Bush. Kennedy was ardent for glory and the cold war provided the arena. In the eyes of some American conservatives, the war against al-Qaeda offered a similar opportunity to answer the call of greatness. In both cases, Mr Beinart argues, the desire to do great deeds and not simply what was necessary led to episodes of overreach and disappointment.


Asking for the moon

When war loses its capacity to exhilarate, seekers after national greatness need something else. Re-enter Mr Krauthammer, fulminating this time against Mr Obama’s sensible decision to downsize the plan he inherited from Mr Bush for America to return to the moon by 2020, and thence to Mars. Would returning to the moon and heading for Mars reconnect Americans with their greatness? Many might think the idea batty in present circumstances. But that, of course, is the whole trouble when greatness, undefined, is made into an objective in its own right.

In 1997 David Brooks, writing then for the Weekly Standard and now at the New York Times, wrote an essay called “A Return to National Greatness”, complaining that America had abandoned high public aspiration and become preoccupied with “the narrower concerns of private life”. It almost doesn’t matter what great task government sets for itself, Mr Brooks said, “as long as it does some tangible thing with energy and effectiveness”.

If that was ever good advice, it is rotten advice now. Americans are not unhappy because they lack an energetic government; many think Mr Obama’s administration too energetic by half. The last thing the country needs is to be distracted from its practical problems by the quest for an elusive greatness. Put such language away, says Lexington. America is indeed a great and exceptional country. But it isn’t talking about it that makes it so.

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10-2[7.20]

A plan to consolidate Greece's banks

A controversial consolidation

Jul 17th 2010, 12:16 by The Economist online


A SURPRISE offer by Piraeus Bank, Greece’s fourth largest, to buy the government’s stakes in two other lenders could be the start of a much-needed consolidation in the country’s banking industry. It could also give a boost to the big privatisation programme that the government is planning, to help cut its crippling debt burden. But the proposal is likely to prove highly controversial.

Piraeus’s boss, Michalis Sallas, a smart and stealthy mover in Greek banking, announced his offer to pay the state ?701m ($900m) in cash for a 33% share of TT (Hellenic Postbank) and a 77% share of ATE (Greek Agricultural Bank) on July 15th. Both banks are losing money, but TT is generally regarded as the apple of the Greek state’s eye because of its solid deposit base. Quite the opposite, ATE has long been used by administrations as something of a trash bin for bad loans. Both institutions also have a symbolic significance. TT is associated with the growth of the Greek petit bourgeoisie: it is a household brand that spells security. Greece’s large agricultural class has emotional ties to ATE that are hard to sever.

According to Piraeus, if the three banks join forces they will form the second-largest lender in the domestic industry, with combined assets of around ?105 billion and deposits of ?64 billion. It talks of cost reductions of up to ?220m and gains from synergies of up to ?100m. However, Standard & Poor’s responded to the news of the offer by putting Piraeus Bank on its watch list for a possible downgrading of its credit rating—despite the deal’s merits in terms of improving Piraeus’ business profile and deposit base:

"...we believe that these benefits would be offset by the higher credit risk that would be embedded in the consolidated entity’s loan book compared with Piraeus’ own credit portfolio. We also believe that the execution risks that would arise from the acquisition would be exacerbated by the current sharp economic contraction and the weak operating environment we expect in Greece for the coming years. Additionally, if the acquisition is completed under the terms of the offer presented by Piraeus, the bank estimates a pro forma solvency ratio for the consolidated entity of 9%, 80 basis points below Piraeus’ current total solvency indicator.”

The Greek finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, just a few hours before the offer was announced. The government has said it will hire independent consultants to assess Mr Sallas’s offer. It is likely to receive rival bids for the bank stakes. It will also have to deal with the public’s likely worries about Piraeus’s proposal.

Like other Greek banks, Piraeus has been getting capital injections from the government since 2008. None has paid back the state yet. So Greek taxpayers may be indignant at the sight of a lender that they rescued spending large amounts of money on a potentially highly profitable deal before it has repaid them. Employees of TT and ATE have already expressed their opposition: on Friday they went on strike in protest at a “bankers’ conspiracy against the property of the Greek people,” warning the government: “Don’t you dare”.

Although the deal is likely to be politically awkward, in principle there is little doubt that Greece’s banking system, and the country’s precarious finances, would benefit greatly from consolidation to produce a smaller number of stronger, more efficient institutions. To satisfy the public’s concerns and get the best value for the taxpayer’s money, instead of negotiating the sales of the state shareholdings in a murky, rumour-driven process—as is usual in Greek public life—the government would do well to follow the letter of the existing legal framework for selling such state assets. Doing things openly and by the book will be a bit of a novelty for a Greek government. But given the long list of privatisations that Mr Papaconstantinou is hoping to push through, the sale of the TT and ATE bank stakes is a good opportunity to start getting better at it.