Task 3. Make a similar guide to the teenagers of Belarus.

 

TEXT 3

Pre-reading Activity

 

Task 1. a) Look up the meaning of the following words and learn them.

Abyss (n), astute (a), augmentation (n), cripple (v), curb (v), evanescence (n), minor (n), retribution (n), shatter (v), staggering (a), stern (a), strive (v), subsequently (adv), hinge on (v), warrant (n)

b) Give your own sentences with these words.

c) Explain the meaning of these phrases: drug doom; crime boom.

Task 2. Answer the following questions.

1. Can you define the term–delinquency?

2. Are you aware of juvenile delinquency problem in Belarus?

3. What are the causes of this phenomenon?

4. What solutions do you find realistic?

Reading Activity

Task 1. (!) Read the article bellow and think of a caption to it.

The society of the Republic of Belarus has a pile-up of problems that require a great deal of efforts to be solved. Juvenile delinquency is one of the urgent problems of Belarus. As any social phenomenon it has its own peculiarities, causes and ways of solution.

The problem of juvenile delinquency in today's Belarus includes a lot of "subproblems". The most important of them are: street vio­lence, drug abuse, and involvement of minors in the organized crime. A whole bunch of articles on mugging by teenagers appears in press today. About 60 percent of all assaults on the streets involve minors. The dangerous increase of the rate of this crime committed by the teenagers may lead to the establishment of relations among people based on regular and fierce display of power.

Drug abuse is another serious problem to be dealt with without delay. About 50 % of all drugs sold today in Belarus are con­sumed by teenagers. Last years Belarus has plunged into the abyss of the "drug doom." Subsequently, it resulted in a significant increase of all other crimes, one of the most dangerous of which is organized crime.

It is widely known that Mafia recruits its members among teenag­ers engaged in street or neighbourhood gangs. To shatter or at least to deal a staggering blow to this anti-social network crippling the young generation is also one of the tasks for the local police to fulfill..

The main cause of the crime boom and, consequently, of the considerable increase in juvenile delinquency rate are the changes taking place in the societies of all former Soviet republics. The collapse of the socialistic system in the country resulted in the evanescence of the social and moral values, which has the integral part of general indoctrination of children from early childhood.

Social instability that ensued was the logical outcome of such an evanescence of values. It was logical because people had no more worthwhile values to strive to achieve except for money and no moral restrictions in accumulating as much wealth as possible.

The destruction of the former soviet economic system and its consequences (e.g. miserable living standards, staggering unemploy­ment rate, etc.) are the superior factors to contribute to the augmen­tation in juvenile delinquency rate. Miserable salaries offered to the teenager employees resulted in the emergence of the belief among youngsters that the really big money can be made only in criminal world. Facing such a large-scale problem the society has to devise the appropriate ways of its solution, otherwise the very existence of it will be threatened.

The first and the most important condition to bring juvenile de­linquency within certain limits is the development of the sound econ­omy and the improvement of the life standard as the consequence. This is sure to enable the emergence of firm social values and the belief that big money can be earned without breaking the law.

The direct measures should also be taken to curb the alarming growth of juvenile delinquency rate. The law should be made as flexible as possible to be adjusted to every case, so that retribution is not regarded by a delinquent as something stupid and unjust. Besides, the court and jail system should be perfected so they would not turn a young offender into a professional and astute criminal.

Evidently, the problem of juvenile delinquency is one of the most topical for the Republic of Belarus of modern days. Its essence has deep social roots and that is why it hinges on every of us to change situation for the better. Hence, we are going to be responsible for both the successful solution of this problem and for the miserable failure of it. Overall, considering juvenile delinquency has both so­cial and economic backgrounds, the key to diminishing its rate is a complex of measures that will be effective only if taken together.

The problem is scrutinized, the ways of its solutions are drafted, so let the every effort be done to raze this ugly and disgusting social phenomenon.

(By Maxim Kostyukovich from his article “Juvenile delinquency in Belarus: problems, causes, solutions” www. Belarustoday.com)

 

Task 2. Scan the article above to complete the following statements.

- The development of the sound economy is …

- The law should be made so that ….

- The problem of juvenile delinquency consists of such “subproblems”

as ….

- The collapse of the former soviet economic system resulted in….

- Mafia recruts its members …

- The court and the jail system should be perfected so …

 

Post-reading Activity

Task 1. a) Work in pairs. State the main themes of the article and their rhemes;

b) Write down the outline of the article in different forms (noun phrases, questions, statements).

Task 2. Agree or disagree with the following statements. (Give your reasons why.)

1. The police aren’t polite to young people.

2. We should have strong punishments.

3. Too many criminals are never caught.

4. Graffiti is often just the starting point for much more serious delinquent behaviour.

Task 3. a) Look at the list of “crimes”. Rate each one on a scale from 1 – 10. (1 is minor misdemeanour, 10 is a very serious crime)

a) driving in excess of the speed limit;

b) drinking and driving;

c) common assault (e.g. fight in a discotheque);

d) malicious wounding (e.g. stabbing someone in a fight);

e) murdering;

f) smoking marijuana;

g) selling drugs (such as heroin);

h) stealing $ 1.000 from a bank by fraud;

i) stealing $ 1.000 worth of goods from someone’s home;

j) rape;

k) shoplifting;

l) possession of a gun without a license.

 

b) Work in pairs. Compare your results and explain your decision.

Task 4. Prepare a short talk to express your idea on the ways to diminish the rate of juvenile delinquency in the country.

T E X T 4

Pre-reading Activity

 

Task 1. Before you read the text give your opinion on the following questions.

1. If you were to enumerate challenges facing human society now, would you include terrorism into your list? Give your reasons why.

2. What is terrorism?

3. Who are terrorists?

4. What is the main aim of terrorist activity?

5. Can we speak about the basic contours of a new world order that took shape in the struggle of the anti-terror coalition? Give your reasons why.

Task 2. Discuss your answers in pairs.

Reading Activity

(!) Read the text and

a) find the answers to the above questions;

b) state the topic of the text and its main idea;

c) name the key-words or phrases to support the main idea

 

TERRORISM

Terrorism is the use of violence, or the threat of violence, to create a climate of fear in a given population. Terrorist violence targets ethnic of religious groups, governments, political parties, corporations, and media enterprises. Organizations that engage in acts of terror are almost always small in size and limited in resources compared to the populations and institutions they oppose. Through publicity and fear generated by their violence, they seek to magnify their influence and power to effect political change on either a local or an international scale.

The deliberate killing of civilians to intimidate the civilian population or government is one of the worst features of contemporary terrorism and can clearly be distinguished from the type of clandestine warfare waged by resistance groups or insurgency movements against official and military targets. By their actions the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) are terrorist organizations. But one would not use the term to describe the Polish and French underground resistance movements of World War II. Terrorism, as sociologists see it is a form of deviance that overlaps with regular military actions, and indeed different people will not necessarily agree as to whether any particular violent act is a case of terrorism or not. One person’s “terrorist” is another person’s “freedom fighter”. And many of the methods of terrorism have been adapted by armies for regular use; examples are “search and destroy missions” into enemy territory, as well as many guerrilla tactics. When governments engage in illegal and clandestine kidnapping and murder to intimidate their people - as in the case of the Nazis in Germany - the term “state terrorism” is appropriate.

One important characteristic of modern terrorism is its quest for spectacular horror effects in order to attract media coverage. Terrorist atrocities like the PLO’s midair destruction of civilian airliners and murder of helpless athletes at the 1972 Olympics and school children were perpetrated to publicize a cause. Most of the victims of the Italian Red&Brigades and the German Baader-Meinhog gang were selected for symbolic reasons. The choice of New-York City’s World Trade Center as the target of terrorists in 1993 and 2001 was presumed to have been made for similar reasons.

Another characteristic of modern terrorism is its international dimension - the ability of terrorists to slip across national frontiers, the support given to certain terrorist groups by a few countries and logistical ties that exist between terrorist groups of widely divergent ideologies and objectives. The 1985 hijacking by Palestinians of the Italian cruise ship Archille Lauro off Egypt, as well as the 1994 hijacking of the Russian cruise ship by Chechens, dramatized international ramification of terrorism.

The beginning of the 21 century has been the beginning of the international struggle against terrorism. The attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington brutally exposed how vulnerable open societies are. The extent of the violence, the perpetrators’ logistic back-up and their cross-border strategy make it necessary for international community to take legal instruments a stage further, to give top priority to the safety of all citizens and the defense of democratic values.

Guidelines for the future

Today there are many challenges to be faced: ethnic and religious rivalries, the decline of nation states, violation of human rights and terrorist attacks. All these new dangers force global society to adapt to new tasks.

In democracies, the need to protect civil liberties, the difficulty of proving conspiracy and the devastating nature of terrorist outrages have shifted the emphasis from deterrence to prevention. Today, by general consensus the most effective means of frustrating terrorist activity is through detailed intelligence obtained primarily by penetration of terrorist networks. Countries pledged themselves to take joint action against terrorism, they promised to deny terrorist suspects entry into their countries, to bring about close cooperation between the police and security forces in their countries and to cooperate in a number of other ways.

The one lesson to be learned from “Afghanistan” is that it would be criminal, indeed foolhardy, to ignore the fact that while Bin Laden manipulates the feelings of hundreds of millions of people for his own false ends, these feelings nevertheless do exist. There is a connection between the alienation of many Muslims and the unresolved Palestine issue in the same way as there is a connection between the misery of countless people and their readiness to pin the blame for their situation on the industrialized nations. Globalization improved many people’s prospects, whether in the North or the South. Yet many people couldn’t keep up and are now limping along, without hope, behind those who are storming ahead. There must be greater efforts to give them specific help.

 

Post-reading Activity