The Gentle Barn: A Place Where Animals, and People, Can Find Healing

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Also: a listener in Ghana asks about the Marshall Plan that aided Europe after World War Two. And music from Mary Chapin Carpenter's new album, ''The Calling.'' Transcript of radio broadcast:

HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

We answer a question about the Marshall Plan …

Play music from Mary Chapin Carpenter …

And report about a place that helps animals heal.

Gentle Barn

Gentle Barn is a place where abused animals can find a home. Ellie Laks started Gentle Barn in nineteen ninety-nine. Faith Lapidus has more about this special place.

FAITH LAPIDUS:

Like many people, Ellie Laks loves animals. She has turned that love into an effort to save abused animals and help young people at the same time.

Ellie Laks started the Gentle Barn in 1999

Gentle Barn is a ranch on more than two hectares of land in Santa Clarita, California. It is a place where abused animals can find shelter and care. Miz Laks has rescued sixty farm animals including horses, cows, pigs, sheep, chickens and turkeys. Some had been raised for food. Others were in petting zoos where they did not receive the care they needed. All have been saved from some form of abuse.

Ellie, her husband, Jay Weiner, and others provide treatment and care for the animals at Gentle Barn. Twenty to thirty people offer to work with the animals without pay. The animals usually grow to accept and love people. And they build close relationships with their keepers.

Visitors can touch and hold animals they would normally never have a chance to see. As many as three hundred visitors come to Gentle Barn each week. Most are young people ages four to eighteen. Some are from inner city schools. Some are children with special needs. Some of the children were abused or come from families with problems.

Ellie Laks says the animals provide examples for the young people that abuse can be overcome. She says young people see a different side of themselves when they are near animals. They feel they can develop a connection with an animal whose story is similar to their own.

Since it opened, Gentle Barn has had more than one hundred thousand visitors. Ellie Laks and Jay Weiner dream of some day opening Gentle Barns all over the world.

You can visit Gentle Barn and read the stories of many of the animals online at www.gentlebarn.org.

The Marshall Plan

HOST:

Our VOA Listener question this week comes from Ghana. David Dakura asks us to explain the Marshall Plan.

The Marshall Plan was part of an American policy to help Europe recover after the Second World War in the nineteen forties. The war had destroyed the economies of many countries in Europe.

The United States and its allies were concerned that communist governments would take control of many of these countries unless they took action.

George Marshall at Harvard where he announced a plan to aid Europe

First, Congress agreed to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Greece and Turkey. Then, President Truman and his advisers developed a plan to rebuild the economies of European countries. Secretary of State George Marshall visited Europe in nineteen forty-seven. He was shocked by what he saw. Europe was ruined. People were cold and starving because of a lack of fuel and food. And they were starting to suffer from diseases like tuberculosis.

Secretary Marshall announced his plan to the graduating class at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He promised that the United States would do "whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world."

Marshall Plan aid was offered to all countries in Europe. The Soviet Union and its allies refused the help. But sixteen other countries welcomed the aid. The Economic Cooperation Administration of the Marshall Plan worked with these countries from nineteen forty-eight until nineteen fifty-two. It spent thirteen billion dollars. The aid included food, fuel, raw materials, goods, loans, machines and advisers.

The Marshall Plan was a great success. It started huge economic growth in Europe. Agricultural production increased by ten percent. Industrial production increased by thirty-five percent. And stronger economies helped prevent communists from gaining control of the governments in France and Italy.

Some Europeans criticized the Marshall Plan. They said it increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in the years after the war. Yet few people could argue that the Marshall Plan was one of the most successful international economic programs in history. George Marshall was recognized for his work in nineteen fifty-three when he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

For twenty years, Mary Chapin Carpenter has been making records that combine the sounds of rock, folk, and country music. Her tenth album, “The Calling,” is filled with warm and personal songs. A few even have a strong political message. Barbara Klein has more.

(MUSIC)

BARBARA KLEIN:

That was the song “Houston.” Carpenter sings about the tragic story of Hurricane Katrina victims left homeless after the storm hit in two thousand five. The person in the song remembers a home and way of life that no longer exist.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

Mary Chapin Carpenter grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and now lives on a farm in Virginia with her husband. She often writes songs that deal with important questions about love, beliefs, responsibility and growing older. The words to her songs are rich with images, details, and observations. She writes about personal feelings without seeming too emotional.

Here is the title song of the album, “The Calling.” Carpenter sings about the ways people look for and come to understand their purpose in life.

(MUSIC)

We close with “On With the Song.” Mary Chapin Carpenter honors the three female musicians of the country music band, the Dixie Chicks. The Dixie Chicks were rejected and even threatened by many listeners for criticizing the war in Iraq and President Bush. In this song, Carpenter expresses her support for the brave musicians. She calls them “three little stars” in a big sky who fight for what they believe in and give others hope.

(MUSIC:"On With the Song")

HOST:

I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today. It was written by Dana Demange, Mario Ritter and Nancy Steinbach. Dana Demange was our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Please include your full name and mailing address. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

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A Brief History of the World Trade Organization

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A listener in Vietnam, the newest member, asks about the WTO. Transcript of radio broadcast:

Correction Attached

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

A question from Vietnam. Listener Nguyen Minh Tan wants to know more about the World Trade Organization and its history.

Pascal Lamy is WTO director-general

The World Trade Organization came into existence in nineteen ninety-five. It operates a system of trade rules. It serves as a place for nations to settle disputes and negotiate agreements to reduce trade barriers. The newest of its one hundred fifty members, Vietnam, joined in January.

But the roots of the W.T.O. date back to World War Two and the years that followed.

In nineteen forty-four, a meeting took place in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire: the International Monetary Conference. There, negotiators agreed to create the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But they could not agree on an organization to deal with international trade.

Three years later, in nineteen forty-seven, twenty-three nations approved the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT. It was meant to be temporary. Trade negotiations under GATT were carried out in a series of talks called rounds. The first round lowered import taxes on one-fifth of world trade. Later rounds produced additional cuts, and negotiators added more issues.

The sixth round began in nineteen sixty-three. It was called the Kennedy Round after the murder of President John F. Kennedy. The results included an agreement against trade dumping. This is when one country sells a product in another country at an unfairly low price.

The eighth round of talks began in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in nineteen eighty-six. The Uruguay Round lasted almost twice as long as planned. In all, one hundred twenty-three nations took part in seven-and-a-half years of work. They set time limits for future negotiations. They also agreed to create a permanent system to settle trade disputes.

In April of nineteen ninety-four, most of those one hundred twenty-three nations signed an agreement. It replaced GATT with the World Trade Organization.

The W.T.O. launched a new round on development issues in Doha, Qatar, in November of two thousand one. These talks were supposed to end by January of two thousand five. But negotiators could not agree on issues involving agricultural protections. The current round has been suspended since last July.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. Next week, more about the W.T.O. I'm Bob Doughty.

---

Correction: As noted in part two of this report, negotiations in the Doha round of world trade talks restarted early this year after being suspended in July 2006.

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US History: Ford Leads Nation Through Difficult Days of Watergate

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One month after Gerald Ford became president, he pardoned Richard Nixon of any crimes for which he might have been responsible. Ford was the only vice president and president not elected to either office. Transcript of radio broadcast:

VOICE ONE:

This is Mary Tillotson.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Steve Ember with THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States.

(MUSIC)

Gerald Ford is sworn-in by Chief Justice Warren Burger. At center is Ford's wife, Betty.

Today, we tell about the administration of the thirty-eighth president of the United States, Gerald Ford.

VOICE ONE:

Gerald Ford was sworn-in as president on August ninth, nineteen seventy-four. The day before, President Richard Nixon had announced that he would resign.

If he had not resigned, he probably would have been removed from office. A Congressional investigation had found evidence that Nixon violated the Constitutional rights of the American people during the Watergate case.

The new president spoke about Watergate, and what it meant to America, on the day he was sworn-in.

FORD: "Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. ... As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate -- more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars -- let us restore the 'Golden Rule' to our political process and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate."

VOICE TWO:

Gerald Ford became the only president in American history to serve as vice president and president without being elected.

Richard Nixon nominated him for vice president in October, nineteen seventy-three. That was when Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned. When Nixon himself resigned, Ford became president.

Ford was a long-time Congressman from the state of Michigan. He was well-liked. He had been a good student and a good athlete. He studied economics and political science at the University of Michigan. The he studied law at Yale University. During World War Two, he served as a Navy officer in the Pacific battle area.

VOICE ONE:

After the war, Ford entered politics. He was a member of the Republican Party. He was first elected to Congress in nineteen forty-eight. He won re-election twelve times. Other Republican members of the House of Representatives elected him minority leader during the presidential administration of Democrat Lyndon Johnson.

Ford was still minority leader when Republican Richard Nixon was elected president in nineteen sixty-eight. In his leadership position, he helped win approval of a number of Nixon's proposals. He became known for his strong loyalty to the president. It was no surprise, then, that Nixon named Ford vice president.

VOICE TWO:

Gerald Ford became president suddenly. Almost as suddenly, he had to decide what to do about former President Nixon. After Nixon left office, he could have been charged with crimes for his part in the Watergate case. Instead, one month after Nixon resigned, President Ford settled the question. He pardoned Nixon of any crimes for which he might have been responsible.

Announcing his pardon of Richard Nixon

The pardon made many Americans angry. Some believed Nixon should have been put on trial. They thought he might have answered more questions about Watergate if he had not been pardoned.

The new president did what he thought was right. He said he pardoned Nixon to end divisions in the country. For a while, however, his action seemed to increase the divisions.

VOICE ONE:

Anger about the pardon was still strong when President Ford took another highly disputed action. He pardoned the men who illegally escaped military service in the Vietnam War. Most were not sent to prison. Instead, they were permitted to perform work for their communities. Many of the men did not accept the president's offer, however. They remained in hiding in the United States. Or they remained in other countries where they had fled.

President Ford received much better public support when he asked Congress to control and limit the activities of the nation's intelligence agencies. He hoped this would prevent future administrations from interfering with the Constitutional rights of citizens.

VOICE TWO:

Other problems also caused trouble for President Ford. As vice president, he had described inflation as America's 'public enemy number one'. He proposed several measures to fight it. As president, he was forced to cancel some of these measures because there was an economic recession.

During the recession, inflation decreased. But fewer Americans had jobs. Unemployment in nineteen seventy-five was at its highest rate since the great economic depression of the nineteen thirties.

VOICE ONE:

In foreign policy, Ford usually took the advice of Henry Kissinger. Kissinger served as President Nixon's assistant for national security and as secretary of state. He kept those jobs under President Ford.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

Kissinger won much praise for his service to Richard Nixon. Yet he received much criticism, too. He was accused of interfering with civil liberties in the name of national security. And he was accused of supporting the overthrow of the leftist government of Salvador Allende in Chile.

Still, President Ford was pleased that Kissinger would remain in the administration. Even Kissinger's worst critics admitted that he was excellent negotiator.

VOICE TWO:

At the time Ford became president, America's situation in the world was generally hopeful. Former President Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had signed two agreements to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. Also, relations with China were less tense than before.

However, American policy in parts of Southeast Asia had failed completely.

VOICE ONE:

American involvement in the Vietnam war officially ended the year before Ford became president. But fighting continued between South Vietnam and communist forces from North Vietnam. The peace agreement signed by the United States and North Vietnam in nineteen seventy-three left South Vietnam to defend itself. By nineteen seventy-five, it became clear that South Vietnamese forces were in danger of defeat.

President Ford tried to prevent a total communist take-over of the south. He asked Congress to approve seven hundred-million dollars in military aid for South Vietnam. The American people, however, were tired of paying for the war. Their representatives in Congress said no.

VOICE TWO:

What happened in Vietnam was like a bad dream. Communist forces moved into Saigon, capital of the south. Ford ordered the rescue of American citizens and of Vietnamese who had supported American efforts. Few who saw people trying to escape Saigon will ever forget the day.

It was April thirtieth, nineteen seventy-five. Terrified Vietnamese were screaming for help at the American embassy. Everyone was pushing, trying to escape. Some who reached the embassy's roof passed their children forward. At least, they hoped, they could get the children to safety on American military helicopters. Others held on to the helicopters from the outside as the overloaded aircraft tried to take off.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The Ford administration also faced trouble in the Middle East. Israel and an alliance of Arab nations had fought two wars in about ten years. After the war of nineteen seventy-three, Henry Kissinger led negotiations to settle some issues.

Israel agreed to give up some of the territory it had seized during the fighting. In return, the United States made a promise. It would not recognize or deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization as long as the P-L-O failed to meet certain conditions. In September, nineteen seventy-five, Israel and Egypt signed a ceasefire agreement. They also agreed to permit American civilians to act as observers along the ceasefire lines.

Henry Kissinger received widespread praise for his peacemaking efforts. Yet the situation in the Middle East remained tense.

VOICE TWO:

The Ford administration could not fix all the problems of the world. Still, as the presidential election campaign of nineteen-seventy-six began, things seemed better. The United States was not fighting any wars. Unemployment was high. But inflation had improved a little. Most important, Gerald Ford had led the country through the difficult days after Watergate.

The election will be our story next time.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Cynthia Kirk. This is Mary Tillotson.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States.

---

Editor's Note: Gerald Ford died December 26, 2006, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of 93.

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How Foreign Citizens Become Doctors in the US

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We answer a question from a doctor in Vietnam in Part 39 of our Foreign Student Series. Transcript of radio broadcast:

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

We continue our Foreign Student Series this week with a question from a doctor at a hospital in Vietnam. Tran Kinh Thanh in Ho Chi Minh City asks how a foreign doctor can become an American doctor.

One way is to complete a medical residency in the United States. A residency is a period of hospital training for medical school graduates.

To be accepted, foreign-trained doctors need approval from the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates. The process involves passing several tests. After that, foreign doctors can receive a visa to stay in the United States, at least for the training period.

Practicing medicine in the United States also involves other steps.

But the first thing that foreign-trained doctors have to do is make sure they attended a recognized medical school. It has to be listed in the FAIMER International Medical Education Directory. FAIMER is the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research.

If their school is not listed, then foreign-trained doctors cannot be approved for a residency. One solution is to go back to medical school -- an American medical school.

One hundred twenty-five schools in the United States belong to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The group says more than one thousand one hundred foreign citizens applied for the current school year. One-fourth of them were admitted last fall.

Almost all medical schools in the United States require applicants to report scores from the Medical College Admission Test.

Future doctors in the United States traditionally complete four years of medical school after undergraduate school. Then, as residents, they treat patients under the supervision of experienced doctors. A residency is generally between three and seven years. The first year is called an internship.

The Association of American Medical Colleges publishes a book called Medical School Admissions Requirements. The newest one is for two thousand eight-two thousand nine. The guide has details about every school as well as information for foreign students.

The book costs twenty-five dollars and can be ordered through the association's Web site.

For a link to that site, go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find all of the earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series on higher education in the United States.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Bob Doughty.

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Grasping Roots as a Way to Understand Words and Build Vocabulary

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: English teacher Nina Weinstein talks about building vocabulary by understanding root words.

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Basically half of all the words in the English language come from other languages. But the majority of those words come from the same source: Latin and Greek. And so if we learn certain Latin and Greek root words, we have kind of a window into the English language so that we're not always using dictionaries to help us understand words."

RS: "So we've got a big key into our language here. Can we talk about some of these?"

NINA WEINSTEIN: Let's imagine that we learn a couple of root words. One simple one is tri, t-r-i, which means three. The next one is let, l-e-t, which comes at the end of a word, and that means small. So if we just start with this and we imagine people talking, the first person says, 'Has she had her baby yet?' The second person says, 'Yes, she had triplets.'"

RS: "Three little ones."

AA: "Three babies."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Exactly. This is a very simple example for us to learn the pieces, but we want to apply it to other things. So let's imagine a book and a booklet. What would be the difference?"

AA: "A small book."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "A small book, exactly. A movie star and a movie starlet?"

RS: "How can you be a small movie star?"

AA: "Haven't you ever heard that term, starlet?"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Starlet -- less important. When we think of a celebrity, we say that person's very big."

AA: "A starlet would be a small star."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "It would be a small star. So that person hadn't achieved that much fame yet or importance in their field."

RS: "And what are some other hints that you haven't -- tri is one, it means three; let means small."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "OK, we can learn sext, s-e-x-t, which means six, and we can apply it to the example I gave in the beginning. We talked about triplets. So triplets are three babies. How many babies are sextuplets?"

RS: "Oh my gosh."

AA: "That would be six."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "It would be six."

RS: "That's a lot of babies."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "That's a lot of babies. And we can apply that to another field now. Let's say we're talking about music and we're talking about musical notes. How many notes are sextuplets?"

RS and AA: "Six."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Right, but we have the l-e-t on the end, so what does the l-e-t do to the word?"

RS: "Little notes."

AA: "Oh. So like ... "

RS: "So six little notes."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Six little notes as opposed to ... four regular-sized notes. Another common example is cide, c-i-d-e, which means kill; herb, which means plant, h-e-r-b; and carn, c-a-r-n, which means meat. So we learned herb and cide, so what does an herbicide do?"

AA: "Kills plants."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "What does an insecticide do?"

AA: "Kills insects."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Right. And I didn't teach you insect. So we can apply this piece that we just learned to common words as well, as we break these words apart. We can talk about a carnivore. What does a carnivore eat?"

RS: "Meat."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Meat. What does an herbivore eat?"

RS: "Plants."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Plants. What does an omnivore eat?"

RS: "Both."

AA: "It eats everything."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Exactly. What does v-o-r-e mean, vore?"

AA: "Like voracious? It has something to do with eating."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Exactly. So v-o-r-e means eat. And so now you mentioned the word voracious. We can apply what you just said to the word voracious. So we've got v-o-r. It doesn't have to be spelled exactly the same way as we present the root. But if we see enough of the piece to recognize it, then that is the piece that we're going to assume it is. And we try it. If it doesn't work, then we try something else.

"So one of the other tools that I give my students is to ask a simple question when they don't understand a word. They should just ask themselves if the word gives them a positive or a negative feeling. And sometimes this is enough to understand the sentence."

RS: "They can figure it out [from] context."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Exactly. And for test-takers this is really, really important. I just took a test in a totally different field where I had absolutely no background and I didn't have a lot of time to study for it, so I just used my root words to kind of help me out with the test questions and I passed it -- really more based on my knowledge of root words and vocabulary words than my knowledge of this field."

AA: "Can we ask what the field was?"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Yes. I just got my amateur radio license."

AA: "Hey, good for you."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Thank you."

AA: "So now you can talk to people around the world on your radio."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Well, as soon as I buy a radio, yes. I think I might need that, I don't know. [Laughter]"

RS: English teacher and author Nina Weinstein. One of her books is called "Vocabulary Tools," available through Amazon.com. And you can find our previous segments with Nina at our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster.

AA: And that's it for Wordmaster this week. Our e-mail address is word@voanews.com. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

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What Keeps Works of Shakespeare So Alive and Well After 400 Years?

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How events and cultural influences shaped his writing, and how his art, in turn, has influenced language and popular culture. Second of two programs. Transcript of radio broadcast:

VOICE ONE:

I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Barbara Klein with Explorations in VOA Special English. Today, we complete our story about the influential English writer William Shakespeare. He wrote plays and poems during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. They remain very popular today.

VOICE TWO:

Last week, we talked about Shakespeare's history, his plays and his poems. Today, we talk about the events and cultural influences that affected Shakespeare and his art. We also discuss the countless ways his works have influenced language and popular culture.

(SOUND)

Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes in ''Shakespeare in Love''

GWYNETH PALTROW: "Master Shakespeare. Good sir, I heard you are a poet. But a poet of no words?"

VOICE ONE:

That was part of a dancing scene from the popular nineteen ninety-eight movie "Shakespeare in Love." The film suggests one way in which Shakespeare might have been influenced to write "Romeo and Juliet:" because of his relationship with a brave and lovely woman. The movie is only very loosely based on real events, but it is a wonderful story.

VOICE TWO:

Many of Shakespeare's works were influenced by earlier writings. During this time, students would probably have learned several ancient Roman and Greek plays. It was not unusual for writers to produce more current versions of these works. For example, in his play "The Comedy of Errors" Shakespeare borrows certain structural details from the ancient Roman playwright Plautus.

VOICE ONE:

For his tragic play "Macbeth," Shakespeare most likely used a work on Scottish history by Raphael Holinshed for information. It is also no accident that this play about a Scottish king was written a few years after James the First became King of England in sixteen-oh-three. This new ruler was from Scotland and London was alive with Scottish culture. Shakespeare may have borrowed from other writers, but the intensity of his imagination and language made the plays his own.

VOICE TWO:

Shakespeare was also influenced by the world around him. He describes the sights and sounds of London in his plays. His works include observations about current political struggles, the fear of diseases, and the popular language of the city's tradesmen and other professionals.

Shakespeare's knowledge of the English countryside is also clear. His works include descriptions of deep forests, local flowers, and the ancient popular traditions of rural people.

VOICE ONE:

Shakespeare became a well-known writer during a golden age of theater. His years of hard work paid off. Over the years, he invested income from his acting company by purchasing land and other property. He retired to the countryside a wealthy man. William Shakespeare died in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon in sixteen-sixteen at the age of fifty-two. While many plays by other writers of his time have been forgotten, Shakespeare and his art live on.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

It would be impossible to list all of the ways in which Shakespeare's works have influenced world culture. But we can give a few important examples. The first example would have to include his great effect on the English language. During his time, the English language was changing. Many new words from other languages were being added.

VOICE ONE:

Shakespeare used his sharp mind and poetic inventiveness to create hundreds of new words and rework old ones. For example, he created the verb "to torture" and the noun forms of "critic," "mountaineer" and "eyeball." Many common expressions in English come from his plays. These include "pomp and circumstance" from "Othello"; "full circle" from "King Lear", and "one fell swoop" from "Macbeth."

VOICE TWO:

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is the home of the largest collection of Shakespearean materials in the world. The Library also has many other fine examples of books and art from this early modern period. In March of two thousand seven the Folger organized an exhibit called "Shakespeare in American Life" to celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary.

VOICE ONE:

The many objects on display show some expected as well as some surprising ways in which Shakespeare has influenced past and present culture. You can learn about the many Shakespeare societies that have formed over the years in the United States. You can see which famous American politicians liked to quote his works.

Or, you can read about the many movie versions of his plays. One vegetable company even named itself after the Shakespearian character Falstaff to sell its brussels sprouts.

VOICE TWO:

The list of cultural creations influenced by Shakespeare is almost endless. From paintings to television to music and dance, Shakespeare is well represented. For example, the nineteenth century "Otello" by Giuseppe Verdi is an opera version of the tragic play "Othello." It is about a ruler who believes wrongly that his wife has been with another man. One famous song from this opera includes the wife, Desdemona, mournfully singing "Ave Maria."

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Over a century later, the American songwriter Cole Porter transformed the Shakespeare comedy "The Taming of the Shrew" into the musical play "Kiss Me Kate." The musical was later made into a movie. Songs like "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" are popular favorites.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen fifty-seven the famous jazz musician Duke Ellington released "Such Sweet Thunder." In the song "The Telecasters" Duke Ellington musically recreates the three witches in Shakespeare's "Macbeth." Ellington uses three trombone instruments. His use of silent breaks adds a special tension to the song.

(SOUND: "The Telecasters")

VOICE ONE:

Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondhei

m worked together on a modern version of "Romeo and Juliet." Their popular musical play took place on the West Side of New York City. The opposing groups are a gang of young people and a group of new immigrants. The award-winning movie version came out in nineteen sixty-one. Here the main character Maria sings about the happiness of being in love in "I Feel Pretty."

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

A poster from the 1976 Shakespeare Festival of Dallas

It is not just new versions of the plays that live on in popular culture. Shakespeare's plays have been translated into every major language in the world. All across the United States, the plays are performed in schools, theaters and festivals. There are over one hundred Shakespeare festivals and many permanent theaters that perform his works. In Washington, D.C. alone two theaters perform the plays of Shakespeare and other writers of his time.

We leave you with words of praise by Ben Jonson, a playwright who lived during Shakespeare's time. Mister Jonson knew long ago that the works of Shakespeare would hold their magic through the ages.

(MUSIC)

VOICE THREE:

"Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
"To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
"He was not of an age, but for all time!"

VOICE ONE:

This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Barbara Klein. Our reader was Shep O'Neal. You can read and listen to this program on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for Explorations in VOA Special English.

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Multivitamins Urged for All Pregnant Women in Developing Countries

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Scientists report a drop in low birth-weight babies in pregnant women in Tanzania who took vitamins every day. Transcript of radio broadcast:

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

A recent study in Tanzania found that when pregnant women took vitamins every day,

fewer babies were born too small.

Babies that weigh less than two and one-half kilograms at birth have a greater risk of dying. Those that survive are more likely to experience problems with their development. And experts say that as adults they have a higher risk of diseases including heart disease and diabetes.

The World Health Organization estimates that every year twenty million babies are born with low birth weight. Nine out of ten of them are born in developing countries.

The new study took place in Dar es Salaam. Four thousand two hundred pregnant women received multivitamins. The pills contained all of the vitamins in the B group along with vitamins C and E. They also contained several times more iron and folate than the levels advised for women in developed nations. Pregnant women especially in poor countries may find it difficult to get enough vitamins and minerals from the foods in their diet.

The scientists compared the findings with results from a group of four thousand women who did not receive the vitamins.

A report by the scientists, from the United States and Tanzania, appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. Wafaie Fawzi of the Harvard University School of Public Health led the study.

None of the women in the study had H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The scientists reported earlier that daily multivitamins were a low-cost way to reduce fetal deaths in pregnant women infected with H.I.V.

The earlier work in Tanzania also found improvement in the mothers in their number of blood cells known as lymphocytes. Lymphocytes increase the body's immunity against infection.

The new study in pregnant women who were not infected with the AIDS virus found that multivitamins reduced the risk of low birth weight. Just under eight percent of the babies born to women who took the multivitamins weighed less than two thousand five hundred grams. The rate was almost nine and one-half percent in the group of women who received a placebo, an inactive pill, instead of the vitamins.

But the vitamins did not do much to reduce the rates of babies being born too early or dying while still a fetus. Still, the researchers say multivitamins should be considered for all pregnant women in developing countries.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. I'm Steve Ember.

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US Urges Chinese to Accept New Rules for Food Safety

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American and Chinese officials deal with food safety issue at trade talks. Transcript of radio broadcast:

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

The United States has urged China to accept new safety rules for its food and drug exports. American officials said the rules would include a new list of Chinese exporters.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt made the statements. They spoke the day after high-level trade talks between the two nations.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue in Washington

The Americans met last week in Washington with a Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi.

The United States Food and Drug Administration said inspectors rejected more than one hundred shipments of food imports from China during April alone. The inspectors rejected them for being unclean or containing harmful substances.

China has a lot to lose if people fear its food and drugs. The nation earns an estimated thirty billion dollars yearly in food and drug exports. Companies in the United States would also suffer. For example, American companies depend on China for large amounts of apple juice.
Last week, United States health inspectors began examining toothpaste from China. The government acted after tubes of the teeth-cleaning substance were sent to Panama and the Dominican Republic. The toothpaste was found to contain diethylene glycol, a deadly chemical. But no deaths linked to the toothpaste have been reported.

In recent months, wheat flour produced in China for use in pet food sickened or killed many dogs and cats in the United States and Canada.

Critics of Chinese imports suspect that Chinese companies placed the industrial chemical melamine in the wheat flour to increase the amount of protein.

Worries increased when chicken, fish and pork in the United States were also found to contain melamine. The animals got the melamine in their feed. The chemical is used to make plastics and fertilizers. It is not meant for human food.

There also have been incidents of bad effects from foods made and used inside China. For example, a number of babies died because of falsely marked baby milk. Earlier this month, China announced new measures to make food companies improve conditions.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jeri Watson. You can read scripts and download audio from our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

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Report Says Arctic Sea Ice Is Melting More Quickly Than Thought

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Also: experts say an extremely rare big cat is close to disappearing from the wild. And a guide to the different ways that bones break. Transcript of radio broadcast:

VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. On our program this week, we will tell about a new study of the Arctic Ocean.

Amur leopard

We will also tell about a big cat that animal experts say is close to disappearing from the wild. And, we will talk about broken bones and how to treat them.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

A new report says sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting more quickly than expected. American scientists say the ice is melting even faster than computer programs had estimated.

The scientists work for the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado. Results of their study were reported on Geophysical Research Letters, a website of the American Geophysical Union.

Scientists know that climate change has a major effect on the Arctic Ocean partly because sea ice is disappearing. They also know that areas of open seawater are expanding. Such areas are known to take in sunlight and increase temperatures. Scientists say this has helped to cause the loss of the Arctic's ice cover.

VOICE TWO:

For the study, the American scientists compared eighteen computer programs with observations made by satellites and other instruments. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used the computer programs to prepare its two thousand seven estimates of climate change.

The computer programs gave estimates of the amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean in the month of September. September is when the Arctic has the least ice, after the warm, summer months. The computer estimates suggested an ice loss of two and a half percent for every ten-year period between nineteen fifty-three and two thousand six.

Newer studies of the Arctic have used information gathered by aircraft, satellites and ships. This information showed a loss of September ice cover of almost eight percent for every ten-year period between nineteen fifty-three and last year. This means the ice is disappearing about thirty years faster than the computer programs estimated.

VOICE ONE:

The scientists say the programs might not have recognized the full effect of increased carbon dioxide and other gasses in Earth's atmosphere. They say their study suggests the gasses may have more of an effect than had been thought.

Computer estimates were wrong about how fast Arctic sea ice is melting

The study also measured the amount of ice lost in the Arctic in March. That is when the most Arctic sea ice is present. It showed the loss of ice in March is much less than the loss in September. Yet the computer estimates were wrong about how much. The new report says the March loss was almost two percent for every ten-year period between nineteen fifty-three and two thousand six. That is three times more than the loss suggested by the computer programs.

Study organizers say their findings confirm that the Arctic's ice cover is melting…and that this is happening faster than had been thought. They also say the study shows that summer sea ice in the Arctic may disappear much earlier than scientists had expected.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Animal experts say one of the world's most beautiful and rare kinds of big cat is close to disappearing from the wild. A study earlier this year found that only about thirty Amur leopards still live free. The cats are also called Far Eastern leopards.

Recently, their numbers decreased by one. An unidentified person shot a female Amur, then beat her to death. The animal's body was discovered last month in the Barsovy National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Russia.

An official of the World Wildlife Fund, Darron Collins, said this was the third such killing in the area in the past five years. Mister Collins said the death of even one adult female is a huge loss for the endangered cat. He noted that the killing reduces the possibility for cubs, or young.

VOICE ONE:

It is not clear how many Amur leopards still live free. One population count was performed in February and March. Wildlife expert Dmitry Pikunov supervised this study. It found evidence of seven to nine males. The study identified three to seven females without cubs. Four leopards were identified as females with cubs. In all, five or six cubs were recorded. Six to eight animals could not be identified.

Researchers counted the Amur leopards by following the marks of their feet in the snow. The study involved thirty-five workers from three organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund. The Wildlife Conservation Society and the Pacific Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Science also took part.

Counts performed seven years ago and three years ago showed higher leopard totals. Officials say about one hundred of the animals are needed for survival.

VOICE TWO:

Most of the land where the Amur leopard once lived was in China. New roads and climate change there threatened the animals. So did hunters who kill big cats for their body parts.

The surviving cats live in southwest Primorye. That area is near the border between Russia, China and North Korea.

The director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Russia program organized an earlier count of Amurs. Dale Miquelle says the leopards should be counted in more modern ways. This would include use of radio, camera traps, and genetic testing.

Mister Pikunov says adult Amurs need about five hundred square kilometers with good forests to survive. He said they also need a large and continuing supply of animals like deer for food. He believes the answer to saving the Amur leopard is for governments to provide protected spaces for wildlife.

About three hundred Amur leopards live in zoos around the world.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Have you ever suffered a broken bone? The medical term for a broken bone is a fracture. But there are different kinds of fractures. A single fracture is when a bone is broken in just one place. You may have heard the term hairline fracture. This is a single fracture that is very small, like the width of a hair. A complete fracture is when the bone comes apart.

When a bone is broken in more than two places or gets crushed, the name for it is a comminuted fracture.

Still another kind is a bowing fracture. This happens with a bone that bends but does not break. It happens mostly in children.

Have you ever heard of a greenstick fracture? This is when a bone is bent and breaks along only one side, like a young stick of wood.

Another kind of break is an open or compound fracture. This is when the bone breaks the skin. This is very serious. There is both bone damage and a risk of infection in the open wound.

VOICE TWO:

A lot of things happen as the body reacts to an injury like a broken bone. You might suddenly feel lightheaded. You might also feel sick to your stomach.

People who are seriously injured can go into shock. They might feel cold and unable to think clearly. Shock requires immediate medical attention.

But while broken bones can be painful, they are generally not life-threatening. Treatment depends on the kind of fracture. A doctor takes X-rays to see the break and sets a broken bone to make sure it is in the correct position.

Severe breaks may require an operation to hold the bone together with metal plates and screws.

VOICE ONE:

Next, a person usually gets a cast put around the area of the break. Casts are usually worn for one to two months. The hard bandage holds the bone in place while it heals.

In some cases, instead of a cast, a splint made of plastic or metal will be placed over the area to restrict movement.

Doctors say broken bones should be treated quickly because they can restrict blood flow or cause nerve damage. Also, the break will start to repair itself, so you want to make sure the bone is lined up correctly.

Bones need calcium and vitamin D to grow and reach their full strength. Keeping your bones strong with exercise may also help prevent fractures.

Wearing safety protection like elbow pads and leg guards during activities is a good idea. If you think these might be restrictive, try a cast.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Nancy Steinbach, Caty Weaver and Jerilyn Watson. Brianna Blake was our producer. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Barbara Klein. You can read and listen to this program on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week at this time for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

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Ella Fitzgerald, 1917-1996: She Was America's First Lady of Song

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Critics said she raised the American popular song to the level of art. Transcript of radio broadcast:

ANNOUNCER:

Now, the VOA Special English program, People in America. Today, Shirley Griffith and Steve Ember tell about the jazz singer, Ella Fitzgerald. She was known as America's first lady of song.

(MUSIC: "How High The Moon")

VOICE ONE:

Ella Fitzgerald

The year was nineteen thirty-three. The place was New York City. Ella Fitzgerald was sixteen years old. She had entered a competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She was going to dance. But she had just watched two dancers perform. They were better dancers than she.

So, instead of dancing, she sang a song called "Judy. " People watching the competition urged her to sing another song. She did. She won first prize - twenty-five dollars.

That competition at the Apollo Theater changed Ella Fitzgerald's life forever. Band leader Chick Webb was watching the competition. He hired Ella to sing with his band. He taught her about singing in public. He even showed her what kind of clothes to wear. In three years, she had her first hit record, "A-Tisket-a-Tasket":

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Ella Fitzgerald was born in the southern city of Newport News, Virginia in nineteen seventeen. Her father left soon after her birth. Her mother took Ella and moved to New York City. Ella's mother died when Ella was fifteen years old.

The next year, Ella started singing with Chick Webb's band. She stayed with Chick Webb until he died in nineteen thirty-nine. Ella kept his band together after he died until World War Two started. Then most of the band members joined the armed forces. While she was with the band, Ella recorded almost one hundred fifty songs.

VOICE ONE:

Ella Fitzgerald was greatly influenced by the experimental music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. It was called be-bop. She used be-bop rhythms in her singing. In nineteen forty-five, she recorded the song "Flying Home," using the be-bop method known as "scat". In scat, the singer's voice sounds like another instrument in the orchestra. Critics say it was the most influential jazz record of the time.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen forty-nine, jazz musician Norman Granz invited her to join his band. It was with his band in Berlin, Germany in nineteen sixty that Ella sang a famous song in a very different way. A man asked her if she knew the song "Mack the Knife. " Ella said she had heard it a few times but the band did not have the music for it. She said she would try to sing it anyway. This recording shows how she continued to sing "Mack the Knife" when she did not remember the words. The people listening loved it.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Norman Granz later became her manager. He started a new recording company just for her. It was his idea for Ella to record the now famous series of record albums called the “Songbooks." On each record, she sang works of a different songwriter.

She recorded songbooks of the music of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Critics say the best songbook is Ella singing the songs of George and Ira Gershwin. Ira Gershwin reportedly said: "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them. Here, she sings the Gershwin song, "I Got Rhythm":

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Ella Fitzgerald also appeared in movies and on television. She became popular internationally. She performed in concerts around the world sometimes forty weeks a year. She also recorded for different record companies.

In the nineteen sixties, she began to sing more modern songs such as those written by the Beatles and Burt Bacharach. But she was not very successful with that kind of popular music. She returned to jazz in Nineteen seventy-three, again with Norman Granz. She also began performing with symphony orchestras.

VOICE ONE:

Ella Fitzgerald was married two times. Both marriages ended in divorce. She raised three children who were not her own.

Ella lived quietly in Beverly Hills, California. Throughout her life she was a very private person. She wanted to be known only for her music. Her friends included members of the Duke Ellington band, Count Basie's band, and singers like Sarah Vaughn and Peggy Lee.

Ella Fitzgerald began to have health problems during the nineteen seventies. She had the disease diabetes which caused problems with her eyes. She had a heart operation in nineteen eighty-six. In nineteen ninety-three, the effects of diabetes led to operations to remove both her legs. She died June fifteenth, nineteen ninety-six.

VOICE TWO:

People around the world loved Ella Fitzgerald's joyful singing. Critics said she had raised the American popular song to the level of art.

She won many awards. She received the National Medal of the Arts and a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime work. The University of Maryland named a performing arts center for her.

Ella Fitzgerald's wonderful voice lives on in her two hundred fifty albums. She won thirteen Grammy awards given each year for the best recordings. Her last Grammy was for the nineteen ninety record: "All That Jazz":

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER:

This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach. The announcers were Shirley Griffith and Steve Ember. I'm Sarah Long. Listen again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of America.

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Remembering Troops Who Died, and Worrying About Those About to Be Sent Into Harm's Way

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In North Carolina, a wife and mother of soldiers thinks about her family, and Iraq: "I just got one man home safe and, now, here goes the other one." Transcript of radio broadcast:

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. Memorial Day two thousand seven is our subject this week.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Personal sacrifice and service to a nation might seem like the last things Memorial Day is about.

For lucky workers, the holiday means the freedom of a three-day weekend, the traditional start of the summer travel season. For many businesses, the Memorial Day weekend means a time to lower prices to get more people to come in.

Cameron Dostie of Fort Campbell Kentucky places memorial stones on the grave of his father at Arlington National Cemetery. Sergeant First Class Shawn Dostie was killed in Iraq in 2005.

Yet, across America, Memorial Day still holds meaning as a day to remember the men and women who have died in military service.

This is the fifth Memorial Day since the start of the Iraq war. More than three thousand four hundred American troops have died in Iraq since March of two thousand three. About four hundred have died in Afghanistan since military operations began there in October of two thousand one.

VOICE TWO:

Cities and towns across the United States hold Memorial Day events. And while the holiday has a serious meaning, the observances often include family entertainment in addition to events like military parades.

In Fayetteville, North Carolina, the Glory Days celebration includes a bicycle race, an apple-pie eating competition and music. Fayetteville has a strong connection with the military. The city is neighbors with the Army base at Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base.

VOICE ONE:

Ann Zetterstrom is a retired Army captain. Her plans for Memorial Day include attending a ceremony at Freedom Memorial Park in Fayetteville. She says she has been very much looking forward to this holiday with her family.

Her husband, Erik, is a lieutenant colonel in the Army. This will be the first Memorial Day that he spends with their two-year-old daughter, Britta. He returned home in February after twenty-two months in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ann Zetterstrom says it is a great relief to have her husband home safely. She thinks it is easier to be the one deployed, even in harm's way, than to be the one waiting and worrying, she says. But she knew what she was signing up for when she married another soldier.

Being the mother of a soldier, however, is a different story. Her son, Brian, is a lieutenant in the Army. He is currently stationed in Germany. But he is preparing for deployment to Iraq in the fall.

His mom supported his interest in military service. But, she says, "I just got one man home safe and, now, here goes the other one."

(MUSIC)

A Navy officer visits a grave at Arlington National Cemetery. Flags are placed on the graves in honor of Memorial Day.

VOICE TWO:

On May twentieth, a ceremony called a "Time of Remembrance" took place on the grounds of the Washington Monument. The event brought together more than three thousand family members and friends of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The children of those service members received a Gold Medal of Remembrance. The event also recognized families of those killed in military service throughout American history.

This was the second year that the ceremony has been held. It was established by the White House Commission on Remembrance.

VOICE ONE:

In the year two thousand Congress passed a law to establish a National Moment of Remembrance on Memorial Day. The law asks Americans wherever they are to stop for one minute at three o'clock in the afternoon in an act of national unity.

Yet Congress created some disunity when it moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May to create a three-day weekend. That happened under a nineteen seventy-one law, the National Holiday Act. Some people support a campaign to return Memorial Day to its traditional day of observance -- May thirtieth.

Memorial Day began as a way to remember soldiers killed in the Civil War. On May thirtieth, eighteen sixty-eight, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The war to prevent the Confederate states of the South from leaving the Union was fought from eighteen sixty-one to eighteen sixty-five.

VOICE TWO:

Arlington National Cemetery is a military burial ground but also a final resting place for people of national and historical importance. Each year more than four million people visit the cemetery. It is located in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington. Next to the cemetery is the Pentagon, the Defense Department headquarters.

Part of the tradition of an American military funeral is the playing of a bugle call known as taps. Taps is also played at Arlington and other burial grounds during ceremonies on Memorial Day.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The Washington capital area has a number of military memorials.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, people look for the names of family members or friends. The memorial lists the names of more than fifty-eight thousand Americans who were killed or declared missing-in-action.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, known as the Wall, opened in nineteen eighty-two. Two black, shiny stone walls, each about seventy-six meters long, are set into the earth. They meet to form a wide V.

Many visitors leave flowers or personal remembrances. To copy a name, they rub a pencil on paper over the letters cut into the stone.

Nearby is a statue of three soldiers. They are looking toward the names. Another statue honors the service of women in the war.

The Vietnam War ended in nineteen seventy-five. Many soldiers coming home faced the anger of Americans who opposed the war. So a Vietnam veteran named Jan Scruggs organized an effort to remember those who never returned. The result is the Wall.

VOICE TWO:

Near the Vietnam memorial is the Korean War Veterans Memorial. It opened in nineteen ninety-five.

The Korean War lasted from nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty-three. The memorial honors those who died and those who survived. "Freedom Is Not Free" is the message cut into the wall above a Pool of Remembrance. There are listings of the numbers of American and United Nations forces killed, wounded, captured or missing, more than two million in all.

Boy Scout Ricky Bischoff places flags for Memorial Day at Long Island National Cemetery in New York

On one side of the Korean War Veterans Memorial is a stone walkway. It lists the names of the twenty-two countries that sent troops to Korea under United Nations command. On the other side is a shiny stone wall. Sandblasted into the wall are images from photographs of more than two thousand five hundred support troops.

There are statues of nineteen soldiers who look like they are moving across a battlefield. The statues are gray and lifelike, although a little bigger than life size. Artist Frank Gaylord made them out of stainless steel. They capture the eye and the imagination.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The newest of the major memorials in Washington is the National World War Two Memorial. It opened in two thousand four between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument on the National Mall.

The memorial is a large, open area built of bronze and granite. In the center, at ground level, is a round pool. Water shoots from a circle of fountains in the middle.

Around the pool are fifty-six stone pillars. They represent each of the American states and territories at the time of the war, plus the District of Columbia.

On two tall arches are the names of where the fighting took place. One says Atlantic; the other says Pacific. The United States entered the war after Japan bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December seventh, ninety forty-one.

Sixteen million men and women served in the American military between nineteen forty-one and nineteen forty-five. More than four hundred thousand of them never came home.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Our program was written by Caty Weaver and produced by Mario Ritter. Internet users can find archives of transcripts and audio files of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Faith Lapidus. We hope you can join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

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Are the World's Institutional Lenders Ready to Reform?

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Both the African and Asian Development Banks discussed reforms at their yearly meetings this month. But, one expert believes the two lenders must reform differently because they serve completely separate parts of the world. Transcript of radio broadcast:

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Delegates at the African Development Bank meeting in Shanghai, China

The African Development Bank held its yearly meeting in Shanghai, China, earlier this month. The bank’s chief economist announced the economic growth rate in Africa is expected to reach six percent this year. This is the highest in twenty years. Foreign demand for natural resources, especially oil, has helped create the growth.

Dennis de Tray is vice president of the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. He says that six percent economic growth in Africa is good. But he says long-term development on the continent will be a problem for generations.

Mister de Tray led a working group last year that provided independent advice to the bank’s shareholders and its president, Donald Kaberuka. The Rwandan economist took over leadership of the African bank in two thousand five. Ten years earlier, the economic security of the African Development Bank had been in question. It was almost out of money.

Mister de Tray says needed reforms at the African bank are different from reforms announced at a meeting of the Asian Development Bank. That bank met earlier this month in Kyoto, Japan. Mister de Tray believes the Asian Development Bank is facing an identity crisis. The countries receiving the most money are becoming established nations with rich resources. As a result, loans from the Asian Development Bank are unnecessary. Yet, Mister de Tray says there is a small group of countries in Asia still developing, including Laos and Cambodia. These countries will continue to need assistance from the Asian Development Bank.

He says the African Development Bank is in the middle of a continent that will need development aid for years to come. Some countries have gained success. But many others are still trying to create continued development that does not harm the environment. The African Development Bank is doing a better job serving its member countries, Mister De Tray says. But, he believes the bank still has a long way to go to reach a level of success.

Mister De Tray thinks that reforms needed within all of the world’s international banks are related. And, over the next year, he predicts a debate about how the system works.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. You can read and download audio of Special English programs at our web site, voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Shep O'Neal.

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Bush Wins on Iraq Bill, but Democrats Promise to Renew Fight

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Congress approves a war spending bill without any withdrawal date. Also, lawmakers debate an immigration bill, and continue hearings into Justice Department dismissals. Transcript of radio broadcast:

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

This week in Washington, Congress approved a war spending bill that President Bush

said he would sign. There was debate on an immigration bill. And hearings continued into why the Justice Department dismissed eight federal prosecutors last year.

The Iraq spending bill was approved Thursday after majority Democrats dropped their demand to set a date for a troop withdrawal. But the bill does threaten to cut economic aid if the Iraqi government fails to make progress on political and security reforms.

Democrats say they will renew their fight for a withdrawal plan in the next war-financing bill.

The one just approved contains one hundred twenty billion dollars in spending. Ninety-five billion of that will pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September. Billions will go to unrelated projects at home.

Also included in the bill is the first increase in almost ten years in the federal minimum wage. Many of the lowest-paid workers are immigrants. And on Monday the Senate opened debate on an immigration bill.

Supporters of immigration reform, including President Bush, say the bill is needed to help fix a broken system. An estimated twelve million immigrants are in the United States illegally.

Proposals include stronger border security, a temporary worker program and a path for undocumented workers to become legal.

One proposal would create two-year renewable visas for foreign temporary workers. On Wednesday the Senate voted to cut the proposed number of temporary workers in half, to two hundred thousand a year.

Some groups say the bill would separate families of immigrant workers. Labor unions worry that the bill would create a new class of poorly paid migrants with few legal protections. Employers are divided over proposed changes that could also affect highly skilled foreign workers. And some critics say the bill would reward people who entered the country illegally.

The Senate is expected to end debate on the immigration bill in the middle of June. At that time senators could take a rare no-confidence vote in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the Justice Department dismissals.

On Wednesday a committee in the House questioned a former Gonzales aide who worked with the White House. Monica Goodling said she "crossed the line" by bringing political considerations into some hiring decisions at the department. But she said she had only a limited part in the replacement of United States attorneys.

Democrats said her statements raised new questions about dismissals that they suggest were made for political reasons. But a Republican lawmaker said there were no surprises and no evidence of corruption.

Democrats and some Republicans want Alberto Gonzales to resign. President Bush says he supports him and hopes Congress will move quickly to finish hearings that he calls "political theater."

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.

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Mason Bates Creates a 'Liquid Interface' Between Electronica and Classical Music

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Also: music by classical and popular singer Josh Groban. And a listener in Taiwan asks about the Jim Crow laws that once enforced racial separation in the US. Transcript of radio broadcast:

HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

We answer a question about racial separation laws of the past …

Play music from Josh Groban …

And report about musical composer Mason Bates.

Mason Bates

The worlds of techno music and classical symphonies are usually very separate. But the musical composer Mason Bates is changing this. This thirty-year-old musician from Virginia artfully combines classical music with the sound of electronic beats. Barbara Klein has more.

(MUSIC)

BARBARA KLEIN:

Mason Bates

That was part of a work called "Liquid Interface." Mason Bates performed it for the first time in February with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. He was influenced to write the musical piece while living in Berlin, Germany. He watched the lake near where he lived transform from an ice formation to a warm swimming place.

In “Liquid Interface” you can listen to the many forms water takes and the effects of climate change. You can hear the breaking of large ice glaciers, as well as melting drops of water. Bates also makes a musical reference to New Orleans, Louisiana to show the more destructive side of water.

This work needs a very large orchestra. Musicians played more than forty traditional instruments at the Washington, D.C. performance. They were guided by the orchestra's musical director, Leonard Slatkin. Mason Bates stood on the side with his own instrument, the portable computer. He fluidly worked the electronic sounds and beats into the structured classical music.

But Mason Bates does not only write symphonies. At night, you can find him playing trip-hop and French house techno music in the clubs of San Francisco, California. He is also finishing his doctorate degree at the nearby University of California, Berkeley. Mason Bates’ skill at combining these two very different musical worlds has been recognized. He has won important awards for his music pieces such as the Prix de Rome.

Mason Bates believes that when you listen to music it lives in your imagination and your blood at the same time. He wants his music to be intelligent as well as interesting. To listen to more music by Mason Bates, go to voaspecialenglish.com for a link to his Web site.

Jim Crow Laws

HOST:

Our VOA listener question this week comes from Taiwan. Howlong Wu asks about “Jim Crow laws."

These laws enforced racial separation between black people and white people in the

Jim Crow laws enforced racial separation

American South. The term was taken from a character called Jim Crow in musical shows in the eighteen thirties. In these minstrel shows, white people darkened their faces and performed as if they were black people. These shows were insulting to black people.

Starting in the eighteen eighties, Jim Crow became the name for the laws enacted by Southern cities and states to oppress black people and keep them separate from white people. For example, Jim Crow laws made it illegal for the two races to attend the same schools, eat at the same restaurants or use the same public transportation.

The United States Supreme Court supported Jim Crow laws in some of its decisions. An important one was Plessy versus Ferguson in eighteen ninety-six. The Court ruled that railroads could require white and black passengers to ride in different cars. It said this was legal because the treatment in the two cars was "separate but equal." In another case in eighteen ninety-nine, the Court ruled that no one’s rights were violated by the two races attending separate schools.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People led the long effort to overturn Jim Crow laws through legal action. Finally, in nineteen fifty-four, a Supreme Court ruling overturned the Plessy versus Ferguson decision. The decision was called Brown versus the Board of Education. The Supreme Court ruled that separate schools for blacks and whites were unconstitutional. This ruling required towns and cities across the country to permit blacks and whites to attend the same schools.

The Jim Crow system was finally ended in the nineteen sixties through the efforts of the civil rights movement. These efforts resulted in a series of federal laws including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act.

Josh Groban

Josh Groban is a young singer who performs classical and popular songs. His record albums have sold millions of copies. Katherine Cole plays some music from Groban's latest album called "Awake."

KATHERINE COLE:

Josh Groban

Josh Groban is twenty-six years old. He is from Los Angeles, California. As a teenager, he sang at the inauguration of former California governor Gray Davis in nineteen ninety-nine. That was when he was discovered by a record company official. He released his first studio album two years later.

Josh Groban's third studio album is called "Awake." Like his other albums, he sings in English, Italian and Spanish. Groban says the music on his latest album sounds like it is coming from his heart and soul as well as his voice. This song, "You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)," was also released as a single.

(MUSIC)

Josh Groban plays several instruments, including piano, drums, electric guitar, marimbas, flugelhorn and dulcimer. Groban also helped write some of the songs on his latest album, like this one, called "Machine." The famous jazz musician Herbie Hancock plays piano.

(MUSIC)

Josh Groban has appeared on many American television shows. Now he is in the middle of a seven-month performance tour to seventy cities in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Groban performs two songs on his latest album with the South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Groban first heard this song during a visit to South Africa in two thousand four. We leave you now with the song "Weeping."

(MUSIC)

HOST:

I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.

It was written by Dana Demange, Shelley Gollust and Nancy Steinbach. Caty Weaver was our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Please include your full name and mailing address. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

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US and China Hold High-Level Trade Discussions

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The talks in Washington end with an agreement to increase air links, but no word of progress on the deficit issue. Transcript of radio broadcast:

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Top officials from the United States and China held two days of trade talks this week in Washington.

Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renquing, Vice Premier Wu Yi and US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue

They agreed to increase the number of direct flights between the United States and China. And Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi said the talks cleared the way for other progress. But no progress was reported on the issue of the trade deficit.

It was the second in a series of talks, the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue. The next meeting is later this year in Beijing. Vice Premier Wu says talks are better than threats of what she calls "irresponsible" protectionist measures against China.

Some American lawmakers say China is taking too long to raise the value of the yuan. They say China unfairly keeps its currency weak. They say this fuels the deficit by pushing down the cost of its exports and raising the price of American-made imports.

China eased controls on the yuan this week, but not enough to satisfy many critics. China promises more but says a large increase would hurt its fast-growing economy. Some experts say the yuan would rise fifty percent if permitted to trade freely. Others think it would be much less.

China's huge trade surplus has left it with the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, more than one trillion dollars. Most of that is held in United States government debt. But China took steps this week to change the way it invests its reserves, in order to seek higher returns.

China will invest three billion dollars in the Blackstone Group, a private-equity company based in New York. The deal will take place as Blackstone sells stock to the public for the first time. But China said it did not want any voting rights in the company.

President Bush met Thursday with Vice Premier Wu. He later said the two countries have a complex relationship but the two hundred thirty-three billion dollar trade deficit must be dealt with.

One of the ways, he said, is to get the Chinese people to spend more, to change from savers to consumers. For example, the United States has been trying to get China to open up its beef market.

The negotiators talked about food safety. The United States is importing more and more food products from China. Yet there is growing concern that they are not always very safe.

Still another issue: The United States is pushing China to do more about illegal copying of movies, music, software and books.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

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What Does Ecology Mean to You? No, Really, How Do You Define It?

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: more of our interview with Rob Jackson, director of the Global Change Center at Duke University with some terms you're likely to hear in the climate change debate.

RS: We start with an explanation of the term "ecosystem capital."

ROB JACKSON: "Ecosystem capital, or maybe put differently - ecosystem services - are the value of what we get from natural systems. For instance, a city such as New York City can spend a lot of money to build a sewage treatment or water treatment plant. Alternatively the city might buy a thousand or five hundred thousand acres, whatever the value is, of land and use natural capital, natural services, to cleanse that water for us.

"That is, in fact, what New York City did some years ago, saving hundreds of millions of dollars. So you allow nature to do the work for you, and then you find a way to put an economic value on that work. And that's where the term ecosystem capital comes from."

RS: "Another phrase that was thrown at me was -- we need to be looking at our ecosystem services, as you say, and not as much at 'charismatic mega fauna.' [laughter]"

ROB JACKSON: "Yes. Charismatic mega fauna are the large, sexy mammals that people like to watch. So that might be an elk, a bear, a wildebeest in Africa, an elephant -- "

AA: "Polar bears."

ROB JACKSON: "Polar bears is another great example. So we tend to focus on these large animals and we often tend to manage and set up preserves for these large animals. And those animals are charismatic -- they're pretty, they're nice to look at, but they're often not the animals that provide the ecosystem services that we value most."

RS: "And the point I understood was that we should be looking at our undervalued ecosystems -- or we should value our ecosystems more in comparison."

ROB JACKSON: "That's right. One of the problems with our current economics is that we don't do a good job of putting a value on the services that we get from nature. So it's easy to assign a value to what a power plant uses or produces, or to what a sewage treatment plant cleanses our water. It's not easy to put an economic value on what nature does for us.

"Plants cleanse our air. The soil cleanses our water. But that cleansing, that purification and all the many resources that we get from nature often fall outside our accounting system. And so we're just simply not very good at taking into account what nature gives us."

AA: "Now one of the services that nature provides us, obviously, is food, and that brings us to another term that we're hearing a lot lately, which is 'food miles.' Why don't you define it."

ROB JACKSON: "Well, sure. This is one for me that's pretty new, but food miles are the number of miles that food travels before ending up on your plate, and that the higher the food miles the greater the environmental cost associated with the food -- how much energy was used to transport that food to actually put it in front of you and me."

RS: "Now, I think the importance of these terms is to raise awareness."

ROB JACKSON: "I agree with that. But they also, I mean they are -- I know that they do sound jargony and some of them are jargony. But there are, for some of these at least, fairly specific meanings. And, in fact, in the scientific community, some of these terms have much narrower meanings than come to be the meaning in just common usage."

RS: "Can you give us an example?"

ROB JACKSON: "Well, let's start with maybe the most basic example, just the word 'ecology.' I think when you walk up to someone on the street and ask them what ecology means, people will bring up recycling and sort of saving the environment, saving the planet.

"As a science, the field of ecology studies how plants and animals and organisms interact with the environment around them. It has a much narrower sense and really doesn't say anything about recycling or about environment stewardship. But it has come to be viewed as saving the planet because many ecologists, myself included, really care about the environment and valuing the environment."

AA: "And 'sustainability,' which will be our final term, if you could maybe explain that."

ROB JACKSON: "Sure. Sustainability is another one of these words that has kind of a life of its own, a lot of different meanings. But the idea is that we need to think about long-term consequences of how we live and how we manufacture things. So are we building something in a way that will allow people in fifty years or a hundred years or a decade to build the same product in the same way? Or are we using a resource in an unsustainable manner, are we polluting a body of water or are we polluting air in a way that will cost people down the road?"

RS: Rob Jackson is a professor of biology and environmental sciences at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. You can hear the first part of our discussion on the Wordmaster website at voanews.com/wordmaster.

AA: And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is word@voanews.com. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

CPF/AA/fil

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Breaking Into News: Journalism Education in US

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A student in Vietnam asks about American J-schools in Part 38 of our Foreign Student Series. Transcript of radio broadcast:

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

A student at Vietnam National University has a question for our Foreign Student Series. Phuong Lan wants to earn a master's degree in the United States and would like to know about journalism programs.

One hundred nine programs are recognized by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Some of the best-known include the ones at the University of Southern California, the University of Missouri and the University of North Carolina. They also include the journalism schools at Columbia University in New York City and Northwestern University in Illinois.

Students at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism

Northwestern, for example, has the Medill School of Journalism. Medill says it provides its graduate students with the chance to study and work in the real world. Local newspapers and television stations carry their reports on government, crime and civic issues in the Chicago area. Other subjects include magazine publishing and Web design. And the Medill News Service offers experience reporting in Washington.

Graduate students at Medill can expect to pay more than fifty-eight thousand dollars this coming school year. That includes a place to live, meals, books and costs like health insurance. Medill also has an undergraduate program.

Medill scholarships or financial aid are not available to international students. Foreign students are advised to seek aid from their home country or groups like the Inter-American Press Association Scholarship Fund. Scholarship winners from Latin America and the Caribbean spend a year at a journalism school in the United States or Canada.

Journalism schools offer professional degrees, and some offer doctorates. Students may be able to earn a joint degree with another program like law or public policy.

It is true that the value of a journalism degree has been a traditional subject of debate among people in the media. But journalism schools offer training in skills like reporting, writing and production. They also teach about legal issues like plagiarism and libel law and freedom of speech. In addition they may offer classes in other areas, including public relations.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series is online with audio files, transcripts and useful links at voaspecialenglish.com. To send us questions, write to special@voanews.com and please include your name and country. I'm Steve Ember.

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