VOASE0802_Economics Report

02 August 2007

Murdoch's News Corp to Buy Dow Jones
Sale will bring new owner to the Wall Street Journal in the increasingly competitive world of financial news.

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Rupert Merdoch

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

One of the top stories in business news this week was -- business news. Dow Jones agreed to be bought by News Corporation. This means the publisher of the Wall Street Journal will be owned by the media company controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

The two companies announced Wednesday that they have signed a merger agreement. The deal is valued at just over five and a half billion dollars.

For the past century, the controlling shareholder in Dow Jones and Company has been the Bancroft family. The announcement said family members with about thirty-seven percent of Dow Jones' voting stock have agreed to support the deal. That would represent a majority of the sixty-four percent share owned by the family.

The deal ends four months of negotiations that deeply divided the Bancrofts. Reports say family members agreed to the deal after a promise of at least thirty million dollars to pay their lawyers and financial advisors.

Rupert Murdoch's offer to buy Dow Jones became public in May. His offer of sixty dollars a share was sixty-seven percent above the market price at the time of the offer.

The deal is seen as a major prize for the Australian-born Murdoch, who became an American citizen in nineteen eighty-five. He has built a media business currently valued at seventy billion dollars. His company owns more than one hundred newspapers in Australia, Britain and the United States.

It also owns Fox television, including Fox News Channel, "American Idol" and "The Simpsons." A new Fox Business Channel is set for launch in October. Other holdings include the Twentieth Century Fox movie company and the social-networking site MySpace.

Shareholders in News Corporation and Dow Jones are expected to vote on the deal later this year. Government approval is also needed.

Financial news is an increasingly competitive industry. Rupert Murdoch is expected to invest heavily in Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Media observers are debating what effects his ownership might have on one of the world's most respected newspapers.

Some say News Corporation might try to limit reporting on its own activities. Others note Rupert Murdoch's conservative politics and wonder what influence that might have. A five-member committee has been named to protect the newsgathering independence of the Journal and other Dow Jones publications.

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

VOASE0802_American Mosaic

02 August 2007

Are We Alone? Why Scientists Think We Should Widen the Search for 'Weird Life'
A question from Brazil about UFOs. Also: the march of the Crocs. And music by Canadian singer Feist.

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HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

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

Music from a Canadian singer known as Feist …

A question from Brazil about UFOs ...

And watch out -- millions of Crocs are out walking the streets.

Crocs

HOST:

Recently we stepped into the debate over the safety of Heelys and other roller shoes -- shoes with wheels that deploy when a kid wants to roll. Now, following in the footsteps of that story, we look at another shoe that people seem to either love or hate. Faith Lapidus has the story of crocs.

FAITH LAPIDUS:

Crocs are made of a lightweight material that softens and forms to the foot.

A company in Colorado started selling them in two thousand two. It says Crocs keep feet cool, are easy to clean and resist bacteria and odor.

Traditional Crocs are kind of funny looking. They are big and in some cases brightly colored. The first ones were meant for boaters who needed shoes that would not slip on wet surfaces or mark boat decks. Now there are many different ones.

Some have the traditional back strap. Some do not. And some do not look like the original Crocs at all. There are flip-flops and women’s dress flats.

Some people report that Crocs helped their foot or back pain. Some doctors say the shoes are good because they are wide and do not rub the feet. Others, though, say Crocs do not provide enough support to wear for hours.

Among the biggest fans are people who stand a lot in their jobs, like people who work in hospitals. Yet hospitals in some countries have been moving to ban Crocs. One concern is the risk of infection if blood from a sick patient falls on someone's foot through Crocs with holes in the top.

The company does make shoes without holes. But there are also questions about whether Crocs may attract static electricity which can interfere with medical equipment. The company has said it knows of no reason Crocs would act any different from sneakers and other footwear worn by medical professionals.

For people who wear shoes made of soft material, another issue is escalator safety. When they ride escalators, they have to be careful not to push the soft foam into the metal teeth.

Yet some people might be happy to see Crocs get eaten. They think the traditional styles are ugly. There is even a Web site where they can share their feelings, ihatecrocs.com. It includes a store where people can buy shirts and bags with the symbol of a pair of Crocs being cut by scissors.

Even so, the Crocs company says sales have been rising sharply, reaching more than three hundred fifty million dollars last year. The company reported strong gains in its latest earnings report last week, including strong foreign markets, especially in Europe.

UFOs

HOST:

E.T. from the 1982 movie

Our VOA listener question this week comes from Brazil. Humberto Bortoletto would like to know about UFOs, unidentified flying objects. He wonders if astronomers think it is possible to have a visitor to Earth like the little creature in the movie "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial."

Well, if any of you out there are astronomers, write to us at mosaic@voanews.com and tell us what you think. In fact, it just so happens that a new report advises scientists to keep an open mind about what alien life forms might look like.

The report is from the National Research Council, part of the National Academies in Washington. It says the search for alien life has been limited by a belief that it would use the same biochemical structure as life on Earth. The report says the search for other life in the universe should include efforts to discover what scientists sometimes call "weird life." In other words, different from life as we know it.

The Area 51 exhibit at the Alien Zone in Roswell, New Mexico

This summer marks the sixtieth anniversary of the first major American UFO sightings in modern times. In nineteen forty-seven, people reported seeing a group of flying disks over the Cascade Mountains in the northwestern state of Washington. Similar reports came from the southwestern state of New Mexico.

On July eighth, nineteen forty-seven, the Army announced possession of a flying disk recovered on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The military said it was a top-secret research balloon.

But some people believed that an alien spaceship had crashed. They believed that pieces of wreckage and the bodies of the crew were taken to a base and kept secret. The so-called Roswell incident has become a part of popular culture.

The Fund for UFO Research is a nonprofit organization in Alexandria, Virginia. It says the lack of proof that any kind of life exists outside Earth is one reason not to believe that UFOs are alien spacecraft. Another is the extreme distance to the nearest star.

The group notes that most objects reported as UFOs turn out to be planets, satellites, airplanes or other known objects. But the head of the Fund for UFO Research, Don Berliner, says there is also evidence to believe that UFOs may be non-Earthly. For example, he notes that descriptions from expert witnesses, military pilots and scientists are often the same. They describe objects of simple geometric shapes and extraordinary performance values, including silent high-speed flight.

Feist

HOST:

Leslie Feist is a Canadian singer who is becoming very popular in the United States. For her performing name, she simply goes by Feist. And as we hear from Shirley Griffith, her sweet voice and her songwriting skills shine in her latest album, "The Reminder."

Shirley Griffith:

Feist

Early in her music career, Feist sang in a screaming voice with a punk rock band in Calgary, Canada. Her music now is much different. Her latest songs are gentle with playful beats and musical arrangements.

She recorded her third album, "The Reminder," with a group of musicians in a rented house outside of Paris. This way, she and her band could live in a nice environment without having to go to a recording studio every day. This song is called "I Feel It All."

(MUSIC)

Feist has said that she named her album "The Reminder" because she wanted it to bring together the past and the present. She says the album is filled with all kinds of memories, the kinds you want to forget and the kinds you want to remember forever.

Here she is with "Limit to Your Love."

(MUSIC)

This summer Feist will be performing around the United States and also in Britain and Japan. You can listen to more of her music at her Web site, listentofeist.com. We leave you with a song first made famous by the blues singer Nina Simone in the nineteen sixties. Here is Feist with her version of "Sea Lion Woman."

(MUSIC)

HOST:

I'm Doug Johnson. Our program was written by Dana Demange, Jill Moss and Nancy Steinbach. Caty Weaver was our producer. Transcripts and archives of our show can be found at voaspecialenglish.com.

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

VOASE0801_The Making of a Nation

01 August 2007

American History Series: Bill Clinton Begins His First Term in 1993
During his first four years, President Clinton faced acts of terrorism against the US and crises in Somalia and Bosnia. For his cabinet, he chose more women and minorities than any president before him.

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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. Today, we continue telling about Bill Clinton, America's forty-second president.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

President Bill Clinton meets reporters in the White House briefing room

Bill Clinton began his first term as president of the United States in January of nineteen ninety-three. During his terms in office, he appointed more women and minority members to serve in government than any earlier president.

Mister Clinton became the first Democratic president in twenty-five years to name associate justices to the United States Supreme Court. He chose Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to serve on America’s highest court. Miz Ginsburg was only the second woman named to the court.

VOICE TWO:

Members of President Clinton’s own Democratic Party controlled Congress for the first two years of his presidency. Still, Congress failed to consider a major administration proposal. The plan was meant to reform the health care system to provide health care for all Americans.

Bill Clinton had promised during his presidential campaign to help more Americans receive health care. A committee led by his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, proposed the new administration plan. But Congress did not act on the proposal. Lawmakers decided it was too costly and too difficult to administer.

VOICE ONE:

Congress did pass some Clinton legislation during his first term. For example, legislators enacted his proposal to fight crime. This measure included a crime prevention program and increased law enforcement. It also provided money for building more prisons. Lawmakers also passed Mister Clinton’s budgets for nineteen ninety-three and nineteen ninety-four. The budgets reduced federal spending.

VOICE TWO:

President Clinton’s relations with Congress became more difficult after the nineteen ninety-four midterm elections. Voters throughout the country elected the first majority Republican Congress in forty years. Republicans controlled both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The Republican-led Congress passed measures to reform social welfare in America. Mister Clinton also wanted to reform America’s aid system. But he stopped Congress from cutting what he believed was too much money for some programs. These included help for education, poor people and old people needing medical care.

The economy had slowed to recession level during the administration of President George Bush. Under Mister Clinton the economy grew slowly at first. Then it recovered more quickly. Business earnings grew. New jobs were created. The economic crisis was ended.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Mister Clinton had to deal with terrorism against the United States very early in his presidency. On February twenty-sixth, nineteen ninety-three, Islamic terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York City. They placed explosives in a car parked under the building. The huge explosion killed six people. More than one thousand others were injured. Repair of the damaged building cost millions of dollars. The government later captured and tried the bombers.

VOICE TWO:

Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City

Terrorism again struck the United States in nineteen ninety-five. On April nineteenth, a dissident American former soldier placed explosives that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. One hundred sixty-eight people died in the bombing.

It was the most serious incident of terrorism on home territory in United States history. The bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was captured soon after the explosion. Another former soldier also was seized later in connection with the bombing. Many Americans praised Mister Clinton for the way he led the nation after this tragedy.

VOICE ONE:

President Bill Clinton also had to deal with a number of foreign relations crises. For example, President Bush had sent American troops to Somalia in nineteen ninety-two. The troops were taking food to thousands of starving Somalis. The people were suffering because of lack of rain and a civil war. Fighting among ethnic groups was preventing the people from receiving food and other aid supplies.

Then the United Nations took control of the aid efforts.

President Clinton made American soldiers part of the U-N force. In nineteen ninety-three, eighteen American soldiers were killed in Mogadishu. They died in a battle with supporters of a local group leader. Mister Clinton ordered American troops to leave Somalia after Congress demanded their withdrawal.

VOICE TWO:

American foreign policy was more successful in other areas. For example, President Clinton helped return the first democratically elected leader of Haiti to office.

In nineteen ninety-one, military officers in Haiti had ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The new rulers established a military dictatorship. Thousands of Haitian refugees tried to flee to the United States by boat.

In nineteen ninety-four, President Clinton threatened to use military force against the dictators if they did not let President Aristide return to power. The dictators surrendered power. Mister Aristide again became president of Haiti.

VOICE ONE:

Some of Mister Clinton’s most important foreign policy decisions involved the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, formerly a republic of Yugoslavia. A civil war began in Bosnia-Herzegovina in nineteen ninety-two. Bosnian Serb rebels were trying to oust the mainly Muslim government.

The United Nations sent peacekeepers to Bosnia. Mister Clinton ordered the United States Air Force to aid Bosnian Muslims under attack and try to stop Serb aggression.

In late nineteen ninety-five, Mister Clinton helped organize a meeting of the warring sides in the Bosnian civil war. They signed a peace plan that included a cease-fire. The plan called for NATO troops to help guard the cease-fire. The president sent American troops to aid in this effort.

VOICE TWO:

Mister Clinton gained one of the major foreign policy goals of his first administration in November of nineteen ninety-three. Congress approved NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement called for ending most import taxes among the United States, Canada and Mexico. This was to be done over the next fifteen years. The agreement also called for ending restrictions on the flow of goods, services and investment among the three countries.

President Clinton had another trade policy success the following year. Congress expanded GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The expansion permitted cuts in import taxes on thousands of products. They included electronics, wood products and metals.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

While Mister Clinton led the nation, he also had to defend his past. In the late nineteen-seventies, Mister and Missus Clinton had invested in the Whitewater Development Corporation in Arkansas. By the time Bill Clinton became president, others involved with this company were in legal trouble. Critics said President Clinton also had acted illegally.

One accuser was a former judge in Little Rock, Arkansas. He owned a savings and loan company that received federal money. This man said Bill Clinton had secretly pressured him to make illegal loans to help the Whitewater company. President Clinton denied the accusation.

VOICE TWO:

Some people suspected that Hillary Rodham Clinton was responsible for wrongdoing years earlier when she working as a lawyer in Little Rock, Arkansas. In January, nineteen ninety-four, Mister Clinton asked Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a lawyer to lead an independent investigation of the Clintons’ activities. She named Robert Fiske, a Republican.

But critics charged that Mister Fiske was too friendly to the Clinton Administration. In August, three federal judges replaced him with lawyer Kenneth Starr, also a Republican.

VOICE ONE:

Some Americans expressed anger at the president about the Whitewater case. Others dismissed the accusations as political attacks. Opinion studies in spring and summer of nineteen ninety-six showed that many Americans would vote to re-elect their president in November. They said they wanted Bill Clinton to serve as president for four more years.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This program of The Making of a Nation was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by George Grow. This is Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

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

VOASE0801_Education Report

01 August 2007

China, Russia Win Top Results in Physics Olympiad in Iran
High school students from 73 countries, including the US, competed in Isfahan.

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

More than three hundred secondary school students competed in the thirty-eighth International Physics Olympiad last month in Iran. They came from seventy-three countries, including the United States.

Students from China had the top results: four gold medals and one silver. Russia was second with three gold, one silver and one honorable mention.

Next came the United States and South Korea. Each team brought home two gold medals and three silver medals. And the teams from Iran and Japan had two gold, two silver and one bronze medal each.

The ten-day Olympiad took place in the ancient city of Isfahan. There were written examinations and laboratory experiments as well as discussion meetings.

And there was news of the death in Isfahan of the president of the International Physics Olympiad. Waldemar Gorzkowski was sixty-seven years old. The Iranian Students News Agency said he died of a heart attack. He led the Olympiad for many years.

The physics competition is one of the International Science Olympiads held around the world.

The American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics choose members of the United States team. Physics teachers across the country nominate students and committees choose about two hundred of them. The students take additional tests to choose the twenty-four members of the team.

In May the members attend the United States Physics Team Training Camp at the University of Maryland. They go through nine days of intensive studying, testing and problem solving. At the end of the camp, five members of the team are chosen to travel to the Olympiad.

The five this year were Kenan Diab of Ohio, Rui Hu of Delaware, Jenny Kwan from California, Jason LaRue of Florida and Haofei Wei from Oklahoma. All five won medals.

The first International Physics Olympiad took place in Warsaw, Poland, in nineteen sixty-seven. Until the early nineteen eighties it was held only in the former communist countries of eastern Europe. The United States organized a team for the first time in nineteen eighty-six.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. To learn about the American education system, go to voaspecialenglish.com where you can find transcripts and archives of our reports. I'm Steve Ember.