VOASE0805_This Is America

05 August 2007

Mountain and Cowboy Culture Meet in Jackson Hole
We take you to the popular valley in Wyoming where people go to experience the outdoors and the spirit of the old American West.

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VOICE ONE:

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

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. Today we travel to the mountains of Wyoming for a trip to Jackson Hole.

VOICE ONE:

This beautiful valley was named after the nineteenth-century explorer and hunter David Jackson. After he spent a winter in the area, his friends started to call it “Jackson’s Hole.”

VOICE TWO:

The valley looks like a hole in the middle of the mountains that surround it. Over time, the name stuck.

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VOICE ONE:

Grand Teton National Park

Jackson Hole is about forty-eight kilometers long. The valley includes the town of Jackson. About eight thousand people live there. The valley also includes the Grand Teton National Park and much of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Jackson Hole is a popular holiday place. In the summer, people go there to ride horses, climb mountains, catch fish and take trips on the rivers and lakes.

Many visitors take a trip across the valley on the Snake River. The Snake Indians once lived near this river. It turns from side to side, like a snake on the move.

Some visitors bird-watch from sailboats. One of the birds they can see is America’s national symbol, the bald eagle. Other people go white-water rafting. Rubber rafts carry them along the fastest parts of the river. The water moves so fast, it becomes white with foam.

VOICE TWO:

Skiing near Jackson Hole

In the winter, people come to Jackson Hole to ski. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort provides some of the best downhill skiing and snowboarding in the world.

And there are other kinds of skiing. Some people skate ski; they speed across level snow. Others enjoy the slower speed of cross-country skiing.

Some people go dog sledding in Jackson Hole. They get on a sled and are pulled by a team of dogs through the snow. This is one of the many ways to enjoy the extraordinary mountain views.

Some wealthy people have homes near the ski resort. Other people stay in the many hotels nearby. Some of these hotels are new and very costly.

In fact, the average sale price of a single-family home in Jackson Hole is more than one million dollars.

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VOICE ONE:

Visitors to Jackson Hole have many shopping, dining and entertainment choices.

People can imagine they are in a town in the Old West. At the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, instead of chairs, they can sit on saddles as if riding a horse. On some nights there are dance lessons. People can learn the two-step, a kind of Western dance.

Or they can eat dinner and listen to live music at the Mangy Moose Saloon. There, a large dead moose hangs from the ceiling.

At the Silver Dollar Bar, a long table is covered with more than two thousand shiny silver dollars. If you look carefully, you see that the coins are all from the year nineteen twenty-one.

Visitors can also enjoy an evening at the Jackson Hole Playhouse. In the summer, actors perform musicals and other plays. This brightly painted old theater is one of the oldest wood buildings in town. It has been a popular entertainment place since the nineteen fifties.

VOICE TWO:

Some of the stores in Jackson Hole sell unusual things, like furniture made of deer antlers. Antlers are the hard and bony points that grow on the heads of male deer. These stores sell chairs, lights and other objects made from antlers. They look more like pointy sculptures than furniture.

Many stores in Jackson Hole sell winter sports equipment and clothing. Some sell cowboy clothing. C.J. James owns the Jackson Hole Hat Company. Her Web site describes the cowboy as a "symbol of American independence and strength."

She will sell you a cowboy hat made to fit the exact size of your head. There are many shapes, colors and materials to choose from.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Rodeo in Jackson Hole

Some of the ways of the Old West cowboy are kept alive in Jackson Hole. In the summer, visitors can go to a rodeo to see competitions based on traditional cowboy skills. Some people say it is the truest of American sports.

The rodeo usually begins with a parade of cowboys and their horses. Then comes the competition. In one event, riders try to stay on a wild animal for eight seconds. They ride wild horses and large bulls. The animals try to throw the cowboys to the ground. The cowboys try not to fall off.

VOICE TWO:

In another event, the cowboy throws a rope around the neck of a young cow. Then he tries to tie the rope around three of its legs. The cowboy who does this in the shortest amount of time wins.

Visitors to Jackson Hole can experience different parts of cowboy life. They can ride horses. They can eat meals cooked outdoors over a fire. In the summer, they can watch actors dressed as cowboys perform “The Shootout.” This short Western play has been performed since the nineteen fifties.

VOICE ONE:

Arts and culture are important in Jackson Hole. Each summer, musicians from around the country perform classical music at the Grand Teton Music Festival.

Musical guests also visit local schools while they are in town.

Each autumn, Jackson holds the Fall Arts Festival. This event celebrates many examples of visual and performing arts. It also provides many examples of fine local foods.

VOICE TWO:

Visitors to Jackson Hole can explore the National Museum of Wildlife. When this museum opened, it was located in the center of town. But soon the museum space was not large enough to hold the art collection.

In nineteen ninety-four the museum reopened in a new building made of stone. It looks like a fortress built centuries ago. The museum contains over two thousand artworks showing nature and animals.

There are many paintings, photographs and sculptures of antelope, deer, birds, horses and other animals. The museum says its art celebrates the powerful connection between animals and humans.

VOICE ONE:

This art shows the natural beauty of the land and its creatures. To see this beauty in real life, all you have to do is walk outside the museum.

The building sits on a hillside overlooking the National Elk Refuge. The refuge contains the largest wintering population of elk in the world. It had an estimated seven thousand elk this season.

The refuge has ten thousand hectares of land. It was started in nineteen twelve to help protect the local elk population.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Six kilometers north of Jackson, Wyoming, is the Grand Teton National Park. Congress created this park in nineteen twenty-nine. In the nineteen forties the wealthy John D. Rockefeller bought a great amount of land nearby. Then he gave it to the federal government.

Both Rockefeller and the government added to the park later. Today, the government controls about ninety-seven percent of all the land in the Jackson Hole area.

VOICE ONE:

The park is named for the Grand Teton Mountains. These mountains rise directly from the floor of the valley. They are part of the Rocky Mountains. The Grand Tetons are about four thousand meters high and sixty-five kilometers long. Many artists have captured images of these beautiful mountains.

The Native Americans who lived in the area many years ago called the mountains Teewinot, meaning “many pinnacles.”

Fur trappers from Canada had their own idea of what the three largest mountains looked like. These French-speaking hunters named them “les Trois Tetons” -- "the Three Breasts."

VOICE TWO:

The Grand Teton Mountains were formed about ten million years ago. This makes them some of the youngest mountains in North America. The Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, for example, are about two hundred million years old.

Many of the lakes around the Grand Tetons were formed millions of years ago by slow-moving sheets of ice. Some small glaciers are still active in the mountains.

VOICE ONE:

People come to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, from around the world to enjoy the best of cowboy and mountain culture. If you ever go, just don’t forget your cowboy hat.

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VOICE TWO:

Our program was written by Dana Demange and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. Read and listen to our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. And join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

VOASE0804_People In America

04 August 2007

Lady Bird Johnson 1912-2007: The Former First Lady Was an Environmental Activist Who Made America More Beautiful
She showed great strength during a very tense period in American history.

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Lady Bird Johnson. She is best known for being the wife of President Lyndon Baines Johnson who led the nation during the nineteen sixties. But Missus Johnson was also an influential environmental activist, tireless campaigner and successful businesswoman.

She showed great strength and heroism during a tense period in American history. Her work to make America beautiful can still be seen today in flowering fields, roads, and parks across the country.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Claudia Alta Taylor as a young child. The picture was taken around 1915.

Lady Bird Johnson was born Claudia Alta Taylor in nineteen twelve. The Taylor family lived in the small town of Karnack, Texas. Claudia’s father, Thomas Jefferson Taylor, owned two stores as well as thousands of hectares for cotton production. Her mother, Minnie Taylor, died when Claudia was only five years old. A woman who worked for the Taylor family gave Claudia her nickname. Alice Tittle said the small child was “as purty as a lady bird.”

VOICE TWO:

Claudia had two older brothers who went away to school. She spent many hours by herself exploring the natural beauty of the fields and forests near her home. She said she grew up listening to the wind in the pine trees of the East Texas woods. She said her heart found its home in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth.

Claudia attended public schools and worked hard at her studies. But she was very shy and did not like attention. When she graduated from high school, she had the third highest grades in the class. She reportedly made sure she finished third to avoid giving the graduation speech required by the top two students in the class.

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen thirty-four Lady Bird graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with

Lady Bird Taylor at her graduation in 1934.

degrees in history and journalism. She planned to teach or work as a theater critic. But then she met an energetic congressional assistant named Lyndon Baines Johnson. The young politician from Texas asked her to marry him on their first date. After weeks of pressure from Mister Johnson, Lady Bird accepted his marriage proposal. Here is Missus Johnson talking about her first meeting with her future husband:

LADY BIRD JOHNSON:

“We had a breakfast date, but we wound up by spending the whole day together, riding and talking. Well, he really let me know before the day was over that he wanted to marry me. And I thought this impossible. But on the other hand, there was one thing I knew I just couldn’t bear to have happen and that was to say goodbye, goodbye period.”

VOICE TWO:

Lyndon Johnson was busy planning his political career. Within three years, he ran for a seat in the United States Congress and won. Lady Bird Johnson had given him ten thousand dollars to get his campaign started.

When Japanese planes attacked American ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in nineteen forty-one, Mister Johnson joined the navy to fight in World War Two. Missus Johnson stayed in Washington, D.C. and supervised his congressional office during the eight months he was away. Her excellent organizational skills and smart political sense made her perfect for the job.

VOICE ONE:

After Mister Johnson returned, Lady Bird Johnson soon found a new project. She used about seventeen thousand dollars of family money to buy a small radio station in Austin, Texas. The radio station was in debt and had a small broadcast range. Missus Johnson used her husband’s connections with the Federal Communications Commission to increase the radio station’s power and range.

Soon, the station started making money and the company expanded into television as well. Missus Johnson was president of the family company, LBJ Company. She traveled from Washington to Austin every week to take care of business.

Lynda Bird Johnson, Luci Baines Johnson, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson in a photograph taken in 1963.

During this time the Johnson family started to grow. Lady Bird had a daughter, Lynda Bird, in nineteen forty-four. A second daughter, Luci Baines, was born three years later. Lyndon Johnson’s power in politics also continued to grow. In nineteen forty-eight he was elected to the United States Senate.

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VOICE TWO:

In nineteen sixty, John F. Kennedy ran for president of the United States with Lyndon Johnson as vice president. Missus Kennedy was unable to travel and campaign for the candidates because of her pregnancy. Missus Johnson bravely accepted the job. She visited eleven states to help express the goals of the candidates. They won the election.

Missus Johnson was also at her husband’s side when he visited Texas with President and Missus Kennedy on November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three.

After the tragic shooting of President Kennedy in Dallas, security officials led the Johnsons to the presidential plane to fly back to Washington. During the flight, Missus Johnson and Missus Kennedy watched as Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States.

VOICE ONE:

In the weeks after this national tragedy Lyndon Johnson worked hard to show Americans that he could be a strong president. With his strong support, he got Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four. This law banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin” in public places and federal programs. But the law was not popular with many white voters in the southern part of the country.

Once again, Lady Bird Johnson came to the rescue. As part of Lyndon Johnson’s nineteen sixty-four campaign for president she became a spokesman for the law. Lady Bird Johnson visited important southern states although Democratic governors feared for her safety. She traveled through poor areas talking to angry crowds who were against her husband’s civil rights policies. Lady Bird Johnson knew how to give a powerful and expressive speech.

She won over the loud crowds with her gentle manner and calming southern accent. She told them that it was time to end the South’s racist past and move into the modern world. The media later wrote that she stood as a fearless moral representative of her husband. And, her work paid off. Lyndon Johnson won the election.

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VOICE TWO:

The historian Lewis Gould has said Missus Johnson and her press secretary Liz Carpenter were the first to establish the job of the modern first lady. Missus Johnson realized that the wife of the president needed to have her own team of workers. She made sure she had a director of employees as well as a social director. Lady Bird Johnson’s business experience and sense of organization helped create a very effective system for future first ladies and their causes.

VOICE ONE:

Lady Bird Johnson in 1968 in a classroom at Kemper School for Project Headstart.

As first lady, Missus Johnson became an energetic activist for educational and environmental issues. She helped support Head Start, a public program aimed at giving educational and health services to young children from poor families.

She started the Society for a More Beautiful National Capitol. Its aim was to improve the beauty of Washington by planting trees and flowers in public areas and parks. Missus Johnson understood that these improvements were also linked to important issues such as pollution, public transportation, mental health, and crime rates.

VOICE TWO:

But she is most well known for helping to create The Beautification Act of nineteen sixty-five. It aimed to protect America’s natural beauty by limiting advertising signs and cleaning up waste areas on the country’s roads and highways. The law also supported the planting of local flowers and trees. Here is Missus Johnson talking about her environmental efforts:

LADY BIRD JOHNSON:

“Clean water, clean up the rivers, wilderness areas, more national parks, all of that was a part of our aim and thrust and what we tried to do. I’ve had a life long love affair with nature, a particular accent on wildflowers, native plants for the whole broad face of America. I hope everybody could enjoy their little piece of America as much as I have enjoyed mine.”

VOICE ONE:

Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson had a difficult four-year term. The president faced strong opposition about the United States involvement in the war in Vietnam. In nineteen sixty-eight, President Johnson surprised the nation by announcing that he would not seek reelection as president. The Johnsons left politics and returned home to Texas. Mister Johnson died of a heart attack in nineteen seventy-three.

VOICE TWO:

Lady Bird Johnson continued her tireless work to improve the country’s natural

Lady Bird Johnson in 1990

environment. She created the National Wildflower Research Center in nineteen eighty-two. The center helps to educate people about the environmental importance and value of native plants. Missus Johnson died in two thousand seven at the age of ninety-four. Her memory lives in the many fields of wildflowers that color the roads of America.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I’m Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. You can download scripts and audio of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.

VOASE0805_Development Report

05 August 2007

Should HIV-Infected Mothers Breastfeed?
The World Health Organization recommends HIV-infected mothers substitute breastfeeding with replacement feedings if several conditions can be met.

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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

The HIV virus can be transmitted through breastfeeding

The World Health Organization says that breastfeeding is the best way to provide babies with the nutrients and protection against infection they need to be healthy. However, a woman with HIV can spread the virus that causes AIDS to her child during pregnancy, delivery or through breastfeeding. The WHO estimates up to twenty percent of babies born to HIV-infected mothers become infected through breastfeeding.

However, stopping breastfeeding puts children at risk of other problems. These include poor nutrition and increased risk of other life-threatening infections. These risks were shown in Botswana last year. Water supplies made dirty by flooding led to high rates of diarrhea and poor nutrition among babies fed liquid baby food called formula. More than five hundred children died. The number of deaths from diarrhea increased twenty times from earlier years.

Investigators from the United States Centers for Disease Control discovered the link between formula feeding and infant deaths from diarrhea. They also found that babies who were not breastfed were fifty times more likely to have diarrhea.

Peggy Henderson is a child health and development expert with the World Health Organization. She spoke to us from Geneva, Switzerland. Miz Henderson says the choice of feeding depends on the individual situation of each woman with HIV.

The WHO recommends replacement feeding instead of breastfeeding if several conditions can be met. The replacement feeding must be acceptable, financially and physically possible, continued over a period of time and safe for both the mother and baby. If these conditions cannot be met, the WHO recommends that HIV-infected mothers give their babies only breast milk for the first months of life.

Miz Henderson says there are several promising studies on use of anti-retroviral medicines by HIV-infected mothers and their children. But she says the safety of the process is not clear. She says she hopes the WHO will examine ongoing research of the medicines in two thousand nine. New public health recommendations could be announced then. But for now, Miz Henderson says the WHO does not recommend that HIV-infected mothers use anti-retroviral drugs only to reduce transmission of the virus through breastfeeding.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. I’m Shep O'Neal.

First Lady Visits Minneapolis Bridge Disaster Site

By Greg Flakus Houston 03 August 2007

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In Minneapolis, recovery work continues in the rubble of the 35 West bridge, which collapsed during the afternoon rush hour Wednesday. Officials have now confirmed five deaths from the disaster, with eight people still listed as missing. Among visitors to the site Friday was First Lady Laura Bush. We learn more in this report by VOA's Greg Flakus in Houston.

First Lady Laura Bush talks to first responders as she visits the site of the I-35W bridge collapse over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, 3 Aug. 2007

The First Lady came to the site on the banks of the Mississippi River to see the destruction with her own eyes and to offer whatever comfort and support she could to rescue workers who went into the turbulent waters over and over again looking for survivors. Speaking later, Mrs. Bush said she was impressed by the spirit of the people in the so-called Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

"Over the last 43 hours, the whole country has seen the strength of the Minneapolis-St. Paul community, and because we have seen that strength, we all are confident that the bridge will be rebuilt and that your city will heal," she said.

President Bush is to visit the disaster site on Saturday.

The 160-meter-long bridge was located near the University of Minnesota campus and rose 20 meters over the Mississippi River. As many as 200,000 people crossed the bridge each day, traveling between the two cities. That traffic has now been routed around the disaster site.

Authorities have lowered the water level at the site by using dams and dikes installed higher up on the river, but recovery workers still face a daunting task. The broken concrete slabs and metal support beams that lie twisted and scattered under the water's surface present hazards for divers trying to locate bodies underwater. In addition, there are currents, which are actually swifter and more treacherous as a result of the water level having been lowered.

The collapse of the bridge has also wakened officials all over the country to the threat posed by bridges and other vital infrastructure that might be cracked or showing signs of fatigue as well as to the need for new inspections. Experts say there are nearly 600,000 bridges in the United States, and they have an average age of 42 years. More than 75,000 of them have ratings of "structurally deficient," as did the bridge in Minneapolis.

Authorities say that rating does not mean the bridges are in danger of imminent collapse, but that measures should be taken to either address the problems or replace them.

People in Minnesota are now asking why more was not done to repair the Minneapolis bridge, which was revealed to have problems in a 2005 inspection and yet was not listed as needing to be replaced until 2020.

The effort to determine what exactly caused the collapse is expected to take many weeks. Federal and state engineers are working together to recover material from the bridge and to study videotapes from nearby security cameras that may provide clues as to what went wrong.

VOASE0803_In the News

03 August 2007

Good Sports, Bad Sports
Sports professionals are being praised, condemned and investigated.

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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

For the last several weeks, professional athletes have been on the first page of newspapers as much as in the sports pages. Some news stories are about extraordinary careers. Others are about athletes behaving badly.

Professional baseball players Cal Ripken and Tony Gywnn are among the heroes.

Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. after they entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

They were admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame Sunday at a ceremony in Cooperstown, New York. About seventy-five thousand fans gathered there to celebrate. Both men spoke about the importance of the public image of athletes. Gwynn said professional baseball was about more than just playing. He said players need to do the right thing for all the fans who love the sport. Ripken said players are behavior models whether they like it or not. He said the only question is whether they will be good ones or bad ones.

Barry Bonds, right, and Doug Mirabelli watch Bonds's 748th career home run.

The speeches followed weeks of legal charges, accusations and investigations involving sports professionals. In baseball, Barry Bonds is two homeruns away from breaking the record set by Hank Aaron in nineteen seventy-six. Bonds' success has renewed accusations that he used banned performance-improving drugs. However, Bonds has never failed a drug test nor has he been charged with any crime.

Similar accusations of banned drug use also took place at the Tour de France bicycle race last month. Several riders tested positive for a performance-improving drug. And, in the final week of the race, the leading cyclist Michael Rasmussen of Denmark was expelled on suspicion of taking banned drugs.

The International Cycling Union said there were more cases of doping in the Tour de France this year because there was more testing.

An American professional football player is also in the news. Last week, Michael Vick told a court in Richmond, Virginia, he was not guilty of charges connected to an illegal dog-fighting business. The charges include extreme cruelty to animals.

Federal investigators say they found fight dogs and other evidence on Michael Vick's property in Virginia earlier this year. A defendant who pled guilty in the case has agreed to speak against Vick in court in return for a lesser sentence. Several sporting goods companies that had paid Vick for the use of his name have ended their business relationship with him. And an animal rights group, the Humane Society, is urging the National Football League to suspend Vick from play.

Finally, some bad news in professional basketball. United States federal officials are investigating former National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy. The referee enforces the rules and keeps order in the game. He can stop play if he calls a violation by a player and turn the ball over to the opposing team. Donaghy is being investigated for betting money on basketball games, including some in which he was a referee.He resigned last month.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Caty Weaver. I’m Steve Ember.

France Confirms Agreement to Sell Arms to Libya

By Anita Elash Paris 03 August 2007

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France and Libya have agreed to their first arms deal since the European Union lifted an arms embargo on Libya in 2004. The deal comes after the release last week of six medical workers who Libya accused of intentionally infecting Libyan children with the AIDS virus. As Anita Elash reports for VOA from Paris, French opposition parties say they want proof that the arms sale was not part of a release package.

The Bulgarian nurses and medic pose in front of the French presidential plane after their arrival at the Sofia airport, 24 July 2007

Libya has long been isolated from the international community, so for leader Moammar Gadhafi, the deal with France is proof that he is being welcomed back onto the world stage. It comes after the six medical workers were released last week and flown to Bulgaria and a subsequent visit to Libya by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. During that visit, Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Gadhafi signed an agreement for Paris to provide a nuclear reactor to Libya that would turn seawater into drinking water.

Details of the arms deal began to emerge this week, when Mr. Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, told a French newspaper it was part of the agreement to free the medical workers.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin confirmed the deal on Friday morning. He said Libya has agreed to contracts worth $405 million including the purchase of communications equipment and medium-range anti-tank missiles from subsidiaries of the European Aerospace and Defense firm EADS. The minister denied that the deal has anything to do with the medical workers. He said an interministerial committee approved it in February.

He says the deal was not speeded up and that the discussion had been going on for years.

French opposition parties are demanding a parliamentary inquiry into the deal. Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande said he wants proof that the arms deal is unrelated to the release of the medical workers, who say they were tortured into making confessions in Libya.

He says he wants a parliamentary commission that can clarify whether the deal was the result of a normal business negotiation, or whether it was part of a negotiation with a country that held the medical workers for eight years and tried to use them as pawns.

The French government has not responded to Hollande's demand. Parliament has closed for the summer, and Mr. Sarkozy is in the United States on holiday.

Darfur Peace Talks Falter Before They Begin

By Nick Wadhams Nairobi 03 August 2007

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Negotiations aimed at resolving Sudan's brutal Darfur conflict faltered before they began on Friday after a leading rebel groups refused to participate. As Nick Wadhams reports from our East Africa bureau in Nairobi, the boycott raises new doubts about prospects for peace in Darfur.

The talks in Arusha, Tanzania are meant to unite Darfur's various rebel factions and were initially seen as a positive and crucial step. They come just days after the U.N. Security Council passed a landmark resolution authorizing the deployment of 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur.

But the start of the talks was delayed Friday because some rebel groups had not arrived. And already, hopes that the rebels would take advantage of the momentum provided by the resolution seem lost.

About a dozen rebel factions are taking part in the talks, but one important group is absent - the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Abdelwahid al-Nur. His group argues that it is pointless to talk politics while violence continues.

SLM spokesman Yahia Bolad says al-Nur will not make the same mistake he made in 2006, when he agreed to a peace proposal after months of talks in Abuja, Nigeria, that amounted to nothing.

"The result is that weak Abuja agreement and the government continues killing our people. The humanitarian issue became more worse than ever. For that reason we need to suspend the conflict," he said. "So the matter is not issuing resolutions, the matter is how to implement these resolutions and that's what we're waiting for. When we see U.N. troops on the ground we will start the political process steps."

Al-Nur is one of the Darfur rebellion's founding fathers and a member of Sudan's largest tribe, the Fur. He is popular among many of the 2.5 million people who have been displaced by the Darfur fighting. Some 200,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in 2003.

Without his participation it seems unlikely that the three days of talks in Arusha will result in serious progress. The negotiations are being sponsored by the African Union and the United Nations.

The Sudanese government is not participating in the talks. But foreign ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq Ali says he believes a successful conclusion of the talks in Arusha could lead immediately to new negotiations with the government.

"I don't think it will be a failure," he said. "If they are agreed on a common position I think the next step will be to name the place and the time of the first talks so that the process will start from there on."

The various rebel factions are also calling for the release of the humanitarian coordinator of the Sudan Liberation Army, Suleiman Jammous. The factions believe that Jammous could help jump-start the limited relief work in Darfur and could also help unite the various rebels.

Jammous has been in a U.N. hospital near Darfur for more than a year and the Khartoum government says he will be arrested if he tries to leave.

Thailand Seeks Closer Ties with Muslim Nations

By Ron Corben Bangkok 03 August 2007

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The Thai Government is seeking closer links with Muslim countries, part of a two-pronged strategy to end separatist violence in three of its southern provinces. Even as the government was announcing the plan, at least 13 more people died in the area this week in bombing and shooting attacks. Ron Corben reports from Bangkok.

A security report released by the Thai Cabinet this week says the government will pursue closer ties with Muslim countries, especially Malaysia and Indonesia.

The statement, part of a draft foreign policy paper on security, said closer contacts would also be developed with international Muslim organizations and foundations.

Thai soldiers and police officers stand as pay their respects to a colleague who was shot dead by militants during a funeral ceremony at the airport in Narathiwat province, 03 Aug 2007

Also this week, the Thai military reported it had rounded up more than 1,900 suspected militants during recent sweeps across the provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, and Pattani. The military calls 300 of those in custody "leading insurgents," who supervised and staged attacks.

Analysts are viewing these moves as a two-pronged strategy by the government to end the three-year-old Muslim insurgency in the three provinces, which sit on Thailand's southern border with predominately-Muslim Malaysia. The violence has claimed almost 2,500 lives since 2004.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, says the strategy aims to give the government a better picture of how and where the separatists are receiving their support.

"The network in the South has been known to be connected to overseas foundations," he said. "Another strategy is to engage those countries - those foundations and those individuals - to understand what's going on and to get some cooperation and assistance as to how to contain or disconnect some of these linkages."

Nitti Hassan, president of the Council of Muslim Organizations of Thailand, says the government is casting a wide net in hopes of attracting Muslim help.

"The government expects that the Muslim country or the Muslim leader will help to solve the problem from the deep South. They think the insurgents may receive the influence from the Muslim country," said Hassan. "So the government has invited the [religious] leader from Egypt, from Saudi Arabia, also Indonesia, and from Malaysia also."

Thailand has already sought help from Malaysia in opening a dialogue with separatist leaders. Thai intelligence sources say further such efforts are expected this month.

For now, knowledge of the militants is limited. One organization, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, is linked with the RKK Commando Force. The two are seeking a separate Muslim entity in the region, which was an autonomous Malayan sultanate until annexed by Thailand 100 years ago. Intelligence sources say the RKK has fewer than two thousand militants, with ties to private Islamic schools.

No separatist group has issued a manifesto, however, and for the most part, the violence has consisted of random shootings and bombings. Both Muslims and Buddhists have been targeted.

While the government seeks answers, the violence continues. At least 13 people have been killed in the region this week and another 30 wounded. In one incident, two Muslim villagers, a 61-year-old man and his 26-year-old son, were gunned down near their home in Narathiwat.

20 Million Affected by Floods in South Asia

By Anjana Pasricha New Delhi 03 August 2007

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Relief workers are struggling to help at least 20 million people affected by floods in South Asia. More than 200 people have died so far in this year's annual monsoon rains. Anjana Pasricha in VOA's New Delhi bureau has more on the situation.

A woman wades through a flooded street to collect food in Sirajgonj, about 104 kilometers (65 miles) north of Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, 03 Aug 2007

As heavy monsoon rains continue to sweep India, Bangladesh and Nepal, government and relief agencies are battling to help the victims.

Devendra Tak, with the regional Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, paints a grim picture.

"There have been lives lost across the region due to drowning, due to snake bite, due to house collapses, casualties are rising and…there is always a danger of diseases that always follow floods," said Tak.

In India, the states of Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have been the worst hit by weeks of constant rainfall. Rivers have burst banks. Flood waters have inundated vast tracts of valuable crops and washed out roads, bridges and railways. The Army has been deployed to evacuate hundreds of cut-off villages.

Neighboring Bangladesh is criss-crossed by rivers and half the country is under water. And in mountainous Nepal, landslides and floods triggered by the rains have displaced tens of thousands of people.

Government and aid agencies have established hundreds of relief camps but say the top priority is to provide clean drinking water and food to the victims wherever they are.

Tak says the massive relief operation is making progress but not enough.

"Relief has been slow in coming I would say overall…. and they would need to do a lot of quick work to provide relief to victims who really require it urgently," Tak added.

The floods will leave a long-term impact on the region as they wash away standing crops, and prevent farmers from planting seeds for the next season. And many poor laborers will be left without work - deepening poverty among already impoverished flood victims.

Floods are an annual occurrence in South Asia during the July to September monsoon season. But authorities say the flooding this year has been more severe than usual.

India Releases Text of Civilian Nuclear Accord With US

By Steve Herman New Delhi 03 August 2007

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The text of a historic civilian nuclear agreement between India and the United States has been released, a week after the deal was announced. As VOA's Steve Herman reports from the Indian capital, the document skirts the delicate issue of what would happen if India conducted another nuclear weapons test.

As expected, the 22-page agreement spells out how the two countries will share nuclear fuel and technology, but avoids any mention of what would happen if India were to carry out another atomic weapons test.

The United States originally sought a specific ban on further Indian tests, but the Indians rejected that as an infringement on their sovereignty.

The text does, however, provide for termination of the agreement with one year's notice. It says "consultations" would have to be held first to discuss the reasons for the termination, which could include what it calls a "changed security environment."

This appears to be a reference to the possibility that Indian might resume testing if it feels threatened by a neighbor.

The text says the United States would help India obtain fuel from other nations if the U.S. supply of nuclear fuel to India is cut off - something that would presumably happen if New Delhi did conduct another nuclear test.

Research analyst Reshmi Kazi at New Delhi's Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies doubts the Indian government will violate the terms of the agreement. She points out that India has agreed to oversight by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, to allay concerns about diversion of U.S. materials to India's military nuclear program.

"India's definitely going to be a reliable partner, with the fact that we have agreed to put forth 65 percent of our nuclear facilities under safeguards," she said. "In addition to that, we have also agreed to put a reprocessing facility under IAEA safeguards. It's definitely going to make a major breakthrough within the non-proliferation world."

The text shows that after two years of intense technical negotiations, India won the right to stockpile and reprocess fuel, which could be used to make nuclear weapons.

The agreement still requires approval by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, along with ratification by the U.S. Congress.

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.