F2F Class Notes 20th January (Celeste) [S]***

Demo StudentLeigh

Homework

Read the article below and be prepared to talk about it in your next F2F.

Eight billionaires as rich as half the world

The world’s eight richest men have as much money as half the world. A new report from the charity Oxfam said eight billionaires are as rich as the 3.6 billion poorest people in the world. Six of the world’s richest people are from the USA. The richest is Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is worth $75 billion. Amazon and Facebook founders Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg both have wealth estimated to be around $45 billion. Oxfam’s report is called ‘An Economy for the 99 Per Cent’. Oxfam said: “It shows that the gap between rich and poor is far greater than had been feared.” It added that businesses and the “super-rich” are creating greater income inequality by avoiding tax and paying low wages.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said: “It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day. Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty.” She added that: “Across the world, people are being left behind. Their wages are [not going up] yet corporate bosses take home million-dollar bonuses.” She said governments only care about big business and a “wealthy elite”. Economist Mark Littlewood attacked the report as being unfair. He said: “As an ‘anti-poverty’ charity, Oxfam seems to be strangely [obsessed] with the rich.” He said Oxfam should focus on ways to boost growth instead of complaining about the rich.

Pronunciation

world ( were – ull – d )

founders ( fow – nders )

obscene ( ubb – seen )

wealthy ***th

elite ( Ell – leet )

growth ***open mouth more for “O” and remember “th”

Speaking exercise

What do you think about this article?

From my perspective, I think rich is not a thing Like the rich people create more products and fantastic ideas for the world. So, money is just a kind of feedback for them. Like, the rich people shouldn’t be blamed just because they are rich. There must be different reasons to decide whether you can be rich or poor. Of course there are a lot of poor people in this world. They need help but the rich people since they have contribute to this world they deserve to get some money or other stuff as a compensation.  But the rich people also have to burden more social responsibility since they get the returns from the society they also need to provide more returns to the society.

Edited

From my perspective, I think being rich is not a crime. Like rich people create more products and fantastic ideas for the world. So, money is just a kind of feedback for them. Rich people shouldn’t be blamed just because they are rich. There must be different  factors which effect whether you are rich or poor. Of course there are a lot of poor people in this world. They need help but it shouldn’t be mandatory for the wealthy/well-off/affluent to do so/ to aid. Since rich people contribute to this world/society they deserve to get some money or recognition as compensation.  It’s a never ending cycle, once someone is recognized for their humanity they have more to burden because they will be seen in the the public eye as a role model for others and therefore must continue to give back to others in need. 

Read this article:

Language barriers holding back global science

New research says that language barriers are holding back science around the world. English is widely accepted to be the language of science, but one-third of research is not published in English. This means a lot of important research is not seen or read by scientists and researchers. The research is from the University of Cambridge. Researchers said important science is being missed at the international level. They said science journals should publish basic summaries of a study’s key findings in multiple languages. They also said universities around the world should translate their research into different languages, especially Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

Many international companies are now asking all their staff to communicate only in English. They hope this will reduce language barriers. The German carmaker Volkswagen has just announced that English and not German is its official language. VW executives said the switch to English was to attract employees. The Japanese carmaker Honda has also announced that all its staff must use English by 2020. Researcher Tatsuya Amano said: “I believe the scientific community needs to start seriously tackling this issue.” He used the example that important research about avian flu in China initially went unnoticed by the World Health Organization because it was published in journals in Chinese.