Text 14

Why do women live longer than men?

A Women generally live about six years longer than men. Evidence suggests that boys are the weaker sex at birth, which means that more die in infancy. Men also have a greater risk of heart disease than women, and they have heart attacks earlier in life. Men smoke and drink more than women, and their behavior is generally more aggressive, particularly when driving, so they are more likely to die in accidents.

Also, men are more often in dangerous occupations, such as construction works.

Historically, women died in childbirth and men in wars. So nuns and philosophers often lived to great ages. Now childbearing is less risky and there are fewer wars. The country with the highest life expectancy is Japan-84 years for women and 77 for men.

B

Smoking is a major problem among youth in Kazakhstan. Schooling is the major activity of most children between the ages of 7 and 17 years and school is the place where most of them socialize outside their home environment for the first time. A school is the place where much knowledge is obtained, attitudes are formed and sometimes habits are chosen. Studies have demonstrated that the secondary school age is a critical period in the formation of the smoking habit. Experimenting with cigarettes often begins during childhood or early adolescence and there is usually a period of about 1.5 to 2 years between initiation of smoking and establishment of the smoking habit. Public health officials of Kazakhstan have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes serious diseases in non-smokers, including lung cancer and heart disease.

Text 15

“Private Eyes Italian Style”

Elspeth Thompson watches the detectives who are exclusively female.

There’s whiff of Chanel perfume in the air as well-dressed young women move from room to room along wide, cream-carpeted corridors. This could be mistaken for an executive job agency. In fact these are the offices of Holmes Investigazioni, Italy’s first and only detective agency staffed by women.

A loud laugh announces the arrival of Carmelia Costa, in her mid-forties and dressed from top-to toe in Yves St Laurent couture clothes. Ms Costa is a director of the company.

Fifteen women, aged between eighteen and thirty-five are employed by the agency. ‘I get them either before they’re married or after they’re divorced!’ Husbands and children are distractions and boyfriends have to be understanding because of the long and unpredictable hours.

‘Sooner or later a man will say: “You’ll have to choose. It’s either me or the job”, says Ms Costa. ‘That is what happened to me, and I chose my work’.

She is in no doubt that women make the best detectives. ‘For a star it’s a job do with your brain not your muscles. My girls don’t lack physical strength, but they hardly ever have to use it because their thinking, their intuition, is so well developed’.

What does she look for in a new recruit? ‘They must have good intuition, iron nerves, patience and 100 per cent dedication to the job. They don’t have to be beautiful, in fact they should preferably be average-looking, neither too pretty or nor too plain, and it’s better if they haven’t seen too many TV series about glamorous women detectives. I don’t want someone who thinks she’s going to be sitting around in a sports car all day in the sun.’

The bull of the agency’s work is divided between stopping industrial espionage and searching for missing people. The former can be tricky work. One case involves a firm who wants to know who leaked some plans.

‘I’ve sent women along to pose as employees-one as a secretary, the other in management. They have to watch and listen, take photographs, talk to people, find out how the place works.’

In a bar round the corner, veteran detective Nikka is teaching Barbara, an ex-medical student, how to follow someone. ‘You mustn’t make any jerky movements or change direction suddenly. Walk slowly and keep looking around you. If you’re in a car, you’ve got to try to keep at least one car between yours and the one you’re following. Don’t, whatever you do, fix your eyes on the back of someone’s neck. You might as well be wearing a big badge saying “I’m a detective”.