V. Answer the following questions:

1. Is globalization a psychological, social or economical process?

2. Is globalization irreversible? What do you think? Give your arguments.

3. What factors create conditions to make globalization irreversible?

4. Is it possible to create the world society of peace and harmony?

5. Is Cold War a reality or myth nowadays?

6. What are the advantages of globalization? Are there any disadvantages?

7. Is it necessary to eliminate borders between countries on the way of globalization?

8. Does globalization mean an opportunity for complete security and equality?

9. Do you believe in globalization without visible psy­ chological scars?

VI. MAKE UP DISJUNCTIVE QUESTIONS AND ASK YOUR FRIEND TO ANSWER THEM:

1. The emergence of world politics promotes the develop­ ment of cooperation across the globe.

2. Globalization has an important ideological dimension.

3. Globalization is connected with successful solution of pollution problems.

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4. Global economy is based on international trade and business activities.

5. Globalization becomes possible thanks to technologi­ cal innovation.

6. The world government is a chance to survive on the principle of peaceful coexistence.

VII. SPEAK ON THE MAJOR POINTS OF THE AR­ TICLE.

VIII. ARRANGE A DISCUSSION ON THE PROBLEM OF GLOBALIZATION. GIVE CONS AND PROS OF THIS PROCESS.

IX. READ THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS FROM IN­ TERNATIONAL NEWS AND ENUMERATE THE URGENT GLOBAL PROBLEMS:

1. A scarcity of computers and Internet service have severely hindered continental industrialization programs and have contributed to social problems such as HIV/AIDS to create more than $360 billion in debt, says a United Na­ tions report.

2. A global chocolate industry four-year plan to elimi­ nate child slavery in the cocoa-producing nations of West Africa annually may effect an estimated 200,000 children who are smuggled across the borders of Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin Cote d'Ivoire and Togo, according to a UN Children's Fund report.

3. Women trade unionists meeting in Bucharest argued that most resources and technical aid are still channeled toward men producing crops for export.

4. The UN Conference on Trade and Development offi­ cials say that nothing short of a major orientation of inter­ national and domestic policies will improve the annual eco­ nomic growth rate of three percent, scarcely half the amount required for it to begin reducing poverty.

Part II

Political science

5. The new World Bank-funded Africa Trade Insurance Agency will try to stimulate foreign investment by provid­ ing coverage for non-commercial hazards for exports to, from and within Africa.

6. T he UN Fund for Women says aid workers often turn a blind eye to violations against women in refugee camps. The displaced women have to live with constant sexual abuse in camps designed to protect them.

7. Finance and planning ministers from Algeria, Benin, Bostwana, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Mozambique, Ni­ geria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Senegal, South Africa, Tan­ zania and Uganda pledged to establish a peer review system to monitor one another's budgets and social policies.

8. During the UN World Conference Against Racism, AID victims and their advocates detailed violence that people with the disease face in Africa.

9. The World Health Organization said cigarette smok­ ing is spreading fastest among women because intense to­ bacco industry advertising targets them.

10. Governments pledged to intensify opposition to traf­ ficking in women and children but human rights advocates say the efforts are doomed unless national laws are inte­ grated so that, for example, trafficked women would be regarded everywhere as victims and not criminals.

11. Poverty, hunger and ill-health will increase through­ out the region because of the global economic slowdown. The effects of global recession would be made worse by the financial and social costs of suppressing anti-war and reli­ gious protests.

12. Governments in the region are cooperating with the Central Intelligence Agency and Interpol, the international police network, to determine whether local pro-Libyan groups had any role in the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States.

13. The head of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Epidemi­ ology Center called for calm in the region after tests con-

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firming the presence of anthrax in mail handled by US postal workers, sparked numerous reports of «white powder» by postal workers.

14. Degradation of the environment is occurring at a rate that exceeds the creation of workable solutions despite government efforts over the last decade, according to the environment ministers.

15. Although women in Central America earn up to 40 percent less than men for the same work, none of the coun­ tries have strategies to correct this imbalance, according to a study by the non-governmental Forum of Women for Cen­ tral American Integration. The study noted that women tend to work in poorly paid, low-quality jobs, and there are no official efforts to redress the situation.

X. TRANSLATE INTO ENGLISH:

1. Какая бы модель мировой интеграции не превали­ ровала, она должна учитывать интересы большинства.

2. Несмотря на определённые трудности, существу­ ют объективные условия для создания международных организаций, необходимых для решения глобальных проблем.

3. Степень глобализации во многом зависит от техно­ логической оснащённости государств.

4. С появлением феномена глобализации наше пони­ мание политики и взаимодействия государств совершен­ но изменилось.

5. Глобализация способствует возникновению миро­ вых сообществ.

6. Глобализация характеризуется важными полити­ ко-идеологическими параметрами.

7. Возникновение глобальной взаимозависимости яви­ лось следствием разнообразных процессов и развития.

8. Распространение международной торговли и транс­ национальный характер современного бизнеса способство­ вали появлению мировой экономики.

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T EXT III

I. READ THE ARTICLE AND SAY WHY IT IS CALLED IN THIS WAY:

THE NEXT THREAT: WEAPONS

OF MASS DISTRUCTION

(by George F. Will)

Terrorist attacks have usually been against single tar­gets - individuals, crowds, buildings. But today's net-worked world of complexity and interconnectedness has vast new vulnerabilities with a radius larger than that of any imagi­nable bomb blast. Terrorists using computers might be able to disrupt information and communication systems and, by doing so, attack banking and financial systems, energy (elec­tricity, oil, gas) and the systems for the physical distribu­tion of economic output.

Hijacked aircraft and powered anthrax — such terro­rist tools are crude and scarce compared with compu­ters, which are everywhere and inexpensive. Wielded with sufficient cunning, they can spread the demoralizing help­lessness that is terrorism's most important intended by­product. Computers as weapons, even more than inter­continental ballistic missiles, render irrelevant physical geography — the two broad oceans and two peaceful neighbors — that once was the basis of America's sense of safety.

In a software-driven world, an enemy need not invade the territory, or the air over the territory, of a country in order to control or damage that country's resources.

The attack tools are on sale everywhere: computers, modems, software, telephones. The attacks can shut down services or deliver harmful instructions to systems. And a cyber-attack may not be promptly discovered. Computer intrusions do not announce their presence the way a bomb does.

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Already «subnational» groups - terrorists, organized crime - are taking advantage of legal and widely available strong software that makes their communications invul­nerable to surveillance. If all the personal computers in the world were put to work on a single message, it would still take an estimated 12 million times the age of the universe to break a single message.

Now suppose a state or group or state-supported group used similar cyber-marvels to attack, say, US banking and financial systems, or the production and distribution of electric power.

II. ANSWER THE QUESTIONS:

1. What new sort of terrorism appeared in the world?

2. Is it too dangerous? ,

3. What are its grave consequences?

4. What are the attack tools for new terrorists?

5. Is it easy or difficult to discover a cyber-attack?

III. READ THE FOLLOWING ITEMS AND SAY WHAT PROBLEMS ARISE AT THE BACKGROUND OF THE IN­ FORMATION PRESENTED IN THEM:

THE MICROSOFT MONOPOLY

Is Bill Gates's Windows the best thing that ever hap­pened to its millions of users? Without even knowing American antitrust laws, one can tell that 90 percent of all users make up Gates's captive customer base. It's the same, with Microsoft Office. All other US business giants - cars, telecommunications, banking, finance and mass media -have competition. Even the Mafia has to compete. Many giants go global in order to remain competitive. Microsoft alone has no competition - those who were likely to pop up got clobbered and buried. This is a monopoly in its most sinister form. While others fight the courts for survival, Gates fights to perpetuate this monopoly.

(from «NEWSWEEK» 2000}

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NOTES:

Clobber - атаковать

Sinister - зловещий

EUROPE'S POLS TAKE TO THE NET With British elections coming next week, Web surfers have plenty of opportunity to sample the spectacle. They can get hard news from www.voxpolitics.com, or stage Space Invaders-style battles between the forces of Labour's Tony Blair and Conservative candidate William Hague at www.friendly-giants.com. The parties are tripping over themselves to attract a Web audience: Labour recently mailed its Web-site address to first-time voters, and both parties have multiplatform news portals.

Internet-mania won't end when the British election is over. Many European governments are spending millions of euros to put all their transactions on the Web. The United Kingdom hired Microsoft to build a super-portal that will connect hundreds of government institutions, local and national, to one another by 2005. E-voting trials are under­way in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany. Italian and Dutch taxpayers already file online.

But the Euro governments may be overreaching. The complexity of forging seamless data links between myriad local and national departments is enormous - many of the world's top corporations haven't yet managed it. And there are antitrust issues. Right now, only a few thousand people file online via government sites, but what happens when that goes to millions?

Governments may end up farming out many Web ser­vices to third parties. The biggest rewards may come to governments that use the Web to increase internal effi­ciency.

IV. ANSWER: HOW DO GOVERNMENTS USE WEB SITES?

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Political science

Part II