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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

This week, Russia buried its former president with full honors in Moscow. Boris Yeltsin died Monday at age seventy-six. He served from nineteen ninety-one to nineteen ninety-nine. He will always be remembered as Russia's first democratically elected leader. But his record is seen as a mix of good and bad for the country.

The coffin of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin during a Farewell ceremony in Moscow

Boris Yeltsin rose within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. But in nineteen eighty-seven he rebelled against the Soviet system. He called for more reform. Within a month, he was dismissed as party chief in Moscow.

He became a leader of Russia's political opposition. In nineteen eighty-nine, he was elected to the Soviet parliament. Two years later he was elected president of the Russian republic -- at that time, the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. Mikhail Gorbachev was president of the Soviet Union.

That same year, nineteen ninety-one, a group of plotters from the military, Communist

Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev

Party and KGB secret police tried to seize power. Leaders of the attempted overthrow detained Mister Gorbachev. But Mister Yeltsin climbed onto an army tank in Moscow to urge people to resist. The coup attempt failed.

Four months later, in December, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned and the Soviet Union collapsed.

Yet in the years that followed Boris Yeltsin's heroic moment, his popularity fell. In October of nineteen ninety-three, he ordered the army to shell the parliament building to end an occupation by his opponents.

The next year, he ordered troops into Chechnya to crush a separatist rebellion. The war that followed resulted in more than seventy-five thousand deaths, mostly civilians.

Yet Mister Yeltsin's presidency also led to open elections in Russia. It led to private property rights and the right to free speech. He pushed for economic reforms. But critics said those policies went too far, leaving millions of Russians in poverty. They said the restructuring gave too much economic power to a small number of very wealthy business people, known as oligarchs.

Boris Yeltsin had a history of heart problems and heavy drinking. He suffered a heart attack between the first and second rounds of balloting in the nineteen ninety-six presidential election. His condition, though, was kept hidden. In nineteen ninety-nine, six months before the end of his second term, Mister Yeltsin resigned.

To take his place, he chose his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy. Mister Putin was then elected president in two thousand and re-elected four years later. This week he remembered Mister Yeltsin as a man thanks to whom "a new democratic Russia was born."

Political scientists say history will remember Boris Yeltsin as a leader who was democratic in some ways but not in others. They say Russia under Mister Yeltsin was a far more open place than it was during Soviet times -- and more open than it is now.

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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Nicolas Sarkosy and Tony Blair meet in Paris on May 11, 2007

Nicolas Sarkozy will take office Wednesday as president of France. He supports labor reforms, tax cuts and strong controls over crime and illegal immigration. As interior minister he was known for strongly worded conservative positions on law and order. Now he proposes to liberalize the French economy to better compete in world markets.

Some say his proposed economic reforms could lead to labor unrest. The plan includes a right to work more than thirty-five hours a week.

Before anything, he will need the support of parliament. Legislative elections are in June.

People talk about "Sarkozy the American" because he supports the United States. But the new president says he is going to make the French people proud again of their nation.

Two-term President Jacques Chirac is retiring after twelve years in office.

The president-elect was the candidate of the ruling party, the Union for a Popular Movement. In Sunday's election, Nicolas Sarkozy easily defeated Socialist candidate Segolene Royal with fifty-three percent of the vote.

But his election led to three nights of violence during protests in Paris and other cities. Hundreds of people were arrested.

Mister Sarkozy's election raises concerns for supporters of Turkey's efforts to join the European Union. He is against it. Instead he proposes a "Mediterranean Union" as a bridge between Europe and Africa. The idea is to include Turkey and other Muslim nations, as well as European Union members along the Mediterranean, including France.

Still, officials from Turkey and the European Union say they will push ahead with membership talks. The European Union has also urged patience as Turkey seeks a new president.

Parliament voted Thursday for a proposed constitutional amendment to let the Turkish people elect a new president directly. The ruling AK party proposed it. This comes after the party failed to get parliament to elect Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

Opposition parties boycotted the vote. They say he is an Islamist threat to the separation of religion and government in Turkey -- a charge he denies.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was to leave office next week. Now he is expected to stay until a new parliament is elected in July. The ruling party wants to hold a presidential election at the same time.

In other news, Tony Blair announced this week when he will resign after ten years as Britain's prime minister. The date is June twenty-seventh. His Labor Party is expected to elect Gordon Brown, currently the treasury chief.

Tony Blair's popularity suffered because of his support for the Iraq war. But he will also be remembered for British economic gains and, among other things, for his work on the Northern Ireland peace agreement.

This week, a government was inaugurated in which Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders will share power in the British province. The hope is for a lasting end to thirty years of conflict.

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Employers in the United States expect to hire almost twenty percent more college graduates this year than last year. So says the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

The US job market for college graduates has been growing stronger since 2002

The group says employers are most interested in students with business, engineering and computer-related training. There is also great demand for business graduates with a master's of business administration or other advanced degree. Employers say they plan to increase hiring of M.B.A. graduates by eighteen percent.

Increases in starting pay are also a sign of the demand for business and technical majors. The average pay offer to newly hired marketing graduates is reported up by more than ten percent over last year. The increase is almost eight percent for graduates in business administration.

The job market for college graduates has grown stronger and stronger since demand reached a low point in two thousand two. The unemployment rate for all workers is four and a half percent. But people with a bachelor's degree have a jobless rate under two percent.

Just over half of employers said they expect to offer jobs to more college graduates this year than last. But the signs of job growth do not look so good for liberal 自由派的arts graduates. Not only that, starting pay for graduates with a liberal arts degree is up just one percent.

Before we go -- we told you last month that the carmaker Chrysler克莱斯勒 was for sale. This week DaimlerChrysler of Germany announced a deal for its struggling American division. Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity company in New York, will buy an eighty percent share. The deal is valued at almost seven and one-half billion dollars.

Daimler 英国高级汽车名牌will have to pay about six hundred fifty million dollars to complete the deal. And it will continue to hold twenty percent of Chrysler. But it will no longer be responsible for Chrysler's retirement and health care plans. Their cost is estimated at around eighteen billion dollars.

Labor unions are being told there are no plans for major job cuts beyond the thirteen thousand that Chrysler announced in February.

Chrysler lost one and one-half billion dollars last year. Recently, though, because of accounting 帐目changes, the loss was restated 重申 as six hundred eighty million dollars. The new owners say they are looking for a long-term plan to make Chrysler profitable again.

 

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A listener in Nigeria has a question about financial aid for blind and visually impaired college students in America. S.A. Ogunlowo in Ile-Ife wants to know if visually impaired foreign students can get a full scholarship as an undergraduate.

In 2004, Tim Cordes, who is blind, graduated near the top of his medical school class at the University of Wisconisn-Madison

Financial aid programs in the United States, especially at the undergraduate level, do often require American citizenship. At the same time, scholarships often pay only part of the cost of an education. The National Federation of the Blind advises students to contact any school they wish to attend to ask about financial aid.

The federation is the country's largest group for the blind. Each year it awards scholarships that do not have any citizenship requirements. Students must be legally blind. And foreign students cannot apply until a college in the United States has already accepted them.

The application deadline was March thirty-first for thirty scholarships offered for this fall. Most are three thousand dollars. The highest is twelve thousand dollars.

The United States has an estimated one million blind adults. The federation says there are no special colleges or universities for the blind. But schools do offer special services and technology to help students with disabilities

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

A question from Vietnam. Listener Nguyen Minh Tan wants to know more about the World Trade Organization and its history.

Pascal Lamy is WTO director-general

The World Trade Organization came into existence in nineteen ninety-five. It operates a system of trade rules. It serves as a place for nations to settle disputes and negotiate agreements to reduce trade barriers. The newest of its one hundred fifty members, Vietnam, joined in January.

But the roots of the W.T.O. date back to World War Two and the years that followed.

In nineteen forty-four, a meeting took place in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire: the International Monetary Conference. There, negotiators agreed to create the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But they could not agree on an organization to deal with international trade.

Three years later, in nineteen forty-seven, twenty-three nations approved the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT. It was meant to be temporary. Trade negotiations under GATT were carried out in a series of talks called rounds. The first round lowered import taxes on one-fifth of world trade. Later rounds produced additional cuts, and negotiators added more issues.

The sixth round began in nineteen sixty-three. It was called the Kennedy Round after the murder of President John F. Kennedy. The results included an agreement against trade dumping. This is when one country sells a product in another country at an unfairly low price.

The eighth round of talks began in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in nineteen eighty-six. The Uruguay Round lasted almost twice as long as planned. In all, one hundred twenty-three nations took part in seven-and-a-half years of work. They set time limits for future negotiations. They also agreed to create a permanent system to settle trade disputes.

In April of nineteen ninety-four, most of those one hundred twenty-three nations signed an agreement. It replaced GATT with the World Trade Organization.

The W.T.O. launched a new round on development issues in Doha, Qatar, in November of two thousand one. These talks were supposed to end by January of two thousand five. But negotiators could not agree on issues involving agricultural protections. The current round has been suspended since last July.

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This week in Washington, Congress approved a war spending bill议案 that President Bush said he would sign. There was debate on an immigration bill. And hearings continued into why the Justice Department dismissed eight federal prosecutors检举人 last year.

The United States Capitol          国会大厦

The Iraq spending bill was approved Thursday after majority Democrats dropped their demand to set a date for a troop军队 withdrawal撤退. But the bill does threaten to cut economic aid if the Iraqi government fails to make progress on political and security reforms改革,革新.

Democrats民主党人 say they will renew their fight for a withdrawal plan in the next war-financing bill.

The one just approved contains one hundred twenty billion dollars in spending. Ninety-five billion of that will pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September. Billions will go to unrelated projects at home.

Also included in the bill is the first increase in almost ten years in the federal minimum wage. Many of the lowest-paid workers are immigrants. And on Monday the Senate opened debate 争论on an immigration bill.

Supporters of immigration reform, including President Bush, say the bill 议案 is needed to help fix a broken system. An estimated twelve million immigrants are in the United States illegally.

Proposals 建议,提议 include stronger border security, a temporary worker program and a path for undocumented 无正式文件的workers to become legal.

One proposal would create two-year renewable可更新的,可恢复的 visas 签证for foreign temporary workers. On Wednesday the Senate .参议院, 上院 voted to cut the proposed number of temporary workers in half, to two hundred thousand a year.

Some groups say the bill would separate families of immigrant workers. Labor unions worry that the bill would create a new class of poorly paid migrants移居者 with few legal protections. Employers are divided over proposed changes that could also affect highly skilled foreign workers. And some critics say the bill would reward people who entered the country illegally.

The Senate is expected to end debate on the immigration bill in the middle of June. At that time senators could take a rare no-confidence vote in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the Justice Department dismissals.

On Wednesday a committee in the House questioned a former Gonzales aide[eid]n.<美>助手, 副官, 侍从武官 who worked with the White House. Monica Goodling said she "crossed the line" by bringing political considerations into some hiring decisions at the department. But she said she had only a limited part in the replacement of United States attorneys.

Democrats said her statements raised new questions about dismissals that they suggest were made for political reasons. But a Republican lawmaker said there were no surprises and no evidence of corruption.n.腐败, 贪污, 堕落

Democrats and some Republicans want Alberto Gonzales to resign. President Bush says he supports him and hopes Congress will move quickly to finish hearings that  he calls "political theater."

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This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

The United States has urged China to accept new safety rules for its food and drug exports. American officials said the rules would include a new list of Chinese exporters.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt made the statements. They spoke the day after high-level trade talks between the two nations.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi, left, with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue in Washington, 22 May 2007

The Americans met last week in Washington with a Chinese delegation代表团 led by Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi.

The United States Food and Drug Administration said inspectors rejected more than one hundred shipments of food imports from China during April alone. The inspectors rejected them for being unclean or containing harmful substances.物质

China has a lot to lose if people fear its food and drugs. The nation earns an estimated thirty billion dollars yearly in food and drug exports. Companies in the United States would also suffer. For example, American companies depend on China for large amounts of apple juice.

Last week, United States health inspectors began examining toothpaste from China. The government acted after tubes of the teeth-cleaning substance were sent to Panama and the Dominican Republic. The toothpaste was found to contain diethylene glycol二甘醇, a deadly chemical. But no deaths linked to the toothpaste have been reported.

In recent months, wheat小麦 flour produced in China for use in pet food sickened or killed many dogs and cats in the United States and Canada.

Critics of Chinese imports suspect that Chinese companies placed the industrial chemical melamine in the wheat flour to increase the amount of protein.蛋白质

Worries increased when chicken, fish and pork in the United States were also found to contain melamine. The animals got the melamine in their feed. The chemical is used to make plastics and fertilizers. It is not meant for human food.

There also have been incidents of bad effects from foods made and used inside China. For example, a number of babies died because of falsely marked baby milk. Earlier this month, China announced new measures to make food companies improve conditions.

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Top officials from the United States and China held two days of trade talks this week in Washington.

Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renquing, Vice Premier Wu Yi and US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at the US-China Strategic 战略的Economic Dialogue

They agreed to increase the number of direct flights between the United States and China. And Treasury 财政部Secretary秘书 Henry Paulson and Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi said the talks cleared the way for other progress进步,发展. But no progress was reported on the issue of the trade deficit. 贸易逆差

It was the second in a series of talks, the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue. The next meeting is later this year in Beijing. Vice Premier Wu says talks are better than threats of what she calls "irresponsible" protectionist measures against China.

Some American lawmakers立法者 say China is taking too long to raise the value of the yuan. They say China unfairly keeps its currency 流通 weak. They say this fuels the deficit by pushing down the cost of its exports and raising the price of American-made imports.

China eased 减轻controls on the yuan this week, but not enough to satisfy many critics. China promises more but says a large increase would hurt its fast-growing economy. Some experts say the yuan would rise fifty percent if permitted to trade freely. Others think it would be much less.

China's huge trade surplus 贸易顺差 has left it with the world's largest foreign exchange reserves外汇储备, more than one trillion万亿 dollars. Most of that is held in United States government debt 债务. But China took steps this week to change the way it invests its reserves, in order to seek higher returns.

China will invest three billion dollars in the Blackstone Group, a private-equity company based in New York. The deal will take place as Blackstone sells出售 stock to the public for the first time. But China said it did not want any voting rights in the company.

President Bush met Thursday with Vice Premier总理 Wu. He later said the two countries have a complex relationship but the two hundred thirty-three billion dollar trade deficit must be dealt(deal的过去时) with.

One of the ways, he said, is to get the Chinese people to spend more, to change from savers to consumers. For example, the United States has been trying to get China to open up its beef market.

The negotiators谈判代表 talked about food safety. The United States is importing more and more food products from China. Yet there is growing concern that they are not always very safe.

Still another issue: The United States is pushing China to do more about illegal copying of movies, music, software and books.

Friday was a statewide day of mourning 服丧 in Virginia for the people shot to

Mourners at a memorial in Blacksburg, Virginia

death Monday at Virginia Tech. But other Americans also honored the thirty-two students and teachers. Some of the victims at the university in Blacksburg were from other countries. The attack by a student, Cho Seung-hui, who also killed himself, was the deadliest shooting in modern American history.

The tragedy brought back memories of other school shootings, including what had been the worst. In fact, Friday was the eighth anniversary of the attack at Columbine High School in Colorado  美国科罗拉多州(位于美国西部). Two young men killed twelve other students and one teacher, and themselves.

Often, when a shooting captures national attention, debate争论 about gun control follows. This week some of the calls to restart that debate came from political leaders in other countries.

Australian Prime Minister 总理,首相John Howard spoke of the gun culture in the United States. He noted that his own country took action to limit the availability可用性 of guns after a man killed thirty-five people in Tasmania eleven years ago.

British Home Office minister Tony McNulty studied at Virginia Tech. If the tragedy starts a serious debate on gun laws, he says, then some good may come from it.

The White House said Friday that President Bush has ordered federal officials to study issues raised by the shooting. These include how to deal with people whose mental心理 health problems can make them a danger.

On Monday, a spokeswoman said the president believes that people have a right to arms武装, but all laws must be followed.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution says: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." 破坏

Gun laws are not the only issue. Others involve privacy秘密 laws and disability无能力 rights that protect people with mental disorders.

Cho Seung-hui was born in South Korea but lived most of his life in the United States. He was known at Virginia Tech as a troubled person. He studied English and some of his writings were so violent they scared other students and his professors.

But schools may worry about legal action if they expel 驱逐,开除a student who has not made direct threats. Virginia Tech officials say they did what they could within the law.

The shooter was armed with two handguns手枪 that he recently bought after passing a criminal history check. There are federal laws but each state also has its own laws on buying and selling guns. Virginia is among the states with fewer restrictions限制,制约 than others.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says an estimated thirty-nine percent of American homes have a gun. The campaign points to national injury reports from two thousand four, the most recent year available可用到的. There were almost thirty thousand gun-related deaths. About forty percent were murders. Most of the others were suicides or accidents.

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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Jackie Robinson

Sunday will mark an important anniversary in American society. Sixty years ago, Jackie Robinson became the first black man to play in Major League Baseball.

His uniform number, forty-two, was retired as an honor on the fiftieth anniversary. Since then, the only players who could wear that number were those already wearing it.

But a special honor is planned this Sunday for the sixtieth anniversary of the day Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier  (栅栏) At least one player from every major league team will wear the number forty-two. That includes every member of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Jackie Robinson was called up by the Dodgers on April fifteenth, nineteen forty-seven. At that time the team played in Brooklyn, New York.

Blacks and whites had played together for short periods in the late eighteen hundreds in different baseball organizations. But no black players had been admitted to the Major League Baseball that exists today.

Jackie Robinson faced abuse and loneliness. There were death threats. Pitchers threw at his head.

He worked hard not to let the discrimination interfere防碍 with his game. He was named

Jackie Robinson slides into home plate during the 1948 season

Rookie of the Year. He went on to play in six World Series in his ten seasons with the Dodgers. Later he became the first African-American in the baseball Hall of Fame.名人纪念馆(某一行业的)出类拔萃的人物[集团].

Jackie Robinson wanted to see African-Americans not just playing baseball but also managing teams. Over the years, the numbers of black managers increased. But the share of black players has decreased.

Jackie Robinson died in nineteen seventy-two. At that time about twenty percent of players were black. But the Institute for Diversity多样性 and Ethics at the University of Central Florida says the number last year was only about eight percent. Still, its research shows that the percentage of minorities少数民族 overall has increased.

Last year almost thirty percent of players were Latino. About two percent were Asian. In all, more than forty percent of professional baseball players were nonwhite.

Almost one-third of all players last season were from other countries. Many players come from the Dominican Republic. 多米尼加共和国

The all-time high for minorities in the major leagues was forty-two percent ten years ago.

The idea to honor Jackie Robinson by wearing his number began with Cincinnati Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Junior. He received permission from the Robinson family and major league.<美> 职业体协, 美国全国棒球协会和盟国棒球协会  commissioner Bud Selig to wear it for the day.

Major League Baseball has since invited players from all thirty teams to wear Jackie Robinson's number on April fifteenth. But some feel they are not worthy of it. Others say too many people wearing the number takes away from the meaning.

New York Yankees美国老 relief pitcher(棒球) 替补投手 Mariano Rivera says every player should wear it. He is the only active player who still has the right to wear the number forty-two to every game.