【慢速听力 3 篇 as】Finland Swears In World's Youngest Head of ...
No.1
AS IT IS
'Safer Opioid' Fuels Crisis in Poor Nations, Conflict Areas
December 17, 2019
Opioid abuse is not just a problem in the United States. There is another opioid crisis that is just as serious. In fact, the United Nations has called it “the other opioid crisis.”
It is the mass abuse of the pain killer tramadol, and it reaches from India to the Middle East to Africa. Experts say the crisis has resulted from problems in regulating the drug and a misunderstanding of its danger.
The man-made opioid was believed to be a way to reduce pain without risk of substance abuse. Now, some countries are asking for international agencies to stop its export.
The German drug manufacturer Grunenthal was the first company to manufacture tramadol. Grunenthal still makes the drug, but no longer controls rights to its production.
The company argues, however, that the drug crisis comes mainly from counterfeit pills that are made illegally, mostly in India.
“This is a huge public health (problem),” says Doctor Gilles Forte. He is the secretary of the World Health Organization’s committee that proposes how drugs should be controlled.
Tramadol is available in conflict areas and poor nations because it is unregulated.
Tramadol has not been as deadly as other opioids, and the crisis is not killing as many people as it does in the United States. However, many officials have begun to understand the danger is greater than was believed. The pills are everywhere. Real ones are sold in drug stores. Illegal, counterfeit ones are sold on the streets.
The north Indian state of Punjab is the center of India’s opioid crisis. This year, officials there seized hundreds of thousands of pills, closed down pill factories and banned most drug store sales. The price of tramadol quickly rose from 35 cents for a box of 10 pills to $14. The government opened several treatment centers because it was afraid those who had come to depend on the drug would start using heroin.
For some users, tramadol had become as important as food.
“Like if you don’t eat, you start to feel hungry. Similar is the case with not taking it,” said Deepak Arora, a thin, 30-year-old who took 15 tablets a day. “You are like a dead person,” he added.
Jeffery Bawa works for the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime. In 2016, he traveled to Mali in western Africa, one of the world’s poorest countries. He and his team asked people about their most pressing problems. They did not say hunger or violence. They said tramadol.
Nigerian officials said at a UN meeting that the number of people there living with addiction to tramadol is now far higher than the number with AIDS or the virus that causes the disease.
In Cameroon, so many people were using tramadol that scientists believed it came naturally from trees. They later found farmers were feeding it to farm animals, whose waste put tramadol into the soil and then into the trees.
Police began finding pills on terrorists. They sold the drug to finance their activities, Bawa said.
Most of it was coming from India. The country’s large drug industry makes less costly generic drugs. Pill factories ship them around the world, in amounts far greater than medical limits.
In 2017, law enforcement officials reported the seizure of $75 million worth of tramadol from India. They said the drug was being sent to the self-declared Islamic State group. Officials stopped 600,000 pills from going to Boko Haram fighters in Nigeria.
The UN agency released an international warning about tramadol. “We cannot let the situation get any further out of control,” it said.
Grunenthal states that tramadol has a low risk of abuse. In a 2014 report to the WHO, the company said the abuse was in “a limited number of countries” that it described as politically and socially “unstable.”
But some wealthy countries worried about increasing abuse also have also tried to contain the drug.
Britain and the United States both regulated it in 2014. Denmark began regulation in 2017, after doctors examined studies that claimed tramadol was safer than other opioids. The doctors all agreed that the documents did not prove it is safer.
I'm Susan Shand.
The Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.
________________________________________________________________
Words in This Story
opioid - n. a drug that dulls pains
regulate – v. to control or direct the use of
counterfeit – adj. maPde as copy or imitation of something else
pill – n. a small rounded medicine
heroin – n. a powerful illegal drug that is made from morphine
generic – adj. something that does not have a name given by the manufacturer to a product or products
No.2
AS IT IS
Without Safety Approval, Boeing Freezes Production of 737 MAX Jet
December 17, 2019
Boeing 737 MAX jets are parked Monday, Dec. 16, 2019, in Renton, Wash. Boeing will temporarily stop producing its grounded 737 MAX jet starting in January as it struggles to get approval from regulators to put the plane back in the air. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Aerospace company Boeing’s announcement that it is suspending production of the 737 MAX passenger jet is affecting more than just the business’s financial results.
Thousands of employees and hundreds of suppliers are also facing an unclear future with the production freeze – Boeing’s biggest in 20 years.
Boeing builds the 737 MAX in Seattle, Washington. About 12,000 employees are involved in making the airplane. The company said it would not lay off employees during the production freeze. However, the move will affect a supply chain of up to 900 companies in the U.S. and overseas that make parts for the complex jet.
Boeing’s board of directors made the decision Monday after a two-day meeting. Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not approve the 737’s return to service before 2020.
The 737 MAX passenger airplane has been banned from flying since March, shortly after a second deadly crash involving the aircraft took place near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Five months earlier, one of the jets crashed after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia. A total of 346 people died in the two incidents.
The crashes caused an international outcry against Boeing and many questioned the companies’ support for safety policies. Pilots reportedly had expressed concerns about one of the flight control systems on the plane. It caused the aircraft lose altitude under some conditions.
Boeing has made changes to the airplane’s software and proposed upgrading pilot training. But the changes are still being studied by flight safety officials.
The Federal Aviation Administration would not comment on what it described as Boeing’s business decision. It said it would continue to work with safety officials around the world to study the proposed changes to the 737 MAX.
“Our first priority is safety, and we have set no timeframe for when the work will be completed,” the agency said.
The production freeze signals a deepening of the crisis for Boeing. U.S. Representative Rick Larsen called the decision “a body blow to its workers and the region’s economy.” The lawmaker, however, praised Boeing’s promise not to lay off workers.
Before Monday, Boeing had not stopped production of the 737 MAX during the months-long grounding. The company said that it had about 400 airplanes in storage waiting to be sent to buyers.
It is estimated that the grounding has cost Boeing about $9 billion so far and about $1 billion each additional month.
Boeing’s production halt also affects suppliers like Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc, based in Wichita, Kansas. Fifty-percent of the company’s sales are based on the 737 MAX. Other companies that supply parts to Boeing are Britain’s Senior Plc and France’s Safran SA. The French company partners with General Electric to make the planes’ engines.
Many suppliers have seen their stock prices suffer as a result of the production halt. They may have to pull back their own production targets because of reduced demand.
In addition to suppliers, some airlines continue to cancel flights because the 737 MAX cannot fly. Southwest Airlines has extended cancellations for another five weeks through April 13 because it is unclear when the plane will return to service.
Richard Aboulafia, an aircraft industry expert with the Teal Group, spoke to the Associated Press. He said the freeze would probably affect the economy and could worsen what experts sometimes call the country’s trade deficit.
“This is the country’s biggest single manufactured export product,” Aboulafia noted.
I’m Mario Ritter, Jr.
Eric Johnson reported this story for Reuters. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English with additional material from Reuters and Associated Press. Caty Weaver was the editor.
________________________________________________________________
Words in This Story
layoff –v. ending employment for workers while there is no work for them to do
altitude –n. the height of something (such as an airplane) above the level of the sea
supply chain –n. a network of companies that make parts or provide services for a complex manufactured product
priority –n. the most important thing
timeframe –n. a period of time that is used or planned for a project
region –n. an area of a state, country or the world that is different from others for a reason
No.3
AS IT IS
Former Pakistani Military Ruler Musharraf Sentenced to Death
December 17, 2019
FILE - In this April 20, 2013 photo, Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf arrives at an anti-terrorism court in Islamabad, Pakistan. A Pakistani court sentenced the country's former military ruler to death on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019.
A court in Pakistan announced Tuesday that former president and military ruler Pervez Musharraf is guilty of high treason. The court sentenced him to death.
The treason charge was tied to Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule in 2007.
It is the first time a Pakistani court has tried and convicted a military leader. Musharraf came to power after the military ousted the government in 1999.
The treason case has been moving through the courts since 2014 when Musharraf was charged. He has been in Dubai for medical treatment since 2016.
Pakistani justice officials have asked the former president to return and answer questions in court several times. But he has said he could not return for medical reasons.
Earlier this month, from a hospital in Dubai, Musharraf expressed his distrust in the judicial process. He described himself as a victim of it.
The major opposition parties in Pakistan praised the court decision as protection against future military overthrows. The country has spent more than half of its existence under direct military rule.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party. He is the son of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was murdered in 2007. He wrote on Twitter Tuesday: “Democracy is the best revenge.”
Pakistan’s government, considered close to the military, did not issue an official statement on the conviction. However, at least one government minister expressed concerns about the court’s decision.
“We need to unite the country. Why take decisions that divide the nation and its institutions?” wrote Fawad Chaudhry, the minister for science and technology.
Political observers say carrying out the sentence may not be easy in a country where the military is still considered to be Pakistan’s most powerful institution.
Pakistanis are discussing the court’s decision on Twitter.
Activist Ammar Ali Jan wrote “I oppose death penalty even for criminals like Musharraf. Yet, this decision is imp(ortant) since it challenges the history of impunity for Generals…”
Other Pakistanis disagreed.
“Whatever is happening with him, I think this would be a miscarriage of justice in the history of Pakistan. What he did on 3rd Nov 2007, was it a right or wrong move, that's debatable,” tweeted retired army general Ghulam Mustafa.
I’m Jonathan Evans.
VOA News reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted the story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
________________________________________________________________
Words in This Story
convict - v. to prove that someone is guilty of a crime in a court of law
revenge - n. the act of doing something to hurt someone because that person did something that hurt you
institution - n. an established organization
challenge - v. to say or show that (something) may not be true, correct, or legal
impunity- n. freedom from punishment, harm, or loss — usually used in the phrase with impunity
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.