Enjoy Rendering!: Сборник текстов для перевода и реферирования. Батурина С.А. - 14 стр.

RAN's volunteers-former or current addicts-are occasionally arrested                                Berlusconi Burlesque
and beaten up by the police when they go out to distribute syringes.
                                                                                  Italy's pension reforms
                                                                                  Rome
        1. Vocabulary notes:                                                      Not for nothing do they call the man a populist
        1) syringe – шприц
        2) crack down – зд. принимать крутые меры, закручивать                      Under fire on pension reform, and sensing that this issue could
гайки                                                                       make or break his government (it helped destroy his previous one in
     3) trafficking – торговля, перевозки                                   1995), Silvio Berlusconi has announced that he will write to every
     4) intercept – перехватить, препятствовать                             household in Italy explaining his plans. That may not be a bad idea. For
     5) hedge one’s bet – заключить двойную сделку, перестрахо-             he faces more than the usual resistance of trade unions, who have
вываться                                                                    called a four-hour general strike on October 24th. He faces more even
     6) pay in kind – платить натурой                                       than the habitual vacillation of his allies who, having agreed a modest
     7) trail – след, проторенная дорожка                                   compromise after tortuous negotiation, are now trying to water it down
     8) rehab – сокр. от “rehabilitation”                                   again. His real problem is that he is up against public opinion.
                                                                                    Pensions absorb 14% of Italy's GDP, the highest share in any big
       2. Answer the following questions.                                   European country. They thus siphon off cash that could be more pro-
       1) What problem does the author of the article highlight?            ductively used elsewhere. Yet, in a poll for Messaggero, a Rome news-
       2) Why has the major route of drug trafficking changed?              paper, only 25 % of those questioned would accept more than "minor
       3) What numbers in the article prove the fact it’s hardly possible   corrections".
to solve drug issue (at least in existing, traditional way)?                        Behind that response lie some deep-seated cultural attitudes. The
       4) Why has heroin addiction in Central Asia been the fastest-        thrust of the government's reform is to persuade Italians to retire at an
growing in the world since the late 1990s?                                  age that would be considered normal in most other countries. From
       5) In what why does NGO try to help heroin junkies?                  2008, a full state pension would kick in only at the age of 65 (for men)
                                                                            and 60 (for women), or after 40 years' worth of contributions. It would
        3. Give a summary of the text.                                      still be possible to retire, as now, at 57, or with 35 years' worth of con-
                                                                            tributions. But that would mean accepting a lower pension.
                                                                                    The trouble is that Italians, particularly in the north, are now
                                                                            used to the idea that it is their right to stop working in middle age. That
                                                                            seems odd, given that advances in medicine now allow 65-year-olds to
                                                                            expect 15 years or more of retirement. It is odder still in a country
                                                                            where so many leaders and opinion formers are well past normal pen-
                                                                            sionable age. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is 82. One of his prede-
                                                                            cessors, Francesco Cossiga, is still active in politics at 75. Italy's most
                                                                            revered newspaperman, Enzo Biagi, is still scribbling perceptively at
                                                                            83. Even Mr Berlusconi is, at 67, no spring chicken.
                                                                                    Yet less than three in ten of their compatriots over the age of 55
                                                                            holds a (legal) job. Even allowing for employment in Italy's extensive

                                   27                                                                            28