RENDERING. Богатова С.М - 10 стр.

       Officials felt that a Community-wide ecolabel based on clearly                                         Terrorism
defined environmental standards was necessary to prevent consumers                     From the 1960s, international terrorist crimes, such as the hijack-
from being misled by spurious claims of ecological benevolence or              ing of passenger aircraft, political assassinations and kidnappings, and
confused by a plethora of national green labels.                               urban bombings, constituted a growing phenomenon of increasing con-
       Germany’s Blue Angel environmental label has been awarded               cern, especially to Western governments. Most terrorist groups are as-
for two decades, and several other EC countries have planned to im-            sociated either with millenarian revolutionary movements on an inter-
plement their own programs.                                                    national scale (such as some Marxist organizations) or with nationalist
       Under the wholly voluntary EC program, criteria for the green           movements of particular ethnic, religious, or other cultural focus.
label will be set by a panel of specialists from industry, retail trades and           Three broad categories of terrorist crime may be distinguished,
the environmental and consumer movements. National authorities will            not in legal terms, but by intention. Foremost is the use of violence and
then decide whether a given product qualifies, based on a cradle-to-           the threat of violence to create public fear. This may be done by mak-
grave assessment of an item’s production, use and disposal.                    ing random attacks to injure or kill anyone who happens to be in the
       Manufacturers said an EC-wide system will help consumers as             vicinity when an attack takes place. Because such crimes deny, by vir-
well as industry.                                                              tue of their being directed at innocent bystanders, the unique worth of
       «It’s very clearly better to have one label rather than several»,       the individual, terrorism is said to be a form of crime that runs counter
said David Veitch, European spokesman for Procter & Gamble Co., the            to all morality and so undermines the foundations of civilization. An-
U.S. – based consumer products company. «We market products on a               other tactic generating fear is the abduction and assassination of heads
European basis, so a single ecolabel holds many advantages in terms of         of state and members of governments in order to make others afraid of
costs and focusing our efforts to develop better products».                    taking positions of leadership and so to spread a sense of insecurity.
       He cautioned, however, that it would be «very difficult» to es-         Persons in responsible positions may be abducted or assassinated on
tablish workable criteria for some products, such as laundry detergent,        the grounds that they are «representatives» of some institution or sys-
because there are many factors to consider, including biodegradability,        tem to which their assailants are opposed.
water consumption and packaging.                                                       A second category of terrorist crime is actual rule by terror. It is
       The environment ministers are to be joined on Friday by national        common practice for leaders of terrorist organizations to enforce obe-
energy ministers to debate the EC Commission’s controversial plan for          dience and discipline by terrorizing their own members. A community
an energy tax to combat carbon dioxide emissions.                              whose collective interests the terrorist organization claims to serve may
       The ministers are expected to tell the Commission that they need        be terrorized so that their cooperation, loyalty, and support are ensured.
more detailed information on the side effects of such a tax before they        Groups that come to power by this means usually continue to rule by
could consider any formal legislative proposal. The Commission’s               terror.
plans were outlined in September as an informal «communication» to                     Third, crimes are committed by terrorist organizations in order to
national governments.                                                          gain the means for their own support. Bank robbery, kidnapping for
       Only Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands want the Commis-              ransom, extortion, gambling rake-offs (profit skimming), illegal arms
sion to issue a formal proposal at this time. (391 words)                      dealing, and drug trafficking are among the principal crimes of this na-
                                                                               ture. In the Middle East, hostages are frequently sold as capital assets
       EXERCISE 4. Summarize an information article. Try to                    by one terrorist group to another.
eliminate all details and examples. The article contains 347 words,
try to make it up to 200 words.

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