Weekly Bilingual News

Dear Friends:

Hello! Welcome to a new Weekly Bilingual News with a brief analysis of the news across the world. We include a chapter of bilingual vocabulary linked with this issue.

Like every month in its first days, the economic information linked with the job unemployment was the subject of different headlines (Unemployment rate: 9.2%, Non-farm payrolls rose 18000). At the same time, other events ran in parallel. The big deficit of the federal government and the discussion about raising the debt ceiling made more dramatic the debate. Additionally, the launch of the last shuttle mission of NASA created concern for the people associated with the American space program who will lose their jobs.

Around the world, new fears are growing in connection with the European countries with big debts. Portugal is the focus of a lot of observers. Some analysts also believe Spain and Italy could have problems. In general, the world economy is in jeopardy.

Meanwhile the countries involved in the Arab Spring didn't show significant progress. Some news from Libya confirmed that the rebels are advancing to Tripoli but till now they have a difficult path to take control of the central government. From the other side, Iraq was again shook by bombing attacks and the Egyptians complained in Cairo's streets about the slowness of political changes after the resignation of the President Hosni Mubarak.

In the United Kingdom, research practices of the journalists of the newspaper "News of the World" generated a huge scandal that compromised the top management of News Corp and the former editor Andrew Coulson, who once worked for Prime Minister David Cameron. Amid allegations that reporters of the paper hacked into phones of murder victims and families of slain soldiers, Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp, decided to close the tabloid.

In the United States, the negotiations between the White House and the leaders of Congress about the debt ceiling improved thanks to the personal dialogue between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner but on the Sunday summit the leaders failed to produce a deal.

The Wall Street markets closed the week in the positive territory despite on Friday the majority of the indexes declined due to the disappointment by the June job report. During the last four work days, Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 74.43 points, or 0.59% to 12657.20, while Nasdaq Composite grew 43.78 points, or 1.55%, to 2859.81.

NEW AFRICAN NATION

On Saturday, July 9, South Sudan was declared independent from Sudan after years of civil war between armed groups from the north and south of the African country that killed two million people in five decades.

In 2005, with the intervention of United Nations, the Muslims of the north and the Christians of the south signed a peace agreement that was the previous step for the independence referendum of last January where the people of the south decided their destiny.

he Republic of South Sudan formally emerged as a new independent country after the split of Sudanese nation into two countries.

In Juba, capital city of the youngest Africa state, was celebrating the official ceremony of independence, while in border north of the country, the violence continues for the dispute of oil areas with Sudan.

About this event we wrote the following comments on the blog of NewsHour PBS "The birth of South Sudan reminds us of the birth of a stunted child with a lot of diseases and low life expectation."

SPECIAL TOPICS

LAST SHUTTLE MISSION: TechRepublic posted: "What does this mean for the future of manned flight?"(1), written by Larry Dignan about NASA'S last Shuttle mission.
Our Comment: "Multiple negative consequences. From our point of view, tostop the Shuttle mission without a better alternative is to put in the trash all the efforts that NASA made to open new human paths through the extraterrestrial space. The United States will lose ground in many different ways: scientific, defense, security, industrial, and economic.

JOB REPORT: Wall Street Journal published "Jobs Data Dim Recovery Hopes" (2) about the June job report of the US Secretary of Labor.
Our Comment: "Since 2008, we haven'tseen a continuous strong recovery going downthe street. During this period, the statistics were always handled in away to avoid bad reactions, but the real situation is worse than the numbers say. It is a serious drama."

DEBT CEILING: Wall Street Journal posted: "Entitlement Cuts Divide Democrats" (3) about the Congress and White House discussion around of the debt ceiling of the federal deficit.
Our Comment: "When in our home, our incomes are less than our expenditures and nobody gives us credit, we have to cut some items fromour budget that normally are necessary. Something similar should happen in government. When we expend more money than our normal incomes, we cannot balance our budget and our "reserves" will decline despite all the magic formulas of our Secretary of Treasury. Of course, the public finances are more complex than the home finances, butwe have to cut expenditures or invent new "taxes". Definitively, we cannot go against the basic principles ofaccounting."

CISCO SPYING CHINESE: Wall Street Journal published: "Cisco Poised to Help China Keep an Eye on Its Citizens"(4) about the security system implemented by Cisco Systems in China.
Our Comment: "In general, the technology companies that implement electronic security systems don't analyze the possible social and human consequences of their work."

Best regards,

Domingo

Domingo A. Trassens
Spanish-English Club
Electronic mail: domingo.trassens@gmail.com
URL: http://spaengclub.blogspot.com/

Questions - Preguntas:

1) From your point of view, what was the worst news for the week?
1) Desde vuestro punto de vista, ¿cuál fue la peor noticia de la semana?

2) And what was the best news from the week?
2) ¿Y cuál fue la mejor noticia de la semana?

Vocabulary - Vocabulario:

- accounting = contabilidad
- deficit = déficit
- economy = economía
- debt ceiling = techo de la deuda
- jeopardy, to be in jeopardy = estar en peligro
- job = empleo, puesto de trabajo 
- oil = petróleo  - recovery = recuperación
- reserves = reservas
- shuttle = transportador, lanzadera
- spacial program = programa espacial
- taxes = impuestos

MEMBERS AND LIBRARY CORNER

Thanks to Bob, Jenny, John, Mary, Stephanie, and Suzanne your messages about the previous Weekly Bilingual News.

 Flag of New African Nation: South Sudan

Sources: TechRepublic, US Secretary of State website, Wall Street Journal, PBS NewsHour, New York Times, The Washington Post, Think Tank of Spanish-English Club.

References: (1) "What does this mean for the future of manned flight?" by Larry Dignan, July 8, 2011, TechRepublic.(2) "Worries Grow Over Jobs" by Justin Lahart and Joe Light, July 8, 2011, Wall Street Journal. (3) "Entitlement Cut Democrats" by Jonathan Weisman, July 8, 2011, Wall Street Journal. (4) "Cisco Poised to Help China Keep an Eye on Its Citizens" by Loretta Chao and Don Clark, July 5, 2011, Wall Street Journal.