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One of the biggest decisions Andy Blevins has ever made, and one of the few he now regrets, never seemed like much of a decision at all. It just felt like the natural thing to do.<br>In the summer of 1995, he was moving boxes of soup cans, paper towels and dog food across the floor of a supermarket warehouse, one of the biggest buildings here in southwest Virginia. The heat was brutal. The job had sounded impossible when he arrived fresh off his first year of college, looking to make some summer money, still a skinny teenager with sandy blond hair and a narrow, freckled face. But hard work done well was something he understood, even if he was the first college boy in his family. Soon he was making bonuses on top of his $6.75 an hour, more money than either of his parents made. His girlfriend was around, and so were his hometown buddies. Andy acted more outgoing with them, more relaxed. People in Chilhowie noticed that.<br>It was just about the perfect summer. So the thought crossed his mind: maybe itdid not have to end. Maybe he would take a break from college and keep working. He had been getting C&39;s and D&39;s, and college never felt like home, anyway.<br>"I enjoyed working hard, getting the job done, getting a paycheck," Mr. Blevins recalled. "I just knew I didn&39;t want to quit."<br>So he quit college instead, and with that, Andy Blevins joined one of the largest and fastest-growing groups of young adults in America. He became a college dropout, though nongraduate may be the more precise term.<br>Many people like him plan to return to get their degrees, even if few actually do. Almost one in three Americans in their mid-20&39;s now fall into this group, up from one in five in the late 1960&39;s, when the Census Bureau began keeping such data. Most come from poor and working-class families.<br>That gap had grown over recent years. "We need to recognize that the most serious domestic problem in the United States today is the widening gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor," Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, said last year when announcing that Harvard would give full scholarships to all its lowest-income students. "And education is the most powerful weapon we have to address that problem."Andy Blevins says that he too knows the importance of a degree. Ten years after trading college for the warehouse, Mr. Blevins, 29, spends his days at the same supermarket company. He has worked his way up to produce buyer, earning $35,000 a year with health benefits and a 401(k) plan. He is on a path typical for someone who attended college without getting a four-year degree. Men in their early 40&39;s in this category made an average of $42,000 in 2000. Those with a four-year degree made $65,000.<br>Mr. Blevins says he has many reasons to be happy. He lives with his wife, Karla, and their year-old son, Lucas, in a small blue-and-yellow house in the middle of a stunningly picturesque Appalachian valley.<br>"Looking back, I wish I had gotten that degree," Mr. Blevins said in his soft-spoken lilt. "Four years seemed like a thousand years then. But I wish I would have just put in my four years."<br>Why so many low-income students fall from the college ranks is a question without a simple answer. Many high schools do a poor job of preparing teenagers for college. Tuition bills scare some students from even applying and leave others with years of debt. To Mr. Blevins, like many other students of limited means, every week of going to classes seemed like another week of losing money. "The system makes a false promise to students," said John T. Casteen III, the president of the University of Virginia, himself the son of a Virginia shipyard worker.
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It took nine years from the time the Danish and Swedish governments agreed to build a fixed link between their countries to the time the first car, train, truck and bicyclists crossed the Oresund Bridge.<br>Construction of the bridge, including design and cornerstone, began in March 1991 and was completed in July 2000. Today, it is the longest stone-stayed road and rail bridge in the world. At approximately 10 miles (16 kilometers), including the tunnel, it is an engineering and architectural marvel. But as time has proven, the bridge is a cultural and economic boon as well. The sleek span of concrete whose design typifies Scandinavian minimalism has contributed greatly to the development of the Oresund region: the eastern part of Denmark, including Copenhagen, and the southwestern part of Sweden, including Malm？and Lund.<br>The level of commuting between Malm？and Copenhagen has quadrupled since the opening of the bridge in 2000, and the number of Danes moving to the south of Sweden has increased sixfold. The Oresund region has become a cultural and economic powerhouse, considered a model region by the European Union. Work on the bridge began in 1995, and was undertaken by a team of international consulting and construction companies.<br>From the beginning, construction of the bridge complied with some of the world？ s toughest environmental regulations, as well as many advanced design and construction details. The Mexico-based CEMEX, one of the world？ s largest producers of Cement and ready-mix concrete, was awarded a contract to deliver tons of high-quality cement to help build the main part of the bridge, the two approach bridges and the tunnel.<br>When it opened in July 2000, the Oresund Bridge consisted of a 3.5-kilometer immersed tunnel, the largest of its kind in the world, a 4-kilometer long artificial island (made from mud dug out from the bottom of strait to make space for the tunnel) and a 7.8-kilometer cable-stayed bridge, the world？ s longest bridge including both a highway and a railroad.<br>Though just half of the total construction, the actual bridge span, is visible above water, the overall architecture was designed to please the eye from both the Danish and Swedish sides of the strait.<br>The four 204-meter (670 feet) tall pillars carrying the bridge have a simple Scandinavian design. To drivers and passengers crossing the bridge, the pillars provide a visual, as well as actual, impression of stability and calm.<br>The two-level structure is made of steel and concrete. Along tile two approach bridges, tracks are placed in concrete troughs that turn into steel decks on the bridge. The bridge？ s upper deck carries cars and trucks, while the lower deck accommodates the railroad. The four pillars are grounded in giant cement boxes placed at the bottom of the strait, about 18 meters below sea level.<br>Last year, an average of 13,600 vehicles and 17,000 passengers crossed the bridge everyday, and traffic continues to increase by 10-20 percent every year.<br>Throughout the construction process, the Danish and Swedish environmental agencies have surveyed but found no changes in the wildlife, birds, fish and vegetation surrounding the bridge. In addition, the chemicals used in construction and the percentage of waste materials have been kept to a minimum, as required by both Danish and Swedish laws.<br>In 2003, the Oresund Bridge won the IABSE (International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering) Outstanding Structural Award for its innovative design, planning and construction management, as well as its strict compliance with the time schedule, budget and environmental requirements.
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In Bykovsky, a village of 457 on Russia&39;s northeast coast, the shoreline is collapsing, creeping closer and closer to houses and tanks of heating oil, at a rate of 15 to 18 feet a year.<br>"It is practically all ice - permafrost - and it is thawing." For the four million people who live north of the Arctic Circle, a changing climate presents new opportunities. But it also threatens their environment, their homes and, for those whose traditions rely on the ice-bound wilderness, the preservation of their culture.<br>A push to develop the North, quickened by the melting of the Arctic seas, carries its own rewards and dangers for people in the region. The discovery of vast petroleum fields in the Barents and Kara Seas has raised fears of catastrophic accidents as ships loaded with oil and, soon, liquefied gas churn through the fisheries off Scandinavia, headed to markets in Europe and North America. Land that was untouched could be tainted by pollution as generators, smokestacks and large vehicles sprout to support the growing energy industry.<br>Coastal erosion is a problem in Alaska as well, forcing the United States to prepare to relocate several Inuit villages at a projected cost of $100 million or more for each one.<br>Across the Arctic, indigenous tribes with traditions shaped by centuries of living in extremes of cold and ice are noticing changes in weather and wildlife. They are trying to adapt, but it can be confounding.<br>In Finnmark, Norway&39;s northernmost province, the Arctic landscape unfolds in late winter as an endless snowy plateau, silent but for the cries of the reindeer and the occasional whine of a snowmobile herding them.<br>A changing Arctic is felt there, too. "The reindeer are becoming unhappy," said Issat Eira, a 31-year-old reindeer herder.<br>Few countries rival Norway when it comes to protecting the environment and preserving indigenous customs. The state has lavished its oil wealth on the region, and Sami culture has enjoyed something of a renaissance.<br>And yet no amount of government support can convince Mr. Eira that his livelihood, intractably entwined with the reindeer, is not about to change. Like a Texas cattleman, he keeps the size of his herd secret. But he said warmer temperatures in fall and spring were melting the top layers of snow, which then refreeze as ice, making it harder for his reindeer to dig through to the lichen they eat.<br>"The people who are making the decisions, they are living in the south and they are living in towns," said Mr. Eira, sitting inside his home made of reindeer hides. "They don&39;t mark the change of weather. It is only people who live in nature and get resources from nature who mark it."<br>A push to develop the North, quickened by the melting of the Arctic seas, carries its own rewards and dangers for people in the region. The discovery of vast petroleum fields in the Barents and Kara Seas has raised fears of catastrophic accidents as ships loaded with oil and, soon, liquefied gas churn through the fisheries off Scandinavia, headed to markets in Europe and North America. Land that was untouched could be tainted by pollution as generators, smokestacks and large vehicles sprout to support the growing energy industry.
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Faced with growing evidence that avian influenza is spreading in birds, the World Health Organization on Wednesday signed an agreement with the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holding to build up its stockpile of medicines in case of a pandemic in humans.<br>Under the agreement, Roche will reserve three million treatments of its Tamiflu antiviral medicine for use by the UN agency in case of a worldwide human pandemic of avian flu.<br>"It&39;s just enough to deal with an initial outbreak," said Jong-Wook Lee, director-general of the WHO. "But clearly this is not enough to deal with a full pandemic."<br>The agency says only 57 people in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia have died, mainly from contact with infected birds. The virus has killed millions of chickens and led to preventive culling across Asia since late 2003. Sustained human-to-human infection has not yet been recorded. But the World Health Organization warns that bird flu, which first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, could mutate genetically, making it easier for humans to catch and transmit the disease among themselves.<br>Signs the disease has spread recently to birds in Siberia and Kazakhstan are adding to concerns, the WHO says. A panel of European Union experts will convene Thursday in Brussels to discuss measures to prevent the spread of bird deaths to European poultry.<br>When asked whether he thought a widespread outbreak in humans was imminent, Lee said: "We don&39;t know when it will come. But it would be hugely irresponsible if the WHO and member states did not take preventive measures now."<br>Roche declined to give figures for its stockpiles of Tamiflu.<br>A spokeswoman for the company, Martina Rupp, said it took from 12 to 18 months to deliver the drug after an order was placed- a relatively long time due to a complicated production process.
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I would like to comment on the relationship between the growth of the world economy and the role of macroeconomic policies. Let me begin with a review of the world economy. The world economy has performed much better than many feared a year ago. Current projections are that global growth will reach 4.5% this year, the highest rate of the last five years. Once again the major impetus has come from the United States. But the extremely rapid industrialization of China has also stimulated global growth.<br>Why has it turned out better than expected？ Two broad explanations might be ventured. The first explanation is simply the globalization of market forces. An increasing proportion of economic activity is being governed by the market. In the space of only 15 years, some large command economies have undergone economic reform. and become market economies. All this has unleashed a dynamic for growth that remains very strong, especially in China, India and Russia.<br>However, the second explanation is not so reassuring. We realize that growth over the past few years has been brought about in no small measure by, very expansionary macroeconomic policies. These have included massive fiscal stimulus in the United States, policy interest rates in the major countries held at or near postwar lows for some time, and an unprecedented amount of foreign exchange intervention by monetary authorities in Asia. Unlike structural reforms, the effects of such policy stimulus are only temporary, and the current stance of policies cannot continue indefinitely.<br>I think we need to take some effective measures to ensure the stable growth of the world economy. Evidence accumulates that macroeconomic policies will need to be tightened. Without putting what has been achieved at risk, of course. Fiscal policy, monetary policy and exchange rate policy ail need to be considered in this light.<br>Let me start with the industrial world. The US government budget, which was in surplus to the equivalent of 1% of GDP in 2000, is likely to register a deficit 9f 5% of GDP this year, a deterioration of the US fiscal position without precedent since the Second World War. Japan's general government deficit remains at around 8% of GDP. Deficits in some large economies in the euro area are also disturbing. Therefore, early action to curb such deficits is all the more important.<br>Although comparatively high unemployment is limiting nominal wage increases and spare capacity in manufacturing worldwide reinforces the competitive pressure on prices, there are signs that inflation is edging higher. Japan is slowly emerging from deflation. The pace of consumer price inflation in China has increased sharply in recent months, and there is evidence that prices are beginning to rise faster in some other Asian economies.<br>I think positively of recent macroeconomic policies that allow exchange rate to appreciate. The eventual movement in exchange rates could be more abrupt than if a greater degree of flexibility had not been allowed earlier. The expansion in domestic liquidity associated with the foreign exchange intervention policy could ultimately lead to inflation. Markets could become too dependent on the continued intervention, and could then be seriously destabilized by even a hint of a change in policy. My last word of advice is this: The stance of macroeconomic policies cannot remain as expansionary if stability is to be maintained in the medium term. We should avoid the two extremes of either putting the entire burden on exchange rates or not allowing exchange rates to move at all.
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SECTION 2 Optional Translation (30 points)<br>Eurasians: The New Face of Asia<br>Fusion is in, not only as an abstract fashion concept, but in that most grounded of realities: mixed-blood people who walk, talk, and produce even more multiracial progeny. Most strange of all, these hybrids are finding themselves hailed as role models for vast masses in Asia with no mixed blood at all. "When I think of Asia, I don't necessarily think of people who look like me," says Declan Wong, a Chinese-Dutch-American actor and producer, "But somehow we've become the face that sells the new Asia."<br>So maybe Asia's Eurasian craze is driven by the theories of that whitest of white men, economist Adam Smith. As the world gets smaller, we look for a global marketing mien, a one-size-fits-all face that helps us sell Nokia cell phones and Palmolive shampoo across the world.<br>"For any business, you can't think locally anymore," says Paul Lau, general manager at Elite Model Management in Hong Kong, who has built up a stable of Eurasians for his internationally minded clients. "At the very least, you need to think regionally. Ideally, you should think globally." A global image helps sell products, even if no one but Filipinos would ever want to buy duck-fetus eggs or Thais the most pungent variety of shrimp paste. Yanto Zainal, president of Macsg09, a boutique ad agency in Jakarta, used all indos for a campaign for the local Matahari department store chain. "The store wanted to promote a more cosmopolitan image," he says. "Indos have an international look can still be accepted as Indonesian."<br>Channel V, the Asia-wide music television channel, was one of the first to broadcast the message of homogenized hybridism. "We needed a messenger that would fit in from Tokyo to the Middle East." Says Jonnifer Seeto, regional sales marketing manager for the channel, which began beaming its border-busting images in 1994. Star Veejay Asha Gill personifies the global look. When asked what her ethnic heritage is, Gill, a Malaysian citizen, simply shrugs. "Oh, who knows," she says. "I'm half Punjabi, mixed with some English, a little French and dribs and drabs of God knows what else." The 29-year-old speaks crisp British English, fluent Malay, and a smidgen of Punjabi. She grew up in a Kuala Lumpur neighborhood that was mostly Chinese, attended an English-speaking school and was pals with Malay and Indian kids. Gill's Channel V show, broadcast in English, has a strong following in Malaysia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. "I'm Hitler's worst nightmare," she says. "My ethnicity and profession make me a global person who can't be defined in just one category."
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