On pronunciation. Very funny

If you don´t practice your English, you can end up speaking like these people!

Global Issues: the use of coltan and its consequences

  Global Issues

The demand for cell phones and computer chips is helping fuel a bloody civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

     The offer turned up a few weeks ago on an Internet bulletin board called the Embassy Network. Among the postings about Dutch work visas and Italian pen pals lurked a surprisingly blunt proposal: "How much do you want to offer per kilogram? Please find me at least 100,000 U.S. dollars and I will deliver immediately."

     The substance for sale wasn't cocaine or top-grade opium. It was an ore called Columbite-tantalite - coltan for short - one of the world's most sought-after materials. Refine coltan and you get a highly heat-resistant metal powder called tantalum. It sells for $100 a pound, and it's becoming increasingly vital to modern life. For the high-tech industry, tantalum is magic dust, a key component in everything from mobile phones made by Nokia (NOK) and Ericsson and computer chips from Intel (INTC) to Sony (SNE) stereos and VCRs.

      Selling coltan is not illegal. Most of the worldwide tantalum supply - valued at as much as $6 billion a year - comes from legitimate mining operations in Australia, Canada and Brazil. But as demand for tantalum took off with the boom of high-tech products in recent years, a new, more sinister market began flourishing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There, warring rebel groups - many funded and supplied by neighboring Rwanda and Uganda - are exploiting coltan mining to help finance a bloody civil war now in its third year. "There is a direct link between human rights abuses and the exploitation of resources in areas in the DRC occupied by Rwanda and Uganda," says Suliman Baldo, a senior researcher in the Africa division at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based nongovernmental organization that tracks human-rights abuses worldwide.

     The slaughter and misery in the Congo has not abated since the country's president, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in January. (Kabila's son, Joseph, was quickly appointed the new head of state.) Human Rights Watch researchers, working with monitors in the Congo, estimate that at least 10,000 civilians have been killed and 200,000 people have been displaced in northeastern Congo since June 1999. Rebels have driven farmers off their coltan-rich land and attacked villages in a civil war raging, in part, over control of strategic mining areas. The Ugandan and Rwandan rebels "are just helping themselves," Baldo says. The mining by the rebels is also causing environmental destruction. In particular, endangered gorilla populations are being massacred or driven out of their natural habitat as the miners illegally plunder the ore-rich lands of the Congo's protected national parks.

      The link between the bloodshed and coltan is causing alarm among high-tech manufacturers. Slowly they are beginning to grapple with the possibility that their products may contain the tainted fruits of civil war. A similar controversy, after all, wracked the diamond industry in the late 1990s, when global demand for the gems helped finance civil wars in Sierra Leone, Angola and Liberia. Since then, the international community has clamped down on the diamond trade, imposing tougher import and export regulations.

     But with tantalum, such regulations may be difficult to enforce. The market for the metal is based on secretive and convoluted trade links subject to few international regulations, and the ore is not sold on regulated metals exchanges.

Wonderful videos!

Afternoon extra class put off

Todayś afternoon class will be put off till next Monday due to teacherś meeting. See you (all) tomorrow. Hope you have studied hard for the exam!

Ageing

An age-old problem                                                        

It will be hard to reconcile increased longevity with public spending cuts

    GROWING old may be preferable to the alternative but it is not without its problems: greying Britain will have increasing numbers of elderly, needy people to look after. On gaining power last year, the coalition government set up an independent commission to identify how to make long-term care affordable. Just as the commission is due to report, the problems it set out to solve are becoming more acute: another official body has called for the aged and frail to be given new rights to receive help, and cuts in central-government funding are forcing local councils to reduce the services they already provide.

    Earlier this month the Law Commission, which helps Parliament tidy up legislation, recommended that councils be given wide-ranging new obligations to provide care to vulnerable adults, replacing the current, patchy set of entitlements. Fine in principle, but where will the money come from? A survey by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, published the following day, showed that councils in England intend to cut spending on adult social care by 7% this year, although they hoped to achieve much of that reduction in outlays through efficiency measures rather than service cuts.

    The Law Commission report adds urgency to the quest for new ways to pay for care. At the moment, if a doddery old man is poor and has no family or friends to help out, the state will provide help at home free of charge; but if he has the means, he must pay for it himself. Should his health deteriorate to the point where he can no longer make a cup of tea, he will be encouraged into residential care. Again, if he is poor, it is free; if he is not, he must run down his savings and sell his home.

    Most Britons would find it a wrench to give up the home they spent much of their working lives paying for. Indeed, in the run-up to last year's election the Conservatives provoked a frightful row when they exploited such fears by portraying Gordon Brown's suggestion that long-term care could be paid for from the estates of wealthy recipients as a “death tax”. So the independent commission, headed by Andrew Dilnot, an economist at the University of Oxford, was asked to identify how people who had acted responsibly, saved money and bought property might be protected from financial ruin should they need expensive long-term care.

    His report is likely to suggest some sort of insurance scheme. At present only a small proportion of people take out such policies: 7% in America, 5% in Japan and less than 0.05% in Britain, according to the OECD, a think-tank. To boost take-up, the state would probably have to underwrite any new scheme.

Insurance is not the only solution. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a charity, reckons that around 1m elderly homeowners have at least £100,000 locked up in the value of their houses, but have incomes so low that they qualify for means-tested benefits and are struggling to get by. It has piloted a scheme with three local authorities in which such people—typically former tenants who bought their council-owned houses decades ago—can sell a stake in them (which the buyers would reclaim after their death) to pay for modifications, such as a walk-in shower, that would help them remain in their homes rather than go into a care home.

    Take-up has been modest so far, says Clare Henderson of Islington Council in north London, which is participating in the pilot project. She expects demand to grow as people develop more confidence in such schemes. However, pensioners may take some convincing, given the widespread mis-selling of similar “home income plans” to elderly people in the 1980s.

    With the proportion of Britons aged over 65 projected to grow from 16% in 2009 to 23% by 2034, the need to find alternatives to taxpayer funding for social care will only grow. On May 23rd the OECD said that if health, pensions and social care were to keep pace with current provision, spending on them would have to increase from 15% of GDP to almost 19% between 2010 and 2050. Worry enough to turn any politician's hair grey.

Solidarity

Homeshare scheme brings comfort to young and old

Beth Cooke, 26, lives with Barbara Clapham, 97, as part of Homeshare, an innovative project that could help tackle the housing crisis

     For the majority of the 53 years Barbara Clapham has lived in her Victorian ground floor flat in an idyllic tree-lined street in central London she has been alone – but now the 97-year-old pensioner has a friend.

     Beth Cooke, 26, has been staying in Clapham's spare room for just two weeks, but already she cooks, washes-up and does the shopping. It is like having the perfect granddaughter to stay, except Cooke's not related and, until a month ago, she'd never met or even heard of Clapham. The odd pairing, bringing together two people seven decades apart in age, came through a scheme called Homeshare.

     The project, organised by a charity called Crossroads, provides affordable housing for young people in central London and companionship and support for elderly people who live on their own.

     Cooke, an actor currently working as a teaching assistant, pays just £50 a week rent for a room two minutes walk from Gloucester Road tube station, which would normally cost as much as £400 a week.

     In return for her bargain-basement rent, Cooke agrees to give up 10 hours each week to help her elderly flatmate.

     "If you want to be in a location like this then it's going to be very, very expensive," says Cooke, who also agrees to spend at least five nights at the flat.

     "I could afford to live in a flatshare in central London, just about. But I wouldn't be able to do it with as much money as I need to do things that I want to do. People are really interested when I tell them about my situation because it is interesting having someone so young living with someone so old. I think you do learn a lot actually, about life, I suppose. I think it's more a feeling of perspective – a completely different perspective, without any kind of family ties."

     Clapham, who owns the property, also pays £32.50 a week to the charity, covering the cost of providing regular support and check-ups on pairings, of which there are about 30.

     "It is difficult going to the shops now; it didn't used to be," explains Clapham, a retired receptionist who worked for the Ministry of Information in Cambridge during the second world war. "For me, it means I can stay here with my own things and not go into a care home. I drove a car until I was 94 but I wasn't happy driving any more, I kept thinking I was going to hit something. It had to go."

     Clapham, who has a niece and nephew living in London, can no longer walk far because of the arthritis in her spine.

"There's a big Sainsbury's across there and it's got a cash machine and I was struggling across the other day and I slipped – so I decided I mustn't do that again," she says. "It's too far now and it's getting more and more difficult for me."

     Clapham has had two previous homesharers, a young Irish girl who "went back to Ireland for the weekend and never came back", and a middle-aged Australian lady who stayed for a year and a half.

Two's company

     Sitting in her cosy living room, with an oil painting of her three-year-old self on the wall, Clapham says she heard about the scheme through a friend who was on it but had to give up because "she's very frail and needs full-time care".

     "I've only got one friend left from my own generation, I'm too old. All my contemporaries have gone, which is boring. So it's nice to have someone around the place, I must say."

     Jenny Bush, who manages Homeshare, describes it as "a bit of a crazy dating service". The charity, which is open to applications all year round, interviews and selects potential homeowners and homesharers before they are introduced to each other and, providing all goes well, are finally "matched".

     The charity is trying to match eight homeowners and homesharers, the youngest of which is 19. In most cases the homeowner provides furniture and an internet connection.

     "In the early stages you do work out what kind of tasks you need doing and make sure the hours are being fulfilled," says Bush, who asks all homesharers to commit to stay for at least six months.

     "The relationship adapts over time. Obviously, you start off and it's very new, like any relationship. Then you get to know each other and find out more and more as time goes on. It's an ongoing issue about high rents in London and also people being isolated in their homes, not being able to get out to do things like the shopping.

     "I think it's really reassuring for family and friends to know if there is someone a little bit older, there is someone there in the evening and overnight."

      Rebecca Manning, 32, a student nurse studying at Middlesex University, has been homesharing with a lady in her 70s in Pinner, north-west London, for the past two months.

     "I think what happens is you become part of the family," she says. "There are obviously boundaries, it's still a professional agreement you have, but she's a bit like my gran, really. I do everything from unloading the dishwasher to popping to the shops to pick up bits and pieces, and having a nice chat with a cup of tea."

Manning missed out on student accommodation – which is becoming increasingly expensive and hard to find – when she moved to London from Suffolk, where she used to be a radio presenter.

     "For her family it provides a bit of peace of mind that she's got someone to stay with," says Manning. "They're all very keen on somebody being there, otherwise they'd have to start thinking about sheltered accommodation. To give up a home which she's lived in for longer than I've been on the planet seems really unfair."

      The scheme was launched and overseen by Kensington and Chelsea borough council in the early 90s, but passed on to Crossroads nearly two years ago.

     Currently Homeshare only operates in certain parts of London, but Bush hopes to expand. There are also a sprinkling of similar schemes across the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US.

"The state isn't going to put people in care homes; they're trying to keep them at home," says Bush. "That's one of the factors in play and that's what we need to address with Homeshare – we really want to make sure it's accessible to a lot more people."

      For Manning, who says she could see herself homesharing for the duration of her three-year degree, the best thing about the scheme is knowing there's someone else in the house. "The first night I moved in I heard a massive noise and I didn't know what it was," she says.

      "So I went downstairs and said, 'you all right?' to the lady I live with and she said, 'I've had a carer live with me for the last two months who has never come down; I really appreciate that you just came down'."

Oral exams different levels

Here you have examples of oral exams related to the levels A1-C2. Remember that the classification A1-C2 is established by the European Union framework, and that each school (e.g. Escuela de Idiomas) or organization (Cambridge, Oxford) creates exams which deal with the contents pointed out in that very framework. I mean, the exams need´t be similar. However, you can have an idea of what you can be required to do. Click here.

More on brain drain

Brain drain in Spain as 1m graduates swell the ranks of the unemployed

Spain produces more graduates than the European average. But lack of opportunity at home is forcing many to leave

A demonstration by university students in May during national protests against government cuts in education. Photograph: Manu Fernandez/AP

     Virginia Hernández and Quico Iñesta packed their suitcases in 2011, as they stood on the threshold of their 30s. "Ours was a double brain drain," she said over the phone. They left behind family and friends, and a decade of education at publicly funded Spanish universities; with them, they took their knowledge, which they now apply in the rainy city of Dundee, on the east coast of Scotland.

     The doctor and her husband, a biologist, had been among the almost 1 million graduates swelling the ranks of Spain's unemployed, in country that produces an above-average number of graduates (40% of 25- to 34-year-olds against the European Union average of 34%). There is no official figure for how many of those have left since the crisis began, but various estimates put the number at about 300,000. These are the human face of the "unprecedented flight of talent" to which the employment minister, Fátima Báñez, has referred.

     For Hernández, what hurts is the weather. That, and the waste. "It makes no sense to educate us for 11 years and then be unable to offer us anything afterwards," she said. Job security in Scotland and the earnings – £48,000 for her, £32,000 for him – compensate, in part, for the homesickness.

     On the Spanish side of the water, the debate goes on. José Luis Alvarez-Sala, dean of medicine at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, is clear: "We are producing more doctors than we can absorb." And every year, about 7,000 more qualify in one or other of Spain's 39 universities of medicine. To train a specialist takes between €60,000 (£48,000) and €70,000. But according to the dean, one in four of those graduates leaves the country to look for work.

     "We need to rethink our teaching strategy," he said, "and quantify the real need for specialists." The brain drain, which affects mainly technical careers, has one peculiar aspect in the field of health: at the same time as specialists are leaving, gaps are being filled by professionals from outside the country. "Many recently qualified foreign doctors come here to specialise, and end up staying," Alvarez-Sala added.

     Something similar is happening in nursing. With about 250,000 professionals, Spain suffers from a shortage in the workforce in every one of its regions, according to the country's general council of nursing. Spanish hospitals employed nearly 12,000 foreigners between 2003 and 2007, mainly in the private sector, in which Spaniards see fewer chances of getting an apprenticeship. Meanwhile, 6,000 nurses have left since 2002 in search of job security.

     Raúl Muñoz, in charge of a human resources business in Frankfurt and himself the son of Spanish migrants, said: "They are very sought-after because of their good training and because of the transferability of their qualifications." He has just picked 40 candidates from Madrid, who will move to Frankfurt in the summer after completing an intensive course in German. Some will be back in five years' time, Muñoz said; others will stay abroad permanently.

     Hernández said she would love to come home soon. But she is pregnant, and she fears that no clinic in Spain would offer her work, not even on a daily basis as a locum; in Scotland, they have guaranteed her a year's maternity leave and a renewal of her contract.

Spanish brain drain

Spaniards: emigrants again

 

      In Spain, images of emigrants with cardboard suitcases who emigrated to America and Europe in the 1960s in search of a job and a better life are well known.

     This phenomenon was called the “Spanish Diaspora” and ended with the oil crisis in 1973 and as a result of Spain joining the European Union. Spanish emigrants became a thing of the past.

Spain became a country with an enviable standard of living that no longer produced emigrants, but welcomed them.

     Although Spain has never been known for having a low unemployment rate, no one imagined that the current crisis would  result in  5,273,600 unemployed and that  so many of them would be  young people .Youth unemployment now is around 50%,  despite the large number of young people who have emigrated in the last few years.

     According to the Spanish press, around 300,000 trained Spanish youth left the country between 2008 and 2011, discouraged by the lack of jobs. Furthermore, recent labour reforms approved by the new Government, allow small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to fire workers without compensation or cause during the first year of employment. The consequence of these reforms is even more precarious and temporary employment. Young people under 25, because of their lack of experience, may be doomed to work for a very low salary or be trapped in a cycle of unpaid internships. Because of cuts in the research field, researchers have been forced to look for employment abroad and Spain faces a real 'brain drain' that will undoubtedly have a long-term impact in the country, socially and economically.

     Although this phenomenon has been happening for many years, it has only recently been talked about and considered a problem. This may be because young Spanish people no longer migrate only to Northern European countries, known for their high standard of living, but are also beginning to migrate to Eastern European countries. The Czech newspaper Lidové Noviny, in a recent article, talks of the large increase in the number of young immigrants from Southern Europe to Eastern Europe.

     The question is how long it will last? Most young people see it as a temporary situation. They are thinking about working abroad for a few years until “the crisis is over”, or at least until the worst of it is over, and then to come home and find work. However, what awaits them? Some theories claim that the crisis will be followed for a long period of depression that will last for years, during which there will be no significant changes to the unemployment rate, and even then, things will never be good as before. Many of these young people have grown up in families with a standard of living that they themselves will not be able to attain.

     Meanwhile, in Spain the Government continues making cuts and young people are leaving in large numbers. Are young Spanish people doomed to unemployment? Time will tell.

Young people and politics

  

    There's a broad consensus that young people like me aren't interested in politics, which is flatly contradicted by recent protests. This week 130,000 students, sixth-formers and schoolchildren walked out of classes and lectures and took to the streets across the country. The government sought to portray those who took part in the recent protest at Millbank as a small faction of leftwing extremists and in turn undermine the entire day's protest. However, it's not so easy to write off thousands of schoolchildren worried about their future.

     Young people are angry and this frustration is unquestionably political. However, it has no natural outlet in our politics. In the last general election, young people between the ages of 18 and 25 were more likely to become first-time abstainers than first-time voters. Only 37% of 18-24-year-olds voted in the 2005 general election. Most significant of all, 76% of young people didn't feel they could "influence government decisions".

It's not surprising that an overwhelming majority of us don't trust politicians. Many have chastised the Liberal Democrats for their U-turn on fees. But in the last few months, we have seen promises made and broken by all three major political parties. Nick Clegg's about-face is not an exception; it is par for the political course. With a national political debate like this, it's not surprising our disenchantment has become mistaken for apathy. It's not that young people are not interested in politics – politics isn't interested in us.

     Recent research shows that the majority of young people have signed petitions or attended demonstrations in support of local campaigns to protect leisure facilities, prevent hospital closures or improve funding for further and higher education. However, they rarely recognised these actions as "political". What this shows is that for young people to become engaged with politics, it is politics that needs to change. But where to start?

     First of all, lower the voting age to 16. At 16 you can join the army, get a job, pay taxes, get married, start a family. But you can't vote. Stopping 16- and 17-year-olds from voting sends a clear signal: "Your views aren't valid and you aren't real citizens." In order to make politics relevant we should be doing everything we can to encourage young people to engage.

   Second, we need more imaginative and entertaining political education in schools and colleges – and I don't mean only introducing it as a pre-GCSE subject. Pupils should have an active role in decision making in schools through democratically elected representatives, as well as the opportunity to directly influence councils and local authorities through pupil-run campaigns. This would engender the importance of the democratic process and ensure that they understand they are stakeholders in both their education and their country. Whether it's a "core subject" or not, a concept of citizenship should be woven into the fabric of a pupils' education.

     Third, politicians need to make more effort to consult young people and understand their concerns. Yes, this is a two-way street. If young people vote, politicians will listen. But any number of progressive politicians will heed the call of an energised youth vote. The average age for an MP in Britain is 50. If our political class reflects a wider cross-section of the population in terms of age, sex, ethnic origin and social class, then we will have made a start.

     When it comes to youth issues, political will is shockingly sparse. Work on engaging young people in politics should be seen as an investment in the future of democracy – an investment in its legitimacy, relevance and engagement among the future adult population.

     If no natural outlet is found in our politics for the frustration that is growing among the young, then politicians are at risk of disenfranchising an entire generation. They may never again have the opportunity persuade us that voting, democracy and the parliamentary process matter.

Young people and migration

As you know, because of the economic crisis we are going trhough many young people are migrating to other countries like Germany, England or even outside of Europe. This is not new. The 1960s were a period of migration to!

Happy St. Valentine´s Day

 

Do this comprehension test...if you want!

More on paragraphs: Video

The importance of English: Essay

Hi! I hope you had a very good time at university yesterday! I found this for you to read and think about the way to organize paragraphs and information in your compositions. You are not supposed to write at this level yet (and you don´t have to write paragraphs that long. Remember that you have to limit yourself to approximately 120 words), but I think you can cope with most of what the text says. I just want you to read it and think about:

             a) The way the information is organized
             b) How paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 develop the ideas pointed out in the introduction (paragraph 1)
             c) How paragraph 5 sums up what has been said in the previous paragraphs
             d) Linkers used

See you tomorrow!

IMPORTANCE OF ENGLİSH

    In today’s global world, the importance of English can not be denied and ignored since English is the most common language spoken everwhere. With the help of developing technology, English has been playing a major role in many sectors including medicine, engineering, and education, which, in my opinion, is the most important arena where English is needed. Particularly, as a developing country, Turkey needs to make use of this world-wide spoken language in order to prove its international power. This can merely be based on the efficiency of tertiary education. Consequently, English should be the medium of instruction at universities in Turkey for the following three reasons: finding a high-quality job, communicating with the international world, and accessing scientific sources in the student’s major field.

    The first reason why English should be the medium of instruction at universities in Turkey is that it helps students find a high number of quality jobs for students. In business life, the most important common language is obviously English. In addition to this, especially at a high-quality level, jobs need a good understanding and speaking ability in English. Therefore, companies can easily open out to other countries, and these companies generally employ graduates whose English is fluent. For example, the student who has graduated from a university which takes English as a major language will find a better or high-quality job than other students who don’t know English adequately. In other words, the student who knows English is able to be more efficient in his job because he can use the information from foreign sources and web sites. He can prepare his assigments and tasks with the help of these pieces of information. Therefore, undoubtedly, his managers would like his effort or prepared projects. In addition, many high-quality jobs are related with international communication and world-wide data sharing. University graduates who are in a international company and business are needed to communicate with foreign workers. For instance, if their managers want them to share the company’s data, they are expected to know English. Moreover, they will even have to go on business trips for their company. All of these aspects depend on speaking English. As a result, new graduates have to know English in order to get a high-quality job, and the others, who don’t know English, may have a lack of communication and be paid less money.

    The second and the most important reason for English to be the medium of instruction in the Turkish higher education system is that it enables students to communicate with the international world. In these days, in my opinion, the most important thing for both university students and graduates is to follow the development in tecnology. For this reason, they have to learn a common language. Certainly, they should not lose their interest on communicating with the world. However, some of the university students can’t obtain English education in their university. Unfortunately, these people may lose their communication with worldwide subjects and topics. In short, they will not communicate with foreign people. To prevent these people from not speaking English, universities’ administrations will provide English education to them. In addition, university students can use some specific hardware and software of computers to help them with their English. For example, the Internet, which, in my opinion, is the largest source in the world, and most of it is based on English knowledge and information. Also, most of the software, such as “Windows”, “Microsoft Office”, and “Internet Explorer” are firstly written in English, and these programs are the basic vital things for communication with computer. That is to say, even in a little resarch about something, they need these programs and the Internet to find the necessary sources and information.

    The last reason for favouring English as the medium of instruction of Turkish universities is that it faclitates accessing information. All students have to do some project or homework which is related with their field during the university education. In these projects or homework, they have to find some information which is connected with their subject. They find sources from English web sites and books. During this process, if they know English, they will not come across with any difficulty, but if they don’t know, even they may not use these data. As a result, the student who knows English will be more successful at his/her project. For this reason, to obstruct possible inequity among students, management of universities should accept English as a second language in order to provide accessing information to the students. In short, university students need to know English to access information.

    All in all, the education in universities should be done with English for three reasons. First, students who know English are able to find their favourite job related with their field. Second, they can communicate with others internationally. Third, as a major language in universities, English makes accessing information easier for students. In my opinion, people need one common language. For many years, English has been the common wold-wide language, and it will be in the future. For this reason, if you want to follow trends, new gadgets and technology, modernization of the developing world, you have to know English whatever age you are in.

On the difference between grants and scholarships

When you go to university, you might be interested in applying for various sorts of funding. Here you have two ways whereby students can get by, namely grants and scholarships. They both imply that either the government or the university gives you money or other kind of benefit (such as books) based on different criteria. Nevertheless, there is a difference between these two sorts of funding.

Expressing opinions about unemployment

Here you have some people (young people) talking about their views on unemployment.

Simple exercise

For you to do now!

The best job in the world!

    
 Traditionally, were you to ask somebody what "the best job in the world" is, you might expect to hear 'astronaut', 'movie star' or 'bed tester' thrown back at you. But for 34-year-old Englishman Ben Southall — and 35,000 other hopefuls — it was the six-month gig being offered by Tourism Queensland to be the caretaker of an Australian tropical island. And for the not exactly demanding 12 hours he's expected to work each month in Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef (key duties: snorkelling, feeding fish, blogging), he'll be put up in a three-bedroom oceanfront villa (with swimming pool just in case he tires of the sea) and be paid the princely sum of $110,000. (See TIME's 100 most influential people.)

     The candidate search has also given an undeniable boost to Australian tourism, which has gone into considerable decline amid the current economic recession. Indeed, Southall's role is part of a wider $1.2 million campaign to publicize northeastern Queensland, which officials claim has already generated more than $75 million worth of publicity. The job itself requires Southall, a former project manager at an agricultural company, "to explore the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, swim, and snorkel, make friends with the locals and generally enjoy the tropical Queensland climate and lifestyle." But before his position kicks in on July 1, he talked to TIME about this chance of a lifetime.

How did you find out about the job and what did you do for your application video?

     I found out about the position from a good friend of my girlfriend's who cut out the article from one of the national newspapers. I'd just returned from my year traveling around Africa and had come back to a fairly dormant job market in the U.K. She said, " Ben, have a look. I think you've probably got what it takes to at least get through to the next round." We wrote a little script and headed out with a tiny compact camera and shot some footage of me jumping into a pond in the freezing cold. And I just tried to summarize what I'd done over the past few years and why I thought my application was suitable to get me through.

Tell us about the process once you found out you'd been shortlisted.

     I found out while on holiday in Vancouver I'd got down to a final 50. From there, the 50 of us had tests to show we could promote Tourism Queensland because we'll be doing that as much as possible. We had a couple of days in London meeting the CEO of Hamilton Island and his workers where we had to demonstrate we could do this job to them. Then 16 of us were flown out to Australia to show that we could actually swim and snorkel. We had to document all this to prove we would be able to blog about it and could sell Tourism Queensland to the rest of the world.

It sounds like a reality TV show.

     It has been but it's in a different light. It's not been about eliminating people one by one. It's an interview process as much as anything, which has been taken very seriously by the people carrying them out as opposed to being documented just on film. But there has been an internal crew as well as the BBC, who came over to make a documentary that will go out in the U.K. on July 2, the day after I start.

Talk us through what your typical day will be like.

     There's lots on offer out here: big national parks, the entire Great Barrier Reef, 600 islands, 2,900 kilometers [1,800 miles] to explore. I'll see what I can discover and try to sell it to the rest of the world.

What do your friends, family and colleagues make of the move?

     Mum and dad are over the moon. They'll be coming out here on holiday. I spoke to a good friend today who advised me to enjoy the next couple of days in Australia because the news is absolutely everywhere in the U.K. It will be overwhelming to walk into work next week and tell the boss that unfortunately I won't be coming back.

     But it's also an opportunity for friends and family to come over and do some of this as well. It's a huge house and myself and my girlfriend are going to rattle around in there so we need some people to fill it out.

So you're not exactly going to be stranded on the island à la Tom Hanks in Castaway?

     Oh no, my girlfriend is looking forward to it! She's coming out for the full six months and friends and family can drop in as they see fit. My aim is for other people to be ambassadors for the Barrier Reef.

What can you tell us about that salary?

     It's something that wasn't initially a driving force behind this. My life is about new challenges and opportunities. The salary on top of it is obviously fantastic to have and it will mean that I can continue to do my charity expeditions. In the past, they've all been African-based and I want to find some decent causes out here in Australia and try and give something back.

And what career could possibly compete with this one? Do you harbor ambitions to do something even more extravagant upon your return? Or will you just want a cup of tea and your own bed?

     Yes, I think that'll be the first thing I'll want! But as I managed last year, when I did a complete lap of Africa, my plan would be to do something similar in Australia. it's a heck of a long distance to cover with not a lot of places in-between some of the big towns. I'd be raising money for charity. I also think I can do some more marathons, or climb some mountains or maybe circumnavigate the islands. So lots of ideas in the pipeline, it's just working out which are viable ones. I think over the next six months, I'm going to have time to do lots of research.

Mini jobs in Germany

'Mini-jobs' don't work in Germany, and they won't work in Britain

Though being floated by the Treasury as a measure to increase employment, German 'mini-jobs' offer little money or security

The most recent copycat idea floated by the Treasury to promote employment creation through ever more flexible labour markets is the German "mini-jobs" initiative. Introduced in Germany in 2003 under the social democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder as part of a wide-ranging labour market reform, the scheme has been praised for its alleged role in preventing a steep increase in German unemployment post-2008.

     German "mini-jobs" are just what it says on the tin: precarious employment for up to €400 (£315) per month, likely to be extended to €450 in 2013. Whether a "mini-job" is an additional or a main job, "mini-jobbers" are exempted from tax and social insurance payments for earnings of up to €400, and employers' social insurance contributions are considerably below those for equivalent regular jobs.

     "Mini-jobbers" thus forgo core benefits of regular employment, such as building up pension claims. Beyond a basic threshold, income from "mini-jobs" also entails the reduction of unemployment benefit for recipients. In March 2012, an initiative, led by the social-democratic governed Länder in Germany's upper chamber in March 2012, to impose a limit of 12 weekly hours for "mini-jobbers" – and thus effectively a minimum hourly wage – failed.

     According to the most recent figures of the German Employment Agency, 7.3 million Germans, or one in every five employees, held "mini-jobs" in September 2010 – an increase of 1.6 million since 2003. The number of workers taking "mini-jobs" as additional side-jobs to make ends meet almost doubled from 1.3 million in 2003 to 2.4 million in 2010. About two thirds of "mini-jobbers" are women, and most "mini-jobs" are to be found in the low-skill segments of service sectors, led by catering, hospitality and construction.

     While admitting that the scheme is costly for the state due to the exemptions from income tax, those advocating the scheme argue that it has not replaced regular employment and that increased labour market flexibility (meaning lower unit wage costs) has been instrumental in promoting German international competitiveness since 2003.

     Unsurprisingly, the view from trade unions and sympathetic researchers is much grimmer: a 2010 report by researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen, for instance, provides empirical evidence to show that "mini-jobs" are a growing low-wage trap with little prospect of longer-term transition, even into low-skill employment. Splitting regular jobs into mini ones is becoming more common. And "mini-jobbers" tend to be paid considerably less than the equivalent standard hourly wage for a given activity, nothwithstanding Germany's anti-discrimination laws that explicitly prohibit this.

     To fully appreciate the impact of "mini-wages" on the German labour markets and economy, it is important to recall that Germany does not have a statutory nationwide minimum wage. Wages are negotiated by sector, and in only 10 of these agreed minimum wages, currently ranging from €6.53 to €11.53 (or £5.13 to £9.06), are binding for all employers. Of 41 million people in employment in 2011, only just above 29 million had regular jobs, with the remainder either being self-employed or in "mini-jobs". Real wages have stagnated since the 1990s and fallen by 2.9% between 2004 and 2011. Poverty in work is on the increase and income inequality is growing faster in Germany than in any other western European economy.

     Far from achieving an employment "miracle", post-2008 Germany simply managed to not escalate an already high unemployment rate of about 7% by reducing working hours per person and implementing a fiscal stimulus package to the tune of €60bn in 2009-10. Nor does German GDP growth over the 2000s warrant the belief that labour market deregulation is the key to growth. With the second lowest growth rate (of about 1.7%) in the eurozone between 1999 and 2008, there is not much to write home about the famous German model economy.

     Worst of all, the single-minded German obsession with low wages and "mini-jobs" has, of course, been a driving factor of the eurozone crisis: increased international competitiveness through falling unit labour costs sustained an export-led growth model that mostly siphoned off credit-fuelled demand in poorer southern European economies – until the cheap credit flow stopped in 2008.

     As Heiner Flassbeck and Gerhard Bosch, among many others, have long argued, what Germany (and the eurozone) need is "maxi-jobs", not "mini-jobs": real wage increases above productivity and inflation, to correct current trends in German income inequality and to boost German demand at home and abroad.

    The UK, of course, has a minimum wage, and the threshold for tax-free earnings is currently more than double the €400 limit in Germany. So why "mini-jobs"? The answer can be gleaned from another recent "bright" labour market idea: to force the long-term unemployed into months-long unpaid work at the risk of losing their benefits. This amounts to fixing an effective wage bottom for this group equal to their benefits, and thus below the minimum wage. "Mini-jobs" are set to follow suit for a much larger group of workers. This is their only purpose.

     As so often, the Treasury is running behind the times: in Germany, opposition to the growth of "mini-jobs" is mounting beyond union advocacy, and Angela Merkel is considering ceding to long-standing opposition demands for a nationwide minimum wage (not least with the 2013 general election in Germany in mind).

     The simple truth is that "mini-jobs" are not working in Germany, and neither will they in the UK: the current crisis, in Germany and the UK, is a crisis of confidence in future (sales) prospects. Wages are costs for employers, but they are also the income that buys their products. Low-wage policies have had their day and have failed to produce the promised outcomes. Employers now need markets, and workers need jobs that pay to make a decent living. The solution is obvious, and it doesn't include "mini-jobs".

On language learning

 Have you wondered why I encourage you to read, write in, and listen to English every day? It all comes down to the Golden Rule of Language Learning:

The Golden Rule of Language Learning: Absolutely any method of language learning, as long as it includes regular exposure to the target language, will eventually yield fluency if followed faithfully enough.

Unemployment: the case of Greece

Unemployment in Britain

A good job is hard to find for Britain's young unemployed

Economic and Social Research Council report shows how tough life has become for young people trying to enter workforce

     There are more than a million people under 25 who are unemployed in the UK, according to the internationally agreed measure of unemployment. Graduates are leaving university and finding that the only jobs they can find are in supermarkets or cafes.

      It has been clear for some time that the recession of the past five years has had a disproportionate effect on the young, but a report by the Economic and Social Research Council shows just how tough life has become.

      When the economy was growing strongly before the slump, 50% of young people out of work in 2006 had found a job by 2007. Three years later, that percentage had almost halved; only 27% of those young and unemployed in 2009 were in work a year later.

      By contrast, employment rates for so-called prime-aged workers, those aged between 25 and 44, barely budged. The proportion of this group entering the workforce between 2009 and 2010 fell by just three percentage points compared to 2006-07, while labour participation of those aged over 44 actually rose.

      Young people were not just less likely to be taken on by an employer, they were also more prone to being laid off than older workers.

     The study raises some important issues, both social and economic. Previous research has shown that someone who is unemployed when they are young is more likely to be out of work in later life, and suffer a higher risk of low income and poverty as a result. This is what lies behind the talk of a "lost generation".

     What appears to have happened over the past five years is that employers have hoarded labour and put a higher premium on experience. They have been wary of hiring young people who by virtue of their inexperience are not as productive as a fully-trained older worker, and when times have been tough the axe has fallen on the new recruits.

     Tackling the problem of youth unemployment has, rightly, become an urgent priority for the government, although it is worth mentioning that one of the first things it did was to scrap Labour's Future Jobs Fund, a scheme that was having some success in getting young people into work.

     A number of possible remedies have been mooted. For those who believe that young people are pricing themselves out of the labour market, the solution is to make the minimum wage less generous. Given that the rate for 18 to 20-year-olds is less than a fiver an hour, and for 16 to 18-year-olds is £3.68 an hour, it is hard to say that the minimum wage is unduly generous, particularly given rising transport costs for those travelling to work.

     Germany's highly advanced system of apprenticeships is also much admired by some UK politicians, and there is no doubt that the withering away of extensive on-the-job training has played a part in making the transition from education to work far more difficult for young people in Britain.

    Ultimately, though, the problem boils down to this. Demand for labour is weak, and cost-conscious employers are not inclined to hire young workers. Government policy should have three aims: an education system that prepares people for work, a macroeconomic policy that generates sufficient demand and a system of financial incentives to persuade employers to give school leavers and graduates a break.