TRANSLATION
1. Manufacturing is least important in the world’s poorest counties. 2. Economically developed countries in Africa have fewer than 5% of their working population in manufacturing industry. 3. People become better off, and spend more on services such as healthcare, leisure, tourism, travel and so on. 4. Natural gas can sometimes be found together with petroleum, and also occurs in deposits on its own. 5. Petroleum and natural gas are believed to have been found many millions of years ago. 6. At that time much of what is now land was covered by shallow seas. 7. Few wells and little pumping are required to bring the oil to the surface. 8. In some cases crude oil rises by itself. 9. The extraction of minerals from the ground is of great importance in many counties, but makes very little contribution to the economic life of many others. 10. In some places the valuable mineral lies within a few metres of the surface. 11. Nationalisation means that the ownership passes to the government of the country concerned.
1. A voting district can be part of a county, a state, and a country all at the same time. In the same way, a country can be a political region all by itself, or it may be part of a region that includes other countries. 2. We recognize the importance of our environment, but we also use it far beyond its capacity to clean itself. 3. Today, Paraguay is struggling to modernize itself. The vast Itaipú Dam generates sufficient electricity to export supplies to neighboring Brazil. 4. Even though it has virtually no raw materials, Switzerland has made itself a major industrial power. 5. Bulgaria does not have enough coal or power from its hydroelectric plants to provide itself with energy. 6. Over the last 20 years China has transformed itself from one of the world’s poorest nations into a rapidly expanding economy. 7. Plants need water to make their own food and will thrive in the warm, wet climate of a tropical rain forest, shown here in Costa Rica. 8. Immersion, or ‘going native’, seems to some the only way of knowing another culture. But it carries its own risks. 9. The field-worker encountering unfamiliar terrain is expected to monitor their own responses and their own capacity to misinterpret and to misuse the situation. 10. Tourism is one of Guatemala’s fastest growing industries. 11. Sometimes called “the land of lakes and volcanoes,” Nicaragua is a beautiful country. It could also be one of the richest in Central America, but its recent history has been as violent as its earthquakes, and the economy has been thrown into chaos by past political events. 12. The best farmland is in the lowlands on the Pacific coast, where the main cash crops, bananas, coffee, and sugar, are grown. 13. The poorest country in the western world, Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. 14. The land cannot sustain being cultivated for long, so after a few years more forest must be destroyed for farmers to continue growing crops. 15. Many people work in the fields for little pay, while a few rich landowners benefit from huge profits. 16. The plow only turns over the surface layer of the soil and does not allow nutrients to spread deeper, so after a few years, the soil is no longer fertile. 17. Where rainfall is very low, in deserts and polar regions, only a few plants manage to survive. 18. Because of poor soil, farming produces little income. However, light industry, such as clothes manufacturing, is growing in importance. 19. Austria has little coal and no oil of its own, so other ways of producing power have been developed. 20. Bahrain is made up of a small group of islands in the Persian Gulf. Little rain falls, so farming is only possible on irrigated, or watered, land. 21. The winds are dry and there is little rainfall, so the area is generally arid. 22. Animal breeding is particularly important because there is so little land to farm. 23. Moving south, a little more rain falls in the vast expanses of savanna – grassland scattered with trees. Much of West Africa consists of savanna. 24. Concentrating on growing cocoa for export has left little land for people to grow food for themselves. 25. In many countries in the developing world, children are forced to work, often for very little money. 26. Most of the population growth between now and 2020 is projected to occur in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America – the regions that are least able to afford such increases. 27. Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. 28. Malawi is one of the least urbanized countries in the world, with 85 percent of its population living in villages in the countryside, mostly near seasonal wetlands called dambos. 29. This, together with its small population and lack of heavy industry, make New Zealand one of the world’s least polluted countries. 30. However, many problems remain, especially in the less fortunate countries within Africa and Asia. 31. The land divides into three main zones: the fertile Pacific plain, ideal for growing crops such as bananas; the central highlands, with coffee plantations and cattle ranches; and the forested northeast, where the soil is less suitable for farming.
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