Individual Reading: "The Patriots Games" by Tom Clancy: week 5 - the finall curtain :D (p. 365 from 365)

Summary

Jean Claude, Jack and Cantor are looking forward to watch the operation against the O’Donnell’s group of The ULA (The Ulster Liberation Army) by the parachute subdivision of Jean Claude. It doesn’t get on for a radio contact because the parachutes can’t break electronic silence. In sober fact, they have been attacked by the military unit and don’t manage to make the operation. Snapshots from the satellite give the information that assassinators have gone before the beginning of the campaign.

Alex takes a house which has to be used as the ark of refuge. The terrorist is going to kill the residential agent who has helped him in this business. Miller is very pleased as they now have a place where they can take shelter. Having discussed the plan, Miller is very peeved with Alex, because the black suggests very good ideas. The Irish man wants to kill him.

The Ryans’ house seems to be inconvenient for an act of assault. There is only one strait road to the house. From the left there is the grove, from the right - the cliff. Nevertheless FBI and CIA put on the territory about 20 secret agents. But perpetrators of acts of terrorism, especially Kevin O’Donnell don’t think so. He strives a single purpose: his companions-in-arms will kill heads of the PIRA, the seizure of The Royal Family will give him a chance to let out prisoners and at all, all these will make him the head of terrorism.

Someone lodges information about the group and their house having seen weapons in the garage of the taken house. The police cervices come immediately but nobody is at home, only weapons. They have left the house on the black van which is identificated on one of the roads and is persecuted by the police car. The car is under fire but fortunately the police officer doesn’t die.

Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales arrive to Jack and Cathy. Everybody hits it off. Robby and the Prince have much in common: both of them are pilots and they easily can speak about this or that model of the aircraft. The Ryans serves up simple American dishes: stakes, fried potatoes, boiled corn and tea with ice.

The group of assassins interferes to the territory of the Ryans family house. They killed 17 bodyguards and lost 6 of themselves. Among these 6 are Alex and his group, killed by Miller because of dispute. Jack and his guests are captured by the assassinators, all are captured, except Robby who is washing his hands in the toilet when the hijacking takes place. He finds Jack’s  short-barreled weapon and, having killed two of three terrorists, sets free all the group.

The third one, Mr. Cooley, shows them the way to the boats on which O’Donnell and others have come. The boats are protected by other small group of assaulters which is also neutralized by Jack, Robby and the Prince. Cooley is killed during the fight. On the boat Jack and other  go to Indianapolis where  Sergeant Major Noah Breckenridge and his amphibious soldiers take the injured wife of Robby and other women.

Miller, O’Donnell and other want to escape on the Cyprian ship, but are captured by Jack, Gunny and the amphibious soldiers. Ryan wants to kill Miller, but Gunny stops him, as Jack is not the killer. The American is waiting by the unbelievable news – he becomes father twice: Cathy has a baby – the boy, “who would have two complete, but very different, sets of godparents.”

Culture Words

1. FBI Academy

The FBI Academy, located in Quantico, Virginia, is the training site for new Special Agents of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was first opened for use in 1972 on 385 acres (1.6 km²) of woodland. It is a relatively small government academy, housing three dormitory buildings and associated facilities. Federal law enforcement officers from the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration undergo training courses here. FBI agents currently have a 21-week long training course.

2. Dragunov sniper rifle

The Dragunov sniper rifle is a semi-automatic sniper rifle/designated marksman rifle chambered in 7.62×54mmR and developed in the Soviet Union. The Dragunov was designed as a squad support weapon, since according to Soviet and Soviet-derived military doctrines the long-range engagement ability was lost to ordinary troops when submachine guns and assault rifles (which are optimized for close-range and medium-range, rapid-fire combat) were adopted. For that reason it was originally named "Полуавтоматическая винтовка Драгунова" Dragunov's Semi-automatic Rifle. It was selected as the winner of a contest that included three competing designs - by Sergei Simonov, by Aleksandr Konstantinov and by Yevgeny Dragunov. Extensive field testing of the rifles conducted in a wide range of environmental conditions resulted in Dragunov’s proposal being accepted into service in 1963. An initial pre-production batch consisting of 200 rifles was assembled for evaluation purposes, and from 1964 serial production was carried out by Izhmash. Since then, the Dragunov has become the standard squad support weapon of several countries, including those of the former Warsaw Pact. Licensed production of the rifle was established in China (Type 79 and Type 85) and Iran (as a direct copy of the Chinese Type 79).

3. Grumman F-14 Tomcat

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program following the collapse of the F-111B project. The F-14 was the first of the American teen-series fighters which were designed incorporating the experience of air combat against MiG fighters during the Vietnam War. The F-14 first flew in December 1970 and made its first deployment in 1974 with the U.S. Navy aboard USS Enterprise (CVN-65), replacing the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. The F-14 served as the U.S. Navy's primary maritime air superiority fighter, fleet defense interceptor and tactical reconnaissance platform. In the 1990s, it added the Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night (LANTIRN) pod system and began performing precision ground-attack missions. The Tomcat was retired from the U.S. Navy's active fleet on 22 September 2006, having been supplanted by the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. As of 2012, the F-14 was only in service with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, having been exported to Iran in 1976, when the U.S. had amicable diplomatic relations with Iran's government.

4. Indianapolis

It is the capital city of the U.S. state of Indiana, and also the county seat of Marion County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population is 829,718. It is the twelfth largest city in the United States, and one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States. Indianapolis is now the second largest city in the Midwest after Chicago, surpassing nearby Detroit at the 2010 Census. Historically, Indianapolis has oriented itself around government (a byproduct of its state capital function) and industry, particularly manufacturing. Over the late decades of the 20th century, the city's Unigov began a long process to revitalize the downtown area. Today, Indianapolis has a much more diversified economy, contributing to the fields of education, health care, and finance. Tourism is also a vital part of the economy of Indianapolis, and the city plays host to numerous conventions and sporting events. Of these, perhaps the most well known are the annual Indianapolis 500, Brickyard 400, and NHRA U.S. Nationals. Other major sporting events include the Men's and Women's NCAA Basketball Tournaments. Indianapolis also hosted the 2012 Super Bowl, a game that featured the New York Giants defeating the New England Patriots. Both Forbes and Livability.com rank Indianapolis as one of the best downtowns in the United States citing "more than 200 retail shops, more than 35 hotels, nearly 300 restaurants and food options, movie theaters, sports venues, museums, art galleries and parks" as attractions. Greater Indianapolis has seen moderate growth among U.S. cities. The population of the metropolitan statistical area was 1,756,241 according to the 2010 Census, making it the 34th-largest in the United States. The 2010 population of the Indianapolis combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 2,080,782, the 23rd-largest in the country.

5. Yankee

The term Yankee (sometimes shortened to Yank) has several interrelated meanings, referring to people from the United States. Within the US it refers to people originating in the northeastern US, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to the descendants of colonial English settlers in the region. Outside the US it is used to refer to people from the US in general. The meaning of Yankee has varied over time. In the 18th century, it referred to residents of New England descended from the original English settlers of the region. Mark Twain, in the following century, used the word in this sense in his novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, published in 1889. As early as the 1770s, British people applied the term to any person from what became the US. In the 19th century, Americans in the southern United States employed the word in reference to Americans from the northern United States (though not to recent emigrants from Europe; thus a visitor to Richmond, Virginia, in 1818 commented, "The enterprising people are mostly strangers; Scots, Irish, and especially New England men, or Yankees, as they are called"). The truncated form Yank is especially popular among Britons and Australians, and may sometimes be considered offensive or disapproving. The intense and ongoing sports rivalry between the eponymous New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox can also make the utterance of the "Yankee" term offensive to inhabitants of much of New England, especially to the most dedicated Red Sox fans living in the northeastern United States.

Questions

1.      Why does Sean Miller kill Alex?

2.      Is Alex cleverer than Sean?

3.      why doesn’t Jack kill Miller?

4.      Why doesn’t the author pay more attention to O’Donnell?

5.      What is going to be in the future of Jack and his family (only your imagination)?

Words

1.      a missile – реактивный снаряд

2.      a state trooper – патрульный

3.      an assassin – наемный убийца

4.      a grenade – граната

5.      a cotter pin – чека

6.      to pointed bayonet right at – направить штык-нож на

7.      an defendant – подсудимый

8.      a blast – взрывная волна

9.      to be sentenced to prison for the remainder of one’s natural life – попасть в тюрьму пожизненно

10.  to confront – противостоять

11.  to be loaded – быть заряженным

12.  to struck at – наносить удар

13.  the chatter of automatic weapons fire – автоматная очередь

14.  to disable a gunman – обезоружить

15.  a weapons training – огневая подготовка

16.  a radar installation – радарная установка

17.  a traitor – предатель

18.  a submachine gun – автомат

19.  a firing range – стрелковый полигон

20.  a machine-gunner – пулеметчик

Interpretation of the story: "In A Strange Land" written by William Somerset Maugham

In A Strange Land

William Somerset Maugham is an English author, whose novels and short stories are characterized by great narrative facility, simplicity of style and a disillusioned and ironic point of view.

The title of the story has its direct and indirect meanings. “In a Strange Land” means that someone is in the other country, not in that from which he is. But the indirect meaning is that the Englishwoman, who has been for years in Asia Minor consequently she must have been assimilated, but actually she feels like an alien here. Her husband was an Italian, she doesn’t have contacts with her kith and kin (they disappointed of her marriage), her children don’t speak their mother’s language (although they are adopted).

One of the inns in Asia Minor is the setting of the story. On the one hand we come to know that the Englishwoman is a proprietor, but on the other hand she feels ready to hand over this family business to her sons. I think that her wish can be interpreted as if she wants to forget her husband. The narrator calls Turkey the barbaric country, but also notes, that she stands firm on what she believes.

Let me give you the whole reconstruction of the events. The narrator comes to Asia Minor and meets an Englishwoman who is a proprietor of the hotel. She has lived their for thirty years and it doesn’t change her at all. The woman lost her contacts with English relatives. She doesn’t have a chance to practice her English that’s why her speech consists of contracted forms. She makes mistakes when she speaks.. Her husband died and left her two sons and they don’t speak English at all. The widow confesses these are adopted children though their blood-mother is a Greek girl who used to work in the hotel. But nevertheless, after all these circumstances of her life, the heroine stays herself and is very polite to Englishmen.

Let me pass on to the main characters of the work. There are two of them: the narrator himself and the Englishwoman. The narrator, because of his “roving disposition” (his passion for journeys) is pleased to meet ordinary English people, especially women who left their native country. The man is fond of looking after them during the development of their personalities and mentality. He also has good manners of a typical Englishman.

Speaking about the English woman, who has been living for thirty years abroad, got married their and had two sons, we are to say, that she has been transformed greatly. She makes mistakes being communicated: her speech consists of contracted forms. Though the Turkey is supposed by the narrator to be a barbaric country, it didn’t kill her spirit of English society, their customs and traditions. She gives the man a bottle of a drink as if she used to serve the same in England working maiden. But she is unhappy at the same time, as her relatives broke all contacts with her because of her husband.

The narration is given from the first person and it helps us to become the immediate participants of the story, to understand an ideology of the characters and to feel thait emotions.

From my point of view the main theme of the story is to put on show the problem of being in a strange land. The Englishwoman is a perfect example of such a situation. The narrator gives us a vivid picture of those difficulties that she has to overcome.

To my mind the main idea of the story is to display that Englishmen are Englishmen what ever the weather. The Englishwoman and her deeds prove my words. Though her English is not perfect at all, full of mistakes and contracted forms, her children don’t speak her native language at all, she doesn’t have anybody who loves her and waits for her in England, she saves inside of her soul such typical features of Englishmen like making business (she has the hotel which gives her profit), being submissive (she manages not to lose herself in barbaric Turkey), calm (though it’s not her children, she takes it for granted). In my opinion, the fact, that she presents the bottle of a drink to the man characterizes her as an Englishwoman, because it’s a sign of ethic relationship.

In conclusion I’d like to say that I was really impressed by this text. It is written in a very masterful style and it’s easy to understand what the author means. Having read the story I remembered the song “Oh…I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien, I’m an Englishman in New York.” I’m sure it will perfectly suit this text although it is settled in Turkey.       

Individual Reading: "The Patriots Games" by Tom Clancy: week 4 (p. 307 from 365)

Summary

There is some information about Mr. Cooley: he is fond of literature, reads a lot, has his own bookstore. The most interesting fact is that he has been educated with Kevin O’Donnell. But at the same time, there are no evidences concerning which the police can find any connections between both of them.

Jack is very busy in CIA. He is to give up his work at the Academy. He is overwhelmed with information. With Ryan’s help the woman in bikini is recognized. It is a famous French killer – Francua Terra. Marty Cantor believes that one day Mr. Ryan will replace him.

There is a new job for Alex and his team. Their goals is to find snapshots of area where the Ryans lives for Miller. The assassinators also has the plan to down Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and the Princess, but persuasion of the Royal Family is higher than terrorists’ plan. In their turn, the American secret services are going to protect the Royal family during their visit. David Ashley, the chief of the FBI in Britain, and James Owens, the head of C-13 have only suspicious without any evidence. That’s why they can’t clap y the heels Cooley and Watkins.

O’Donnell and his gang have a new plan how to prejudice Jack and his family. They need about 20 attackers for it, including Alex and his friends to release the plan. Alex is an electric. He uses his work to look after Jack and his family. But Alex’s group doesn’t want Sally and Cathy to be suffered.

Jack and Gunny shoot from pistols. Mr. Ryan can easily be a member of shooting Gunny’s team. Gunny is a good friend who offers his help. It’s the momet when Sally has to return back home. Jack wants his child to be as she has been before the accident. That’s why the father presents her a small Labrador. The dog helps her to return to the normal life again.

Owens and Murray become close friends. The first one asks his colleague to cancel the future trip of Their Royal Highnesses. Both agents know that there is leak of data, so, consequently the places where the Prince and the Princess are going to visit are in secret.

Jean Claude, the French agent of CIA and his group catch the woman who is the multiple murderer and her 4 allies. All these happen because of Jack and his reports. The captured assassins are sent to the chair. But before it, two of them cough up about two other terrorist and warehouse full of weapons and explosive. All these things are neutralized as quickly as it possible.

The father and the son, who one day come to the FBI, bring the Uzi pistol which they have found in the charging pace. Their the father makes woods and the son gets fish, during this process he finds the pistol. The investigation shows that it is the pistol which has been used to fire Cathy’s Porsche.

CIA and FBI start to search the charging place to find terrorists’ traces. But proves have been already destroyed: every Saturday young people and many other come here and spend their free time. Alex knows it and is not agitated, but he clean forgets that one day the father has helped him to extract his van from dirt.

There is a fire in Cooley’s shop. When an electrician changes harnessing he finds the leader with microphone. It makes him confused. He tries to escape and finally he manages to do it. The police is in fear especially Owens and Murray.

Mr. Cooley is found in the camp which will be under attack by the CIA secret services. It’s easy to figure out him as he is the unique skinhead in the camp. Cooley wants to take an opportunity in operation, because British police deprives him to work with books.

The British ambassador declares that their Royal Highnesses the Prince and the Princess of Wales will visit Jack and Cathy. The Ryans asks to let their friends Robby and his wife be their too, as, as it has been planed, to be their farewell party.

 Culture Words

1. Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard, though an official Scotland Yard never has existed) is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, the territorial police force responsible for policing most of London. The name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard.^[1] The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance to the police station, and over time the street and the Metropolitan Police became synonymous. The New York Times wrote in 1964 that just as Wall Street gave its name to New York's financial district, Scotland Yard did the same for police activity in London.

2. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Tsentralniy Komitet Kommunistitcheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza – TsK KPSS), abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", was de jure the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) between Party Congresses. According to Party rules, the Central Committee directed all Party and government activities between each Party Congress. Members of the committee were elected at the Party Congresses. During Vladimir Lenin's leadership of the Communist Party, the Central Committee functioned as the highest party authority between congresses. However at the 8th Party Congress held in 1919, the Political Bureau (Politburo) was established to respond to questions needing immediate responses. Some delegates objected to the establishment of the Politburo, and in response, the Politburo became responsible to the Central Committee, and Central Committee members could participate in Politburo sessions with a consultative voice, but could not vote unless they were members. Following Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin took power in the Communist Party through the office of General Secretary of the Central Committee, the leading Secretary of the Secretariat. With Stalin's takeover, the role of the Central Committee was eclipsed by the Politburo, which consisted of a small clique of loyal Stalinists. By Stalin's death in 1953, the Central Committee had become largely a symbolic organ, which was responsible to the Politburo, and not the other way around. The death of Stalin revitalised the Central Committee, and it became an important institution during the power struggle to succeed Stalin. Following Khrushchev's ascension to power, the Central Committee still played a leading role; it overturned the Politburo's decision to remove Khrushchev from office in 1957. In 1964, the Central Committee ousted Khrushchev from power, and elected Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary. The Central Committee was an important organ in the beginning of Brezhnev's rule, but lost effective power to the Politburo. From then on, until the ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Central Committee played a minor role in the running of the party and state – the Politburo was the highest political organ in the Soviet Union.

3. KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti or Committee for State Security). It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1917 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time. The KGB has been considered a military service and was governed by army laws and regulations, similar to the Soviet Army or MVD Internal Troops. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two on-line documentary sources are available.Belarus is the only former Soviet state to have kept the name "State Security Committee" - and the abbreviation KGB - for its national security agency. (See State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus)After breaking away from the Republic of Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB (keeping this unreformed name).

4. The Uzi is a family of Israeli open-bolt, blowback-operated submachine guns. Smaller variants are considered to be machine pistols. The Uzi was one of the first weapons to use a telescoping bolt design which allows for the magazine to be housed in the pistol grip for a shorter weapon. The first Uzi submachine gun was designed by Major Uziel Gal in the late 1940s. The prototype was finished in 1950. First introduced to IDF special forces in 1954, the weapon was placed into general issue two years later. The Uzi has found use as a personal defense weapon by rear-echelon troops, officers, artillery troops and tankers, as well as a frontline weapon by elite light infantry assault forces.

5. M.V. Frunze Military Academy - The Frunze Military Academy was established in 1918 as the academy of the General Staff. In 1921, it was transformed into the RKKA Military Academy. It is named after Mikhail Frunze who was the USSR Minister of Defence in mid-1920s and is located in Moscow. It is roughly the equivalent of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, KS or the British Army's Staff College, Camberley. Officers usually enter when they are between late twenties and thirty-two years old with the rank of Captain or Major, depending on whether they pass the competitive entry examinations. 

Questions

1.      Is it difficult to work on two jobs at the same time?

2.      Do animals help us to return to our noramal life?

3.      Why does Alex want to protect Cathy and Sally?

4.      Are books the hoby of Mr. Cooley?

5.      Is it good to kill terrorists?

Words

1.      a rifleman – рядовой стрелковой части

2.      a fellow spook – приятель-шпион

3.      to execute – казнить

4.      to commit a murder – совершать убийство

5.      to be subjected to a metal detector – быть проверенным детектором

6.      to be a worthwhile target – быть подходящей/стоящей целью

7.      to hammer – обстрелять

8.      to go out into the field – участвовать в сражении

9.      a terrorist network – террористическая сеть

10.  rounds on the paper – пули в бумажной мишени

11.  a bulletproof glass – пуленепробиваемое стекло

12.  to hold a gun on somebody – под дулом пистолета

13.  to be in the service – проходить службу

14.  a pistol – пистолет

15.  an ejected cartridge – использованная гильза

16.  ao interview a witness – опрашивать свидетеля

17.  to be well-armed – быть хорошо вооруженным

18.  a firearm – огнестрельное оружие

19.  to lay in wait for – устроить засаду

20.  to be sentenced to prison for the remainder of one’s natural life – попасть в тюрьму пожизненно

Topic 11: Modern Wars and War Conflicts in the News

Modern Wars and War Conflicts in the News

I’d like to tell you a few words about my topic which is called “Modern Wars and War Conflicts in the News”. What is the greatest mistake of the mankind? I’m completely sure that it is a war. Every war brings agony and sufferings to all people who somehow involved in it. Much of what the world learns about conflicts around the world comes from mass media. But mass media of different countries interpret information and news in different ways. In my topic I’m going to speak on the news coverage of modern wars and war conflicts in the foreign and home media.

 

For the better understanding of the problem let’s analyse the word “war”. According to the Macmillan dictionary “war is fighting between two or more countries that involves the use of armed forces and usually continues for a long time”. But as you can see, mass media try to make us imagine heroic young men marching in parades, winning glorious battles, and bringing peace and democracy to the world. But war is something quite different from that. It is hundreds of thousands of human beings dying years before their time. It is millions of people separated forever from the ones they loved. It is the destruction of homes for which people worked for decades. It is the end of careers that meant as much to others as your career means to you. War is genocide, torture, cruelty, propaganda, dishonesty, and slavery. We can observe so many wars today but mass media of different countries give such views on the conflicts which are profitable for their governments.

        

 First, the war in Iraq. The War in Iraq began on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by the United States under the administration of President George W. Bush and the United Kingdom under the Prime Minister Tony Blair. American and British newspapers maintained that that was a war against terrorism after the terrorist attack on 9/11 as al-Qaeda was thought to be responsible for it. Moreover American mass media said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But many independent enquiries exist as to why the U.S. attack on Iraq was not justified. Iraq has not been found to have weapons of mass destruction and is not even linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist group. Not so long ago Russian mass media maintained that there was a good chance that the Bush Administration attacked Iraq simply to control their oil supply.

         

 Second, the war in South Ossetia. The conflict began on August 8, 2008, after Georgia claimed South Ossetian separatists had broken a ceasefire by attacking villages, although South Ossetian officials deny that they attacked villages. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin accused foreign media of pro-Georgian bias in their coverage of the conflict between Georgia and Russia over breakaway South Ossetia as Western media blamed Russia for attacking Georgia. "We want television screens in the West to be showing not only Russian tanks, and texts saying Russia is at war in South Ossetia and with Georgia, but also to be showing the suffering of the Ossetian people, the murdered elderly people and children, the destroyed towns of South Ossetia, and Tskhinvali. This would be an objective way of presenting the material," Grigory Karasin said in a statement to Russian news agencies. Western media coverage of the events in the separatist republic is "a politically motivated version" in the eyes of government officials. Many Western media editors disagreed. However, The Washington Post, for example, argued that Moscow was engaging in "mythmaking".

        

And finally, the war in Libya. The 2011 Libyan civil war started as an armed conflict between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and rebels who wanted to change the government. The information warfare started from the very beginning of the war when such channels as Al Jazeera and BBC talked about fierce fighting in several towns although even the local community didn’t hear anything about it. After some time the EU and the USA supported the rebels and declared a war on Gaddafi who was suggested to commit a crime against humanity. The official reason of it was the bringing democracy to the country.  Although according to the official information more than 50 thousand people have been killed for this goal and it’s not the end. Some independent enquiries insist that the war has been started because of Libyan great reserves of oil.

In conclusion I’d like to say that mass media is “the fourth estate” which rules the world. It forms our opinion about all events especially war conflicts. True information is hidden so deep that it’s impossible to realize which events are real and which ones are just imagination of the reporters. That’s why we don’t know on which resources we may rely on. I’ll give you advice – rely on yourself and everything will be good.

Christams blog, debt 2: rendering of the article #2 (finall debt)

The article, published on 26^th December, 2012 in “The Daily Mail” is in favor of Christmas celebrations have kicked off around the world as the clock striking midnight. It carries a lot of comment on that at the Vatican Pope Benedict XVI held his annual Christmas night holy mass at St Peter's Basilica to mark the nativity of Jesus Christ. By the way, in Florida, around 150 surfing Santas, elves, snowmen and other Christmas characters took to the water in Cocoa Beach.

Speaking of the celebration it is necessary to note that in the West Bank town of Bethlehem celebrations were held at Manger Square the site revered as the birthplace of Jesus. Analyzing the situation it is interesting to point out that in Chile, fishermen organized a Santa Claus boat trip as people waited on the shore to receive their Christmas presents and well-wishes. There is every reason to believe that in Baghdad, Iraq, behind blast walls and with police nearby, 200 worshipers attended Christmas mass at the city's Our Lady of Salvation Church.

It’s an open secret that in Christians in China attend church masses as they prepare to celebrate the religious holiday to commemorate the birth of Christ.

In this connection it is worth while mentioning that weather people find room in their hectic, technology-driven lives for children, the poor and God? It is very likely that the pontiff also prayed that Israelis and Palestinians live in peace and freedom, and asked the faithful to pray for strife-torn Syria as well as Lebanon and Iraq.

There is a lot of comment on the fact that as midnight neared, church bells tolled throughout Rome, Christians from the world over packed Manger Square in Bethlehem to celebrate the birth of Jesus in the ancient West Bank town where he was born.

There is no mention about the author opinion, but it would be wrong to assume that Christmas is not only the religious holiday, but the day when all of us may think about their lives, mistakes and achievements to make ourselves better, that the year before.