Hi there.
Imagine unlocking a secret door to English fluency, all
while catching up on the news.
Sounds good?
Well, let's make that a reality today with this podcast.
I'm here to give you a news round-up in British English, with all sorts
of useful vocabulary for you to learn.
If you're on the path to fluency in English, then Adept English
is here to help you get there.
We know that you like news podcasts and this is a great way for you to
practise your English comprehension.
Don't forget if you're keen to become fluent in English, the
best way to do this is through listening to English material like
this, which includes help with understanding the more difficult words.
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These rules and this advice still apply!
It works and it's really the only way to become fluent in a language like English.
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And yes, you heard me right, it's free!
Well, this week in the news.
There's been a history in the UK of banning so-called 'dangerous dogs'.
There are certain breeds, that's B R E E D S, or types of dog,
which tend to be more aggressive.
That's A G G R E S S I V E.
And 'aggressive' means 'angry and prone to attack'.
So certain dogs are by nature more aggressive.
And in 1991, the UK introduced the Dangerous Dogs Act.
This law banned four types of dog, all considered highly aggressive.
This week, it was being discussed again.
A video went viral.
This video was of a dog, an American Bully XL, attacking people in a petrol station.
This huge dog weighs nine stone or 60 kilos and can easily overpower an adult.
And this huge dog also now accounts for 6 out of 10 of the dog attacks
that happen every year in the UK.
Attacks on people, that means.
So the debate started, should the American Bully XL be added to the
other four types of 'dangerous dog' and effectively be banned?
The Dangerous Dogs Act makes it illegal to breed these dogs, own these dogs,
even give them away or abandon them.
So the word 'breed' means 'the type of dog' and the verb 'to
breed', 'to make puppies happen', if you like, that's 'breeding'.
So American Bully XL dogs are naturally aggressive by temperament.
'Temperament', T E M P E R A M E N T, means 'their character'.
So two sides to this debate.
There was a video shown on the news of a girl who was attacked
by an American Bully XL.
And an interview with a mother whose son died because of one of these dogs.
And in fact, just on the morning that I'm recording this podcast, another
man has died in the Midlands, in the UK after being attacked by a dog.
And of course there were interviews with a number of people on the
other side of the argument.
They say that it's not the breed of dog that matters, but how
the dog is bred and handled.
Do you agree, or do you feel that certain types of dogs are just too risky?
I agree that any type of dog can be dangerous if it's
badly or wrongly treated.
It can bite people, in other words.
But to me, the problem is much more likely with these aggressive dog breeds.
And they're much more capable of damage if they do become
aggressive and attack people.
They do more damage than a Cocker Spaniel, for instance.
I also question the motive of anyone wanting to own a dog like this.
It's a bit like owning a weapon.
It's as though the dog is designed for fighting and attacking.
If you want a large and powerful dog, why not own a Great Dane?
Great Danes, despite their huge size and their power, are not
known for attacking people.
The supporters of the American Bully XL say ' With the correct breeding and
handling, these dogs are perfectly safe'.
My argument is that you cannot guarantee that dog breeders and
owners will be responsible, and in fact many of them aren't.
If these dogs account for six out of ten dog attacks, perhaps
it makes sense to ban them.
There are, after all, hundreds of dog breeds that you can own.
These dog breeds give dogs a bad name, and I think the arguments
defending them are pretty thin.
Are we saying, then, that it's OK if several people die in the UK each year,
just to protect the right of certain owners to own dogs such as these?
I don't think so.
That doesn't seem balanced to me!
I'm normally less inclined to state intervention, but with this
example, I think there's a case!
Next news article that caught my eye.
Tata Steel in Port Talbot in South Wales.
That's the main steel producing plant or factory in the UK.
And it's under threat again.
Steel, S T E E L, is a metal, a mix of iron and carbon.
And steel is used in the construction of buildings, in ships and
trains and cars and bicycles.
And in the production of electrical appliances and weapons.
In other words, it would be very difficult for us to do without steel.
But the steel industry in the UK has long been under threat and it's needed
lots of government money, government intervention to keep it going.
I notice these news items because many years ago I used to work for
British Steel, as it was then, in Port Talbot, at that South Wales site!
I wasn't working on the blast furnaces!
That's where the steel is 'smelted' or made.
A 'furnace', F U R N A C E - that's a place where massive heat is
produced for industrial purposes.
So, no, I didn't work on the blast furnaces.
I worked in the IT department and I was a computer programmer there.
I've observed in the years since that the steel industry in the UK has struggled
to make money, struggled to be profitable.
Often because it's in competition with the rest of the world, particularly China.
who seem to be able to make steel much more cheaply than we can here in the UK.
So why are jobs at Tata Steel in Port Talbot in South Wales under threat again?
Well, it's that drive to reduce CO2.
The aim is that steel plants must produce steel while being 'carbon neutral'
and without burning fossil fuels.
What fossil fuel is used in steel production?
Well, it's something called 'coke', C O K E, which comes from coal.
That's not 'coke' as in Coca Cola the drink, or 'coke' as in the drug cocaine!
Coal is C O A L.
So the aim is to switch to 'carbon neutral' furnaces, as steel
production is responsible for 7 percent of greenhouse gases in the world.
I think this is quite a challenge, given that huge temperatures
are needed to smelt steel.
(250-350C!)
The news item was more about the threat of job losses.
I know that that's a concern, but you can't have government
supporting an industry indefinitely.
But I agree it's fair for the steel industry to ask for government support,
government intervention, if they're asked to become 'carbon neutral'.
There is a steel plant just opened in Sweden, the first one
of its kind in Europe, which will produce so-called 'green steel',
meaning 'steel produced entirely by electrically-powered blast furnaces',
If we want to continue to make trains, planes, cars, buildings, electrical
appliances, and weapons, and we want to be carbon neutral, then there's
no choice but to do this, of course!
This week, there have also been two terrible disasters in the world,
which I just wanted to acknowledge.
The first one, of course, was the earthquake in Morocco.
which was just heart-breaking.
A friend of mine was staying in Marrakesh last week.
She sent me videos of people sitting and lying on blankets on the
pavements in Marrakesh and videos of damage to buildings in the city.
But it seems that the biggest losses of life were out in the villages in
the Atlas Mountains, where whole areas were devastated and whole
villages appear to have been lost.
I saw interviews with men who'd been working away and who returned
to find that their whole family had died in the earthquake.
Just horrible.
The other disaster, of course, was the floods in Libya.
The city of Derna, D E R N A, appears to have been hardest hit.
And as I record this podcast, the loss of life and the devastation
are still being counted.
The floods happened in part because of record rainfall.
Storm Daniel hit Libya on Sunday and brought 40 centimetres
of rain within 24 hours.
Usually rainfall for this area for the whole of September is around 1.
5 millimetres.
So these were extraordinary circumstances.
The other problem was that dams, D A M S, also burst further
upstream than the affected cities.
A dam is 'a barrier, which holds back water'.
And the dams upstream of these cities were just not able to hold the water back.
I attach the BBC News article which shows the view from the
air before and after the floods.
You may have seen these pictures already, but you can clearly see the devastation.
On a happier note to end, scientists in the UK this week announced what
appears to be a big breakthrough in the battle to understand dementia
diseases like Alzheimer's.
A breakthrough, B R E A K T H R O U G H - t hat's a compound word.
A breakthrough is 'a suddenly faster piece of progress'.
That's 'a breakthrough'.
So scientists at the UK's Dementia Research Institute at University College,
London or UCL and scientists at KU Leuven in Belgium, that's L E U V E N.
These scientists have been working together on this.
Dementia is something that we should all be concerned with.
Who knows which of us will get this terrible disease if we're
fortunate enough to live to old age.
For years, scientists studying Alzheimer's have been baffled.
'Puzzled' is a different word for that.
They know that there is a build-up of proteins called 'tau', T A U, and
'amyloid', A M Y L O I D, in the brains of people who get dementia.
But they have been unable to find how or why this causes the disease.
Well, this week they announced that they'd discovered that a substance
called MEG3, M E G 3, is produced where there's a build-up of tau and amyloid.
And this MEG3 substance appears to be what causes the death of healthy,
normal brain cells in dementia diseases.
Death by 'necroptosis'.
So that means the 'necroptosis' of the healthy brain cells that we want to keep.
And this is what happens to Alzheimer's patients.
The scientists found that if they block the production of MEG3,
this substance, the death of the healthy brain cells didn't happen.
Wow.
Let's hope that that research brings us closer to finding either a cure or
treatment for this dreadful disease.
Well, that's plenty of news for you to practise on!
And I hope you found it interesting and informative at the same time.
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Enough for now.
Have a lovely day.
Speak to you again soon.
Goodbye