Section D In this section, there is one passage followed by fire questions. Read the passage carefully, and then answer the questions in a maximum of 10 words. Remember to write the answers on the answer sheet. The modest farm run by Solomy Leston and her husband, a few picturesque acres in the central African country of Malawi, is in most ways a model of third world development. Every season the Lestons reserve a corner of their maize field for a fast growing cash crop that they sell at local markets for top American dollars. The crop grows fast in the rich red soil without sophisticated fertilisers, herbicides or irrigation and is dried on simple wooden sun racks before being stacked away in rough mud brick shelters prior to sale. If the crop were something wholesome, tea perhaps or spices, it might serve as a model for the many African countries that struggle to find a profitable niche in the global free market economy. Instead, this lucrative local industry sits uneasily in the eyes of organisations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund whose aid dollars are so influential to policy makers throughout Africa: the Lestons and their neighbors are tobacco farmers. Tobacco is at the heart of an ethical and political battle taking place in Malawi that is seeing the world’s largest health organisations pitted against the industry that props up the economy of this impoverished African nation. At stake is the issue of who will bear responsibility for the world’s deadly nicotine addiction, and a conflict between the need to reduce smoking deaths in the developed world while not sacrificing the impoverished farmers whose livelihoods depend on cigarettes. Malawi’s Green Gold They call it "Green Gold" in Malawi. Tobacco rakes in more than 70 percent of Malawi’s foreign exchange and contributes one third of the country’s gross domestic product, giving Malawi the dubious honour of being the most tobacco-dependent economy in the world. In turn, the country contributes five percent of global tobacco exports including a fifth of the world’s burley tobacco, a sought-after sun-dried variety used in strong-tasting cigarette brands like Marlborough. As an indication of the country’s dependence on tobacco sales, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 70 percent of Malawi’s 11 million residents depend either directly or indirectly on tobacco for their livelihoods. Tobacco became the backbone of Malawi’s economy under the dictatorship of Dr Hastings Banda who assumed control of the country at its independence from Britain in 1964 and remained in power until he was deposed by a referendum in 1993. During his almost three-decade reign, Dr Banda encouraged the tobacco industry and amassed a personal empire that saw him become the largest private tobacco grower in the world. Today, only foreign aid provides more income for Malawi than tobacco. Therefore tobacco’s reputation as a leading cause of preventable death worldwide is a dilemma for the government. As one of the poorest countries in Africa, Malawi depends on tobacco exports to buy food as well as maintain struggling health, education and infrastructure initiatives. Yet without the support of foreign aid organizations, most of which oppose tobacco growing, Malawi’s fragile economy would crumble. One does not have to look far to predict the consequences of an economic collapse in Malawi. This year, failure of the east African maize crop combined with economic mismanagement triggered the country’s worst famine on record. Thousands have already died of starvation and the British aid organization Oxfam estimates that 3 million people in Malawi face a similar fate unless something is done. The food crisis only adds to existing burdens in a country where adult HIV rates are estimated at one in five, malaria is endemic and childhood malnutrition widespread. Remove tobacco profits from this equation and many fear a human calamity. Ethical Dilemmas Compromising situations can create unusual political alliances and the tobacco industry in Malawi has some unlikely supporters. Dr J. M. Mfutso Bengo, for instance, is a senior lecturer at the Malawi College of Medicine in Blantyre, a member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee and has a PhD in bioethics from a German university. When the World Health Organization was looking for a consultant in Malawi for their anti-tobacco lobby in 2001, Dr Mfutso Bengo was well qualified for the position. He chose not to apply because of ethical and moral objections to the WHO campaign in Malawi. "My position is not motivated from ideology, it is motivated from pragmatism," says Dr Mfutso Bengo, who himself is a non-smoker and receives no funding from the industry. "Tobacco employs more than half of Malawi’s labour force. IT they take away tobacco, it would be economic suicide for Malawi. The social and health infrastructures would collapse and it would push Malawi further towards absolute dependence on foreign aid. The WHO could give me money to campaign against the industry but the poor people who are employed by the industry, where would they be" Dr Mfutso Bengo sees double standards at work in the international anti-tobacco lobby, whose concerns about smoking-related deaths in the developed world he says overlook the more immediate health and economic problems in Malawi. "In a country where 60 percent of people live below the poverty line, basic health needs are most pressing—things like the prevention of cholera, malnutrition, malaria. Dealing with tobacco-based cancer is a luxury." he says. Questions: Why did Dr Mfutso Bengo say that dealing with tobacco-based cancer is a luxury in Malawi
Section A Translate the underlined sentences of the following passage into Chinese. Remember to write the answers on the answer sheet. While military scientists test lasers against satellites, surgeons use them as miraculously accurate scalpels(外科用小刀). They can even be used to detonate hydrogen bombs. (81) The beam can be focused to spot one fiftieth the size of a human hair, yet its intensity is enough to kill cancer cells or drill through the most delicate bones. More than a decade ago, eye surgeons realized that they could use laser’s beam to seal individually, the microscopic blood vessels in the retina (视网膜). The beam is so fine that only the target is heated. Now its pinpoint blasting power has been turned to destroying cancer cells and reducing birthmarks. For cancer treatment, the diseased cells must be killed while their healthy neighbors are left unharmed. (82) Where the cancer can be directly and accurately attacked, laser treatment does well: early cancer of the cervix (颈) and skin cancers have been widely and successfully treated. This type of cancer is not very easy to reach. (83) For cancers that are less accessible there is a new and potentially valuable technique in which the patient is injected with a chemical that then attaches itself preferentially to cancer cells. When the laser strikes the chemical, it releases a form of oxygen that kills these cells. Birthmarks, once almost untreatable, are a mass of blood vessels and, being red, they absorb the laser beam strongly. It seals them so that the mark becomes less conspicuous. (84) The normal cells of the skin’s surface, which don’t absorb much of the laser beam, act in the healing and help to conceal the mark. The beam can cut with a precision that no scalpel could achieve. (85) The operation can transform the lives of people who were previously doomed to a lifetime of cosmetic concealment. Though this application is widely used in America, there are in Britain only two hospitals offering the treatment, and one feels bound to warn patients that success is not certain. However, some 10 new centers will soon be opened. Britain, though, is one of the leaders in the laser treatment of bleeding peptic ulcers (胃溃疡) and this, combined with new medicines can mean ulcer treatment without conventional surgery. The laser is now being used to treat all kinds of illnesses in this country.