A new American report

A new American report warns that rates of infection from the AIDS virus will rise sharply by the year two-thousand-ten. The National Intelligence Council prepared the report for the United States Central Intelligence Agency. It says the increase will result mainly from the spread of AIDS in five countries. They are China, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Russia.
The report estimates that the number of people infected in those countries could increase to between fifty-million and seventy-five-million. That is three times the number currently estimated. It also is far more than the number of AIDS cases expected in central and southern Africa. That number is expected to increase to as many as thirty-five-million people.
China, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Russia have more than forty percent of the world’s population. Officials warn that the increase of AIDS could harm the economic, social, political and military systems in these countries.
The report estimates that India might have as many as twenty-five-million AIDS victims by two-thousand-ten. That is the highest estimate of any country.
The report says the AIDS virus is spreading at different rates in the five countries. It says that risky sexual activity is increasing infection rates in all five. The problem is reported to be most severe in Nigeria and Ethiopia.
For example, the report notes that in Nigeria the virus has spread from high-risk groups to the general population. Nigeria’s government has attempted to increase public understanding of the virus that causes AIDS. The report warns that the disease could affect one-fourth of all adults in the country within eight years.
In Ethiopia, the release of soldiers from the armed forces has greatly influenced the spread of the disease. The report says many Ethiopian soldiers and sex workers became infected during the civil war in the nineteen-eighties. It says Ethiopia and Nigeria have few public health services to fight the disease.
The report says that the main cause of rising AIDS infections in Russia is illegal drug use. It says the release of large numbers of infected prisoners and rising numbers of sex workers are helping the disease to spread. In China, one reason the disease is increasing is because of unsafe methods in the collection and sale of blood.

A major anniversary

Four-H programs began in the early Nineteen-Hundreds. The first programs were designed to give young people a better agricultural education.
Today, Four-H offers the largest unofficial education program in the United States. Almost seven-million young people take part in activities organized by the group. The national Four-H program has ties with similar organizations in more than eighty countries.
The expression “Four-H” comes from the words head, heart, hands and health. Members agree to use their head for clearer thinking, their heart for greater loyalty, their hands for larger service and their health for better living.
Four-H programs were not the result of one idea or a recognized national leader. They were the result of the work of many people in different parts of the United States.
One-hundred years ago, many young people were leaving American farms for jobs in cities. This concerned many educators, especially in farming communities. Four-H was established to teach students how to operate productive farms. Members met after normal school hours.
Four-H officials say the group has changed during the past one-hundred years. They say the group is now mainly concerned with the development of young people. The purpose of Four-H is to give boys and girls knowledge and skills that will help them become productive members of society.
Four-H members attend meetings, camps and other activities. They learn about things that interest them, such as raising animals, growing crops, cooking and caring for the environment.
In most states, young people between the ages of eight and eighteen can join Four-H. Some states have programs designed for younger children.
Money for Four-H programs comes from the United States Department of Agriculture, state universities and local governments.
Recently, hundreds of people from across the United States gathered in Washington, D-C, for a national Four-H conference. The results of the conference were given to President Bush and Congress.

Africa faces severe environmental problems

A report by the United Nations Environment Program says Africa faces severe environmental problems unless urgent action is taken. It says Africa faces increases in air and water pollution, land destruction, water shortages and wildlife losses.
The report involved hundreds of experts. The U-N Environment Program says it is the most complete study of Africa’s environment ever produced.
During the past thirty years, many things have harmed Africa’s environment. They include growing populations, wars, rising national debt, natural disasters and disease. Experts say there will be many new threats during the next thirty years. They include climate change, the spread of non-native plants and animals, uncontrolled expansion of cities and pollution from cars and industry.
Africa’s people and economies depend on agriculture. Records show that yearly rainfall has been decreasing since nineteen-sixty-eight. Experts say this may be a result of the warming climate caused by man-made carbon-dioxide gas in the atmosphere. They say Africa could suffer greatly from the effects of global warming because of its dependence on agriculture.
Experts also say natural disasters in Africa have become more common and more severe. A lack of rain in some areas and floods in other areas are harming the land and have led to the displacement of people and wildlife.
Air pollution from industries and from old cars is another serious problem. The continent’s wildlife is threatened by the destruction of forests, hunting, the presence of non-native species, and a lack of enforcement of protection laws.
Many African countries are beginning to deal with some of these environmental problems. But experts say more efforts are needed by African countries and other countries. They say more could be done to reduce Africa’s debt, increase aid and help give local communities more power. They say countries need to help enforce environmental agreements, produce clean technologies and open international markets to African goods and services.
The head of the U-N Environmental Program says the report will be important for nations meeting at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. That meeting opens at the end of this month in Johannesburg, South Africa.

An American archeologist has a new theory

An American archeologist has a new theory about an ancient statue found in Greece. Keith DeVries of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia says the statue may have once belonged to King Midas.
He believes the statue may have once been part of the special chair used by the king, called a throne. He says ancient records and other evidence show the statue came from a throne that Midas is believed to have given as a gift to the Greek god Apollo.
The small statue is known as “The Lion Tamer.” It shows a man and a lion. It is about twenty-three centimeters tall. It is made of ivory, from the tusk of an elephant. It was discovered in Nineteen-Thirty-Nine in Delphi, Greece. It had been buried with other objects near the ruins of the Corinthian Treasury building.
King Midas ruled an ancient country called Phrygia in what is now central Turkey. He lived about two-thousand-seven-hundred years ago. King Midas was said to be extremely rich. Stories said he could change anything he touched into gold.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus claimed to have seen King Midas’s throne in the Corinthian treasury at Delphi three-hundred years after the king died. The throne itself has not been found. The statue has cuttings in its back. This suggests it was once attached to something, possibly a chair.
“The Lion Tamer” statue is in a museum in Delphi, Greece. For years, experts have debated the statue’s history. Many experts thought it came from Greece. However, others thought it came from somewhere else.
Mister DeVries says the discovery of similar ivory statues in Turkey adds support to his argument that the statue is Phrygian. Those objects were recovered from burial areas at the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordion and at Elmali.
Scientists used a process known as radiocarbon dating to confirm that the statues date to the time of King Midas. Radiocarbon dating shows the level of a radioactive form of carbon in a substance. This can tell scientists when an object was made.
Mister DeVries works for the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He reported his research at a meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Philadelphia.

A famous river on the east

The first European explorer of the New World to see the mouth of the Hudson River was Englishman John Cabot in Fourteen Ninety-Eight. Yet it was not until Sixteen-Oh-Nine that a European explorer entered the river. He sailed north from the Atlantic Ocean as far as his ship could go, about two-hundred-fifty kilometers. That explorer was Henry Hudson.
Captain Hudson and his sailors – English and Dutch – were working for the Dutch East India Company. Like the other explorers, they were looking for the Northwest Passage, a way to China and India that did not exist.

At first, Captain Hudson did not know that the water he entered was a river. After all, the water flowed from the ocean in the south toward the north. The water was very salty, like the ocean. On both sides of the river, Captain Hudson saw great hills and mountains. After sailing for two-hundred-fifty-kilometers, the ship reached the point on the river where the city of Albany, New York stands today. From that point to the north, the river was not deep enough for his ship to sail.
Hudson saw that the river did not provide a way to India and China. He had failed. He turned his ship around and sailed back to the Atlantic Ocean and then home to Holland.
When he returned to Holland, Henry Hudson told about the friendly natives and how good the land was along the river.
No one knows how long Native Americans lived along the great river. The first people to settle along the Hudson were called the Algonkin Indians. They called the Hudson “the river that runs two ways,” because it flows both north and south at its southern end. This is because the ocean tides push water up the river as it flows down to the south.
There were many different tribes among the Algonkins. Some of the names of these tribes were Raritan, Hackensack, Tappan, and Haverstraw. Another tribe was called Manhattan. Today, that is the name of the most important part of New York City. Manhattan is a long, thin island, with its southern end pointing into New York Bay.
When the Indians lived there, and when the Europeans first saw it, the island was green and covered with forests. They would not recognize it today. Trees and forests have been replaced by tall buildings and busy streets crowded with cars, trucks, buses, and millions of people.

For twelve years after Henry Hudson explored the river named after him, there was little interest in his discovery. Just a few ships came to Manhattan Island to trade with the Indians. In Sixteen-Twenty-One, the government of Holland created the Dutch West India Company to govern this new land. Three years later, thirty Dutch families sailed on a ship from Holland to North America. They were seeking religious freedom in the New World.
Some of these people settled on Manhattan Island. They named their settlement Fort Amsterdam. The ship they sailed on continued up the Hudson River, stopping where the city of Albany is today. Eighteen families settled there. They called this place Fort Orange. Now there were two communities on the river – both of them Dutch.
The religious freedom promised by the Dutch West India Company brought other people to the Hudson River. Among them were Huguenots from France, Presbyterians from Scotland, Jews and Quakers. However, for almost fifty years – until Sixteen-Hundred-Sixty-Four – the Hudson River country was Dutch. The official language of the area was Dutch, as were the government, the politics and the customs.
Even today, many places along the Hudson River still have Dutch names, such as Yonkers, Peekskill, Catskill, and Rensselaer (Renn-sa-LEER).
The most famous leader of the Dutch colony in the New World was Peter Stuyvesant. The Dutch West India Company sent him to be the governor of the colony. Mister Stuyvesant was a strong man who very quickly made the settlers understand that they must obey the laws of the colony.
Peter Stuyvesant’s government did not last long. In Sixteen-Sixty-Four, five English warships stopped at Fort Amsterdam, which was now called New Amsterdam. The commander of the ships ordered Governor Stuyvesant to surrender the colony to the king of England.
The English said the land was theirs because Manhattan Island had been discovered by Englishmen such as John Cabot. They also said that since Henry Hudson was an Englishman, everything he discovered belonged to the king of England. Peter Stuyvesant and the other Dutch officials returned to Holland.
The English period now began on the river. The official language became English, instead of Dutch. Also, the names of many places on the Hudson were changed. The colony of New Netherland became New York, in honor of James, the duke of York. He was the brother of England’s King Charles, the Second. To honor him further, the settlement of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island was also called New York.
For more than one-hundred years, the English ruled the colony of New York. During this time thousands of people came from Europe to live along the river. Many were English. However, settlers came from across Europe – Germany, France, and Holland. Even then, it seemed that New York and the Hudson River country were places where people of all nations were welcomed.
When the American Revolution began in Seventeen-Seventy-Six, British troops quickly seized control of New York. They wanted it because of its military, political, and economic importance. During the seven years of fighting, no part of the thirteen American colonies saw as much military action as the Hudson River area. Both the American Revolutionary Army under George Washington, and the British Army understood that control of the Hudson River meant victory.
Some of the most famous battles of the American Revolutionary War were fought along the Hudson River. The British had more soldiers, more guns, and more bullets than the Americans did. But the Americans fought fiercely and won.
After the treaty of peace was signed in Paris in Seventeen-Eighty-Three, General Washington moved with the new government to New York City. The Hudson River now belonged to a new and free nation – the United States of America.
One of the greatest signs of progress in the newly established United States was a new kind of ship that traveled up and down the Hudson River. In Eighteen-Hundred-Seven, a steam boat called the Clermont sailed north up the river from New York to Albany. An engineer named Robert Fulton built the boat. Soon there were many such boats traveling up and down the river, helping industry and trade to grow along the Hudson.
For many years, Americans dreamed that it would be possible to travel by water between the East and the West of the United States. In Eighteen-Twenty-Five, the Erie Canal opened. It was a river built by men. It went from the Hudson River near Albany west for more than four-hundred kilometers to the city of Buffalo, on Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes. Now, ships could carry people and products from New York City west to the central part of the country, opening a way to the West.
As Hudson River transportation grew, the population along the river grew, especially in New York City. There, business and industry developed with great speed. New York became the industrial and political center of the United States. It also became one of the great cities of the world.
The real beginning of the Hudson River is near Mount Marcy, the highest of the Adirondack Mountains in New York State. Close to Mount Marcy, melting snow feeds a little lake named Lake Tear of the Clouds. From the lake, a small stream runs down the mountain. As it continues to flow south, other streams join it. The stream becomes the Hudson River near the town of Newcombe.
The Hudson is wild and fast for those first two-hundred-fifty kilometers from Lake Tear of the Clouds to Albany. Then, near Albany, the fresh water of the river meets the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean water has been carried up the river for two-hundred-fifty kilometers. At this point, the Hudson becomes a wide river, the same quiet river that Henry Hudson sailed on in the year Sixteen-Oh-Nine.

About forty years ago

About forty years ago, only five percent of American children who were three or four years old attended early education programs. Today, about two-thirds of the children of that age go to preschools, nursery schools or daycare centers with educational programs. Many education experts say this is a good situation. They say young children who have some kind of preschool education do much better when they attend school.
Young children in preschool programs learn colors and numbers. They identify common objects and letters of the alphabet to prepare them for reading. They sing and play games that use numbers and maps. They learn to cooperate with teachers and other children. Many preschool programs include activities to help young children learn about the world around them. For example, children visit places like zoos, museums and fire and police stations.
After preschool, most American children attend kindergarten in public schools. Most children start kindergarten at about age five. Many American kindergartens now require skills taught in early education programs. So children who have not attended a preschool program may not be ready for kindergarten.
Many families, however, lack enough money to send their children to private nursery schools or preschools. Such schools may cost several thousand dollars a year, as much as a public university.
To help poor families, the government operates an education program for young children called Head Start. Studies have shown that many children from poor families do not do well in school. Studies also have shown that children in Head Start programs perform equally well or better than other children when they start school. But the government currently is providing Head Start with enough money to serve only about sixty percent of the children who need this program.
Educators have expressed concern that some early childhood education programs are not good enough. The United States has about eighty-thousand preschools, nursery schools and daycare centers. The National Association for the Education of Young Children studies these schools. The association says it has approved only about ten percent of the preschools in the country. Experts say American children need more and better preschool education.

Himalayan Mountains of south Asia are threatened

A new report says the Himalayan Mountains of south Asia are threatened by the warming of the Earth’s climate. The report says human activities are partly responsible for the warming temperatures. The climate changes threaten people’s lives, the local economy and the environment.
The United Nations Environment Program produced the report with the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, based in Nepal. It was released June fifth in connection with World Environment Day and the United Nations Year of the Mountain.
The Himalayas are the highest mountain system in the world. They extend from Pakistan across Nepal and Bhutan. The Himalayas include Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain.
A team of mountain climbers from Britain, New Zealand and Chile recently traveled to the Himalayas. They gathered information about the environment. They spoke to Buddhist monks, local people and other travelers about the condition of the world’s most famous mountains. Their findings confirmed the U-N report. The mountain climbers found that warmer weather has been melting huge mountains of ice in the Himalayas. These melting glaciers are creating lakes that could overflow and flood wide areas.
Temperatures in the area have risen one degree Celsius during the past thirty years. Satellite maps show that the glaciers are shrinking at a rate of thirty to forty meters each year.
The study identified almost five-thousand glacier lakes in Nepal and Bhutan. Researchers say forty-four of these lakes could overflow during the next five years. U-N officials say this flooding could have serious effects on local communities and the environment. However, they say it may be possible to remove water from the lakes before they overflow and use that water to create energy.
Researchers say the Himalayas have been harmed by an increase in visitors to the area, over-cutting of trees and other environmental destruction. Observers say community action is helping to restore the mountain environment. However, U-N officials say the glacier melt in the Himalayas should be a warning to industrial countries to reduce heat-trapping gases that cause global warming.

A mysterious disease

A mysterious disease is killing animals in one of America’s most popular natural areas. The animals are large deer called elk.
Elk once lived in most areas of the United States. But hunters killed so many of them that they survived only in the western states. Some elk have been brought back to other areas of the country. Wildlife officials recently decided to re-establish elk populations in the eastern part of the country. In the past two years, they have brought two groups of elk from Canada to an area in the state of North Carolina. The National Park Service released the elk in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Now, three of the elk have died mysteriously. Some biologists fear that the elk may have died from chronic wasting disease. Biologists say there were no signs of infection in the elk until they became weak and died. Some biologists say the disease cannot be observed except in a dead animal.
It is not known if the disease can spread to cattle or other farm animals. However, chronic wasting disease is linked with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Wildlife experts say the only way to stop the disease from spreading is to kill thousands of elk.
The elk in North Carolina first came from a protected area in Alberta, Canada. A total of about fifty elk were released into the Cataloochee area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Everything seemed to be going well until a park biologist found three dead female elk. Two of the animals were pregnant. The animals appeared to have been starved. The National Park Service reported the deaths in late April. Now, state biologists have banned transporting elk into and out of the area.
Concern over diseases affecting wild animals like elk has increased recently in the United States. The state of Wisconsin announced a plan to destroy fifteen-thousand deer. Officials in Wisconsin fear that some deer in the state may carry chronic wasting disease.
The disease was first found in the western state of Colorado in the nineteen-sixties. Since then, it has been found in deer and elk populations in several states.
Some national park biologists do not believe that chronic wasting disease killed the elk in North Carolina. They hope that studies of the dead animals will soon show that they are right.

A famous American company

The history of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company began in nineteen-oh-three, in a small wooden building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Twenty-one-year-old William Harley and twenty-year-old Arthur Davidson built a machine that looked like a bicycle with a small engine. A friend of the two men bought one of the first motorcycles they made. They only made three motorcycles that year.

On the door of the little wooden building, they painted a small sign. The sign said, “Harley-Davidson Motor Company.”

The little company grew very quickly. In nineteen-oh-six, it opened a new factory on Juneau Avenue in Milwaukee. The company now had a total of six workers.

Two years later, in nineteen-oh-eight, the city of Detroit, Michigan bought the first motorcycle to be used by a police department in the United States. It was a Harley-Davidson. In nineteen-twelve, Harley-Davidson exported a motorcycle to another country for the first time. That country was Japan.

By nineteen-twenty, Harley-Davidson was the largest motorcycle company in the world. More than two-thousand dealers sold Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Most were in the United States. However, dealers sold the Harley-Davidson motorcycles in more than sixty-seven countries around the world.

The motorcycle Harley-Davidson produced in the nineteen-twenties no longer looked like a bicycle with an engine. It was a fast, powerful machine that provided good transportation. Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders were winning races and setting speed records throughout the United States.

Something else happened in nineteen-twenty that would have a lasting effect on the Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The motorcycle became known as a “Hog.” The company tells this story to explain why.

A motorcycle racer named Leslie Parkhurst broke twenty-three speed records on his Harley-Davidson. Mister Parkhurst’s racing team had a pet animal they took with them to the races. That pet animal was a small pig, also called a hog.

When a member of the team won a race, he would take the pig for a ride around the racetrack. The racing fans loved the show. They would shout, “The Hog won again.” Today, if a motorcycle rider tells you he rides a Hog, you know he is talking about his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Harley-Davidson has made other products besides their famous motorcycle. Beginning in nineteen-twelve, the company began selling clothing for motorcycle riders. Most of this clothing had the name Harley-Davidson printed on it.

In nineteen thirty-eight, Harley-Davidson began making a special motorcycle jacket for the New York City Police Department. The jacket was made of heavy leather material. Harley-Davidson still sells a very similar jacket today. It is still popular with motorcycle riders. It is also popular with people who just like leather jackets. Harley-Davidson also sells pants, shirts, shoes, boots and just about everything else a motorcycle rider might want.

The Harley-Davidson Company has faced financial problems several times in its history. The nineteen-thirties was a period of severe economic problems known as the Great Depression. In nineteen-twenty, Harley-Davidson sold twenty-seven-thousand motorcycles. However, in nineteen-thirty-three, all of the American motorcycle companies sold only six-thousand machines. About one-hundred other American motorcycle companies failed during the Depression. Harley-Davidson survived.

During the nineteen-sixties, a new threat faced Harley-Davidson. Japanese motorcycle companies began selling their machines in the United States. Companies like Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki became popular. These companies produced good motorcycles that were not very costly.

At the same time, Harley-Davidson had tried to expand too quickly. Their motorcycles were more costly than the others. The factory had production problems. Oil often leaked out of the engines. The engines often failed.

People told a joke about Harley-Davidson. They said you had to buy two of their motorcycles -- one to ride and one for the extra parts you would need to repair it.

In nineteen-sixty-nine, Harley-Davidson officials sold control of the company to a much larger company. They planned to use the money they received in the sale to improve their products. Harley-Davidson struggled to stay in business during this time. The company says people who loved their motorcycles continued to buy them and helped keep the company from failing.

In nineteen-eighty-one, thirteen top officials at Harley-Davidson bought the company. They started making improvements. They began developing a much better product. Two years later, Harley-Davidson asked the International Trade Commission for help. The International Trade Commission agreed and gave protection to Harley-Davidson for five years. This protection added to the price of large Japanese motorcycles.

Less than four years later, Harley-Davidson asked the International Trade Commission to end the protection. No company had ever done this before. By lifting the protection, Harley-Davidson was saying it could compete with any motorcycle company.

Today, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company is one of the most successful companies in the United States. It produces about two-hundred-forty-three-thousand motorcycles each year. It sells all of them. The company has about eight-thousand workers. About half of them ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. These riders include the top official of the company, Jeffrey Bleustein. Harley-Davidson workers not only make the product, they use it. They also help the company by suggesting improvements.

Forbes Magazine is a top financial and business publication in the United States. Each year it lists the companies that it considers to be the most successful. Last year, Forbes Magazine named Harley-Davidson its Company of the Year. That same year, Harley-Davidson announced that the company had made a record-breaking profit during the past fifteen years.

Harley-Davidson and the people who ride their famous motorcycles are busy celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of the company. They are doing this by holding a year-long birthday party. The party began in July of this year and will end in August of next year. The celebrations this year are local birthday parties. Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders around the world are making plans to celebrate in many cities next year.

For example, in March, the party will be held in Sydney, Australia. In April, the party will move to Tokyo, Japan. In June, riders in Europe will travel to Barcelona, Spain to celebrate. In July, Harley-Davidson owners will ride to Hamburg, Germany for the party.

In August of next year, Harley-Davidson riders will begin what is called the “Ride Home.” Harley-Davidson riders will cross the United States from four directions. Most of these riders will come from the United States. However, many will come from Europe and Asia.

There will be birthday parties held by Harley-Davidson dealers at several cities during the trip. Plans call for the “Ride Home” to end in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by August twenty-seventh.

A four-day celebration and birthday party will follow. More than two-hundred-thousand Harley-Davidson riders are expected to attend the events. Top company official Jeffrey Bleustein says Harley-Davidson is very excited about sharing the company’s history with family and friends from around the world.