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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report from voaspecialenglish.com | http The United States government says Apple and five book publishers illegally fixed prices of e-books. Three publishers — Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster — agreed to a settlement announced April eleventh with the Justice Department. The agreement says they must repay millions of dollars and stop giving Apple special treatment. Attorney General Eric Holder said the department will continue to take legal action against Apple and two additional leading publishers, MacMillan and Penguin. He says Apple and the publishers conspired to increase the prices that consumers pay for e-books. He said the Justice Department wants to make sure Americans can buy e-books at a fair price. The department says Apple and the five publishers made an illegal deal to set higher prices for electronic books. Because of this, it says, Americans paid millions of dollars more than they should have. The dispute centers on the influence of Amazon.com. The Internet store had been selling e-books for nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. But the government says Apple made a deal with the publishers two years ago as it prepared to launch the iPad tablet computer. The deal guaranteed Apple thirty percent of the money earned on each e-book sold. It also created a pricing model that required stores to sell at a price set by the publishers and Apple. The price was several dollars higher than the one offered by Amazon …

This is the VOA Special English Education Reportfrom voaspecialenglish.com | http Graduate schools in the United States are reporting a nine percent increase in applications from international students this year. The increase is the same as two years ago. Last year’s gain was eleven percent.China, Mexico and Brazil showed the biggest increases in applications to enter master’s and doctoral programs this fall.Engineering is the top area of study for international students and had the biggest increase in applications. Gains in business and physical and earth sciences were close behind. Life sciences showed no growth in the latest survey by the Council of Graduate Schools.The survey includes the top five countries that send graduate students to the United States, plus Mexico and Brazil. The top five are China, India, South Korea, Taiwan and Canada.Applications from China climbed eighteen percent this year. That was down from last year. India’s number increased just two percent. Applications from South Korea and Taiwan decreased by one to two percent.Applications from Africa were down five percent, while the Middle East and Europe showed growth. Council President Debra Stewart says final results will not be available until the summer.She pointed out that applications do not necessarily convert to enrollment. About forty-seven percent of all international applications to US graduate schools come from students from China. But the share of the applicant pool that actually ends …

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report, from voaspecialenglish.com | http The best example of something is often called the “gold standard.” It sets the standard against which other things are measured. In economics, the term describes how major trading nations once used gold to set currency values and exchange rates. Many nations continued to use the gold standard until the last century. In the United States, people could exchange paper money for gold from the eighteen seventies until nineteen thirty-three. Then-President Richard Nixon finally disconnected the dollar from the value of gold in nineteen seventy-one. From time to time, some politicians call for a return to the gold standard. But in nineteen seventy eight, the International Monetary Fund ended an official gold price. The IMF also ended the required use of gold in transactions with its member countries. Since that time, gold prices have grown. But the growth was uneven. Prices — uncorrected for inflation — continue near record highs. Gold is trading above one thousand six hundred dollars an ounce. An ounce is about twenty-eight grams. But people keep buying. Some people are “gold bugs.” These are investors who say people should buy gold to protect against inflation. People have valued gold for thousands of years. The soft, dense metal polishes to a bright yellow shine and resists most chemical reactions. It makes a good material for money, political power — and, more recently, electrical power …

This is the VOA Special English Education Report, from voaspecialenglish.com | http Last time, we talked about Massive Open Online Courses, also called MOOCs. Tens of thousands or even more people can take these classes all at once. You can be anywhere in the world to take a MOOC. All you need is a computer and a network connection. MOOCs add to a tradition of what is known as distance learning. For years, many colleges have offered classes that are taught partly or mostly online. MOOCs are available in subjects like computer science, engineering or mechanics. Can MOOCs in subjects like arts or the humanities be as effective? Scott Anderson teaches philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Canada. He sees both good and bad sides to online courses. Mr. Anderson believes that some parts are fine. For example, when a teacher gives a presentation to the class, there is no special reason why students need to be physically present to hear it. And, he says there is no reason why they need to be physically present to do readings. Mr. Anderson says increased numbers of people taking MOOCs can mean less communication between students and teachers. He says two ways to deal with this are by adding more teachers and graders, and setting up online discussion groups. Lisa Jadwin teaches English and American literature and writing at St. John Fisher College in New York. She says online education has some weaknesses for her subjects. She says the teaching of literature requires …

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report from voaspecialenglish.com | http Modern microfinance started with economist Muhammad Yunus. In the nineteen seventies, he started what became the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. He and the bank shared the Nobel Peace Prize in two thousand six for the idea of offering small loans to the poor to fight poverty. In twenty ten, reports of harmful micro lending methods and corruption shook the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Yunus recently said in the New York Times that things got out of control. He noted that Andhra Pradesh had intensive lending activity at the time. We spoke to Ghiyath Nakshbendi about changes in the world of microfinance. He is an expert in international business and teaches microfinance as a business model at the Kogod School of Business at American University. He says the government of India in certain states has started taking steps to “guarantee that these institutions are operating under a strict system.”Some experts have raised questions about whether micro lending lifts women or poor families out of poverty. David Roodman is with the Center for Global Development, a research group in Washington. He says microloans do not do a good job fighting poverty. He says over three billion dollars went into microcredit in twenty-ten. But many lenders failed because of bad supervision or failure to repay loans.In one model, governments or nongovernmental organizations give money to microcredit operations …

This is the VOA Special English Health Report, from voaspecialenglish.com | http Tourists come to Zanzibar for its white sand beaches and historic buildings in Stone Town. But something else also makes its way to the Tanzanian island: heroin trafficked across the Indian Ocean from Asia. Most of the heroin shipped through East Africa is headed for Europe and North America. But Reychad Abdool of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says a lot of it stays on the continent. “We know for a fact that heroin is being used in at least thirty countries in Africa. And we also know for a fact that the number of countries reporting injecting drug use, especially of heroin, is also increasing in Africa.” The problem in Zanzibar has led to some creative local solutions. Suleiman Mauly stopped using heroin six years ago. Now he operates a network of so-called sober houses. These are run by addicts themselves to help one another recover. There are nine sober houses — eight for men and one for women. Mr. Mauly himself went through a drug treatment program in Kenya. But it cost around two thousand dollars, he says. Staying in a sober house costs about one hundred dollars a month. Most of the people are supported by their families. Treatment is based on the idea that drug addiction is more of a public health problem than a crime. Mr. Mauly says this is still a new idea to many people. “Because addiction, it’s a disease, and addicts need treatment. But people, they hear that addicts …

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, from voaspecialenglish.com | http Companion planting is the idea that some kinds of plants can help each other grow. Plants that are compatible together generally have similar needs in terms of nutrients, soil and moisture levels. Advice about which plants are compatible is sometimes based more on tradition than proof. But experts say there is evidence to support certain combinations. These can improve harvests, reduce disease and help with pest control by attracting helpful insects. For example, some kinds of soil bacteria take nitrogen from the air and make it into a form that plants can use. The plants hold the nitrogen in their roots. Legumes are especially good at this nitrogen-fixing. Then any crops that share the same space as the legumes can get the nitrogen as the roots decompose. Beans and potatoes can also share territory well because their roots reach different levels in the soil. Deep-rooted vegetables get nutrients and moisture from lower down in the soil, so they do not compete with plants with shallower roots. But some plants placed together may harm each other’s development. For example, tomatoes do not like wet soil but watercress does, so you would probably want to keep them separated. Some kinds of produce should be kept apart even after being harvested. This is because of ethylene gas. Ethylene is a plant hormone that can cause some foods to ripen too quickly. Apples release ethylene gas. Apricots …