Lynchpin

This week's article from the guardian.co.uk describes Germany as being the “lynchpin of the euro’s viability”, it also reports a suggestion that Mrs Merkel has suggested that Germany should leave the euro.

Please read the article and answer the following questions. Discuss the answers with your teacher or colleagues.

1. What does the word wrangling mean?

1. Arguing
2. Fighting
3. catching wild cows in America
4. a type of clothing

2. Mrs Merkel wanted certain countries to lose their voting rights in EU councils, which countries was she referring to? What argument did she use to support this idea?
3. Which is the next country to need rescue according to the article?

IMF - "Steering Committee" fails to find ...

Our word or phrase of the week for this week is "steering committee".I have taken our article from yahoo this morning where they are reporting on the IMF steering committee's attempts to deal with a possible future currency  war.
Exercises
Read the article and then write a short report to summarize the meeting.

Do you agree with Dominique Strauss-Kahn's opinion about co-operation? Why Why not? Please write a short note to your teacher to explain your opinion.


Which countries are said in the article to agree with the United States and which to disagree?

Create a short table to show this.

Stinginess is the word of the week

Our word of the week this week is stinginess as Chinese Billionaires were accused of this after not attending a charity banquet organised by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Read the article from the Guardian and answer the following questions.

• What famous Dickens character was accused of being stingy?
• Do you agree that the Chinese billionaires are stingy or are they being careful not to expose how much money the have to the world.
• Is American Billionaires philanthropy only a "tax dodge."
• Write a letter to a Billionaire asking him her for money for your favourite charity. Explain why it is a good cause.
• How the money will be spent
• What benefit the billionaire will have if they give the charity the money.
• Give your letter to your teacher to check or post it to this blog as a comment.

Irish banks BAILOUT

This week’s article is a very short one for a change and it is not from a newspaper, it is from yahoo. However, the language is still quite difficult it deals with rumors of the need for a bailout of the Irish banking system. Follow the link for an explanation of bailout. http://www.squidoo.com/learning-financial-and-professional-english
We do not have a quiz this week instead we have two writing exercises for you to try.

Please read the article and the explanation then prepare firstly a very short note to your boss on the contents of this article. Write as if your company has money in the Irish banks.
Then write an email to your Irish bank manager asking him-
1) If his bank will need financial assistance for the IMF
2) If he expects any further large financial losses
3) Also ask how much money the bank holds in gold reserves.
Give your exercises to your teacher for marking or add then as comments to the blog so I can mark them.
Have a good week look out for a new posting next weekend.