Athens and Sparta were both Greek cities and their people spoke a common language. In every other respect they were different. Athens rose high from the plain. It was a city exposed to the fresh breezes from the sea, willing to look at the world with the eyes of a happy child. Sparta, on the other hand, was built at the bottom of a deep valley, and used the surrounding mountains as a barrier against foreign thought. Athens was a city of busy trade. Sparta was an armed camp where people were soldiers for the sake of being soldiers. The people of Athens loved to sit in the sun and discuss poetry or listen to the wise words of a philosopher. The Spartans, on the other hand, never wrote a single line that was considered literature, but they knew how to fight, they liked to fight, and they sacrificed all human emotions to their ideal of military preparedness.No wonder that these sombre Spartans viewed the success of Athens with malicious hate. The energy which the defence of the common home had developed in Athens was now used for purposes of a more peaceful nature. The Acropolis was rebuilt and was made into a marble shrine to the Goddess Athena. Pericles, the leader of the Athenian democracy, sent far and wide to find famous sculptors and painters and scientists to make the city more beautiful and the young Athenians more worthy of their home. At the same time he kept a watchful eye on Sparta and built high walls which connected Athens with the sea and made her the strongest fortress of that day.An insignificant quarrel between two little Greek cities led to the final conflict. For thirty years the war between Athens and Sparta continued. It ended in a terrible disaster for Athens.During the third year of the war the plague had entered the city. More than half of the people and Pericles, the great leader, had been killed. The plague was followed by a period of bad and untrustworthy leadership. A brilliant young fellow by the name of Alcibiades had gained the favor of the popular assembly. He suggested a raid upon the Spartan colony of Syracuse in Sicily. An expedition was equipped and everything was ready.

Home ownership has let US down. For generations, Americans believed that owning a home was an axiomatic good. Our political leaders hammered home the point. Franklin Roosevelt held that a country of homeowners was "unconquerable. " Homeownership could even, in the words of George H. W. Bush"s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development(HUD), Jack Kemp, "save babies, save children, save families and save American. " A house with a front lawn and a picket fence wasn"t just a nice place to live or a risk-flee investment; it was a way to transform a nation. No wonder leaders of all political stripes wanted to spend more than $ 100 billion a year on subsidies and tax breaks to encourage people to buy.But the dark side of homeownership is now all too apparent: foreclosures and walkaways, neighborhoods plagued by abandoned properties and plummeting home values, a nation in which families have $ 6 trillion less in housing wealth than they did just three years ago. Indeed, easy loaning stimulated by the cult of homeownership may have triggered the financial crisis and led directly to its biggest bailout, that of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Housing remains a drag on the economy. Existing home sales in July dropped 27% from the prior month, exacerbating fears of a double-tip. And all that is just the obvious tale of a housing bubble and what happened when it popped. The real story is deeper and darker still.

必须优化传统的出口商品结构，靠价格和数量竞争的时代已一去不复返了。在当今激烈竞争的世界上，只有以质取胜和改善售前售后服务才能行得通。要通过精加工和深加丁提高出口商品的附加值；要努力生产适销对路的名特优新产品和“拳头”产品打入国际市场。由于市场形势千变万化，出口产品必须不断地更新换代，做到你无我有，你有我优，胜人—筹。

SFTZ(Shanghai Free Trade Zone)

I am always surprised how people just accepted our customs as normal without questioning them. For example, when a baby is born a certain amount of information is sent out to friends and family. It's usually a photo, the name, time and place of the birth and the weight of the bay...That's not a convention we seem so keen to follow through when someone dies. In death we're similarly reduced to statistics. Your gravestone will have your name, maybe a photo and the date of your birth (that one is not hanging, they compete that statistic with your death date). But no follow up on the weight issue. Why not? Why have a start weight if you're not going to bother with the end weight, too?

中国海洋石油总公司

中组部

沿海经济开发区

A close mouth catches no flies.

红眼航班

The Caspian Sea

中国政府今年宣布推动的重大项目一一大飞机公司计划即将迈出第一步。从事大飞机研制的中国商用飞机有限公司将于11日在上海挂牌，专家预计，中国自主研发的大型客机将在2020年前正式投产。中国商用飞机有限公司注册资本190亿元。作为第152家中央直属企业，大飞机公司的领导班子已浮出水面，公司的董事长和总经理全部由原国防科工委官员出任。

WMO

coffee break

绿色增长

这次到台湾访问交流，虽然行程匆匆，但是，看了不少地方，访了旧友，交了新知，大家走到一起，谈论的一个重要话题就是中华民族在21世纪的强盛。虽然祖国大陆、台湾的青年生活在不同的社会环境中，有着各自不同的生活经历，但大家的内心都深深铭刻着中华文化优秀传统的印记，都拥有着振兴中华民族的共同理想。 在世纪之交的伟大时代，我们的祖国正在走向繁荣富强，海峡两岸人民也将加强交流，共同推进祖国统一大业的早日完成。跨世纪青年一代应该用什么样的姿态迎接充满希望的新世纪，这是我们必须回答的问题。

宏观经济基本面(情况)

interest-free loan

中国人民对外友好协会

SCI