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II. Reading for information and analyses
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Complete the tasks:
Task 1. Read the text.
Task 2. Look through the text and write out:
a) international words;
b) geographical names;
c) names of mentioned state bodies;
d) words denoting people and their jobs;
e) the verbs that describe the actions of people;
f) economic and legal terms;
Task 3. Find irregular verbs in the text and give the three forms of these verbs.
Task 4. Find the words in the text that can be used as a Verb and a Noun without the change in the form.
Task 5. Copy out five adjectives and give their synonyms /opposites.
Task 6. Look through the text for figures, which are important for understanding. Copy them out and note what they refer to.
Task 7. Which word is most often used in the text? Explain the meaning of the word in English.
Task 8. Write 10 what / when / where - questions.
Task 9. Write 10 why – questions.
Task 10. Note three things in the text that are new to you.
* * *
Task 11. What is the problem presented in the text?
Task 12. Where is it found?
Task 13. When does it occur?
Task 14. Why does it occur?
Task 15. How does it occur?
Task 16. Who is affected by the problem?
Task 17. Who (what) can help to find the solution / improve the situation?
a) technology
b) administrative ways
c) creative ideas
d) law enforcement actions
e) legal acts
f) other ways
Task 18. What factors can help to achieve the desired result?
a) people
b) equipment
c) money
d) other
Task 19. Summarize the text.
Task 20. Comment on the problem. Give your reasons. Support your arguments with some facts from the text.
THE PLAN AND USEFUL EXPRESSIONS
FOR RENDERING THE ARTICLE
Give a summary of the article (no more than 10-12 sentences). State the main problem discussed in the article and mark off the passages of the article and the sentences that seem important to you. Point out the facts that turned out to be new for you. State what information in the article contradicts your views. Speak on the conclusion the author comes to. Express your own point of view on the problem discussed.
| The title of the article | The article is headlined … The headline of the article I have read is … |
| The author of the article; where and when the article was published | The author of the article is … The article is written by … It is (was) published in … |
| The main idea of the article | The article is about … The article is devoted to … The article deals with … The article touches upon … The article focuses on … The main/central idea of the article is … The purpose of the article is to give the reader some information on … The aim of the article is to provide the reader with some material (data) on … |
| The contents of the article (facts, names, figures, etc.) | The author starts by telling the reader (about, that …) The article describes … According to the text … The author writes/ states/stresses/points out that … Further the author reports (says) that … In conclusion … The author comes to the conclusion that … |
| Your opinion of the article | To my mind … In my opinion … If you ask me … I found the article interesting/ important/ informative/ dull/ of no value/ too hard to understand |
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Text 1
NEW CUSTOMS BODY MAY OVERSEE UNION
(by Irina Filatova)
A customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan is looking to create a single body that would replace the three countries’ customs services, but a dispute is brewing over the distribution of customs duties.
The new body will either “swallow” the three countries’ customs services or control them as a watchdog. Earlier consultations resulted in the need to discuss the creation of additional supranational bodies – a customs body that will act on the territory of the customs union.
But talks are continuing about how to distribute customs duties collected on the three countries’ territory. According to the current formula, Russia will get not less than 90 percent of the import duties collected on the territory of the customs union, Kazakhstan will get 6 to 7 percent, while Belarus’ share will amount to 3 to 4 percent. The formula will be used as a test version starting from April and may be changed later.
The Customs Union Commission was considering the establishment of a supranational treasury “that operates within the customs union”.
An organization representing Russian importers assailed the plan to create a new customs body as an unnecessary additional layer of bureaucracy.
“I don’t see a special need for a supranational body. Since there’s a single customs tariff and a customs code, there’s no need for additional regulation,” said executive director of the Russian Union of Producers and Importers.
He said each country’s own customs service should be allowed to continue regulating shipments.
It would be easier and cheaper to leave the three countries’ customs services intact and to create a supranational body that would regulate and organize their work, said a customs law adviser.
So far presidents of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed to the creation of a unified customs tariff and a unified customs code.
(THE MOSCOW TIMES)
Text 2
CUSTOMS UNION EASES LOGISTICS
(by Rachel Nielsen)
The customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan that took full effect on Jan.1 2012 and eliminated red tape for cross-border shipments has sped up the deliveries among those countries by at least one day, global shipper DHL said.
The customs union also has reduced the amount of time and people needed for those shipments, vice president of operational activities for the company said in an interview.
Smaller companies that wouldn’t have had the experience or scale for international customs are now entering the market. They aren’t siphoning business from DHL or other major players but expanding the size of the market.
Shippers are still waging war against graft and theft. DHL prefers to use air transportation within Russia because getting goods across the country’s nine time zones is not only faster that way, but more secure.
Comparing road shipping to X-rays, DHL official said, goods are “exposed” during road transit and that exposure should be limited. Security is far higher at airports than along highways between major cities. “You can’t put a policeman at every tree along the road,” he said, “Theft is the most significant problem that shipping companies experience on the roads here. It can come from various crime groups that can look at the truck as the potential object of interest.”
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When it moves goods by road, DHL takes a slew of precautions, including putting two drivers in each truck, using video and GPS tracking in the trucks themselves and using only full-body metal trucks rather than tented flatbeds.
Meanwhile, though much of the logistics bureaucracy has disappeared among the customs union countries, red tape is a problem for shipping Internet orders. DHL Still does not ship items into the country for eBay customers, division spokeswoman said by telephone.
Having the simplest possible paperwork is essential to getting goods through Russian customs quickly. The system can be slowed down when a separate buyer, seller and payer are listed on customs documentation, as can happen with goods that are shipped based on online orders.
“A considerable part of our inbound parcels are coming from Internet shops, but only for those Internet retailers and platforms that can provide clear paperwork,” DHL official said.
(THE MOSCOW TIMES)
Text 3
UP TO A THIRD OF CONSUMER ITEMS FAKE
(by Khristina Narizhnaya)
Knockoff Chinese Jin Ling cigarettes from Kaliningrad, Italian Asti wines actually made in CIS and Bavarian car parts made in Podolsk imply a certain geographic schizophrenia for Russian consumers. But the harsh reality is a market for counterfeit goods that some experts estimate to be worth between $3 billion and $6 billion a year.
Jin Ling cigarettes, inspired by an old Chinese brand, are produced especially for smuggling and have flooded Europe in the last several years. The cigarettes’ packaging resembles the American brand Camel and claims to use “U.S.A. blend” tobacco. The cigarettes have been found to contain asbestos, the Daily Mail reported earlier this year.
Large quantities of the cigarettes, also produced in Ukraine and Moldova, are frequently seized in the Baltic republics. Last month at least three smugglers attempted to move more than 27,000 cartons of Jin Ling cigarettes in separate incidents across the Latvian and Lithuanian borders.
Counterfeit alcohol has been a problem in Russia for decades. Earlier this year Italian sparkling wine consortium Asti D.O.C.G. introduced special stickers with a government-issued code, located on the top of each bottle to certify the authenticity of its wines. Consumers can verify the code on the consortium’s web site, astidocg.it.
Police in Chukotka last week confiscated a batch of illegally manufactured booze – 915 litres of grain alcohol, 706 litres of vodka and 454 litres of cognac, according to a report posted on the Interior Ministry web site. It was the largest batch of counterfeit liquor the area has seen in several years.
Four tons of illicit alcohol was confiscated in the Krasnodar region, the Interior Ministry reported. An illegal sausage factory, operating out of a railroad car repair shop, was shut down in Moscow earlier this year.
Media reports last week, citing Interior Ministry investigations, said up to a third of all consumer items, including clothes, perfume, cigarettes, household chemicals and food, are counterfeit.
A fake Yves Rocher store is still in operation in the Siberian republic of Tuva, even after the company complained to the local office of the Federal Consumer Protection Service, Marker business newspaper reported last week.
Fake cosmetics stores are somewhat rarer. Usually individual brands are made illegally, with the most popular items for counterfeiting being perfumes by Christian Dior, Dolce&Gabbana, Donna Karan and Nina Ricci, police spokesman told Marker.
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Consumer products are not the only things being copied. Often mechanics fixing cars or planes use illegally manufactured parts, said head of research for the Scientific Research Institute of Transport and Road Maintenance. Instead of using certified parts, fake parts are often used.
For example, a mechanic could tell a client that he is getting a real BMW part from Bavaria, but in reality it was made in Podolsk, a town just south of Moscow. It happens in aviation all the time.
The Federal Air Transportation Agency thinks that the problem has gone away. Counterfeiting plane parts was widespread in the 1990s, but now there are no uncertified parts used in aviation, agency spokesman said.
(THE MOSCOW TIMES)
Text 4
RUSSIAN POST APPEALS TO CUSTOMS SERVISE
(by Irina Filatova)
Russian Post demanded an increase in the number of customs officers handling international mail after about 500 tons of parcels from abroad got stuck in Moscow.
A shortage of customs officers complicated the handling of the “increased mail flow from abroad in a 24/7 regime” and thus resulted in thousands of parcels piling up at the airports, Itar-Tass reported, citing the press service of the state run company.
Russian Post said it had repeatedly approached the Federal Customs Service asking to expand its staff at the biggest logistics points, but to no avail. The customs service cited a presidential order to optimize the number of state employees as the reason for not adding more inspectors.
In a letter sent to the Federal Customs Service head Andrei Belyaninov, Russian Post chief executive Alexander Kiselyov said they should jointly prepare proposal to President Vladimir Putin to revise the requirement to reduce the number of state officials dealing with customs clearance of international deliveries.
The letter cited a complaint by German postal operator Deutsche Post over delays in customs registration of trucks carrying parcels and correspondence from Germany.
Of the 48,000 small packages handled by Russian Post daily, customs officials only check 25,000 to 37,000 of them per day, Kommersant reported, citing an unidentified Russian Post employee. This results in three to six day delays in deliveries to consumers.
About 500 tons of international mail is stuck in Moscow airports and customs offices, the employee said. The deliveries mostly include goods purchased online from foreign retailers.
Russian Post has been frequently blamed for delays in deliveries, with one of the most
Recent examples involving packages with orders from online retailers based abroad failing to reach buyers here in time for this year’s New Year holiday.
(THE MOSCOW TIMES)
Text 5
ELECTRONIC CUSTOMS PROCEDURES SEEN
(by Lena Smirnova)
The Customs union of Russia, Belarus and Khazakhstan plan to ease customs procedures in an effort to improve the investment climate.
The Eurasian Economic Commission, which is in charge of the union, is pushing forward in its efforts to create a one-stop window at the borders to Russia, Belarus and Khazakhstan. Under this system, customs declarations would be filled out electronically as one document and made available to a variety of state agencies at once, said Vladimir Goshin, minister of customs cooperation of the The Eurasian Economic Commission at The Moscow Times customs conference.
One of the more striking features in the proposed system is the absence of humans in the decision making process. Instead of customs officials deciding which goods can cross the border, traders would file electronic declarations that would then be scanned and approved by automated electronic programmes.
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“If there is a possibility of excluding the human, subjective factor, from the assessment process, we should fight for it,” said Vitaly Survillo, vice president of the Delovaya Rossiya association.
The proposal for the one-stop window was modeled on similar experiments done in the United States, Singapore and Sweden.
“All of the three countries of the customs union are now at different levels of readiness for the introduction of the one-stop window, but everyone understands the necessity of this reform”, Goshin said.
However, he added that the new system might first be introduced to one of the customs areas, such as port authorities, to lessen the shock of the transition.
The one-stop window proposal follows on the Russian government’s efforts to tidy up customs procedures through an extensive road map that was approved one year ago.
Eight points on the road map have already been completed, though many of these points were checked off officially. The effectiveness of some of these points is still debatable.
Many of the substantial points on the road map are expected to be completed by January 2014, when all customs clearance would transition to an electronic platform.
(THE MOSCOW TIMES)
Text 6
IT’S OVER IN DOVER FOR BOOTLEG CROOKS
A multi-agency crackdown on bootleggers has led to huge seizures, disruption of criminal gangs and more than 80 arrests.
Customs and Excise, Kent Police, and the Benefits Agency swooped on Dover bootleggers, organized crime gangs and benefit cheats cashing in on the illegal trade.
Norman Taylor, assistant collector of South East England, and that 30 extra staff temporarily drafted into Dover made 856 seizures. A project team has targeted known gangs operating locally and arrested 32 people.
“These operations are in addition to dedicated work by local fraud officers and the National Investigation Service, who have made a number of large scale arrests and seizures during this financial year,” he added.
But in a pre-Christmas crack-down, codenamed operation Impel, 27 million cigarettes, 964,000 litres of beer, 57,000 litres of spirits and 127,000 litres of wine were seized. In one six-hour period alone, 51 transit vans were confiscated.
Norman said: “The idea is to drive these villains out of the area by making it impossible for them to operate. What we are trying to promote is zero tolerance.
Residents are fed up with noisy deliveries at all hours, harassment in bubs and violence on the streets. There have only been 32 arrests for Customs offences because we only prosecute when we have evidence of a big commercial operation. If we arrested everyone we caught there wouldn’t be enough cells to hold them all.”
Kent police arrested 48 people, including two in connection with the Dover shootings in the summer and one man who was wanted for attempted murder in Scotland.
Chris Eyre, superintendent of Kent police, said that people involved in bootlegging are hardened criminals with 70 per cent of those involved having a recent criminal record.
“Was the enormity of the problem has emerged, it became clear to us all and our colleagues at Dover Harbour Board and to the carriers that there is only one way forward,” he said. “Working as a team has enabled us to enforce laws with such power that we have made a drastic impact on the bootlegging fraternity and their unlawful business,” he added.
Ninety per cent of arrested bootleggers are unemployed, say police.
The project now investigates bootleggers, identified by Customs and the police, who are making repeated trips across the Channel and bringing back large quantities of duty restricted goods.
Between April and December last year, Customs seized over two million litres of beer, cider, spirits and wine, worth £2,300,000 in revenue. Officers also seized tobacco, cigarettes and cigars worth £9 million in revenue.
Since April last year, Benefits agency staff have interviewed almost 1,000 people and saved the taxpayer nearly £350,000 by stopping benefit cheats.
(THE PORTCULLIS)
Text 7
FIRMS SEEN IGNORANT OF SOFTWARE PIRACY RISKS
(by Tai Adelaja)
Russian companies’ preference for unlicensed or pirated software may be partly because of ignorance about the costs and risks involved.
More than 70 percent of commercial enterprises across the country continue to use unlicensed software, according to the survey, conducted by a global provider of market intelligence. The survey polled company directors and IT managers in 500 companies across five federal districts.
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“Many company directors still think procuring software legally is not cost effective and inevitably involves extra expenses like training of IT managers or paying for software upgrades,” said Microsoft’s product manager in Russia.
Violation of intellectual property rights has long been a sore point in Russia’s relations with the United States, which has pressed hard for a crackdown on piracy as a condition for the country’s WTO accession.
Official concerns have forced law enforcement agencies to intensify efforts to bring violators to book,” said director of the Russian Anti-Piracy Organization.
The cases of people being prosecuted over software piracy have raised awareness of the legal consequences to 80 percent, from a mere 25 percent four years ago. But company executives worry more about loss of reputation than the legal consequences or technical glitches that pirated software can cause.
Software crashes and other technical glitches could cost a company up to an estimated $40,000 per year, several times the cost of acquiring licensed software.
Eighty percent of company executives believed there was a high likehood of prosecution for using pirated software, but less than 20 percent said pirated programs could cause computer glitches.
All the companies surveyed used a combination of licensed software as well as bootlegged versions of Microsoft Windows and Office programs, with the latter often dominating, the report said.
(THE MOSCOW TIMES)
Text 8
A PHOTOGRAPHIC CHRONICLE OF THE RELENTLESS
FLOW OF CONTRABAND
For five days Taryn Simon, a photographer, lived at New York City’s John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the United States where passengers, workers, baggage, cargo, taxis and trains flow constantly. Her aim was to record the continual flow – one the public rarely sees – of contraband goods detained and seized by US Customs and Border Protection from passengers and from express mail entering the US from abroad.
“The idea comes from an earlier photograph I took for my work titled ‘An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar’. I photographed 48 hours’ worth of agricultural seizures at JFK Airport. During my short visit I witnessed an influx of goods beyond food and plants that begged to be recorded,” explains the photographer. Her latest result is a collection entitled ‘Contraband’ which documents a broad array of forbidden and controlled items – sausages from exotic climes, cigarettes, drugs, gold dust, a falcon corpse, counterfeit goods, fake medicine, two dead guinea pigs and countless sexual stimulants.
“I anticipated the usual threats such as guns, heroin and so on, but what surprised me was the accent placed primarily on counterfeit items. There was a relentless flow of counterfeit luxury items, pirated films and computer software that pose a threat to the brand and to economic security that relies on the preservation and protection of these corporations.”
“The number of goods made it very clear that stopping this infiltration is nearly impossible as it is so abundant. There were, of course, surprises like a giant bird in an envelope for witchcraft purposes.”
“Customs officers’ work is intense and never-ending,” the artist said when asked about her thoughts after spending five days with Customs officials. “It felt as though everyone coming through the US has contraband of some sort – something with wood boring insects, or even a simple banana. Something that seems banal can be a threat in the eyes of Customs”.
(WCO NEWS)
Text 9
“COUNTERFEITING-CRIME: A MAJOR CHALLENGE”
With so many people being put at risk, one can safely assume that the quantities of these life threatening products on the market must be huge, leading us to the conclusion that the illicit trade in consumer products is now industrial, coordinated and globalized in nature. Clearly, organized crime is seeking to generate huge profits from human misery, not only in the agrifood or, naturally, medicines sector, but also in many other consumer sectors.
In this troubled world, in which no holds are barred, organized crime brings in its wake corruption, money laundering and child exploitation. It also
gives rise to new “professions”: counterfeiting of building materials and equipment, and illicit recycling of contaminated waste for use in the manufacture of counterfeits. Worse still, mafia networks intertwine smuggling, fraud involving foodstuffs, and counterfeiting to cover their tracks and make it even more difficult to gain an insight into criminal phenomena.
As a result, and despite their differences, these flows of counterfeits abide by the same cardinal rules of supply and demand, and follow the same principles of competition, profitability, the innovation race, gain in market share or a lowering of production costs.
The only goal in mind is to turn a quick profit in open disregard of basic respect for safety standards. In so doing, the boundary between licit and illicit is no longer quite as clear-cut and the risks of non-compliance and counterfeiting are intensifying for all actors in the consumer product supply chain.
Is smuggled tobacco actually highly carcinogenic counterfeit tobacco? Are some plastic components for counterfeit toys being sourced from the contaminated zone around Fukushima? Were the noncompliant signalling systems behind the train crash in northern China in July 2011 actually counterfeits? Was tainted sunflower oil used to make counterfeit biscuits originating in Russia?
Understanding, detecting and preventing these threats; this is the objective of the World Anti-Illicit Traffic Organization.
In collaboration with the World Customs Organization (WCO), the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), the Department for Research on Contemporary Criminal Threats of the University of Paris, and professional federations, the WAITO, created and located in Switzerland, conducts studies and investigations around the globe in order to identify serious, complex, and growing Counterfeiting-crime phenomena and offer pragmatic solutions.
(WCO NEWS)
Text 10
ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOMS THROUGH
KNOWLEGE MANAGEMENT
The role of Customs administrations is to ensure high levels of compliance through the application of regulations and the ‘policing’ of their frontiers. Traditionally, the tendency was to treat customers in a more or less standard way. Indeed, for many Customs administrations the presumption of guilty until proven innocent frequently drove administrative practices and procedures as well as key decisions.
The paradigm shift in recent years is a move away from driving compliance through the application of ‘one size fits all’ standards towards a more customer focused approach. That drives to higher levels of compliance through better understanding of customers’ needs, rewarding those that play by the rules, acting as a ‘facilitator’ in order to help customers to comply, and being able to state: “We know who you are, we know your case history, we know how to treat you, and we hope that you feel we are here to help your organization achieve its trading goals in the most cost effective, compliant way”.
It is impossible to develop a professional, service culture without using knowledge effectively. Increased volumes of data represent both a challenge and an opportunity. It is a challenge as it is increasingly hard to collect the information effectively and then use it for quality decision making. It represents an opportunity to have a more accurate view of a customer involved in supply chain activities and, thereby, a better ability to manage the risk related to that customer.
Customs, in fact, is one of the oldest professions. In this context, professional means that the Customs administration should be a high performing enterprise with respect to the people it employs, the processes used to manage its functions and services, and the technology it employs to facilitate those procedures. In terms of processes, they would have to be developed and refined to ensure that they are streamlined, understood and adhered to.
One area where improvement is required relates to knowledge management. Customs administrations will face the prospect of staff turnover as officials move from physical inspections to higher value knowledge based work such as intelligence, risk management and audit. Interestingly, this development has a positive side too. Young people today tend to be much more comfortable and typically incorporate its use into their work and lifestyle.
(WCO NEWS)
Text 11
SLOVAKIA UNEARTHS SMUGGLING TUNNEL
Customs and Police officials snagged some unusual prey in July last year: a 700 metre long secret tunnel that had been dug beneath the Slovak-Ukraine border, which officials believe was being used several times a week to smuggle contraband into Slovakia. “It is like a tale from a movie,” Slovakia’s Finance Minister told the press comparing the tunnel to those built by drug cartels along the United States-Mexico border.
13,100 cartons containing 200 cigarettes each were found inside the tunnel – a total of 2,620,000 pieces! With warning labels written in English, it is believed that they were not destined for the Slovak market. Produced in Ukraine, near the city of Lviv, the cigarettes offered smugglers potentially big profits as they would have been sold at much higher prices in Western Europe than in Slovakia or Ukraine.
Sophisticated mining technology appeared to have been used to dig out the tunnelwhich varied in depth between 3 and 6 metres underground and was about 1 metre in diameter. It was fitted out with tracks and a trolley for transporting goods: the cargo was loaded onto a small train consisting of 16 wagons and a battery-powered engine, on which the driver rode. On reaching the end of the tunnel, the driver would ring a bell as a signal for his partner to open a door, which was locked on the outside, according to press reports.
The tunnel started in the cellar of a residential property in Uzhgorod and exited some 200 metres into Slovak territory in a timber storage site. Construction probably began on the Ukranian side, where several houses were recently constructed in the same neighbourhood and where trucks transporting soil would not have raised any suspicions.
During the inspection of the house in whose basement the tunnel started, investigators found items and documents that may suggest that it was also being used to illegally transport people.
The discovery of the tunnel was made within the framework of a pilot project “Tax Cobra” in Slovakia aimed at serious tax crime. Slovak Customs and government partners will continue to prevent illicit goods from being smuggled into the European Union to avoid duties and taxes.
(WCO NEWS)
A PRESENT FROM STRASBOURG
(after Anthony Carson)
The train from Calais was plastered with names: Strasbourg – Basle – Innsbruck – Salzburg – Vienna – Budapest – Bucharest. The whistle blew.
I had a meal in the dining-car and returned to my carriage. There was an old man with an enormous ginger moustache. On the rack above his head there was a huge wooden box. An undertaker? A florist? Did the box contain a body, a bomb? However, he looked a sober, careful man, smoking a pipe. We nodded to each other. Somehow I was glad to see him, to fix my thoughts on him.
“Where are we?” I asked in French.
“We are still in France,” he said. “Shortly we will be in Strasbourg.”
“Are you from Strasbourg?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I am going to the Strasbourg Fair.”
“You are German.”
“Yes. But that is in the past. Now I live in Dubai and breed small animals for the Strasbourg Fair.”
I looked up at the box above his head.
He smiled and nodded. “Rabbits,” he explained. He brought down the shiny, ancient box, opened it and out sprang the rabbits.
We fed them with lettuce and carrots and half an old sandwich, and then they were packed up in the box. Soon the train slowed down and it was Strasbourg. “Good luck with the rabbits,” I said shaking his hand.
I slept again. Suddenly I was woken up. Some officials stood in front of me in the bright light.
“Where am I?” I asked in Spanish.
“Switzerland,” said an official. “Have you anything to declare?”
“Nothing,” I replied.
“No cigarettes, spirits or silk?”
“No,” I said.
“Is that your bag? Could we open it?”
“Yes,” I said.
They opened it and somebody whistled. “A rabbit,” he said. “A first-class rabbit. So, dutiable, Herr Kapitan?”
I jumped up and stared at the rabbit. “It’s not my rabbit,” I cried. I explained the situation to them. The officer signed a sheet of paper and gave it to me.
Some hours later the lights were on again. A tall man in a green suit came into the carriage. “Good morning,” he said. “Welcome to Austria. Have you anything to declare?”
“A rabbit,” I replied and handed him the sheet of paper. He looked at it and returned it to me:”I hope both of you will enjoy your stay in Austria.”
“Thank you,” I said. I felt I would like Austria.
When I arrived in Salzburg I felt terribly tired. I found a guest house near the station. “I have a rabbit,” I told the proprietor’s wife, opening my bag.
“It is a fine rabbit,” she said admiringly.
“It would make a fine pet,” I said. “I present it to you.”
She took the rabbit away, and I went upstairs and had a wash and a shave and a sleep and then went down to the dining-room.
“Here is your dinner,” said the proprietor’s wife, and may God give you a fine appetite!” She placed a steaming dish on the table.
I started to eat, and then put down my fork. “What is this dish called?” I asked the lady.
She seemed surprised. “But it is a rabbit pie,” she said. “Does it taste good?”
“Excellent,” I answered politely.
b) Answer the questions:
1. Where was the author travelling?
2. Whom did the author meet on the train?
3. What did the author have to declare at a border station in Switzerland?
4. Did he have to pay the duty on the rabbit? Why?
5. Why did he give the rabbit to the proprietor’s wife?
6. Was he surprised to find out was he was having for dinner?
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