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Are you interested in living and working in another country? If so, then you might want to go to Brazil. I’ll explain in just a moment.  You’re listening to ESLnewscast.com’s DailyCast podcast. Welcome! I’m Cory Renzella, and I’m glad you’re listening today. In the year 1913 – one hundred years ago – about 7% of Brazil’s population was from foreign countries. Today, that number is about 0.3%. That means that in this large South American country of about 200 million people, only about 600,000 of them are from other countries. If you compare Brazil’s 0.3% foreign population to that of the United States, which has a foreign population of about 13%, you can see how small Brazil’s really is. Normally, this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. But Brazil is not a normal country. It is a fast-growing country, and its government is concerned that there isn’t enough brainpower, or knowledge, to help it continue to grow. So, it needs more high-skilled workers. And the only place to find them is overseas. Brazil wants to increase its population’s percentage of foreigners from 0.3% to about 2-3%. That means it needs to increase its number of foreign workers from 600,000 to about six million. So, as I asked at the beginning, are you interested in moving there? Its government says that you don’t have to live there permanently, or for your entire life; it’s okay for you to stay there temporarily, or for a short time, and then return to your home country. You – or I – could be one of those foreigners! But we would probably need to learn the country’s language, which is Portuguese. So, if you think you would like to live there, then perhaps you should stop listening to this podcast and start listening to a Portuguese podcast. ~~~~~~~~~~ So, what do you think? Are you interested in moving to and working in Brazil? Have you ever visited the country? I haven’t, but I would love to. And if you’re from Brazil, what do you think of your country? Is it a good place to live and work in? Do you think it needs more foreigners? Tell us your opinions at ESLnewscast.com. ESLnewscast.com is not “Your Portuguese Window to the World”, but it is “Your English Window to the World”! Wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

If YouTube were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. I’ll explain after this.  It’s the DailyCast from ESLnewscast.com. Welcome! I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening today. The popular video sharing website, YouTube, made a big announcement last month. It said that it now has one billion monthly users. In other words, every month, one billion people in the world visit its website. About two billion people in the world use the internet, so that means about half of them regularly go to YouTube. And as I said at the beginning, if YouTube were a country, only China and India would have larger populations. That’s not bad for a website that has only existed, or been around, for eight years. YouTube was founded, or created, in 2005, and then it was acquired, or bought, by Google in 2006, for about US$1.8 billion. At that time, YouTube had around 30-40 million users. Not bad; but now, it also has governments, businesses, and a lot of individuals posting and sharing lots of videos. YouTube is useful for sharing news, opinions, funny videos, and completely random ones. And oh yeah, how could I forget about the cute cat videos? There are plenty of cute cat videos on YouTube! But of all the videos on YouTube, do you know which one has been watched the most? I’ll give you a hint: it’s from South Korea. If you guessed the music video Gangnam Style, you’re correct! It’s been watched one and a half billion times on YouTube, including a few times by me. Since people share things and interact on YouTube, that means it’s a social network. And since it has a billion monthly users, it’s almost as popular as the largest social network in the world. That one, of course, is Facebook. ~~~~~~~~~~ So, do you visit YouTube a lot? I do almost every day. I like watching music videos on it, and as I said, I have to admit that I’ve watched Gangnam Style a few times…Okay, maybe more than a few times. But to be honest, I don’t really care too much about watching cute cat videos! What do you enjoy watching on YouTube? Have you seen Gangnam Style? Do you like the cute cat videos, and do you have a favorite video on that website? Have you ever shared any of your own videos? If so, share your opinions and tell us your thoughts at ESLnewscast.com. And feel free to link to any YouTube videos that you think we might also like! That’s it for today. ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

This weekend: the happiest and saddest countries in the world.  It’s The Weekend at ESLnewscast.com. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and I hope you’re having a happy weekend, so far. Happiness is what I’ll be talking about today, or specifically, happy countries. Every year for the past six years, the Legatum Institute, an organization in London, has been measuring the happiness of 142 countries around the world. At the beginning of this year, the organization publicized, or made public, the results of what it calls the “Prosperity Index”. The results show how happy people are in different countries. It’s not easy to measure something like happiness, so this organization included a lot of things that probably influence happiness. Those things include how much money people have; how stable, or reliable, their government is; and how free, happy, well educated, and safe they are. This organization looked at a lot of numbers but also surveyed, or asked questions of, people in each country. Before I tell you the name of the happiest country in the world, I’ll give you a chance to guess. Which one do you think it is? Here’s a hint: it’s a small country in Europe. All right, here’s the answer. This year, the happiest country in the world is Norway. Numbers two through 10 on the list are: Denmark, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Ireland. If you look at that list, you can see that the happiest countries have a lot in common. Many are Scandinavian countries; Scandinavia is an area in northwestern Europe. They’re also democracies, meaning the people choose their leaders; they’re countries with smaller populations; the people have a lot of personal freedoms; the governments collect a lot of taxes and use that money to provide many benefits to the people; and the populations are homogenous, which means that most of the people have similar backgrounds, races, and ethnicities. The opposite of homogenous is heterogeneous, or diverse. A country like the United States is diverse, because a lot of people from very different backgrounds live there. And speaking of the United States, last year it was 10th on the list, but this year it is 12th. One reason for that is fewer people believe that if they work hard, they’ll do well in life. So, that pessimistic, or hopeless, belief makes them feel less happy. But 12th place isn’t too bad, since the list includes 142 countries. Can you guess the 142nd happiest country? In other words, can you guess which country is the saddest country on the list? It’s the Central African Republic, a small country in central Africa. There, the average person only lives for 48 years and makes just US$790 in an entire year! Also, only 2% of the people have internet access, or the ability to connect to the internet, in their homes. Other countries at the bottom of the list are Congo, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and Haiti. So, if you believe that this list is accurate and you don’t want to feel sad, then you know which countries you should avoid going to. And, if you want to be as happy as possible, you also know the best countries to go to. ~~~~~~~~~~ I’ve lived most of my life in the United States, but I moved to Taiwan two years ago. The two countries are very different, but I’ve noticed that there are some things that are true about happiness in both countries; and perhaps, in every country. For example, fairness is very important to people in both countries. People are unhappy when they believe that they’re being treated unfairly, whether it’s by the government or some other group. And unfortunately, there is a lot of unfairness in the world. In addition, I’ve noticed that the Americans and Taiwanese who have hope seem to be happy. If a person has hope, that means they believe that they will have a good future. So, even if someone doesn’t have a lot of money, a very good education, or a great job, just having hope and the belief that their lives will improve,

Today, on the DailyCast: it’s Friday, so that means it’s the week in review!  Happy Friday, everyone! Welcome to the DailyCast from ESLnewscast.com. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening. Every Friday, we look at the week’s stories an...

On Monday in London, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died at 87. Today, on the DailyCast: we look at the life of Margaret Thatcher.  It’s Thursday, and this is the DailyCast from ESLnewscast.com. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening today. Margaret Thatcher was the leader of Great Britain for 11 years, from 1979 to 1990, and was the country’s first female Prime Minister. Like most leaders, Margaret Thatcher was controversial. By that, I mean that many people loved her, while many others hated her. Those who loved her called her “The Iron Lady”, because they thought she was a strong leader. She was very conservative and hated that people viewed Britain as being, in her words, the “sick old man of Europe”. As Prime Minister, she tried to change what she called the “culture of dependency” in the country. When she talked about the “culture of dependency”, she was basically referring to her belief that Britons relied too much on help from the British government. She didn’t think that they worked hard enough or were independent enough. So, as Prime Minister, she cut, or reduced, government spending; fought against the unions, which are organized groups of workers; and privatized many industries by changing them from being controlled by the government to being controlled by private companies. Some of her policies, or things that she did as Prime Minister, hurt British workers and poor people. So, instead of calling her “The Iron Lady”, those who didn’t like her called her “Thatcher the Uncaring”. The people who liked and supported her and those who did not disagreed with each other on many things. But they probably agreed that in her 11 years as Prime Minister, she had a huge impact on Britain. In addition to the controversial domestic changes, or changes within the country, Thatcher took some controversial actions internationally. The biggest example of this was in 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, which are small islands that are close to Argentina, but are controlled by Britain. Thatcher’s response to the invasion was strong and aggressive. She sent the British navy to fight back and ordered it to sink an Argentinian ship, resulting in the deaths of 323 sailors. Many people thought that was unnecessary, because the Argentinian ship was sailing away from the British ships and was not a danger to them. But the short war, which ended just three months later on June 14, made her much more popular. Thatcher celebrated her country’s victory, saying that it would bring a “new spirit” for Britain. And that really was her goal as Prime Minister, to create what she believed was a new and better spirit for her country. Margaret Thatcher was born in 1925, studied chemistry at Oxford University, married in 1951, and had twins in 1953. Only after she became a wife and a mother did she begin her political career, in 1959. Twenty years later, she would become the first – and only – female Prime Minister of Britain. And today, four days after her death, she’s being remembered not only as one of the most controversial, but also as one of the most important, leaders in British history. ~~~~~~~~~~ What are your thoughts on Margaret Thatcher? Do you agree with the people who saw her as “The Iron Lady”, or with those who called her “Thatcher the Uncaring”? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website. ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

For two years, a war has been going on in Syria. And it’s only getting worse. Today, on the Dailycast: the civil war in Syria.  You’re listening to ESLnewscast.com’s DailyCast podcast. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening today. A civil war is a war that is fought between different groups of citizens, or people in a country. For two years, there has been a civil war being fought in the Middle Eastern country of Syria. It has been between Syria’s government, which is controlled by President Bashar al-Assad, and Syrian rebels. Rebels are people who fight against their government. These rebels have been fighting against Syria’s government, because they want more freedom and rights. Syria’s government and military have been fighting back, because they want to keep their power. This civil war is part of the Arab Spring, which is the name for all of the revolutions that have been happening in Arab countries over the past few years. In some countries, like Egypt and Libya, people protested and fought against their governments, and were successful in forming new governments. But in Syria, there has only been fighting; a lot of fighting. Even though the rebels now control parts of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his government still hold, or have, most of the power in the country. During the last two years of war, more than 70,000 people have died. And as I said at the beginning, the fighting is getting worse. March was the deadliest month of the entire war. At least 6,000 people died last month, and that includes hundreds of innocent women and children. The fighting in Syria is becoming more violent, because it is spreading throughout more parts of the country. As I said, President Bashar al-Assad does not have much power left, but he has enough to survive and fight back against the rebels. One thing that’s helping him is that the rebels aren’t all cooperating, or working together. They’re divided into different groups, and there isn’t a lot of organization between the groups. That could change if countries like France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which have all been helping the rebels, choose to increase their involvement in the war. But so far, they have been reluctant, or hesitant, to get too involved in this civil war. So, two years after it all began, Syria’s civil war continues. And there’s no end in sight, meaning it looks like it’s going to continue for a long time. ~~~~~~~~~~ Do you think the war in Syria will continue for a long time? Do you think other countries should get more involved and help the rebels? Or do you believe that, since it’s a civil war, other countries should not get involved? Write down your thoughts in the comments section at ESLnewscast.com. ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

One of the most famous horse races in the world happened on Saturday in the United Kingdom. But the actual race was only a small part of the story. I’ll tell you the whole story today.  It’s Tuesday, and you’re listening to the DailyCast from ESLnewscast.com. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening today. For almost two hundred years in England, springtime has been horse racing time, and specifically, Grand National time. The Grand National is a special kind of horse race called a steeplechase. During the steeplechase race, 40 horses have to run about seven kilometers and jump over 30 fences. These are some of the most athletic, or physically strong and active, horses in the world, and they’re controlled by some of the best jockeys, or horse riders, in the world. So, on the first Saturday in April, millions of people in the UK and all around the world sit down and turn on their TVs to watch these horses compete in the Grand National. There’s a lot of money involved in the race; the prize money for the winners is about US$1.5 million, but the real money is the hundreds of millions of dollars that people bet on the race. If a person bets money on something, that means they pay money to predict what they think will happen. If they’re right, then they can make a lot more money. But if they’re wrong, then they can lose their money. Betting is also called gambling, and people love gambling on the Grand National. It’s one reason why so many people care so much about this race. But there’s another group of people who also care about the race. They aren’t fans, or supporters, of it, and they are actually opposed to, or against, the race. They think that the Grand National is an extremely dangerous race, and they also believe that it’s cruel, or unkind, to the horses. The race only lasts about 10 minutes, but as I said, 40 horses are crowded together, going as fast as cars and jumping over very high fences. And if you look at the history of the race, then you’ll probably agree with these people that it is dangerous. In the past 20 years, 18 horses have died. Some had heart attacks and others fell, broke bones, and had to be euthanized, or killed because they were suffering. In fact, in last year’s race, one horse fell at the first fence; two fell at the second fence; three fell at the fifth fence; and at the 11th fence, the best horse in the race and the one that most people thought would win, also fell. It broke multiple bones and had to be euthanized. Before this year’s Grand National race, smaller races took place on Thursday and Friday. And on each of those days, a horse died. So, as the big race began on Saturday, nobody knew what would happen. Would any more horses die? If that happened, could there ever be another Grand National race? What finally happened on Saturday? Well, to everyone’s surprise, 40 horses started the race, and all 40 of them finished it. None of the horses were hurt, and the winner was a horse named Auroras Encore. The 2013 Grand National was a safe race, and that’s great news. But will next year’s race also be safe? The Grand National has ended, but the debate over it continues. ~~~~~~~~~~ Were you one of the millions of people who watched this race? Did you bet any money on it? And with horses dying almost every year, do you think the race is safe, or should it be stopped? Share your thoughts on our website. ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

Have you heard of H7N9 before? It’s being called “the new bird flu”, and I’ll tell you about it today.  Happy Monday! You’re listening to ESLnewscast.com’s DailyCast podcast. I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening. Since February, a new kind of bird flu has killed six people and infected about a dozen more in eastern parts of China, including Shanghai. The flu, which is the short name for influenza, is a dangerous viral infection that makes people sick and can sometimes kill them. If it’s a bird flu, that means it originated, or came from, birds and spread, or was passed on, to humans. H7N9 is the name of this new kind of bird flu, and because it is new, we don’t know much about it. But now that six people have already died, we do know that it is deadly. China’s government is reacting to these deaths from H7N9 by taking a lot of precautions, which are safety measures meant to prevent more deaths from happening. Also, it doesn’t want the virus to spread across the country or to other countries. The government has already killed tens of thousands of pigeons, which are a kind of bird, that were being sold at markets in Shanghai. It was necessary to kill all of these birds, since the government doesn’t know which birds, if any, are infected. That’s because birds with H7N9 don’t show any symptoms, or signs, of the virus. As you can imagine, that makes it very difficult to know if and where it has already spread. Even worse, if the virus does spread, it could become more powerful and therefore, more difficult to stop. That’s bad news. But there is also some good news. So far, H7N9 doesn’t appear to be spreading easily between humans. In other words, if one person has it, they might not be able to easily infect the people around them. And only a few people have gotten this flu. So, hopefully it won’t become an epidemic, or widespread occurrence. But as I said, the government in China believes that it could become an epidemic, so it is taking a lot of precautions. And in the rest of the world, many people can only watch, wait, and hope that H7N9 doesn’t come to their country. ~~~~~~~~~~ Have you heard about this new kind of bird flu? Does it worry you? If you live in China, are you doing anything special to protect yourself? And if you live in other countries, do you feel concerned, or worried, at all? Leave a comment on our website, and let us know your thoughts! ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

It’s The Weekend at ESLnewscast.com.  The weekend is a time for relaxing and taking a break from work. It’s also a time for doing things that you just don’t have time to do during the week. One thing that I try to do on the weekends is study a bit. And I have lots of options. If I want to learn something new, I can take a class at one of many different universities in America, or even at a university in some other country like England or Singapore. I’m not actually enrolled at these universities, which means that I’m not a student at them. And I don’t pay any money to learn. So, you might be wondering how I take these classes. Actually, I take them through a website called Coursera.com. Have you ever heard of Coursera? It’s a new way to learn, and it’s called a MOOC, “M-O-O-C”. That’s an acronym, meaning each letter stands for a word. And MOOC stands for “Massive Open Online Course”. That’s a perfect way to describe Coursera, because its courses, or classes, are massive, meaning they’re really large. They’re also open, because anyone can take them. And of course, the courses are online. Other websites offer MOOCs, but I think Coursera is the most popular one. And I really like it. It’s been about eight months since I began using Coursera. During that time, I’ve taken courses in computer programming, design, the food and energy systems, and even songwriting. The reason why I’m telling you about Coursera this weekend is because it’s not just for native English speakers. In every class that I’ve been in, there have been thousands of students. And many of them were from other countries and were not native English speakers. You might be thinking, how can they understand everything the professor is saying? Well, I’m sure that it is difficult sometimes, but there are a few things that can help. First, a lot of the lecture videos (and a lecture is a speech that a professor gives) have subtitles. That means you can listen to what the professor’s saying while reading the subtitles, or words on the screen. And in some of the courses, I’ve noticed that there are actually subtitles in foreign languages, like Spanish. Second, the videos all have a great feature: you can push a button to change the speed. If the professor is speaking too quickly, you can slow it down. Or, if the lecture is too slow, you can accelerate it, or speed it up. So, Coursera is not just for native English speakers. It’s for anyone who wants to learn, whether they’re interested in science, technology, history, writing, math, philosophy, art, or just about anything else. If you’re listening to this podcast, then that means your English is really good. And, it also means you’re interested in learning, just like me! So, maybe the next time I take a Coursera course, we’ll be classmates! ~~~~~~~~~~ That’s it for this weekend. Besides English, what else are you interested in learning about? I’m interested in learning more about writing, the environment, food, and Mandarin Chinese. If you’re already taking a Coursera class, or if you know about any other good online education websites, please let me know! Leave a comment at ESLnewscast.com. Thanks for listening, and have a nice rest of the weekend. I’ll talk to you again on Monday.

Today, on the DailyCast: it’s Friday, so that means it’s the week in review!  Happy Friday, everyone! Welcome to the DailyCast from ESLnewscast.com. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening. Let’s begin by talking about endings, and specifically, the endings of words. These are called suffixes and are the opposite of prefixes, which are found at the beginning of words. You can learn a lot about a word’s meaning by looking at its ending. On Tuesday, our story was about a deadly landslide in Tibet. I described Tibet as being a “mountainous” area. The “o-u-s” ending added to the word “mountain” changes it to an adjective used to describe Tibet. An “o-u-s” ending means “full of” or “having”. So, the adjective “mountainous” means “full of mountains”. Tibet is full of mountains; it’s mountainous. “Dangerous” means “having danger”. “Spacious”, which is usually used to describe places, means “full of space”. You could say something like, “Wow! Your new house is so spacious!” Like most English language rules, this “o-u-s” rule isn’t always true. But if you know about it, then it’s the type of thing that can help you better understand English. So, it’s something that you should try to pay attention to. Does that make sense? Can you think of any other words with the “o-u-s” ending? Now, I’d like to make a really simple, but important, point about grammar. If you’re talking about something that is happening right now, you use what’s called the present continuous. That means you use a form of the verb “to be” – “I am”, “you are”, “he/she/it is”, “we are”, “they are” – and then add “ing” to the end of your action verb, which is what someone or something is doing. An example of this can be found in the sentence from Tuesday’s story: “Right now, rescuers are trying to remove the rocks and mud that buried these miners.” “Are” is a form of the verb “to be”, and I added “ing” to the action verb “try”. “Are trying”. Here are a couple of other examples: “I am talking.” “You are listening.” Or, if you feel bored by all of this, then, “This grammar lesson is making you tired!” Again, I know that this is a basic grammar point, but I see a lot of non-native speakers write things like, “I’m learn English”, or, “She is go to school.” So, what are you doing? Hopefully, you are listening to me and understand what I am saying! ~~~~~~~~~~ Okay, let’s skip ahead to Thursday’s story. I want to explain two things to you about a two-letter word: it. If you’re talking about a government, company, country, or other thing, you must refer to each of these by using the pronoun “it”. For example, in Thursday’s story, I was talking about an iPhone app, so at one point in the story, I said, “its users”, meaning “the app’s users”, because the app is a thing. Here are a few more examples: “Toyota is a famous Japanese car company, and it has thousands of employees.” Toyota is a company; a company is a thing. You wouldn’t say, “They have thousands of employees.” You’d say “it has”, because it is a company. Here’s another one: “Canada is a beautiful country and it has a lot of natural resources, like oil, wood, and coal.” Canada is a country; a country is a thing. So, again, use “it”. Many people, including native English speakers, get confused about this and use the word “they” when the word “it” should be used. When you’re talking about things, “they” should only be used if you are talking about multiple things. “Canada, the US, and Mexico are all countries, and they are connected to each other.” If you’ve confused “it” and “they” before, don’t worry. As I said, many native English speakers have, too. And I certainly have! Okay, here’s another form of the word “it”, and this is something that a lot of native English speakers also have trouble with. When there is an apostrophe between the “t” and the “s” in the word “it’s”, that means “it is”. For example, when you say, “It’s raining outside”, you mean that it is raining outside.

What do you do if you’re a teenager who knows a lot about computers? Build an iPhone app. And what do you do if that iPhone app is downloaded over 750,000 times in just five months? Sell it to Yahoo, for millions of dollars.  It’s Thursday, and you’re listening to ESLnewscast.com’s DailyCast podcast. Welcome! I’m Cory Renzella, and I’m glad you’re listening today. Today, I’ll tell you the story of Nick D’Aloisio, which I already summarized, or gave a short explanation of. And it’s appropriate that I summarized his story, because he’s become a millionaire by doing exactly that: summarizing stories. Nick D’Aloisio is 17 years old and lives in Britain. You may have heard of the iPhone app that he made. It’s called “Summly”, and it summarizes news stories. So, instead of reading an entire article, its users can read just a couple of sentences to understand what the article is about. Last week, the technology company Yahoo bought it for millions of dollars. That means D’Aloisio is now a millionaire. Since he’s so young, he’s being compared to Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Their stories are somewhat similar, because they both created amazing products at a very young age. D’Aloisio taught himself how to program, or write code to create computer programs, in 2008, after Apple’s App Store opened. He was only 12 years old at the time, but he had already begun publishing apps. As he created better apps, they became more popular. And in 2011, he began selling an app called “Trimit”, which shortened online articles. It was immediately popular, and investors, or people who invest, or put their money into companies, contacted him. They invested over a million dollars in his company, and he hired a small team of workers to help him. He continued to improve his app, and as I said, Yahoo bought it last week. That’s not bad for a kid who hasn’t even graduated from high school, is it? And D’Aloisio won’t be graduating from high school, at least not with his classmates. That’s because he’s taking a break from school to begin his new job at Yahoo, where he’ll continue to improve the technology that he created. In Nick D’Aloisio’s words, all of this is “a hobby that’s gone crazy”. A hobby is something that you do for fun. But now, his hobby has made him a millionaire. ~~~~~~~~~~ Apps can do some amazing things and can make some people very rich. Have you ever created one? Do you have any ideas for apps that you think could make you rich? If you visit ESLnewscast.com, you can tell us what you think – but don’t worry, you don’t have to tell us any of your ideas. That’s it for today. Remember that tomorrow, we’ll be doing our “week in review” episode, talking about some grammar and vocabulary from this week’s stories, and of course, asking you questions about them. ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

When you used the internet last week, was it slower than usual? If so, you may not be alone.  Welcome to the DailyCast from ESLnewscast.com. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening. It’s been called “the biggest cyberattack ever”, and it happened last week. A cyberattack is an attack that happens on the internet. This cyberattack lasted almost two weeks, and the target was an organization called Spamhaus. Spamhaus is a nonprofit organization that helps keep spam, which are all of those annoying messages, from getting into your email inbox. Spamhaus had recently blocked emails from a Dutch company called Cyberbunker. Cyberbunker thought that was unfair, and they believe that Spamhaus has too much power to decide what is and what isn’t spam. So, Cyberbunker responded, or reacted, by working with groups in Russia and Eastern Europe to attack Spamhaus. If you want to attack a website like Spamhaus, a good way is to try to continuously contact it. This sends a lot of traffic to it, and all of that traffic slows down the website until it stops working. It’s similar to putting too many letters into a mailbox. The mailbox becomes blocked, and there’s no room for any new letters. This was probably the largest cyberattack ever. Even though it was only between Spamhaus and Cyberbunker, many other people may have been affected, too. I say, “may have been affected”, because some people are saying that the internet was slow in parts of Europe and Asia, but other people are saying that there really wasn’t any slowdown. Whether or not the internet was slowed down, this cyberattack has ended, and everything should be back to normal now. But the important question is, when will the next attack be? And, what – or who – will be the next target? These cyberattacks are very hard to stop, and it’s not easy to find out who did them. If the target of this attack had been a government, a large bank, or even an email provider like Yahoo or Google, then there could have been some real damage. And the truth is, it’s probably inevitable, or unavoidable, that there will be another attack. Individuals, or people like you and me, can protect themselves by using anti-virus software and keeping it updated. But that isn’t a complete solution to a cyberattack. So, probably the only other thing you can do is simply hope that it doesn’t happen to you! ~~~~~~~~~~ As I said, millions of people in Europe and Asia may have been affected by this cyberattack last week. Were you one of those people? What do you do to protect yourself online? And did you even know that this attack was happening? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment on our website. ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

Today, on the DailyCast: a huge landslide in Tibet buries 83 workers.  It’s Tuesday, and this is the DailyCast from ESLnewscast.com. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening. On Friday in Tibet, a huge landslide buried, or covered up, 83 workers. A landslide is a mass of earth and rocks that quickly slides down the side of a mountain, and this one covered an area of about three square kilometers. So, it was difficult for the rescuers, or people who save others, to find anyone. At least 36 bodies have been found, but most are still missing, and everyone is believed to be dead. Almost three million people live in Tibet, which is a mountainous area west of China. In recent years, it’s been a popular place for mining, which means digging into the earth to extract, or take out, minerals like gold, copper, and lead. That’s because there could be US$100 billion of minerals buried in Tibet’s ground. But mining can be extremely dangerous; it can cause landslides, which is exactly what happened in Tibet on Friday. Right now, rescuers are trying to remove the rocks and mud that buried these miners. But as I said, it was such a huge landslide, that many of them might never be found. When a tragedy, or terrible event, like this happens, it makes people focus on, or pay attention to, the place where it has happened. And this place – Tibet – is a place that is much more important than its small population, because it’s the home of Tibetan Buddhism, which is a religion that is led by the Dalai Llama. Tibetan Buddhists and the Chinese have fought against each other for many years, because each side believes that it should control Tibet. In recent years, more and more Chinese have been moving into Tibet, often to do mining work. This makes the Tibetans fear for their culture. But China says that it is bringing jobs and money into the area, and helping the people who live there. All of this mining might be hurting Tibet’s culture or it might be helping Tibetans. But no matter what its affect is, this disaster is a reminder that when major things are done to the earth, like mining, there can often be dangerous and deadly consequences. ~~~~~~~~~~ “Landslide” is a compound word, meaning it is two words put together to make one. Those two words are “land” and “slide”. A few others are “backache”, “seafood”, and “teapot”. There are many compound words in English, and if you can think of any more, write them down in the comments section of our website. ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

Today is a good day to be a little more careful than usual, because you don’t want to look like a fool! I’ll explain after this.  Welcome to the DailyCast from ESLnewscast.com. Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening. Today is Monday, and it’s not a normal day. Nobody knows when or why it started, but in many parts of the world, everybody knows to be careful on April 1st. That’s because today is April Fools’ Day, the one day of the year when it is okay to play tricks on people. If you play a trick on someone, that means you try to confuse or embarrass them, because you think it will be funny. April Fools’ Day has existed, or been around, for hundreds of years, and during that time, there have been some famous tricks played on people. And now, with the internet, it’s a lot easier to make a lot of people look like fools, or people who are tricked. So, what are some of the famous tricks that have been played on April 1st? Let’s start with the year 1957, on England’s popular TV channel, BBC. The newsperson reported that the winter had been very mild, meaning not very cold, so the spaghetti trees in the country of Switzerland were doing very well. Spaghetti is a long, skinny kind of pasta and is a popular food in places like Italy. Can you imagine spaghetti growing on a tree like an apple? The BBC showed a fake, or not real, video of Swiss farmers picking the spaghetti off of the trees, and many viewers, or people watching TV, believed it! In fact, they wanted to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. Of course, those people were April Fools, because you cannot grow spaghetti on a tree. Let’s fast-forward to the year 1998, but we’ll still talk about food. That was when Burger King, the fast food company, announced that it had a new Whopper, the name of its hamburger, made especially for left-handed people. If you are left-handed, it means you do most things, like write and brush your teeth, with your left hand. The opposite of left-handed is right-handed. So, to make it a left-handed burger, Burger King announced that it would rotate, or move in a circle, all of the condiments, which are things like ketchup and mayonnaise, 180 degrees. 180 degrees is half of a circle, and this was supposed to help left-handed people hold their hamburgers without spilling, or dropping, the condiments. Burger King went so far as to publish a full-page advertisement in an American newspaper. The whole thing was a hoax, meaning it was faked, but that didn’t stop many customers from going to Burger King and requesting, or asking for, their own left-handed Whoppers. Finally, we look at Google. The massive internet company plays jokes every year, and 2012 was no different. Google owns YouTube, the website that lets you post and watch videos. On April 1st, it announced that it was selling what it called “The YouTube Collection”. You could buy every video that has ever been uploaded, or put onto, YouTube, and they would all be sent to your house. 175 trucks would bring thousands of boxes to your door, and a new delivery would arrive every week. The new delivery was necessary, because about one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. Can you imagine having that many boxes delivered to your house? In 1957, people believed that spaghetti grew on trees. In 1998, they thought Burger King was making a special hamburger just for left-handed people. And last year, in 2012, some people might have tried to order 175 trucks worth of YouTube videos. All three of those things happened in different years on this special day. ~~~~~~~~~~ So, what do you think of those April Fools’ jokes? Do they mean that the world is getting smarter or that it is getting dumber? And do you think we are a world of fools, or are these some pretty clever tricks? Let us know, by leaving a comment on our website. ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world,

It’s The Weekend at ESLnewscast.com.  Hello, I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening. How’s your weekend been so far? I hope you’re having a good one! This weekend, we celebrate the life of Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born in Germany on March 31, 1685. Although Johann Sebastian Bach hasn’t been alive for 263 years, he remains, or is still, one of the most famous composers ever. A composer is a person who writes music, and Bach wrote a lot of music in his lifetime. This probably won’t surprise you, but Bach came from a family of musicians, or people who make music. His father, uncles, and brothers were all musicians. So, he was involved in music from an early age, and he learned how to play different musical instruments, or objects that produce music. Two of the instruments he learned to play were the violin and the organ, which is similar to the piano, but has pipes and uses air to control the noises. Organs are popular in churches and are often played during weddings in America. If you’re confused when you hear the word “organ”, that’s okay, because it has two very different meanings. I just explained the first meaning, but organs are also parts of a person’s body. The brain, lungs, kidneys, and stomach are all examples of organs. Anyway, back to Bach: when he was about 10 years old, both of his parents died. He went to live with an older brother, who continued to teach him all about music and introduced him to other talented, or very good, musicians. Among those was Johan Pachelbel, whose music is also very famous today. So, between his family and the people he met, Bach had a great musical education. But he was also gifted, meaning he had a lot of natural abilities. As an adult, he wrote music that was very complex, or complicated, but was also very easy to listen to. He was influenced by the Lutheran Church, which he was a member of, and Italian and French music. And he integrated, or combined, all of those styles into his own music. Bach was married twice and had 20 children, although half of them died during childhood. Of the 10 who lived to be adults, three of them also became accomplished, or successful, musicians. At the end of Bach’s life, he lost his vision, meaning he went blind. And in the year 1750, at the age of 65, he died. Other famous composers, like Beethoven and Mozart, greatly admired, or thought well of, Bach. But it wasn’t until the 1800s that the rest of the world realized how special Johann Sebastian Bach’s music really was. Today, the whole world appreciates his music. He wrote a lot of it and is certainly one of the greatest composers ever. So, to celebrate his birthday, which was 328 years ago this weekend, I thought I’d play for you one of his more famous pieces of music. It’s his Brandenburg Concerto Number 3, which he wrote around 1721, and I hope you’ll enjoy it. Thanks for listening. Have a great rest of the weekend, and I’ll talk to you again on Monday. Bye-bye.