Words and Grammar. a Choose the synonyms from the box: to announce, to kill, to stay in prison, to shoot, to begin

a Choose the synonyms from the box:

to stroll .. to walle...................... to appear...................................

to be behind bars..................... to break out...............................

to gun down.............................. to declare..................................

to slay........................................ to stop........................................

b Match the English and Russian equivalents:

с Find the English equivalents in the text:

может начаться открытая воина...........................................................................................................

недавние главари Кали..........................................................................................................................

их возможные преемники.....................................................................................................................

футбольная площадка...........................................................................................................................

тюрьма строгого режима.....................................................................................................................

бывший когда-то союзником Кали....................................................................................................

они объявили группировку уничтоженной.......................................................................................

d Underline the adjectives in different degrees of comparison and explain their formation.

e Underline the nouns to which the articles refer and translate the following into Russian:

the Call cartel.................................................................................................................

the world's most powerful criminal organization...........................................................

the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers....................................................................................

the brutal slayings..........................................................................................................

a well-dressed man........................................................................................................

to pose as a lawyer........................................................................................................

the Palmira maximum security prison..........................................................................

a power struggle...........................................................................................................

e Explain the meaning of the following in English and give the Russian equivalents:

to run drug business from the comfort of the prison cells..............................................

these brutal slayings have silenced this talk...................................................................

when the Cali leaders were rounded up in 1995 and 1996.............................................

it remains a force to be reckoned with............................................................................

the mutual respect is giving way to a power struggle.....................................................

f Make the following short assignments on Grammar:

g Write out the words from the text which show that:

1 The author doubts that the Call cartel is dead.

2 Many officials believed it was dead many years ago.

3 The gangsters are changing their tactics.

h Write out all the information about the Cali mob from the text.

i What's your opinion?

• Say why the Cali cartel and the Valle mobsters are not allies any longer, to your mind.

• What brought about their splitting.

Skim and scan:

Read the text quickly and answer the following questions:

1. Does the text give more details on the Cali drug cartel?

2. Can the text be entitled Gringo Involvement

Text 2

Colombia's drugs police lately had another reminder of the narcotic trade's tight grip on the country. On November 9th, American officials discovered nearly half a tonne of cocaine and several kilograms of heroine on a Colombian Air Force plane in Florida. It is not the first time drugs have been found on air-force aircraft: two years ago, a stash of heroine was discovered on the plane that was about to take Mr. Samper to a United Nations meeting in New York.

On that occasion, officers denied the existence of a drug-trafficking ring within the air force. This time they are beating a humiliating retreat. The drug seizure forced the immediate resignation of the air-force chief, General Jose Manuel Sandoval; and six of his men have since been detained by the attorney-general's office. Both President Andres Pastrana and his defence minister say that they will, if necessary, let more heads roll to clean up the air force.

Mr. Pastrana may have more success in this than his predecessor did in busting the Cali cartel. He has a powerful new tool: extradition. A law introduced last year makes all traffickers arrested after it came into force eligible for extradition to the United States. Because the law is not retroactive this puts the mobsters already in jail out of America's reach – a loophole about which American officials have vehemently complained.

Colombians have always been keen – sometimes with reason to blame an American conspiracy for the latest surreal twist in their drugs wars. Some claimed to see gringo involvement in the recent prison killings. Speculation intensified last week when an agent from America's Drug Enforcement Administration was shot dead outside a fashionable Bogota nightspot. Police say the murder – the first killing of a DEA agent in Colombia – was the result of a bar-room brawl and had nothing to do with the current spate of drugs violence. Tell that to the conspiracy theorists!