Thirsty in Karachi
      After two weeks in Karachi, I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry. Either way, it involves water—or rather the lack of it.
      In Western Europe or the US, you only have to turn on the tap and you’ll see a jet of cold water, ready to drink, cook and bathe in, or wash the car. Turn on the tap in Karachi and you’ll be lucky to fill a few buckets. Until 1947 the city was part of British India, whose engineers built and maintained a modest water supply network for the city’s 500,000 inhabitants. Today, Karachi is home to around 12 million people. Half of them live in slum townships, with little or no water through the mains. Even the rich half usually have to wait days before anything tickles through their pipes. And the coloured liquid that finally emerges is usually too contaminated to drink.
      Half usually have to wait days before anything tickles through their pipes. And the coloured liquid that finally emerges is usually too contaminated to drink.
      According to the state-owned Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, the city needs more than 2,500 million litres of water each day. The board currently supplies 1,650 million litres of which nearly 40 per cent is lost from leaks—and theft. Leaks are dime a dozen to water utilities the world over, but theft?
      Karachi’s unlikely water pirates turn out to be ordinary families struggling to get adequate supplies of one of life’s necessities. Stealing water takes many forms. The simplest is to buy a suction pump and get it attached to the water pipe that feeds your house from the mains. This should maximize your share of water every time the board switches on the supply. When the practice started 20 years ago, the pumps would be carefully hidden or disguised as garden ornaments. These days people hardly bother. The pumps are so widespread and water board inspectors so thin on the ground that when officials do confiscate a pump its owner simply buy a replacement.
      Insisting that people obey the law won’t work because most households have little alternative but to steal. For its part, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board says it would dearly like to make life easier, but finds itself mired in debt because most residents either won’t pay water charges or can’t afford to the Urban Resource Centre, a Karachi-based think tank, of the 1.2 million known consumers of water only 750,000 are billed, of whom  just 163,000 actually pay for their supplies. The board makes a perpetual loss, and there is no money to improve the system or even plug the leaks. Worse, the board increasingly relies on international loans from institutions such as the Asian Development Bank, which only makes its debt worse.
      The joke is that the owners of the suction pumps end up with little—if any—extra water. Your house is in a line with 20 other households all tapping into one horizontal pipeline. All you can end up doing, given you have pumps of equal strength, is redistribute each other’s entitlement and pay higher electricity bills into the bargain.
      Back home in London, I’ll remember not to complain about the water meter, or the hosepipe ban.

1．According to the passage, people in Karachi today suffer from a short supply of water because
  A. the water supply network built in 1947 has stopped to function.
  B. the city has become much larger than before.
  C. old networks can not meet the need of the city’s greatly-increased population.
  D. other city is longer a part of British India.

2. Now people in Karachi do not hide or disguise the suction pumps they use to steal water because
  A. the pumps are no longer wanted as garden ornaments.
  B. water supply board officials no longer confiscate them.
  C. it does not cost much money to buy a new one.
  D. many households have them and there are very few inspectors around to try to find them.

3. Confronted with a severe shortage of water supply, the city’s Water and Sewerage Board
  A. tries to improve the water supply system with borrowed money.
  B. is not making any effort to improve the situation.
  C. urges the consumers to obey the law.
  D. charges the consumers more for the water they use.

4.Which of the following is true of the owners of the suction pumps, if their neighbors have equally powerful pumps as they do?
  A. They get some extra water.
  B. They only pay more for electricity.
  C. They share what they can get with their neighbors.
  D. They replace their pumps with new ones.

5. Which of the following is true about the author when he is back home in London?
  A. He misses the days he spent in Karachi.
  B. He forgets the complaints he made in Karachi.
  C. He is content with the water supply in London.
  D. he complains about the water supply in London.
  The Wasteland
      A new catastrophe faces Afghanistan. The American bombing campaign is conspiring with years of civil conflict and drought to create an environmental crisis.
      Humanitarian and political concerns are dominating the headlines. But they are also masking the disappearance of the country’s once rich habitat and wildlife, which are quietly being crushed by war. The UN is dispatching a team of investigators to the region next month to evaluate the damage. “A health environment is a prerequisite for rehabilitation,” says Klaus Topfer, head of the UN environment Programme.
      Much of south-east Afghanistan was once lush forest watered by monsoon rains. Forests now cover less than 2 per cent of the country. “The worst deforestation occurred during Talibab rule, when its timber mafia denuded forests to sell to Pakistani markets,” says Usman Qazi, an environmental consultant based in Quetta, Pakistan. And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of what remains.
      The refugee crisis is also wrecking the environment, and much damage may be irreversible. Forests and vegetation are being cleared for much-needed farming, but the gains are likely to be only short-term. “Eventually the land will be unfit for even the most basic form of agriculture,” warns hammad Naqi of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Refugees—around 4 million as the last count—are also cutting into forests for firewood.
      The hail of bombs falling on Afghanistan is making life particularly hard for the country’s wildlife. Birds such as the pelican and endangered Siberian crane cross eastern Afghanistan as they follow one of the world’s great migratory thoroughfares from Siberia to Pakistan and India. But the number of the birds flying across the region has dropped by a staggering 85 per cent. “Cranes are very sensitive and they do not use the route if they see any danger,” says Ashiq Ahgmad, an environmental scientist for the WWF in Peshawar, Pakistan, who has tracked the collapse of the birds migration this winter.
      The rugged mountains also usually provide a safe have for mountain leopards, gazelles, bears and Marco Polo sheep—the world’s largest species. “The same terrain that allows fighters to strike and disappear back into the hills has also historically enabled wild life to survive,” says Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation society, based in New York. But he warns they are now under intense pressure from the bombing and invasions of refugees and fighters.
      For instance, some refugees are hunting rare snow leopards to buy a safe passage across the border. A single fur can fetch $2,000 on the black market, says Zahler. Only 5,000 or so snow leopards are thought to survive in central Asia, and less than 100 in Afghanistan, their numbers already decimated by extensive hunting and smuggling into Pakistan before the conflict. Timber, falcons and medicinal plants are also being smuggled across the border. The Talibab once controlled much of this trade, but the recent power vacuum could exacerbate the problem.
      Bombing will also leave its mark beyond the obvious craters. Defence analysts says that while depleted uranium has been used less in Afghanistan that in the Kosovo conflict, conventional explosives will litter the country with pollutants. They contain toxic compounds such as cyclonite, a carcinogen, and rocket propellants contain perchlorates, which damage thyroid glands.

1. All of the following are causes of the environmental crisis in Afghanistan EXCEPT
  A. American bombing.                           
  B. heavy monsoon rains.
  C. years of lack of rain.                     
  D. fighting among the Afghanis.

2. According to the passage, the main cause of the loss of the country’s forests is
  A. the flooding caused by the monsoon rain.
  B. the intense bombing of the Taliban troops.
  C. the improper use of the trees for benefits during Taliban rule.
  D. the fire set to burn the forests by the Taliban troops.

3. Most of the migratory bird no longer fly across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India because
  A. they change their route from time to time.
  B. some birds have collapsed while flying.
  C. they have been threatened by the bombs dropped on the country.
  D. they are scared by the big animals in the mountains.

4. In which of the following ways do the refugees threaten the survival of such wild animals as the snow leopards?
  A. They hunt the animals for food.
  B. They fight in the rugged mountains that provide a haven for the animals.
  C. They hunt the animals to make profits.
  D. They drive the animals away from their homes in the mountains.

5. Which of the following CANNOT be inferred from the last paragraph?
  A. Depleted uranium is not a kind of conventional explosives. 
  B. Craters are not the only damage done by bombs.
  C. The conventional bombs are no less damaging to environment than the non-conventional ones.
  D. Fewer people were killed in bombing in Afghanistan than in Kosovo.