TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It is a set of meetings, held in various (不同的) cities around the world every year. TED meetings invite speakers to give reports on different topics. The speakers are from different parts of the world. They are usually experts in their fields and talk about new ideas and recent developments that are important to their work. The speakers are often also well-known with people such as Microsoft giant Bill Gates and the world-famous expert, Jane Good all, having given talks. There are many talks on environment and international development, aid work, and how to help poor people with all kinds of new ideas. There are also a number of talks about education and education reform (改革).

    As the talks cover a wide variety of topics, all speakers have a strict time limit — each report must last no longer than 18 minutes.

    Like all organizations, however, TED has had its downs as well as ups. Some people think the organization is turning intelligent members of the scientific and other communities into entertainers (表演者). What else, those who attend must be very privileged (有特权的) with tickets for TED events costing about $ 6,000 (or more).

    However, www.ted.com, the organization's website can make many great talks become accessible to everybody who has an Internet connection. Every weekday, a new video is uploaded (更新) from a TED event, allowing people around the world to listen to the talks for free. At only 18 minutes, even if the video is not that interesting, you know you are not going to waste too much time.

Most TED talks are in English but there are talks available in other languages, too. As a result, the site is excellent for practicing English and learning new vocabulary, especially in a topic that you find interesting and enjoyable.

    The Silk Road is the name of different roads that long ago connected Europe, Africa and Asia. People reached these different places along these roads. Scientists believe people began to travel the Silk Road about 3000 years ago. By the time the Chinese silk trade became important in the world. The Silk Road covered almost 6500 kilometers. It went from Rome to China, which is from the West to the Far East.

    Merchants travelled along the Silk Road to carry silk, of course. They also carried and traded other things like spices (香料), cloth, jewels and gold.

    Along and around these ancient path(小路), have come many fascinating and mysterious stories.

    It is said that Roman soldiers who lost a war travelled through central Asia. They decided to live somewhere near the ancient Chinese villages. Some of these Romans married local Chinese women and the legend of the blond-haired, blue-eyed tribes of China was started.

    Some historians believe that the people of Kashmir were taken away from their country Israel. They were prisoners (俘虏) of war almost 2800 years ago. People say that these people travelled along the Silk Road. They kept their Jewish way of life for a long time.

    During its busiest period, the Silk Road allowed people from many different cultures and countries to meet each other and mix. The Silk Road allowed the sharing of valuable things and new ideas. It included people and trading goods from different areas. All these peoples travelled the Silk Road. And they shared goods, stories, languages, and cultures.

    In modern times, the old Silk Road routes (路线) are still used, but now they are crossed by trains instead of camels and horses. There is even silk route museum in Jiuquan in China. It has over 35, 000 objects from all along the Silk Road. In this way, China protects the history of many countries and peoples.

    In a map of the world you can easily find two big cities, London and New York. London is the biggest city in Europe. New York is the biggest city in America. The streets in London are crowded and there is one of the world's biggest underground railway systems(地铁系统) .The streets in New York are just as crowded as those in London. And the New York subway carries more people each day than the London underground. There are a lot of big stores in these two cities. But New York has more supermarkets than London.

    In London there are many palaces(宫殿) and churches, for example, St. Paul's. New York isn't as old as London, and it hasn't got many old buildings. But its skyscrapers(摩天大楼) are much bigger than the buildings in London.

    London has more parks than New York, But New York's Central Park is much bigger than the biggest park in London.

    A four-year-old girl is lying in the arms of a doctor. She has just become mother-less. A bomb destroyed her home and killed her mother.

    Every day we see pictures like this on TV or in newspapers. We see young Iraqi children begging for food and water from American and British soldiers. They move through towns and cities towards the capital, Baghdad. We see these children following grown-ups, carrying bags of things almost the same size as their small bodies as they run away from their homes.

    "Dad, why are the Americans attacking us? Are we going to be killed? "asks the son of Abu Sinar, an lraqi engineer. Abu finds it hard to explain this war to his eight-year-old son.

    He tries to comfort him by saying, "The bombs are far away from us. The Ameri cans are fighting the soldiers. We are going to be all right. "Abu knows this isn't al-ways the truth, but what else can he do? In Baghdad, parents give their children sleeping pills to make them sleep so that they won't hear the sound of bombing. And all the schools are closed.

    "All we can do is to listen to and hear the war, "said Abu." People in Baghdad, men and women, young and old, have to live in fear. We don't know where the next bornbs are going. We can do nothing but wait to be killed. "