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I read an article on the paper and the title is “He is still a danger to the burglar.” It is about the British justice system.

A farmer shot dead a burglar and injured the other burglar in his house at mid-night four years ago. Then he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life inprisoment. Lots of people and his MP (member of the parliament), also several newspapers work very hard to help him appeal. After two hard working years the court has changed his sentence from murder to manslaughter and from life sentence to five years jail prisonment. But all his supporters still want him to be free, the prison parole board refused to release him earlier at Christmas and their reason is he has no remorse for his killing and still a danger to the burglar. That means he needs to serve another year in jail. During the Christmas period, he received over 7500 Christmas cards form his supporters.

When he has finished his five years sentence it won’t be over for his case because the injured burglar is waiting for him to come back to the community. He has only served 18 months in jail out of his three years sentence so far. Now the burglar is free and has got a grant from the legal aid as he claimed that the injuries he suffered in both legs have left him unable to work (probably couldn’t do the burglary again). So the farmer still needs to face another court hearing when he is free and may be end up paying a massive amount of compensation to the burglar, and all the court fees and the legal fees will have to be paid by the tax payers.

What a British justice system!!!

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Hello dear friends, hoping you all are well, very well. I have a question to Jo, Duane, Benly: how do you name your bosses? For us in Russia almost all bosses are "directors". I know that the head of school is "principle". What about other head positions? Yours, Natalia

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Thanks Jo.

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Duane, We don't have states over here. The COUNTRIES (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) that make up Great Britain are divided into COUNTIES (always a spelling and reading headache for learners that - countries/counties!!!). They are not owned by any count or anything like that these days. They're just administrative divisions.

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I have a question about England.
Over here we have 50 states. Each state has several counties and inside the counties are cities and towns. The state being the largest land area, the counties being the next biggest land area and the cities or towns being the smallest of the three.
How does it work in England? I understand that originally the counties were areas of land given to a count or an earl. Does that still happen today and does he get to keep the land or just take care if it? How does it work in England?
Thanks in advance. - Duane

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Hello! Happy New Year�™ IIder, Natalia and everyone! I�fm Tomoko Okada. I�fm university student in Japan. I am studying the culture of Asia at the university. Although I do not know well about the culture of Russia, it is very cold in Japan in winter now. How is it there? Junichiro Koizumi who is Japan's prime minister has visited Russia now. By the visit to Russia of the prime minister, the news about Russia is going into Japan mostly. I think that the political situation of Japan and Russia gets used to a relation very warm only by exchanging conversation on a message board in this way although it cannot declare that it is not much good including the Kuril Islands dispute. Moreover, it is glad if it can talk with various countries in the world, and people on this message board. Bye for now.

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Hello Michiko Isobe,

Many thanks for your message. I am very interested in Japanese culture, I suppose the Japanese and Chinese are very similar in many area. Our Chinese New Year is on the first day of the February this year. I will ask my classmate about some of your New Year culture because she is Japanese. Hopefully I can talk to you again after next week because I have some major exams next week, which makes me very busy at the moment indeed. I only can say “SHINNEN OMEDETOU” for the time being