Mingans and Phoeniciais plied the Mediterranean trading many goods and spreading culture and new ideas.

it foreshadows the theme of the paragraph and hints the topic that will be discussed in the paragraph!

barrio is a spanish word meaning neighborhood. in spain, several latin american countries and the philippines, the term is also used officially to denote a division of a municipality while a ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, typically as a result of social, legal, or economic pressure. the term may have originally been used in venice to describe the part of the city to which jews were restricted and segregated.

b.unemployment reached nearly 25 percent.