I. Reading The United Nations (UN) is an international organization which was created to ease cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achieving world peace. It was founded on April 25th, 1945, when the UN Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco. It was attended by 50 governments and a number of non-governmental organizations. The five permanent members of the Security Council are France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Nowadays there are 192 member states. The United Nations system is based on five principal administrative bodies: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice. The main United Nations headquarters are in New York City. They hold regular meetings throughout the year to discuss and decide on a variety of issues. The International Court of Justice is located in Hague; other major agencies are based in the UN offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi. The official languages of the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. English and French are two working languages used by the Secretariat.
II. Writing From: Ann To: Steve Subject: Art Exhibition Hi Steve, I'm writing to tell you about the Art Exhibition I visited yesterday. The International Exhibition of Contemporary Arts "UKRAINIAN ART WEEK" was organized by Next Art Foundation with the support of National Artist Union of Ukraine at one of the best Kyiv exhibition areas - Modern Fine Art Museum of Ukraine. The exhibition sections included painting, photography, graphic, sculpture, and folk crafts. I liked the photography best. The photos showed the episodes from the life of people around the world. The authors really managed to catch the fleeting moment and showed the people's feelings and emotions in different life situations. Do you like visiting Art Exhibitions? Kind regards, Ann
III. Speaking Since the beginning of civilization, man has tried to control the environment in which he lives, to shape it or even transform it to his needs. He has logged timber and cleared forests, drained marshes, embanked and dammed rivers, in order to provide himself with shelter, livelihood and safety. The impact of human activities on the environment was not significant as long as the human population was small and the means were limited. Although ten years ago the word "ecology" meant nothing for the majority of people, today people talk about the environment more and more. Environmental protection is the main problem for humanity nowadays because of the different kinds of pollution: water pollution, soil pollution, air pollution and light pollution. We have polluted the air with chemicals from cars and factories. This has caused serious health problems for thousands of people all over the world! Fumes from cars and factories send gases into the atmosphere. These gases mix with rain water and as the result we have acid rains. Acid water runs into the rivers, and the water there becomes so acid that fish cannot live there. People are worried about soil pollution. It happens because farmers use too many chemicals to grow food. These chemicals cause allergy and destroy people's health. It's important to plant plants and trees as they produce oxygen which is one of our most basic needs. But instead, people cut down trees to build roads and houses. As the result habitats of many animals have been destroyed and they have to find new places to live.
We use water every day without even thinking about it. Yet there are terrible water shortages all over the world. In fact, over half of the people in the world have to live with water shortages every day. Fortunately, there are things that we can all do to save water. The solutions begin at home. We can save water from our baths and use it for the garden, instead of wasting hundreds of litres of clean water. Sometimes it's better to wash your blouse by hand than in a washing machine.
If I were the leader of my country, I would ban cars because they cause too much air pollution. I would also improve public transport. People wouldn't need to use their cars so much then. If people walk more often or use bicycles our cities would be healthier places to live in.
Governments can help by passing laws to stop factories from wasting and polluting water. If factories recycled water and stopped pouring chemicals into our lakes and rivers, there would be a lot more clean water around.
