CZYTANIE 4 EN [#14]

TASK 1

Read each of the texts below and then complete the sentence which comes under the text, using no more than five words to show that you have understood the text.

A prominent Gaddafi-era Libyan dissident, who has implicated Britain in his kidnap and torture, has accepted £2.2m in damages from the UK Government. Sami al-Saadi claims that when he and his family were in Hong Kong, MI6 - in collusion with both the Gaddafi regime and Washington - organised their kidnap and subsequent "rendition" to Libya, where al-Saadi was imprisoned and tortured. Britain, whose alleged role in the affair emerged after the fall of Gaddafi, has not admitted liability. Nonetheless, "I think the payment speaks for itself", said al-Saadi.

1. By offering a payout the UK government confirmed its ... al-Saadi.

The foreign ministers of the Organisation of American States agreed to “encourage the consideration of new approaches to the world drug problem in the Americas”, which some countries take to include the legalization of marijuana. But they also asserted the importance of fully implementing the prohibitionist UN convention on drugs.

2. The foreign ministers give ... policy on drugs.

Quaint on the outside, cozy and serene inside. There are no noisy TVs or flashing fruit machines. Instead, décor includes Tudor beams, coal fires, portraits of Henry VIII and dozens of whisky water jugs hanging from the ceiling. There are tiny rooms to choose from, such as the royal red, loungey Bishop’s Room or Ye Closet - a cubbyhole that intimately seats six people. The place is now a sedate drinking spot frequented by bankers, Fleet Street hacks and tourists eating homemade pork pies.

3. The passage is a description of ... published in a guide.

All 12, done in black pastel "with touches of browny red" are of fictional characters who look as though they've been "dissembled from mugshots" of the type of drifters and outlaws that Dylan celebrates in his songs. Each work bears an "apparently random, assumed name" and comes with a "rather arch" subtitle, all containing the word "face". (In Your Face, Blue in the Face, etc). Two or three of them - notably Nina Felix - "have a rough-hewn gaucheness that suggests they've come straight from Dylan's head", while the rest "appear copied from photographic fragments". For instance, Leon Leonard brings to mind Al Pacino with a soupcon of Leonard Cohen. Skip Sharpe has Jagger’s Planet of the Apes mouth housed in thicker-set Central Asian features with Dylan's folkie cap.

4. The fragment is a ... by Bob Dylan.

Germany’s exports have topped the trillion-euro mark for the first time, and anyone seeking clues to German economic resilience need look no further than Hans Feldmeier, an 87-year-old pensioner who was in the news for opening and eating a tin of lard he’d received in 1948 as part of U.S. relief rations. “I just didn’t want to throw it away,” he explained, adding that he’d kept the tin for “emergencies.” Can one imagine a Greek man saving a tin of lard for 64 years?

5. The text implies that but for Germans' ... their economy wouldn’t be so successful.

Time named Larry Summers a member of "the committee to save the world" for the way he managed the financial crises of the 1990-5. But as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, Mr Summers was instrumental in undoing the main provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had limited the types of risky activities banks could get involved in. Nine short years after the repeal of that act America had its worst financial crisis since the Depression. Mr Summers has also been an outspoken critic of regulating the derivatives market, which is estimated to be worth $639 trillion. If (more likely when) this market crashes, the havoc that will be wrought will make the financial crisis of 2008 look like a picnic at the beach. By deed and by word, Mr Summers has shown that he is not fit to run the Federal Reserve.

6. According to the author, Mr Summers is ... of a situation.

“Metaphors are powerful. They can herd us to war or bring us back from the brink.” Recently, we’ve heard Barack Obama urging “strikes” on Syria, “within time windows, but without boots on the ground”; Bashar al-Assad saying that “the Middle East is a powder keg, and the fuse is getting shorter”; and John Kerry calling those who hesitate to take action, “armchair isolationists”. All this would be “of merely curious interest”, were it not the case that metaphors affect how we think and act. Thus “strike” calls to mind “carefully aimed knockout punches or lightning bolts” – far more beguiling than “bomb”, which speaks of “explosions, injuries” and people “pounded to bits”. “But we should reflect on why they use them.” And we should do that, “whenever we’re told to get up from our chairs or strike anything”.

7. According to the author, politicians use metaphors to ... of a situation.

Vladimir Putin’s insistence that Russia has the right to veto military action in Syria amounts, according to The Guardian, to "the absurd position that ... international law is, in effect, what Russia decides it is". On the contrary, international law is what the UN Charter says it is. Under the Charter, threats to peace are to be addressed by the Security Council. As a member of the permanent five, Russia has the right to veto intervention, whether The Guardian likes it or not. But before brushing off such concerns as pettifogging legalism, advocates of intervention should ask themselves if they would be prepared to accept Russian intervention over an American, British or French veto, wherever and whenever Moscow saw fit.

8. The author implies that the press would react differently if Russia’s ... by Britain or France.

TASK 2

Match the statements below with the paragraphs they refer to. Each statement matches one and only one paragraph.

9. states firmly that a shift in long-standing alliances is not possible

10. shows how a hasty decision might affect a global player’s attitude

11. describes how internal dissatisfaction might trigger a disastrous reaction

12. elaborates on the condition which might force the introduction of a stricter policy

13. demonstrates how contemptuously a neighbouring country’s standing is treated

14. claims that a direct threat is less serious than it seems to be

15. illustrates that at times ensuring one’s own security may not be of prime importance

A
The apocalyptic streak of the North Korean regime is showing. After its nuclear bomb tests, one of its officials compared South Korea and its condemnation to “a new born puppy knowing no fear of a tiger”, and next threatened its final destruction. For good measure, a North Korean government agency with the job of releasing videos on You Tube posted one showing American soldiers and Barack Obama consumed by flames, with a cartoon nuclear test simulation. Hardly is it the behaviour of a state amenable to the idea of its own denuclearization

B
Indeed, with little forethought, North Korea has adopted a new preamble to its constitution about “a nuclear state and a militarily powerful state that is indomitable”, thus stating insolently that the negotiations over its security guarantees are conceivable whereas the ones over its nuclear arsenal are not any more. The outlook seems gloomy. Good-willed and indulgent though America has been so far, those terms would always be repudiated by any of its presidents, not to mention the one roasted and scorned on You Tube.

C
Chung Mong-joon, the founder of the Asian Institute, resorted to Aesop’s fables to sum up the predicament. The Greek fabulist provided the name for the “sunshine” policy which previous South Korean government adopted towards the North Korea. The sun and the north wind compete to make the traveller remove his cloak. The cold wind only makes him wrap up tighter; sunshine does the trick. Yet, with North Korea’s government, which kept working on the nuclear programme even as it pretended to be discussing its termination, that policy fell by the wayside. An Aesop fable, more relevant to the North, Mr Chung suggested, was the one about the frog that agrees to help carry a scorpion across a river, taken in by its promise not to sting, since that would entail the scorpion’s own drowning as well as the frog’s. But the scorpion stings regardless. That, after all, is its nature.

D
The only consolation is, experts concur, that were the regime’s sting as lethal as it professed to be, it would already have bitten somehow and put the world on full alert. For the time being, neither a bomb nor a delivery system have left their early development stage, and it will be long before America and others are in peril. A danger, however, is that it sells its know-how or material to terrorists unbothered about hitting targets with any precision, or to another state, such as Iran.

E
The world has run out of ideas how to disarm North Korea. Not only have negotiations appeared unavailing, but also economic sanctions have come to naught. Meanwhile, military strikes might provoke a catastrophic escalation. So the West is left to look to China to rein in its ally. Surprisingly, China might be keen to do it.

F
A nuclear North Korea compromises China’s security, by encouraging Japan and South Korea to upgrade their missile defences and to contemplate their own nuclear options. A recent poll by the Asian Institute shows two-thirds of South Koreans backing an indigenous nuclear programme and the return of American battlefield nuclear weapons. If it goes ahead, there will be no viable alternative for China but introduce economic assistance curtailment. After all, it is its food and fuel that keep the North going.

G
In Seoul, Shi Yinhong, a scholar in international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, called it nonsense to suggest that China was beginning to see North Korea as less of a strategic asset and more of a liability. North Korea, he said, had always been a liability, ever since 1950, when Kim Jong Un’s grandfather started the Korean war, embroiling China. Yet, now China’s indulgence appears to be stretched to a breaking point.

H
However, even Mr Shi, considers it neither likely nor desirable that China would cut the Kim dynasty loose. Chaos in the region and regime collapse are the prospect even more daunting than a nuclear-armed neighbour; hence, continued influence, however requiring concessions, would reap more benefits for it.

I
So, true to form, China seems to indulge its neighbour. It is now argued that it should give North Korea a ticking off but that the warning should be that clearly informs the strategic friends about China’s bottom line. A mere glance toward the camp of the US, South Korea and Japan should be perceived as a sufficient bow from its side. By no stretch of the imagination will it join it, as becoming North Korea’s enemy is neither the imaginable nor the desirable outcome for China.

J
That leaves the West with two feeble hopes. In the short term, maybe North Korea can be induced to pretend that it is prepared to put its nuclear assets on the negotiating table. But willing the scorpion to lie seems not better than hoping to trust it. In the long term, social upheaval is inevitable in Korea and one day the Kim dynasty will fall under the weight of its own incompetence. But even that prospect contains fear. As weapons of massive destruction have become the regime’s survival kit, one circumstance where it might actually use them is if it were in imminent danger.

TASK 3

You are going to read a newspaper article. For questions 16 - 20, choose answer A, B, C or D.