Test 7 reading

TEXTS
Tourist Information
DATE ACTIVITY PLACE
Aug 2nd Welcome to Chinese Music Festival Central Park
Come and listen to musical instruments
Aug 9th Museum of Music
from all corners of the world.
Visit the famous green park with trick
Aug 10th Pleasure Palace
fountains.
Enjoy the world’s most popular diving
Aug 23rd Cayman Islands
places.
Aug 24th Experience bike riding for a day. Hillside Alley

Note:
1. The tour office is open from 9 am until 8 pm except Fridays when we work from 2 pm till 7:30
pm.
2. We leave for the tours at 7:30 am and come back at 7 pm.

Bali
Bali, also known as 'the island of the Gods', is one of 17,000 islands between Asia and
Australia. It lies in the Indian Ocean.
If you land in Bali for a vacation, you can head straight to the north. The Puri Hotel, is a one-hour
journey from the airport, and is set in the mountains. Accommodation is in a villa with a private
pool and tennis court, and you even get the services of a personal butler. You’ll love the beautiful
place as well as the food. The local fare includes various rice dishes and plenty of tropical fruit.
After breakfast, you can go on a 2-hour organised land-safari up into the mountains to see rural life
first-hand.

Exercise Disciplined Warrior 2002

Madrid, Spain - Joint Command South West conducted NATO's annual exercise
DISCIPLINED WARRIOR from 21 January until 01 February 2002 in Pozuelo de Alarcon
(Madrid). The exercise was designed to improve the Southern Region's capabilities to carry out
Crisis Response Operations with emphasis on Peace Enforcement. Approximately 450 military
personnel were involved in the exercise including 150 augmentees from other NATO Headquarters.
This Command Post Exercise was conducted as a Computer Assisted Exercise using modern
simulation techniques and software and was supported by NATO's Southern Region HQs.
DISCIPLINED WARRIOR was scheduled by the Regional Headquarters Allied Forces Southern
Europe, which is the NATO Headquarters responsible for the Mediterranean area.

Nowhere to Hide
In the near future security personnel may soon employ a flashlight that can detect a human’s
presence through doors and walls up to 8-inches thick. As a person on the other side of a wall or
door breathes, the bar graph display of the flashlight rises and falls rhythmically.The device uses a
narrow 16-degree radar beam and specialized signal processor. The project of the self-contained 7-
pound radar flashlight is funded by the National Institute of Justice. According to researchers at the
Georgia Technical Institute, where the radar flashlight was developed, there will be modification
and testing for the next six months.

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 Test 7 reading
A Soldier’s Story
Ten days before D-Day our brigade moved nearer to Southampton, built up camp and stayed
in tented accommodation. From that time on, we were forbidden to leave bivouac area or have any
outside contact. Our vehicles were moving onto several ships to minimize losses in the event of ship
sinkings. This was a major lesson learned in Italy.
The maneuvers brought back miserable memories of the invasion of Sicily, when we
suffered truck losses when the ship carrying them was sunk. Deprived of their troop carriers, the
infantry companies had to walk for two days in intense heat, so that they were exhausted on arrival
and were quite unable to deal with the German paratroops newly flown in from recreation in
France.
Now, back to the reality in Southampton: the second day of June was spent in getting rations
and other supplies on board. I carried a rucksack holding a 24-hour ration pack, underclothes and a
towel wrapped around a bottle of whiskey. In addition, I was equipped with a motorcycle.
We sailed from Southampton and were soon in very choppy water. The crossing was a
misery as we had to fight our seasickness. Moreover, we were not assault troops and the people
aboard became edgy wondering whether the leading troops would have cleared the beach because
we were not equipped to meet the enemy in close combat.
Our voyage was running on schedule. Gradually, the coast came into view and the ramps
went down. As Private Blair was carrying the front end of the motorcycle, he stumbled, allowing its
engine to dip under water. Fortunately, I clung onto the bike and, eventually, we got it ashore.
Our vehicles started to arrive and were directed by the unit representatives. I went to the
Headquarters to report to the Brigade Major.That was my D-Day.

The Perils of Rising Piracy

Maritime piracy has seen a dramatic increase in the past decade, posing a challenge to Asian
navies. Pirate attacks against commercial vessels have tripled, increasing last year alone by some
40%. (0)……………………………………………………………………………………………....

Modern acts of piracy range from the classic boarding and hijacking of a merchant vessel on
the high seas to the more common tactic of stealing from the ship while it is anchored.
(1) ……………………………………………………………………………...………...……………

The International Maritime Bureau distinguishes three types of piracy. The most common is
by bands of impoverished fishermen who approach and board larger vessels from small boats and
threaten the crew before making off with cash and valuables.
(2) …………………………………………………………………………………………………….

A second, more serious type of piracy usually targets tankers or larger vessels and steals the
entire cargo. In this instance, after hijacking a ship, a second pirate-directed vessel moors alongside
the hijacked vessel to siphon off the oil, to collect the cargo, or both.
(3) ……………………………………………..………………………………………………………

The third type of piracy involves stealing both the cargo and the ship, and often killing the
crew. The ship is later repainted, renamed and re-registered under a flag of convenience, typically in
Panama or Belize, or other countries with relaxed registration regulations.
(4) ……………………………………………………………………………………………….…….

In this instance, large organized crime syndicates, with worldwide connections are involved.
The most-publicized case of such highly-organized piracy occurrs in November 1998, when a group
of Chinese and Indonesian-Chinese pirates hijacks the Hong-Kong –owned Changsheng cargo ship.
(5) ……………………………………………………………………………………….……………

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 Test 7 reading
Following intense international pressure, the Chinese authorities apprehended those
responsible for the attack and executed 13 in Shawei City.

A. This ‘phantom vessel’ can subsequently be used to smuggle drugs or illegal aliens, or is put
into service as a legitimate commercial vessel, which in turn seizes the cargo shipped aboard.

B. Some 72% of all attacks on merchant vessels are committed while the ship is berthed or
anchored in port and most of the attacks on vessels at sea occur in a country’s territorial waters.

C. Posing as anti-smuggling police, the pirates board the ship, kill the 23-strong crew and sell the
vessel to an unknown buyer for $300,000.

D. This type of piracy requires a higher degree of organization and is orchestrated by gangs who
follow shipping schedules on the Internet.

E. All regional governments are accelerating their anti-piracy measures and increasing their
patrols in Southeast Asian waters.

F. Nearly two-thirds of them in 1999 occurred in Asia, with 113 of the 285 reported cases
taking place in Indonesia’s waters and ports.

G. Even a few thousand dollars worth of stolen goods would amount to a fortune for most of
these pirates and their families.

UN Dues Payment
Monday, Sept. 24, Washington - US House of Representatives gave final approval last
Monday to a long-delayed $582 million debt payment to the United Nations.
On a unanimous voice vote, House members backed a quick transfer of the second
installment of US debt to the world body.
The battle over owed UN dues has frayed relations between Washington and the United
Nations for years and threatened the US leadership role there.
The payment, approved by the Senate in February, had been hung up in Congress for months
by a series of political skirmishes, including House Representative DeLay’s efforts to link it to a
measure preventing US cooperation with the International Criminal Court.
But DeLay dropped his objections and House members quickly approved the Senate-passed
measure so the issue will not linger.
The payment is the second of three installments of back dues owed to the UN. The House
approved it this May, but a House-Senate dispute over conditions for the payments and DeLay's
attempts to link it to the international court issue delayed completion of the measure.
By passing the Senate-approved measure, the bill goes straight to Bush for fast enactment.
Under a deal brokered by former US ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, UN members
agreed last December to cut the US general dues assessment from 25 to 22 percent of the $1.1
billion annual administrative budget.
The deal did not fully meet the conditions set by Congress in a 1994 law and in legislation
sponsored two years ago in the Senate by North Carolina Republican Helms and Delaware
Democrat Biden that required the US peacekeeping contribution be capped at 25 percent.
But Helms and other lawmakers say UN has come far enough on reform efforts that they
should go ahead with the payments.
The US made the first payment of $100 million last year. The House has voted to freeze next
year's third and last installment of $244 million.
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 Test 7 reading
History of Our Global Economy
The third millennium opened as the era of globalization. Unique as the modern world seems
to be, globalization has been developing for long. The pace of trade, travel, and communication is
much faster now, but people have always kept communicating with one another. Such interactions
have been critical to history.

A. The first and perhaps most crucial globalizing process was the migration of human beings from
their birthplace to other continents. For several million years, humans stayed in Africa, their
original homeland. By about 10,000 BC Homo sapiens spread throughout virtually the entire world.

B. Nowadays, globalisation has seen the growth of huge transnational companies who put profits
above people and the environment. It is true that much of the increased trade and investment has
been by big transnationals, but that is only part of the story.

C. To wrap up, people have always spread out, always dealt with others outside their own societies.
Only the speed of change has changed.

D. In addition to Chinese silk, merchants exchanged African gold, Roman glassware, and spices
from Southeast Asia.This spread of commerce lead to increased profits on trade in luxury goods,
which in turn justified the costs and risks of long-distance shipping in those times.

E. Globalisation has also opened up new markets for small and medium sized enterprises, including
those from developing countries. Cheap communications and travel, the widespread use of English
and the adoption of common, recognised technical and quality standards are enabling even small
companies to organise international operations.

F. Soon after people settled down to work the land, they began to trade with other societies, nearby
and far away. The wheel and sailing vessels sped travel throughout the East. Heavily-traveled routes
such as the famous Silk Road were opened to carry goods and ideas between China and the Roman
Empire.

G. As a result of this growth, the hope of gain opened new trading and migration routes. The rapid
discovery of many new opportunities led to aggressive forms of competition. Though these conflicts
were terribly destructive, they were part of the process that has brought about modern society.

H. Furthermore, new food crops providing improved nutrition followed along the roads and sea
lanes. Plants such as sugar cane, eggplants, artichokes, melons, and oranges spread from India and
Asia to the Mediterranean region and North Africa, where they enhanced diets and led to rapid
population growth.

THIS IS THE END OF THE READING SECTION

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