A letter to you from Nelson Mandela

Dear Mirror readers,

Today we live in a world that remains divided. A world in which we have made great progress and advances in science and technology.

But it is also a world where millions of children die because they have no access to medicines.

We live in a world where knowledge and information have made enormous progress, yet millions of children are not in school.

We live in a world where the AIDS pandemic threatens our lives. Yet we spend more money on weapons than on ensuring treatment and support for the millions infected by HIV.

It is a world of great promise and hope. It is also a world of despair, disease and hunger.

Millions of people in the world's poorest countries are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free.

Poverty is not natural, it is man-made and can be overcome by the action of human beings.

The leaders of the world's richest countries have already promised to focus on the issue of poverty, especially in Africa.

The steps they must take to bring this about are very clear and the first is ensuring trade justice.

The second is an end to the debt crisis for the poorest countries.

The third is to deliver much more aid and to make sure it is of the highest quality.

I say to all those leaders - do not look the other way, do not hesitate. Recognise that the world is hungry for actions, not words.

You too have the opportunity to tell them that they must act with courage and vision.

Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great.

You can be that great generation.

Global Problems ***

You have read a lot of interesting things about the air, the sun, the sky, the clouds, and the rain, about rivers, seas and oceans. All these things around us are parts of our environment. Plants, animals and people need clean land, clean water and clean air. But some people have not learned how to take care of our earth. They are doing harmful things to our land, water and even air. They are making pollution. Men have polluted the air, sea and land; used most of the Earth's oil, gas and coal; completely killed more than 500 kinds of animals, birds and plants; made and used atomic bombs; grown in numbers from 1 billion (in 1830) to nearly 6 billion today. It's a disaster and it's still happening. But not all the news is bad. You can imagine what happens to a living thing if its environment is polluted or changed in a harmful way.

We love rain. Rain helps our plants to grow big and strong. But sometimes the rainwater is not as clean as it could be. Man-made chemicals get into the air and mix with the rainwater, making acid rain. The acid water runs into rivers and lakes. The rivers and lakes become so acid that fish cannot live there.

We like to go to the river, lake or sea to swim. But if there are chemicals in the water, it is not safe enough for swimming. If the water is polluted, it can make us sick.

In the last century the world lost over 80% of its original forests. Every second, an area of forest the size of a football field is being destroyed, and about 2,000 trees are cut down per minute.

The majority of forest loss is caused by human activity. Some of the most significant causes of forest loss include logging, construction of highways, dams and mines. Another major cause of deforestation is the need to expand agricultural land. Forests provide a host of valuable goods and services. Besides wood, forests ensure soil and water conservation and help to promote tourism and recreation.

The destruction of forests leads to drought, floods, soil erosion and desertification. It also leads to climate change. The biodiversity of plants and animals is lost, the destruction of forests can in the long term bring about famine and poverty.

But the problem of a war is the most urgent problem nowadays due to the invention of new high technological weapons and weapons of mass destruction. According to history wars can start because of the territory division, problems of religion, envy, misunderstanding between diplomats. It is extremely important to bear in mind that the only horrible thing, which will ever happen, is the third world war. Wars are counterproductive and useless. A war has no explanation.

Besides, what should really irritate all of us is that a lot of important facts are neglected in our history books and, reading them, you get the impression that the Second World War for instance was nothing but a set of dates and battles. This makes the younger generation misunderstand the reality of war and understand it thoughtlessly. Finally, let's hope that there will never ever happen any war and there will be the time when people will understand all the uselessness of war.

It's a small world of laughter, a world of tears,

It's a world of hopes and a world of fears

There's so much that we share

That it's time we're aware

It's a small world after all.

There's just one moon and one golden sun

And a smile means friendship to everyone.

Though the mountains divide and the oceans are wide

It's a small world after all.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16