SUPERMARKETS MUST STOP USING PLASTIC PACKAGING, SAYS FORMER ASDA BOSS

The former boss of Asda, one of Britain’s biggest supermarkets, Andy Clarke, is calling for supermarkets to stop using plastic packaging. He says that billions of pounds of investment in recycling have failed to resolve the world’s plastic crisis. Andy Clarke said the only solution was to reject plastic entirely in favour of more sustainable alternatives like paper, steel, glass and aluminium. Supermarkets should create plastic-free aisles. Efforts to recycle more plastic have failed to stem the plastic crisis, said Clarke, who stood down as Asda CEO last year.

A recent investigation established that consumers around the world buy a million plastic bottles a minute and plastic production is set to double in the next 20 years and quadruple by 2050. In the UK less than a third (29%) of the 5m tones of plastic used each year is recovered and recycled. In the world more than 8m tones of plastic end up to the oceans. A recent study found that billions of people in the world are drinking water contaminated by plastic. Between 5m and 13m tones of plastic end in the world’s oceans each year to be ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms. Scientists at Ghent University in Belgium recently calculated people who eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year. 

Our environment forms our home. Our world is our source of life and we can't damage it. The plastic is one of the elements that is more difficult to recycle, reason why we need to pay more attention. 

Link of the news: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/supermarkets-stop-using-plastic-packaging-former-asda-boss-andy-clarke

HOW DID I LIVE THE 1-O?

First of all, I need to say that it was a critical day, reason why I find so important to talk about it in my blog. The days leading up on the first October everybody know that a very important thing will happen this day; it was part of a point of no return.

I wake up at five o’clock, only with my mind focused with the hours that would have to come, and ready to go to the Electoral College. Being in the Electoral College early was of great importance, reason that a lot of people were there before than the sun came up. 

Everyone was overcome by the uncertainly, the permanent doubt. No one knew what to expect. We were looking at each other constantly waiting for something.

At seven o’clock, approximately, two mossos arrived at the Electoral College. They asked if they could enter. We said a convincing “no”. They watch the situation: there were old people, children… and prefer not to use the violence. They spend the whole day in front of the college. They were rumors about if it would come or not the Guàrdia Civil and we were with fear in our bodies.

Finally arrived the time to vote, at nine o’clock. And the people start to introduce their votes inside the urn. For the first half hour everything was going fine, until the web stopped to work. (It was intervened by the State). At eleven o'clock we couldn’t still vote. With my family we decide to come back later, in the afternoon. We left the Electoral College. At twelve we were at home watching TV3 without believing what we were looking at. The images were terrible… the violence used by the Guàrdia Civil…

It was happening at Barcelona, Girona, Garrigàs, Aiguaviva… and unexpectedly the name of our town was mentioned in the TV: Sant Miquel de Fluvià.

The phone rang. A friend of my parents, who was still in the Electoral College, explain us the awful scene. Fifty members of the Guàrdia Civil arrived and, aggressively, took away the urn and all the votes that were inside.

We remain disconcerted, with a complete disbelief, not knowing what to do. We need to look for another town where to be able to vote.

WELCOMING EMAIL

My name is Isàlia Pujol and, in this mail, I’m going to do a small introduction about my life.

At the moment, I’m studying second of Baccalaureate at INS Castelló d’Empúries, the high school that has accompanied me along five years. I know that it’s my last year in this high school; during this year I will finish a life and start another. It is for this reason that I’m going to enjoy every day.

Now, I’m sixteen years old, but in twenty-seventh of October I will be seventeen. I live in a little village, Sant Miquel de Fluvià, with my parents and my little sister. I have studied music and have played the piano since I was six years old. Playing this instrument has become my hobby.

I think that our life is an ongoing challenge. Our goals, over the years, are changing. For this reason when we were young, we had a lot of dreams and goals that we will never be able to accomplish. A clear example is the typical dream of every child: to be an astronaut. I have to admit that this one was my goal when I was 6 years old. Now, that are changed; I have a short-term goal and, at the moment, it is the most important that I have: get the second of Baccalaureate and pass the Selectivity exam. Then, I have a lot of long-term goals... (The typical goals of every student) like finish a degree, a master, obtain titles as I can speak different languages, have a job... but I have another goals, not only in the academically way. I have cultural goals, I would like to travel, to get to know new cultures and lifestyles; read new books, etc.; I have familiar challenges too, like spend more time with family and friends because they are a very important part of my life.

As I have already said, my friends and family are very important for me, and all of this people, that are every day around me, help me a lot; but I am the only one who is able to overcome all of my goals. I will put the focus on it to face my challenges.

In the speech I have been interested especially in a sentence that says “There is no excuse for no trying. Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up.” With this sentence, Barack Obama is trying to say that if you don’t like your present, you are able to change it and to build a future better for you, because you are able to decide where you want to go and what you want to do. I put attention to it because it is a way to say “don’t give up”.

LOOKING BACK

This last school year, I think that I have improved a lot my level of english and I'm really proud. I have learned new vocabulary, new words that will be very useful and I will be able to use in my life, with english speakers. 

In my opinion, the best activities which I can show my english level are our blog, where we can talk about all of topics what we want, and the oral presentations, where we can show our knoweldge about a theme. We have done a lot of exercicies this year, but it seems to me that the most usefull acrivity to improve my English is to read, read books in this language, because I can observe if I had learn good the concepts and the vocabulary. Sincerely, I find that the class songs, in my opinion, are not useful to learn English because, sometimes, the lyrics of the song are difficult to understand because they are tuned with the music. I would like to do again, to improve my English, more yoursays and news in my blog and read books.  

I'm happy now with the new knowledge that I have acquired this year. 

FORMAL LETTER

37, Carrer del Pi

St Miquel de Fluvià

Catalonia

31st, May, 2017 

UNICEF USA

333 East 38th Street, New York

NY 10016 United States

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to offer myself as a volunteer in your NGO, that is to say, in UNICEF. I would like to apply for a position. I am 16 years old girl and, at the present time, I have not finished "batxillerat", but the next summer I am able to begin to work when do you want. 

I feel that I would be suitable for this job because I am very hard-working, and I like to involve with the work that I am doing. I am also extremely responsible, organized and with the desire to help other people.

I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. I have included my CV with this letter. I would be happy to attend an interview at a time convenient for you. Thank you for your attention to this letter and for considering my application. 

Your faithfuly

MY GAP YEAR

MY EXPERIENCE IN MAUTHAUSEN

Mauthausen is a concentration camp which is situated in Austria. We visited that with the high school, in a trip that we make in April with the working group “Grup d’exili, deportació i holocaust”. It was an impressive experience.

Just to get there you can see that the atmosphere is very different, very… shocking.  It’s like go into another world, another terrified world. Mauthausen is located just in the middle of a hill. It is very striking.

We have visited the barracks, the showers, the experiments room (where the doctors made experiments with the prisoners, obviously), the crematorium, the gas chamber... I have frozen blood, especially when we entered into the gas chambers, where we saw the ovens... uf... there are no words to describe everything...

We saw a room where there were all the names of people who have died there. Awesome! A whole room full of names. Thousands and thousands of names that were fiilling all the room... I saw people crying or ready to do that. How much cruelty!! Only seeing the quantity of barracks and the thight measure of thats, it is possible to imagine how of inhuman it was all of this atrocities.

The worst thing of all is that there are historians who try to deny the facts, having so many proofs ... is totally horrible, frightening...

WUTHERING HEIGHTS of Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights is a classic of the English literature. The novel speaks to us about three familiar generations and about all his personal problems.

The novel presents an innovative structure. The first narrator of the story is Lockewood. He is a foreign and comes to the Wuthering Height to know Heathcliff who has rented a nearby villa, the Thrushcross Grange. His first impression of the family that live here is not very good. He perceives a strange environment. Heinterprets in a subjective way what is happening in Wuthering Height. Then, Nelly, the ancient servant of the house, appears like a second narrator of the story. Eventually, is Zillah, the new servant, who tells to Nelly all that she knows and that she sees. The reader knows the story through these characters and has the sensation of having attended fragments of life of these characters and it will turn out to him difficult don’t take part of his pain.

The main characters are: Heatchliff, who is a very cold and distant person. His only aim is to take a revenge for the persons who reject him for his condition of adoptive. Catherine is an energetic and selfish character. She loves Heatchliff but of a compromise she marries with Edgar. Nelly is the servant. She is a kind and fair person.

In this novel we can appreciate all of the elements that belong to the Romantic Movement; for example we can observe that there is a predominance of the feelings opposite to the reason, the feelings are taken to the extreme, there are supernatural elements (like ghosts or spirits) and doses of terror, there are moments of jealousies, envy, ambition of power, alcoholism...

I recommend it to all people who desire to enter in the deepest feelings of the all characters. 

SEXISM

How many times have we seen that a man is ready to hit his woman? Unfortunately we have seen these situations a lot of times in our everyday lives or in the news. This is not a nice situation that we don’t like to attend. And we think “if I could do anything…”.

Sexism (or gender discrimination) basically consist in a prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex or gender. Sexism can affect either gender, but it is particularly documented as affecting against the female gender. Sexism can be a belief that one sex is superior to or more valuable than another sex. It imposes limits on what men and boys can and should do and what women and girls can and should do.

The concept of sexism was originally formulated to raise consciousness about the oppression of girls and women, although by the early 21st century it had sometimes been expanded to include the oppression of any sex, including men and boys, intersexual people, and transgender people.

The domestic violence is a clear example of sexism. Changing that is only in our hands. We can change that if we report to the police all of these violence that we see. In this way, we will be able to help people who really are struggling. 

TEENAGE HACKER JAILED FOR MASTERMINDING ATTACKS ON SONY AND MICROSOFT

Adam Mudd was 16 when he created the Titanium Stresser program, which was used to carry out more than 1.7 million attacks on websites. He earned the equivalent of more than £386,000 in US dollars and bitcoins from selling the program to cybercriminals. During the trial he showed no emotion and he was sent to a young offender institution. The court heard that Mudd, who lived with his parents, had previously undiagnosed Asperger syndrome and was more interested in status in the online gaming community than the money. The Aspenger syndrome is a developmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication. Polnay,  the prosecuting said there were more than 112,000 registered users of Mudd’s program who hacked about 666,000 IP addresses. Among the targets was the fantasy game RuneScape, which had 25,000 attacks. Mudd pleaded guilty to one count of committing unauthorised acts with intent to impair the operation of computers. Ben Cooper, defending, said Mudd had been sucked into the cyber world of online gaming after withdrawing from school because of bullying.

Personally, I believe that the problems who had suffered the boy all throughout his life have greatly influenced with the crimes he has committed. Because of his disease and for the problems that he has suffered in the society, he has acted of this form. 

Link of the news: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/teenage-hacker-adam-mudd-jailed-masterminding-attacks-sony-microsoft

THE GOVERNMENT JUST ANNOUNCED A GAMECHANGER FOR CYCLING IN ENGLAND

THE GOVERNMENT JUST ANNOUNCED A GAMECHANGER FOR CYCLING IN ENGLAND

The government has said it can achieve its goal of doubling cycling, and is now legally bound to do so. The government’s intention to launch a CWIS (the publication of the cycling and walking investment strategy) was first announced in January 2015. The CWIS has been the result of years of pressure from cycling and walking groups and the concerted efforts of a small but dedicated group of civil servants. The CWIS promises up to £1.2bn will be spent on cycling and walking by 2020/21. We can expect £26 per head to be invested in cycling and walking over the next four years for everyone in England outside of London.  With so much funding for cycling and walking it is absolutely crucial and in the areas where it will have the most impact. There’s some excellent guidance for councils on how to begin planning and delivering comprehensive cycling and walking networks in their areas. This is supported by the government-funded Propensity to Cycle Tool, which allows local authorities to map the potential for increased travel by bike under different scenarios. The government has said it can achieve its goal of doubling cycling with half the recommended amount. The people want their local roads and streets to be well designed, well maintained and, above, all safe and attractive for everyone to use. The health, environmental, economic and quality-of-life benefits of doing so will be enormous.

I think that it is a good initiative on the part of the government. That will be the best option because, in this way, the people who wants to be kept in shape, will be able to do it. It also will encourage another people to practise cycling or walking.

Link of the news: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2017/apr/26/the-government-just-announced-a-gamechanger-for-cycling-in-england

AIR POLLUTION PLAN CANNOT BE DELAYED, HIGH COURT TELLS GOVERNMENT

The government has been ordered to publish tough new plans to tackle air pollution after the high court rejected attempts by ministers to keep the policy under wraps until after the general election. In the latest defeat for ministers over their continued failure to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis, which is believed to be responsible for 40,000 premature deaths a year The new measures are likely to include the imposition of multiple clean-air zones across the country, where drivers will face fines if their vehicles do not pass roadside emissions tests. The judge said the government’s own figures showed that nitrogen dioxide pollution is linked to the premature deaths of 23,500 people a year in the UK. The court decided that the threat to public health constituted “exceptional circumstances”. The nation’s dirty air is one of the most important public health issues in recent times. The high court’s decision recognises the need to urgently tackle this crisis. The plans included five clean-air zones where diesel drivers faced charges if their cars did not pass emissions tests.

Be careful of our environment is crucial for our health and for the maintenance of our planet. The environmental pollution can cause many deaths every year. For this it is important that the governments raises awareness about this problem and try to solve it.

Link of the news:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/27/air-pollution-plan-election-campaign-bomb-court-government