2. Translate into Russian using active vocabulary:

1. Without a new multilateral effort, the risk of a new nuclear arms race and of rogue states and terrorist organizations getting their hands on nuclear material could bring the world back to the brink of nuclear war.

2. Nuclear disarmament is one of the most important issues of our time. As long as the United States and Russia between them have more than 11,000 nuclear warheads deployed, they have little credibility to persuade unrecognized nuclear weapons states like Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea to scrap their arsenals, and perhaps even less to get Iran to trade in its enrichment program for any form of economic or other incentives.

3. Under Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the five declared nuclear powers on the United Nations Security Council are committed to phasing out their arsenals.

4. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov criticized U.S. plans for a missile defense system with element in Eastern Europe to protect against the threat posed by Iran, saying the system “has little in common with its declared goal.” Instead, he said, it is the “advancement of the strategic structure of the American system in Eastern Europe.”

5. The U.S. plan would install a radar base in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland — both former Soviet satellites that are now NATO members. It is part of a wider missile shield involving defenses in California and Alaska which the United States says are to defend against any long-range missile attack from countries such as North Korea or Iran.

Russia strongly opposes the idea, saying Iran is decades away from developing missile technology that could threaten Europe or North America, and it says the U.S. bases will undermine Russia's own missile deterrent force.

6. Russia threatened to deploy rockets in the European Union’s backyard yesterday in retaliation for American plans to install a missile defence shield. The US wants to place ten interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic to counter possible rocket attacks from “rogue states” such as Iran. Russia has denounced the plan as a threat to its own security.

7. The last time the leaders met, when Mr Blair was on a state visit to Moscow in April, Mr Putin rebuffed his attempts at reconciliation by refusing to lift UN sanctions and mocking the possibility that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq.

8. Tehran’s test launches of medium-range ballistic missiles last week were seen in Washington as provocative and poorly judged, but both the Pentagon and the CIA concluded that they did not represent an immediate threat of attack against Israeli or US targets.

9. Iran has repeatedly insisted it will not give up enrichment, but it had said the incentives package had some "common ground" with Tehran's own proposals for a resolution to the standoff. Oil-rich Iran insists its enrichment work is intended to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity. The six nations — the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany — first offered a package of economic, technological and political incentives to Tehran nearly two years ago on condition that it suspend enrichment.The standoff has led to increasingly tense exchanges about the possibility of a military strike by Israel or the U.S. An Israeli military exercise last month was seen as a warning to Iran.

10. The United States Friday called upon Macedonia's Slavs and ethnic Albanians to "cease fighting and focus on a political solution" to the violent conflict between Albanian extremists and government forces.

11. Monitoring the situation in Sderot, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed cautious optimism."We hope the truce will be kept by all parties. Yesterday, that barrage of 30 Qassams ... just before the cease-fire went into force shows that they decided to kill as many Israelis as possible before the cease-fire." There were no casualties as a result of the rocket strikes. Just an hour before the truce went into effect, an Israeli airstrike aimed at militants near the El Brag camp in the middle of Gaza killed one and injured three, Palestinian security and hospital sources said.

12. By agreeing to deal with Hamas through Egyptian mediators, Israel appears to be bending its policy of refusing to deal with Hamas, which does not recognize Israel and refuses to renounce terrorism. Several Israeli newspapers were critical of the cease-fire, saying it amounted to a political victory for Hamas. Shiron dismissed that assessment. “We have not dealt with Hamas, we spoke to the Egyptians," the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "The idea is to prevent bloodshed, and prevent Israeli citizens and Palestinians alike from getting hurt. And if this can be achieved, then I think this is good for everybody."

13. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of army recruits in the city of Baqouba on Tuesday, killing at least 28 people, Iraqi police said. At least 47 recruits were injured in the blast at the Saad military camp in Baqouba, the official said. The U.S. military confirmed the attack, saying it occurred around 8 a.m. on July 15, 2008.

14. The US launched a military air strike in Somalia to go after a group of terrorist suspects, defence officials said today. Somali police said three missiles hit a Somali town held by Islamic extremists, destroying a home and seriously injuring eight people early today.

15. Germany said yesterday it had arrested three Islamic militants suspected of planning "imminent" and "massive" bomb attacks on Frankfurt's international airport and a nearby US military base, preventing what would have been the most devastating terrorist attack on an American target since 11 September 2001. Since the start of this year, Chancellor Merkel's government has repeatedly warned that Germany faces the real threat of a terror attack.

16. In 2001, Islamist attacks were still a novelty in the US and the UK though not in France, which was one of the first European countries to recognize the threat posed by political Islam. Now we are growing used not just to the existence of an Islamist terror network in Britain, consisting both of young men who were born here and others from Pakistan and the Middle East, but of the inchoate rage which fuels it.

17. It was an attack everyone had warned was inevitable, a matter of time. That did not make the moment any less dreadful, however, or the task of catching the perpetrators any easier. By general consent the response of the emergency services to the wave of bombings that shattered London's Thursday morning rush hour could scarcely have been better. There are also fears that any future attack could involve attempts to detonate a "dirty" bomb - one contaminated with nuclear waste, which might not cause widespread casualties but could shut off a large area of London, disrupting the life of the city far more than Thursday's atrocity.

18. The major line of investigation is that the bombings were carried out by an alliance of terrorists formed specifically for this operation, perhaps using the name Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaida of Jihad Organisation in Europe, the first to claim responsibility.

19. The second stage of the German plan would involve the return of up to 250,000 Georgian refugees to Abkhazia. They fled in the early 1990s during the Soviet Union's breakup, which turned extremely violent in this part of its former empire.This stage would be followed by a donors' conference to finance the reconstruction of infrastructure and housing and promote business contacts between Georgia and Abkhazia.

20. After years of escalating tensions and bloodshed, the talk in the Middle East is suddenly about talking. The shift is still relatively subtle, but hints of a new approach in the waning months of the Bush administration are fueling hopes of at least short-term stability for the first time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.Much is happening, adding up not to any great diplomatic breakthrough, but to a distinct change in direction. Syria is being welcomed out of isolation by Europe and is holding indirect talks with Israel. Lebanon has formed a new government. Israel has cut deals with Hamas (a cease-fire) and Hezbollah (a prisoner exchange).

21. Unless Iran responds positively in the next two weeks, it can expect more sanctions to be imposed by the United States and the European Union as early as late August or September and may then be hit with a fourth sanctions resolution at the U.N. Security Council, Rice said. The offer envisions a six-week commitment from Iran to stop expanding uranium enrichment, during which time no additional sanctions would be imposed. That is intended to create the framework for formal negotiations that, it is hoped, will lead to a permanent halt of enrichment.