--- title: Today's world: the UN, the EU and the Commonwealth — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Today's world: the UN, the EU and the Commonwealth», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In Europa Universalis 5 countries deal with each other only through alliances, marriages and wars, but today almost e --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / Today's world: the UN, the EU and the… # Today's world: the UN, the EU and the Commonwealth Lesson 38 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/0/) — In Europa Universalis 5 countries deal with each other only through alliances, marriages and wars, but today almost every country also sits in big clubs where they talk, vote and make rules together. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/1/) — The biggest is the United Nations, founded in 1945 after the Second World War, so that countries would argue at a table instead of on a battlefield; it has 193 members and its headquarters is in New York. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/2/) — Think of a school council: everyone has a vote, but in the UN Security Council five permanent members can each block a decision on their own, which is a bit like five pupils who can veto any plan. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/3/) — Old rivals from the game, such as France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, now work together in the European Union, sharing one market and many laws, and most of them even share one currency, the euro. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/4/) — Other clubs join countries by history or by place: the Commonwealth links many lands once in the British Empire, NATO is a promise to defend each other, and the African Union links the whole of Africa. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/6/) — The UN Security Council has five permanent members, the USA, Russia, China, the UK and France, each of whom can veto a decision. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/7/) — Many countries argue that the Security Council is out of date because no country from Africa or Latin America has a permanent seat. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/8/) — The UN has agencies for special tasks, such as UNICEF for children, the World Health Organization for health and the World Food Programme for hunger. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/9/) — The World Health Organization helped to wipe out smallpox, whose last natural case was in 1977. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/10/) — The European Union is a group of 27 European countries that share a single market, many common laws and, for 21 of them since Bulgaria joined in 2026, the euro. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/11/) — The United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020 after a referendum, a vote of all the people, in 2016; this is called Brexit. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/12/) — The Commonwealth of Nations is a voluntary group of 56 countries, most of which were once part of the British Empire, though some members, such as Rwanda and Mozambique, never were. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/13/) — The British monarch is also head of state of 14 other Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Jamaica, which are called Commonwealth realms, and Barbados became a republic in 2021. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/14/) — NATO is a military alliance of 32 countries in Europe and North America whose members promise to defend each other if attacked; Finland joined in 2023 and Sweden in 2024. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/15/) — The African Union links all 55 African countries to work together on peace, trade and development, and its headquarters is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/38-todays-world-the-un-the-eu-and-the-commonwealth/16/) — The International Court of Justice in The Hague settles legal disputes between countries, and The Hague also hosts the International Criminal Court, which can try people for war crimes. - ← previous: [How empires fell: the map of the 20th century](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/37-how-empires-fell-the-map-of-the-20th-century/) - next →: [Odd places: microstates, enclaves and disputed lands](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/39-odd-places-microstates-enclaves-and-disputed-lands/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)