BBC World: news

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1214.

Text 9.3

Nik Gowing, the BBC presenter:America's new senior general in Iraq says: force alone cannot provide an end to insurgent violence. Tragedy in New York's Bronx: an inferno in a housing block kills 8 children and an adult. Facing up to climate change European leaders meet to negotiate binding limits on carbon emissions.

This is BBC World. Welcome from me, Nik Gowing!

Also in this programme: Hitler's “dream children” – a battle for compensation by Norwegians caught up in the Nazi obsession with a “master race”.

Two US citizens rushed home from Moscow after fears they have been poisoned.

Nik Gowing, the BBC presenter:A month after taking up his postthe new US military commander for all forces in Iraq has spoken publicly of his mission but with a message of caution. General David Petraeus said, it's critical that alienated groups be brought into talks. He also said, he believes sectarian violence in Baghdad can be curtailed. He was speaking after the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates approved an extra two thousand two hundred military police to aid the crackdown.

Andrew North, the BBC correspondent:It's a month sinceGeneral David Pertaeus took over as the commander of all US and Coalition troops in Iraq. His job is to lead what's widely seen as the last chance to turn things round. He was cautious but said the new Baghdad security plan was showing some progress.

General David Pertaeus, the US commander in Iraq:Sectarian killings, for example, have been lower in Baghdad over the past several weeks than in the previous month. There also appears to have been less sectarian displacement in the past month. In fact, some families have returned to the neighbourhoods from which they were displaced, although in small numbers so far.

Andrew North, the BBC correspondent:But the General admitted, that also it has been a rise in attacks on the city's outskirts. Sectarian tension sparked by the bombing of a key Shiite mosque last year is still the biggest challenge.

General David Pertaeus, the US commander in Iraq:It is not in our power to turn back the clock to the day before the Al Askariya Mosque was bombed. We can, however, in partnership with our Iraqi colleagues help improve the security situation and enable the Iraqi people to control the demons responsible for the vicious sectarian violence of the past year. Demons that tore at the very fabric of Iraqi society.

Andrew North, the BBC correspondent:The latest victims have been Shiite pilgrims on their way to the holy city of Karbala. Almost two hundred have been killed in attacks in recent days carried out by Sunni insurgents. Although the General said that car-bomb factories have been destroyed in recent weeks, such attacks continue. And it won't be until June that the extra American troops, called for under the security plan, will be in place.

General Petraeus's message was: be patient – it's gonna take time and even the extra American troops may have to stay here longer. But he also had this warning – “There is no military solution to this conflict”, he said, “peace can only come through politics and reconciliation.

Andrew North, BBC News, Baghdad

Nik Gowing, the BBC presenter:Nine people, eight of the children have been killed in a fire in New York. As the flames raced up the stairs one mother threw her children from an upstairs window into the arms of neighbours. The BBC's Jeremy Cook was there.

Jeremy Cook, the BBC correspondent:Tragedy in the Bronx. The flames engulfing an entire building within minutes. No time to react. No time to escape. The victims – mostly children. Flame just burst out.

Witnesses and fire fighters speaking [unintelligible: there is too much noise, the voices are overlapping].

Jeremy Cook, the BBC correspondent:Amid the smoke and confusion a mother took the agonising decision to drop her children from upper storey windows – the only way the escape the inferno.

Witnesses and fire fighters speaking [unintelligible: there is too much noise, the voices are overlapping].

Jeremy Cook, the BBC correspondent:Those, who lived and died here, were part of an extended family of immigrants from Mali in West Africa. For all 22 of them this was supposed to be a new start in a new country. There will of course be many questions: “Was the building overcrowded?”, “Was the fire department called in time? And already we are getting some answers.

Fire investigators are still at the scene here. They suspect that a faulty electric heater in the basement may've started this blaze, which spread so quickly throughout the four storeys of the building. They also say that smoke detectors had been fitted but that the batteries had been removed.

Jeremy Cook, BBC News, the Bronx New York

Nik Gowing, the BBC presenter:Rioting has broke out in the Greek capital Athens during the student protest against education reforms. Youths hurled petrol bombs and stone at police after smashing storefronts at the city centre. The students were demonstrating against education reforms. Clashes were the worst since the nearly daily protests started at the beginning the year.

Investigators in Indonesia have found the “Black Box” recorder of the passenger plane, which crashed landing killing 22 people on Wednesday. One theory is that technical failure may have caused the accident. Miraculously more then one hundred and twenty people did manage to escape the aircraft shortly before it burst into flames.

Two women, both American citizens, who were hospitalised in Moscow for suspected thallium poisoning, have flown home to the United States for further treatment. There's still no indication as to how they were exposed to a potential fatal chemical. Thallium, you may remember, was initially suspected to be the toxin used in the fatal poisoning of in London last year of the former Russian KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Michael Voss, the World Affairs correspondent:They were able to walk through emigration having arrived at Los Angeles airport aboard an Aeroflot flight from Moscow. But doctor Marina Kovelevsky and her daughter Yana, both suffering from suspected thallium poisoning were quickly transferred to wheelchairs and taken pass the news media to two waiting ambulances.

The Russian-born doctor had immigrated to the US in the 1980-s and had no known political or business in Russia. Both the authorities in Moscow as well as colleagues that have medical practice in Los Angeles are at a loss to understand how or why they were poisoned.

Dr Arkady Stern, colleague:If you ask how I feel about this, I would say, it probably was some sort of tragic mistake because I hardly could think of anybody, who would … should … say they had enemies. Everybody loved her.

Michael Voss, the BBC correspondent:The mother and daughter had been in Moscow to attend the wedding when they were taken ill and hospitalised there two weeks ago. Thallium is a highly toxic metal, which is colourless and odourless; it's often referred to as the assassins' poison of preference. They've now been admitted to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. A spokesman there says there are alert and stable but it's too early to say what caused the condition. The investigation continues.

Michael Voss, BBC News

Nik Gowing, the BBC presenter:European Union leaders are meeting in Brussels to negotiate binding targets for carbon emissions. Pressure for big cuts is coming from some of the countries already feeling the heat of climate change. The BBC's Europe Editor Mark Madel is at the summit.

Mark Madel, the BBC's Europe Editor:Farmland on the brink of ruin. The ones fertile plains near Toledo in Spain always sizzle in the summer but Angel Oliveros Zafra says, now the weather is unpredictable – one day harsh frosts, the next – strong winds. The only constant – the threat of drought. He has no doubt man-made pollution is to blame and all the politicians have to act now.

Angel Oliveros Zafra, a farmer:Production's down 90%, we suffered huge losses and we're not making any profit. The year may come and we'll have to give up the fight and abandon the land.

Mark Madel, the BBC's Europe Editor:To try to stop more damage to the land all European leaders are being urged to sign up to what some describe as “bold, ambitious targets that could show the world the way ahead”.

Their idea is that the European Union makes a binding promise that in 13 years' time they will have cut carbon emissions by 20% and also will have looking at cutting it by 30% if other countries join in. But it's controversial.

More than a thousand miles away in Southern Poland you can immediately see the problem with meeting these sorts of targets. It is a spanking new airport, brilliant for the Polish economy.

But, perhaps, not so good for the environment. Six million Poles a year now travels abroad on cheap airlines to work and holiday. Before they joined the EU three years ago, local low cost airlines simply did not exist here. The airlines say they are doing their bit but you can't stop the economy growing.

Natasa Kazmer, Director, Wizzair:I think that the traveller industry, the aviation contribute significantly to the economic development. I don' think that this factor can be just put aside by environmental issues.

Mark Madel, the BBC's Europe Editor:And Poland has a lot of this stuff that makes it even more worried about the targets. A tenth of the world's coal is underneath the ground here and nearly all of Poland's electricity is generated using it. What's more – sales are going up the whole time. If there is to be an agreement, it's likely Poland and the rest of the East, plus other more developed countries to bear more of the pain.

But Tony Blair told me, it is vitally important, that he and his fellow-leaders do reach an agreement.

Tony Blair, British Prime Minister:If we can agree an ambitious set of targets for Europe, that gives us a far greater position of strength and leverage than to say to the other countries, notably America and China and India: “Let us try and agree the principles of a new deal and for all of us to play our part in reducing these damaging emissions”.

Mark Madel, the BBC's Europe Editor:Like Angel, the leaders are convinced: action does have to be taken. When it comes back to actually making people prune back the CO² emissions that could be a little trickier.

Mark Madel, BBC News, Spain

Nik Gowing, the BBC presenter:You're with BBC World! Jamie has joined me with details of interest rates up in Europe.

Jamie Robertson, the BBC presenter: Yes, they are. It was pretty much expected: European Central Bank has raised interest rates. Across the Eurozone they've gone up by a quarter of one percentage point to three and three-quarter percent. Now that is the highest level for three and a half years, I beg your pardon, for five and a half years. In the UK, the Bank of England kept interest rates on halter. Now rate rises of course mean higher loan costs for borrowers, both individuals and businesses. But for some companies, such as those involved in the actual financing, higher Eurozone interest rates are, actually, good news!

Colin Vickers, Montpelier wealth managers: It was big and it's very good news for our business. We are looking for anything that happens in the market, whether positive or negative. That enables us to concert our clients, though alternatively for our clients to wish to concert us. A good example could be with interest rates going up and then increasing lending costs; then people who might approach us on the basis if we could actually help them to reduce those lending costs through, perhaps, remortgaging. Alternatively, it could be recommending different types of investment, given the markets they were actually currently in.

Jamie Robertson, the BBC presenter: One other story: in South Korea. The country has eased its stance on inspect to US beef imports on Thursday. Now, US and South Korea negotiators had been locked in trade talks in Washington. South Korea, though, now says that it will continue to screen all US beef imports for bone chips but it's going to allow individual packages free of fragments to be sold from this month. A three-year ban on American beef following the outbreak, of course, of mad cow disease was lifted last year.

That's the news. Back to you...

Nik Gowing, the BBC presenter:Thanks, Jamie!

You're with BBC World, I'm Nik Gowing.

Still to come in this programme: Hitler's “dream children” – the Norwegians caught up in the Nazi obsession with creating a “master race”.

BBC World, 08.03.2007,

http://www.bbcworld.com/

Assignment 6. Give English words and expressions equivalent to the following Ukrainian ones from Text 9.3. Compare your options with the keys.

insurgent violence; inferno; binding limits, carbon emissions; Nik Gowing (born in 1951, British TV journalist, since 1996 the lead presenter of the BBC's international news and current affairs channel, BBC World); Hitler's “dream children”; Nazi; obsession; master race; General David Pertaeus (born in 1952, a general in the US Army and a commander of the Multinational Force in Iraq – MNF-1, appointed to this position on 26 January 2007, replaced General George Casey, Petraeus is now in charge or carrying the new Iraq's strategy plan [http://en.wikipwdia.wiki/General_Petraeus]); alienated groups; crackdown; sectarian violence; to curtail; the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates (Robert Michael Gates, born in 1943, Ph.D., is currently serving as the 22^nd US Secretary of Defence); Coalition troops (Coalition Forces – the US led coalition troops since 2003 invasion of Iraq, initially there were 92% of the US troops, 120 000 men, and the rest from the United Kingdom, South Korea, Poland, Australia, Romania, Denmark, Georgia, El Salvador, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Moldova, Spain, Portugal New Zealand – altogether from 41 states, by January 2007 Ukraine, New Zealand, Spain, Norway, Portugal and several other states had withdrawn their troops from Iraq [http://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Coalition-of-the-willing]); neighbourhoods; sectarian tension; mosque; Al Askariya Mosque (al Askari Mosque or Golden Mosque, 1200 year old, one of the Shiite holiest shrines, has been destroyed by a raid of insurgents dressed like Iraqi police [The New York Times, http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004621.htm]); here sl demons (extremist insurgents dressed in the uniform of policemen); pilgrims; Karbala (Cabala – a city in Iraq that is holy to Shiite Muslims); insurgents (synonyms, which differ in evaluation: militants [–], gunmen [–], guerrillas [0]; fighters [+]); reconciliation; Andrew North (the BBC correspondent); Jeremy Cook (BBC correspondent); the Bronx (residential area in New York to the North of Manhattan, population – 1,2 million people); to engulf; Mali (the Republic of Mali – the inland state in Western Africa, formerly French Sudan, the capital city – Bamako); faulty; blaze; Athens (the capital city of Greece); to hurl; storefronts; Indonesia (the Republic of Indonesia is a country of 17508 islands in the Malay archipelago, population of over 200 million, the most populous Muslim-majority nation, the capital city – Jakarta); “Black Box” recorder; thallium; KGB (was the umbrella organisation of the Soviet Union premier security secret police and intelligence agency from 1954 to 1991); Los Angeles (the largest city in the state of California and the second largest city in the USA, population of 3.8 million people); wheelchair; were taken pass the news media; odourless; Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (USA); spokesman; condition (here med the state of the sick person); Michael Voss (the BBC correspondent); binding; climate change; Mark Madel (the BBC Europe Editor); Toledo (the city in Spain, capital of Castile-la Mancha, one of the former capitals of the Spanish Empire); sizzle; Angel Oliveros Zafra (a Spanish farmer); drought; man-made pollution; spanking new; leverage; prune back; CO²; Jamie Robertson (a highly experienced presenter of business programmes for the BBC, specialises in international finance, business and economy); interest rates; Eurozone (also Euro Asia Eurosystem – a subset of European Union member states which have adopted the euro, creating a currency union, the European Central Bank is responsible for monetary policy within the zone); to hold on halter; loan; borrower; individuals (here syn to natural persons); businesses (here syn to legal entities); concert; lending costs; remortgage(ing); South Korea (The Republic of Korea – an East Asian country on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, has been a vibrant multi-party democracy fir two decades, the capital city – Seoul); bone chips; mad cow disease