U.S. and Czech Republic to sign missile shield accord
PRAGUE: The Czech Republic will sign a treaty Tuesday to build a U.S. missile defense radar system on Czech soil despite opposition at home and in Russia.
Washington wants to build the radar southwest of Prague and put 10 interceptor rockets in Poland as a part of a defense shield that it says will protect the United States and European allies from "rogue states" such as Iran.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will sign the plan in Prague, but it faces some hurdles. Talks with Poland have stalled over Warsaw's demands for U.S. aid to help modernize its army, and the Czech treaty will face opposition in Parliament.
But the Czech government said the shield would offer protection along with the country's NATO and European Union membership.
"Missile technology is spreading around the world," Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said in an interview. "The threat is not totally acute, but one has to prepare in time."
Analysts say that bases in the former Soviet bloc would raise U.S. security interest in the region at a time when Russia grows more assertive about its role on the global scene. Russia regards the missile shield as a threat to itself.
"While Washington's concerns about Iran are real, it's also true that in setting up these missile defense components, the United States will have a direct stake in the security of central and eastern Europe," said Alexander Kliment, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a U.S. political risk consultancy.
Disputes over the radar have alienated many Czechs, wary of any foreign military presence after the Soviet invasion in 1968 and the following two decades of occupation.
An opinion poll last month showed 68 percent of Czechs were against the shield, while 24 percent supported it. Anti-radar activists say the radar will make the Czech Republic a target and undermine its security.
The leftist opposition in Parliament has channeled the public discontent, and ratification is uncertain.
The three-party cabinet has just 100 seats in the 200-seat lower house and several backbenchers have said they would vote against. The government must win over several independents.
The Green Party, a junior government partner, says ratification should be delayed until a new U.S. administration takes over.
Unlike the Czechs, Poland has demanded billions of dollars for the modernization of its army, mainly air defenses. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday that U.S. proposals were insufficient but that Poland was ready to negotiate further.
General Henry Obering, head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, has said that U.S. intelligence suggests that by 2015, Iran could follow North Korea's example and develop a long-range missile capable of striking the United Sates. The United States brought an anti-missile umbrella, based in Alaska and California, on line in 2004 to protect against the perceived North Korean threat. The Czech and Polish sites would augment that system.
The proposed $3.5 billion system would use technology in which an array of sensors and radar would detect an enemy missile in flight and guide a ground-based interceptor to destroy it.
If approved, construction on both sites could begin in 2009, and could begin functioning in 2011 to 2013.
06/07/2008, International Herald Tribune
Answer the questions:
What agreement is to be signed by the Czech Republic and the USA?
Why does the USA want to build to an antiballistic missile defence shield in the Czech Republic and install 10 interceptor missiles in Poland?
What is the accord signed by the Czech Republic and the USA aimed at?
Who will sign this agreement?
What is the attitude of the Russian authorities towards this plan? Why?
What did an opinion poll held in the Czech Republic show?
When is the plan to come into effect?
Translate the following article into Russian using active vocabulary:
Three conflicts, two mind-sets, one solution
PARIS: Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine
Behind the fighting in Lebanon, as in Palestine and Iraq, there is a fundamental conflict of views. America sees each as a clash between freedom and terrorism, while the Arabs think in terms of freedom versus military occupation and unjust wars. Unless the two opposing approaches are reconciled politically and diplomatically, the Middle East will sink into perpetual war and chaos.
The Bush administration charges Islamist fundamentalists and their sponsors in Tehran and Damascus with spreading an authoritarian ideology of hate against the will of the Arab majority. Washington believes that there is an American-style freedom-lover inside every Muslim, and that its mission is to drag it out by hook or crook. After all, the cause of liberty in America, according to the new Bush doctrine, is dependent on the cause of freedom abroad.
The Arabs, for their part, blame U.S. and Israeli wars and occupations for turning citizens into freedom fighters and providing terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda with fresh recruits and ideological alibis. They hold America and Israel responsible for death, destruction and surging extremism, in pursuit of narrow geopolitical interests rather than of universal values.
These opposing sets of beliefs come with corresponding myths and images. The United States and its allies invoke 9/11, the Madrid bombings, the London Underground attacks and hundreds of terrorist acts in between, while the Arabs underline the invasions and occupations of 1967, 1982 and 2003; the Abu Ghraib, Kheyam and Guantánamo detention centers, as well as hundreds of massacres, from Der Yassin in 1948 to last month's Qana bombing.
Under occupation, frustrated and angry people who see themselves as having nothing to lose turn to acts of terrorism, which in turn are exploited by the occupiers to justify continuing their domination. The fact that violent terrorist acts perpetrated by resisting groups are illegal and criminal should not overshadow their root cause - military occupations that cause mass suffering, humiliation and hatred. Occupation provides a permanent state of provocation.
This link between occupation and terrorism points to the crucial difference between the 9/11 attacks and the Middle East conflicts, which should not be held hostage to Washington's war on terrorism. An overwhelming majority of Arabs do not recognize their religion in the image of Islam projected by Al Qaeda. And in the region there is little identification with the Taliban, except in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
If this fundamental conflict of views continues, so will asymmetrical wars in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq that produce no white flags, only more nationalistic and religious extremism that deepens the fault lines between East and West.
Washington's strategy of "constructive chaos" - which is also Al Qaeda's and Tehran's - needs to be seen against a backdrop of mounting religious fundamentalism. In claiming to answer a higher calling, the likes of President George W. Bush, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran are theologizing what were colonial and imperial conflicts, recasting them in terms of jihad versus crusade.
If the 20th century is any guide, it is evident who will be the eventual loser in these conflagrations. America and its allies might possess far more advanced and destructive firepower, but they are far less committed than their opponents and far more prone to losing momentum.
Highly trained and highly equipped American, Israeli and British soldiers strive to stay alive as they fight low-tech volunteer militants who are more than ready to sacrifice themselves and die as martyrs. As America mourns its deaths, resisting Islamist and secular groups celebrate theirs. Military interventions have generated a huge reservoir of pent-up violence among Arabs, while hardly shaking Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese resolve against foreign domination.
In short, time is not on the side of America and its allies. In the Middle East, the continuing hardship of military occupation plays into the hands of religious fundamentalists and discredits moderate democrats.
There is a solution available, however - not divine intervention, but a measure that already exists. The West must apply to the whole region the basic principles of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for complete withdrawal of foreign troops and the disarming of local groups. That means U.S. and Israeli withdrawal from Iraq and Palestine as well as Lebanese and Syrian lands, as a prelude to disarming of all armed groups and freeing prisoners there.
The only means of halting the cycle of violence and terrorism in the Middle East, and paving the way toward real freedom, is to end military occupation.
08/08/2006, International Herald Tribune
Answer the questions:
What is the fundamental difference in political views between the USA and such countries as Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine?
What is the aim of the USA’s policy towards the Middle East?
What does the Bush administration accuse Islamist fundamentalists and their sponsors of?
What do the Arabs, for their part, blame US and Israeli military occupations for?
What do US and Israeli military occupations in the Middle East trigger?
What link does there exist between military interventions and terrorism?
Will it heighten further tensions between East and West if this fundamental conflict of views continues?
Why does the continuing hardship of military occupation play into the hands of religious fundamentalists?
What is the only means of halting violence and terrorism in the Middle East according to the author of the article? Do you share this point of view?
Turn to current press material. Find an article on the topic “Military Activities, Hostilities, Terrorism” in a current Russian newspaper and render it into English using active vocabulary. Prepare questions on the article for discussion.
Приложение
THE ANALYSIS OF A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
Introduction
The title of the article is The article under analysis / consideration / discussion / review is
The article is entitled
The author of the article is
The article is published in
The article is taken from
The subject / topic / problem / current issue of the article is
The problem was caused by / resulted from / was a result of
The objective / main aim of the author is
The article deals with / tackles / raises / bears on the problem of
The article is devoted to
The article provides ample food for thought for the readers
Main Body The Author’s Technique
The author looks at / takes a quick look at / explores / examines the problem of
The author informs the readers that / describes / characterizes / shows / illustrates / defines / portrays /discusses / demonstrates / introduces / analyses / suggests / recommends
The author foresees / predicts / claims / contends / admits / asserts / criticizes / acknowledges
The author brings to light / highlights / stresses / lays stress on / draws the readers’ attention to / points out / puts emphasis on / emphasizes / focuses on / comments on
Developing Arguments Firstly / First of all / Secondly / Thirdly / Then / Next / After that / Finally / Eventually Furthermore / moreover / in addition to / to add to that / besides / what’s more / apart from this Nevertheless / however / despite this / in spite of / actually / in fact / on the one hand …on the other hand / although / even though / whereas / at the same time
It’s essential / vital / extremely important to understand
Ultimately / basically / most importantly
In particular / especially / chiefly / mainly
If we look at the problem closely
What it exactly means is
Because of / owing to / due to / for this reason
Therefore / as a result / hence / accordingly / consequently / as a consequence / thus Summarizing
So to sum up / in brief / to cut it short
If I can briefly summarize
Before I finish let me just go over the main points of
Concluding
In conclusion / Taking everything into account / On the whole / as it was previously stated
I’d like to finish by saying that
To conclude I’d like to say that
To reach one’s own conclusion
Expressing Opinion
I’m convinced / I do think / I feel / I tend to think / I would suggest that
My view is that / As I see it / It seems to me / In my opinion/view / It strikes me that / I’m inclined to believe
I totally / completely / absolutely agree with
I fully understand that / I’m in favor of / I support / I share the author’s opinion / I see eye to eye with the author on this problem
The author is correct to point out
To a certain extent / up to a point I agree with …but
I disagree with / I couldn’t agree to this / I don’t support the idea of / I oppose to the author’s idea / I’m afraid that I can’t accept
Оксана Романовна Жерновая
ПОСОБИЕ ПО ПЕРЕВОДУ И РЕФЕРИРОВАНИЮ ОБЩЕСТВЕННО-ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИХ ТЕКСТОВ
(Функциональный и оперативный уровни)
Учебно-методическое пособие
Государственное образовательное учреждение высшего
профессионального образования «Нижегородский государственный
университет им. Н.И. Лобачевского»
603950, Нижний Новгород, пр.Гагарина, 23
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