Red cross begins guantanama bay inspections

BY ANDREW BUNCOMBE

in Washington

RED CROSS monitors yesterday started a week-long project of speaking individually to each of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida fighters being held in controversial conditions at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A spokesman for the four strong team said it would inspect the prisoners’ living conditions, and draw up a register of the 110 or so fighters currently held at the base. "As long as there are people detained, we will do our jobs," he said.

The Red Cross team’s arrival comes amid growing controversy over the conditions in which the prisoners are being held. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, has said that the United States is wrong not to recognise the men at Guantanamo as prisoners of war and afford them the rights set down by the Geneva Conventions.  

The UN Secretary General,Kofi Annan, added to the debate yesterday when he told a UN Security Council meeting that governments must not tread on human rights as they attempt to crack down on terrorism. A UN official in Bosnia said the case of the six men who were handed over to the US was such an example of civil liberties being ignored.              

The Independent,

January 19, 2003

Note:  Red Cross (R. C.) is an individual organization formed according to the terms of the Geneva Convention (Switzerland, 1864) for the care and treatment of the wounded, sick and homeless in wartime and now also during and following natural disasters.

   The emblem of the Red Cross is a Geneva Cross: a red cross on a white background –   .

e.g. The Red Cross is/are sending medical supplies to Iraq.

Упражнение VII.  Переведите беседу. Прочтите вопрос и ответ про себя, затем переведите вопрос со зрительной опорой, а ответ – под диктовку (абзацно-фразовый перевод):

There is one more specialist UN agency that deserves notice. This is the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.

Q.: Я как раз хотел попросить вас рассказать об этой организации.

A.: The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was created by the General Assembly in 1946. The Organization is not supported by the UN budget, but by voluntary contributions from governments and individuals – including the sale of the widely used UNICEF Christmas cards.

Two of the most important present jobs of the Fund are its campaigns against yaws and tuberculosis.

Q.: "Yaws" – я никогда не слышал о такой болезни и не знаю, как она называется на русском языке. Может быть, вы имеете в виду детскую болезнь со сложным названием фрамбезия. Это когда у детей по всему телу появляются открытые нарывы? (sores)

A.: You are quite right. Yaws is a disease of hot damp climate. It makes masses of open sores. It is extremely contagious, and especially afflicts children. Few die of yaws, but many become helpless cripples and a lifelong burden on their relatives.

Q.: А можно ли излечиться от этой болезни?

A.: Yaws can be cured with one doze of penicillin, costing fifteen cents. So the Fund may cure six children for one Christmas card it sells.