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| Business Words in the News
Friday 25 October 2002
Vocabulary from the business news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
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China's 100 richest people
Summary: The American business magazine “Forbes Global” has published its fourth annual list of the one hundred richest people in China. This report from Francis Markus.
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| | The News | |
| | | "Let some people get rich first", said the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. And, scanning the list of the country's wealthiest people, as compiled by Forbes, there's no doubt about the extent to which people have gone and done just that.
But the roster is also a reminder that, although today's China may be light years away from the Maoist decades of egalitarian slogans, wealth can be as controversial and precarious here as ever. Conspicuously absent from this year's list are last year's number two, the orchid tycoon, Yang Bin - recently reported to be under house arrest in north-eastern China for alleged illegal business activities; and number three, Yang Rong - a top motor industry executive, who's fled to the United States to avoid arrest on charges of economic crimes.
The compiler of the list says they've been excluded because their assets can't be reliably estimated. He says that the cases of the two unrelated Yangs have made many of China's super-wealthy nervous and keen to maintain a low profile. But he says few people strongly objected to being put on the list.
Francis Markus, BBC
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| | The Words
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| | | scanning
looking quickly at something without carefully reading it
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| | | wealthiest
richest (see wealth)
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| | | roster
a list, usually of people’s names
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| | | light years
(informal) a very long time
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| | | wealth
having lots of money
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| | | precarious
not safe, full of danger
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| | | conspicuously absent
if you say somebody is conspicuously absent you are drawing attention to the fact that they are not in a place (or here a list) where you expect them to be
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| | | tycoon
a rich and powerful person in business
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| | | under house arrest
if a person is under house arrest they are forbidden by the government or police from going outside their own house
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| | | to maintain a low profile
if you maintain (or keep) a low profile, you avoid doing things that will make people notice you
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