| | Words in the News |
INTRO | | On May 19th a group of rebels led by George Speight, an ethnic Fijian, took about 30 people hostage in Suva, the capital of the Pacific island of Fiji. The hostages included the Prime Minister, who comes from the Indian minority. The army then declared martial law. |
IN FULL | |  | Listen to the report in full |
 |  | 1st June 2000
Martial law in Fiji |
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NEWS 1 | | | Listen to BBC correspondent Phil Mercer |
| | | A day after martial law was introduced, the new regime has satisfied one of the rebels’ key demands. It has revoked the 1997 multi-racial constitution which allowed for an ethnic Indian to become Prime Minister. The rebel leader, George Speight, wants indigenous people to have amonopoly of political power here. The military is now charged with finding a way to sort out this mess - a challenge which proved too much for the Great Council of Chiefs, Fiji’s powerful tribal leaders. |
WORDS | | revoked: cancelled martial law: under martial law, an area is controlled by soldiers rather than by civilians multi-racial constitution: a system of laws stating people's rights and duties applying equally to people of all races. (A 'race' is one of the major groups which humans can be divided into) ethnic: belonging to that particular race indigenous: the original population to have a monopoly: to be the only people to have political power charged with: soldiers have been given the job of solving the problem |
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| NEWS 2 | | | Listen to New Zealand's Foreign Minister, Phil Goff |
| | | I think the international community has towork together tocontinueto put as much pressure as possible to keep Fiji as a democratic country toprevent the slide back into a racist constitution and a country in which ethnicity determines your vote rather than your equality as a citizen of Fiji. |
| WORDS | | international community: a group of countries to...work...continue...put...keep...prevent: the infinitive form of the verb is used, stressing which actions are necessary to resolve the situation, and in which order racist constitution: a constitution which favours one ethnic group over others determines: decides |
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| | | Read about the background in BBC News Online |
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