Words in the News Wednesday 30 January 2002 Vocabulary from the news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
State of the Union address Summary: President Bush has delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress. He warned Americans that they face continued danger and said that several countries still harboured terrorists or weapons of mass destruction. This report from Tim Franks.
Tim Franks: George Bush told Congress and the American people that as he spoke the nation was at war, the economy was in recession and the civilised world faced unprecedented dangers and yet he insisted the United States was stronger than ever. He warned Americans that terrorist training camps still existed in at least twelve countries and North Korea, Iran and Iraq were, as he put it, an axis of evil - regimes which posed a grave and growing danger for which he said the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
President Bush: "I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
Tim Franks: For that reason the President proposed the largest increase in defence spending in two decades and a doubling of the budget for homeland security. Opinion polls suggest that the level of interest many Americans have in the war on terrorism is beginning to dwindle. The President's speech was in part an extended appeal for the nation to be as concerned as ever.
