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| Words in the News
Wednesday 26 June 2002
Vocabulary from the news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
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Russian land sales bill
Summary: The Russian parliament has approved a bill to allow the sale of farm land for the first time since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. Under communism, all agricultural land was owned by the state. Many fear that now Russia's rich will be the only ones to benefit from the new law. This report from Stephen Dalziel.
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| | The News | |
| | | It's taken ten years since the collapse of the Soviet Union for the Russian parliament to agree on a formula for selling off land in Russia. But that delay hasn't been because of careful planning. It's been because of the kind of in-fightingbehind the scenes which dogged the sale of other state assets, such as oil, gas and timber. In the first years of post-Communist Russia, a handful of people made themselves very wealthy at the state's expense. The so-called "oligarchs" who then used this new-found economic strength to wield massive political power were the top of a small pyramid. Despite a much closer form of state control which is exercised by the current President, Vladimir Putin, than was the case under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, there's no guarantee that there won't be simply a seizure of the best land by a select few.
Stephen Dalziel, BBC
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| | The Words
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| | | formula
plan
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| | | selling off
privatising
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| | | in-fighting
arguments between members of the same organisation
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| | | behind the scenes
in private
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| | | dogged
if you are dogged by problems, they repeatedly affect you
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| | | 'oligarchs'
members of a small group who control a whole state
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| | | wield...power
if you wield power, you have it and are able to use it
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| | | exercised
carried out
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| | | a select few
a lucky elite minority
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