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Read the following excerpts from the NewsHour report. Match the underlined vocabulary words/phrases with definitions below.

Title of program - Trade Impasse
1. impasse ____

MARKS: "There was pandemonium in the convention center as delegates suddenly spilled out of meetings and were engulfed by the world's press."
2. pandemonium ____

3. to engulf ____

MARKS: "But with no movement on the Singapore issues, the U.S. trade representative angrily blamed the developing world for intransigence that brought the talks' collapse."
4. intransigence ____

ROBERT ZOELLICK, U.S. Trade Representative: "We tried to caution that too many were spending too much time pontificating, not negotiating."
5. to pontificate ____

ZOELLICK: "The harsh rhetoric of the 'won't do' overwhelmed and concerted efforts of the 'can do.'"
6. rhetoric ____

MARKS: "The protest movement has been diluted in part because some non- governmental organizations have abandoned the barricades and are working with the WTO instead."
7. to dilute____

MARKS: "OXFAM, whose representatives spent the week lobbying and cajoling delegates inside the conference center, bemoaned the talks' collapse. But other non-governmental organizations were happy to see the meetings end in disarray…"
8. to cajole ____

9. to bemoan ____

10. disarray ____

SUAREZ: "So from your vantage point, Ambassador Shiner, you were down there, what happened?"
11. vantage point ____

BERNAL: "And because we couldn't get past that, we never got to unraveling the difficulties in agriculture, which was even more contentious."
12. to unravel ____

13. contentious ____

SUAREZ: "Did the United States go to Cancun ready to cut those subsidies that were the bane of so many agricultural countries at the meeting?"
14. bane ____

SUAREZ: "Richard Bernal, agricultural got the lion's share of attention, it seems, but there were other things on the table, weren't there, like the ability of investor countries to buy into the economies of developing countries?"
15. the lion's share (idiom) ____

16. on the table (idiom) ____

SUAREZ: "Ronald Reagan, for instance, was an adamant free trader…"
17. adamant ____

 

Definitions

a. the biggest part of something
b. a cause of continual trouble or unhappiness
c. language; speech or writing that is effective and persuasive
d. to solve; to come undone
e. to complain about or express sadness
f. causing disagreement
g. to water down or make weaker
h. a place that provides a good view
i. to try to persuade someone to do something by saying things that please them or that make them feel important
j. to surround and cover completely
k. to speak in an important manner as if only your opinion was correct
l. impossible to persuade, or unwilling to change an opinion or decision
m. a plan that has been officially suggested and is now being discussed
n. noisy confusion and wild excitement
o. a disorderly or confused condition
p. a point in a process at which further progress is blocked, especially by disagreement
q. inflexibility; refusing to be persuaded

 

 

 

 

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