Learning English - Words in the News - Greeks cut forests to stay warm

Last updated at 12:06 GMT, Wednesday, 30 January 2013

Greeks cut forests to stay warm

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Report and vocabulary

Transcript:: Greece's Mount Olympus is experiencing a rise in unauthorised logging.

It's estimated over 100,000 trees have been felled illegally.

With fuel prices soaring and temperatures dropping, many people are turning to wood to heat their homes.

Wood markets are thriving but not all sources of wood are legitimate.

Racketeers are among those who have been caught taking trees from the home of Greece's ancient gods.
logging: the cutting down of trees for wood, usually on a large scale for commercial purposes
felled: cut down
soaring: rising very quickly
thriving: doing very well, being successful
racketeers: people who make money from illegal activities

Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from news reports.

Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

logging / felled / soaring / thriving / racketeers

1.
The classical Indian dance of Kathak originated in Northern India but its popularity is ____________ in and around London with hundreds of young British Asians.

2.
He also claims to have brought 232 criminals to justice - including arms dealers and immigration ____________ - by conning them with his disguise.

3.
Many bears suffer from the effects of the ____________ industry and the spread of the human population.

4.
Steve Bransgrove was woken up by the "sound of an engine revving and a loud bang" and found the 12m (40ft) pine in his garden had been ____________.

5.
Car sales are ____________, carmakers are hiring thousands of workers, and memories of the recent bankruptcies of two of Detroit's "big three" companies already seem like distant memories.