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News Report

Intermediate level

Panama papers: The Pyongyang connection

Episode 160405 / 05 Apr 2016

Step 1: Listen

You're going to hear a genuine BBC news report from 5 April 2016. Before you listen, read these three summaries:

a) Documents from Mossack Fonseca reveal it has customers from North Korea.

b) Documents from North Korea reveal is has links with a Panamanian legal firm.

c) Documents from the US Treasury show it has blacklisted North Korean companies.

Now listen and decide which one is correct. Listen again if you need to.

Step 2: Learn the key words and listen again

How was that? Try listening again. Here are three definitions of key vocabulary items which may help you.

at the heart of
at the centre of

leak
(here) sharing of secret information with the public

blacklisted
put on a blacklist: a list of people, countries, organisations etc who are not approved of and blocked from doing certain things

Step 3: Transcript and answer

Documents from the Panamanian legal firm at the heart of a huge data leak, Mossack Fonseca, show it has clients from Syria and North Korea who were blacklisted by US Treasury sanctions. They include companies linked to North Korea's nuclear weapons programme and a close relative of Syria's president.

Answer

a) Documents from Mossack Fonseca reveal it has customers from North Korea.

This bulletin comes from BBC World Service Radio.

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