Fluency News #21

Hello, everyone!

Sejam bem-vindos e bem-vindas a mais um episódio da nossa nova série de podcasts, o Fluency News! Aqui, você vai treinar a sua escuta e ficar por dentro do que está acontecendo no mundo, sempre com as três principais notícias da semana, tudo em inglês! Ao longo do episódio, nós também adicionamos explicações em português das coisas que achamos que precisam de mais atenção, assim você não perde nenhum detalhe!

No episódio desta semana, nós temos um update sobre as notícias vindas dos Estados Unidos, falamos sobre a situação de Navalny e sua prisão na Rússia, as vacinações na Inglaterra, A iniciativa da ONU chamada “Ocean Decade”, e por fim, a boa notícia de que 12 mineiros foram encontrados vivos depois de uma explosão em uma das minas na China.

Nós temos uma página de dicas de inglês no Instagram, vá conferir! @fluencytvingles

Toda semana temos um novo episódio do Fluency News, não deixe de escutar! See you!

Este episódio foi escrito por Lívia Pond.

Transcrição do episódio

What is up, everyone! I’m Scott Lowe and welcome to another episode of Fluency News! This podcast series is the perfect way for you to stay informed while improving your listening and comprehension skills.

We’re so glad you’re joining us today! And today we start the episode with an update from a story we covered last week! Donald Trump has become the first president in history to be impeached twice. Just days away from his last day in office, the president was impeached, and is now facing an impeachment trial in the Senate and a number of criminal and civil investigations.

Donald Trump is planning an inauguration day sendoff event for himself at a military airfield in Maryland. He reportedly wants an ostentatious military parade and a large crowd of supporters. President elect Joe Biden is to be sworn in on January 20th.

“Sworn in” é um phrasal verb, formado pelo particípio passado do verbo “swear”, que significa “jurar”, e a preposição “in”, que tem muitos significados, o mais comum sendo “dentro”. Esse phrasal verb significa “jurado” ou “juramentado”, e é usado para falar da cerimônia em que uma pessoa eleita, neste caso, promete formalmente cumprir os deveres de uma função. A cerimônia, chamada “swearing-in”, acontece quando alguém está prestes a iniciar sua função em um ambiente oficial, e promete ser honesto, leal, e cumprir seus deveres da melhor forma possível. “Sworn in”.

Our main story of the day surrounds Kremlin dissident Navalny.

Alexey Navalny has been arrested at a Moscow airport as he tried to enter the country from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from an alleged nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

The Kremlin critic’s detention on Sunday at passport control in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport was widely expected as Russia’s prisons service said he had violated parole terms from a suspended sentence on a 2014 embezzlement conviction.

The prison service said he would be held in custody until a court rules on his case. No date for a court appearance was immediately announced.

The service earlier said it would seek to have Navalny serve his three-and-a-half-year sentence behind bars for the 2014 charge, which Navalny claims is politically motivated.

His lawyers on Monday said they had not been granted access to him since he was detained, and that his condition was unknown.

Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Moscow Carnegie Centre, described Navalny’s choice to return as “brave”.

“He always [said] he was a brave man, who has no fear before the authorities, of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the law and order machine. Now is the time to prove these claims,” Baunov told Al Jazeera. “If he stayed abroad, he would diminish his claims.”

His arrest set off a wave of reactions from officials and world leaders, many of whom called for his immediate release.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that expressions of outrage reflect an attempt “to divert attention from the crisis of the Western model of development”.

Al Jazeera’s Aleksandra Godfroid, reporting from Moscow, said the international reaction was unlikely to impact the Kremlin.

“We know from the past that such requests and such pleas to the Kremlin are not very well met by the Russian authorities,” Godfroid said. “That is to say, they are not going to make them release Navalny or show any leniency towards him.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR) said it was “deeply troubled” by Navalny’s arrest.

In a post on Twitter, the agency called for the Kremlin critic’s “immediate release” and “for his due process rights to be respected in line with the rule of law”.

“We reiterate our call for a thorough and impartial investigation into his poisoning,” it said.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has urged the immediate release of Navalny, stressing that Russia is bound to protect civil rights.

“Russia is bound by its own constitution and by international obligations to the principle of the rule of law and to the protection of civil rights,” Maas said in a statement.

“These principles must, of course, be applied to Alexei Navalny as well. He should be released immediately.”

Italy’s foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said Navalny’s arrest was a “very serious matter”.

“We ask for his immediate release. And we expect his rights to be respected”, Luigi Di Maio said in a Twitter post.

Italian Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri on Twitter also called for Navalny’s immediate release.

France’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Agnes von der Muhll, said in a statement that Paris is following the situation with “utmost vigilance”.

“France takes note with great concern of the arrest in Russia of Mr. Alexei Navalny. With its European partners, it is following the situation with the utmost vigilance and call for his immediate release.”

Quando nós falamos de “due process”, a palavra “due” tem um significado diferente do que vemos normalmente. Essa palavra é usada com frequência para falar do prazo de alguma coisa, ou do vencimento de alguma coisa. Aqui, nesta situação, ela tem o significado de “correto”, “adequado”, “devido”. As autoridades estão exigindo que os direitos do Navalny sejam respeitados devidamente nesse processo. “Due process”.

And in some good and quickie news, people in England are being vaccinated four times faster than new cases of the virus are being detected.

Sir Simon Stevens told the BBC that 140 people a minute were now being given the jab, usually the first dose of two.

But he said the NHS had never been in a more precarious position, with 75% more Covid patients than at the April peak.

It comes as a further 298,087 people received their first dose of the vaccine on Saturday.

There were also 671 more deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test, and another 38,598 positive tests.

Sir Simon told the Andrew Marr Show some hospitals would open for vaccinations 24 hours a day, seven days a week on a trial basis in the next 10 days.

Logo no começo dessa notícia, nós temos as palavras “were being given”. Elas indicam o tempo verbal past continuous na voz passiva. Nós usamos a voz passiva quando o importante é o que está acontecendo, e não quem está fazendo a ação. E o past continuous é usado quando falamos de algo que estava acontecendo continuamente no passado. “Were being given” pode ser traduzido para “estavam sendo dadas”. “Were being given”.

Alright! Still talking about good news, the United Nations officially launched the “Ocean Decade”.

On January 1st, 2021, the UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission officially launched the Ocean Decade, a decade of focus on our oceans to improve conservation and scientific understanding.

According to the commission, there is a lot to do over the coming decade. The commission states that its purpose is to increase research, development, observation, and reductions on risk capacities across the world in a joint venture with leading scientific research organizations, institutions, and governments.

And finally, in today’s episode, rescuers confirmed signs of life from 22 trapped Chinese miners a week after the blast.

Twelve miners trapped underground after an explosion in a Chinese gold mine a week ago are still alive.

They sent back a note saying “don’t stop trying to reach us” when rescuers seeking signs of life lowered down food rations taped to wire cable.

A telephone connection has now been set up. The fate of another 10 men missing after the blast remains unclear.

Mining accidents in China are not uncommon and are often due to poorly enforced safety regulations.

The 22 were trapped at the Hushan mine near Yantai in eastern Shandong province on 10 January after an explosion damaged the exit and the communications system of the mine, which was still under construction.

Rescuers have spent days tapping and waiting for signs of survivors – until finally they felt pulling on ropes they had lowered into the mine.

According to state media, rescuers managed to make contact with some of the miners through a long, thin communication shaft they had drilled from the surface. They later sent food, medicine, paper and pencils into the hole.

According to the handwritten note they retrieved back from the shaft, 12 people are alive in the middle section of the mine.

“There are 11 others – one is injured, and the status of the remaining 10 is unclear,” said the note-writer. In it he asks for pain killers and says they hope for a rescue, before ending with thanks to the rescue team.

Later on Monday, Chen Fei, the deputy secretary of Shandong’s Yantai city, said phone contact had also now been made with the trapped miners, who he said are “currently very weak”.

“After we opened up the third shaft, it had a really excitable effect on the people connected. They were very confident and very hopeful that they would soon be able to get out of the mine,” he told a news conference.

“We established they needed emergency medicines and equipment.”

Two batches of provisions and one of medicine had been sent down the mine, which Mr Chen said were enough to last those trapped two days.

As well as pain killers, the 12 miners had reportedly asked for anti-inflammatory drugs and medical tape for the injured.

They also said there were high levels of underground water.

One of the rescue workers said they were now racing to get the miners out.

“Next step, we’ll continue to use life detectors and other equipment to contact those trapped underground. At the same time, we’re speeding the clearing of the main shaft and drilling additional rescue holes.”

Chinese media report there are also several other rescue shafts being drilled in the hope the workers – thought to be about 600m (2,000ft) from the entrance – can be evacuated.

Those are definitely some good news! Here’s to hoping the other miners are also save and they all can be brought home soon. Alright, that is it for today’s episode! Thank you so much for joining us today! We hope you enjoyed your time here and managed to put in practice your skills! Remember, you can check out our sources and the transcript of this episode by going to fluencytv.com. There’s a new episode of Fluency News every week, and we’ll see you then. Peace out.

Fontes:

Update on the US situation
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/18/us/inauguration-day-biden
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/18/us-defense-officials-fear-insider-attack-biden-inauguration
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/jan/18/joe-biden-inauguration-donald-trump-pardons-washington-impeachment-covid-coronavirus-live

The United Nations Officially Launches the “Ocean Decade”
https://www.thevast.net/post/the-united-nations-officially-launches-the-ocean-decade

People in England are being vaccinated four times faster than new cases of the virus are being detected, NHS England’s chief executive has said
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55694967

Rescuers detect signs of life from 22 trapped Chinese miners a week after blast
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/rescuers-detect-signs-of-life-from-22-trapped-chinese-miners
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55700021

France calls for immediate release of Kremlin dissident Navalny
https://www.reuters.com/article/russia-politics-navalny-france/france-calls-for-immediate-release-of-kremlin-dissident-navalny-idUSL8N2JS0OL?utm_source=reddit.com

‘Appalling’: World leaders blast Russia over Navalny arrest
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/18/serious-matter-world-leaders-blast-russia-over-navalny-arrest
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/01/17/as-it-happened-navalny-returns-to-russia-a72635
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-russia-politics-navalny/russian-prosecutors-want-kremlin-foe-navalny-jailed-for-30-days-moscow-tells-west-to-butt-out-idUSKBN29N0OY?utm_source=reddit.com
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/01/18/navalny-urges-russians-to-take-to-the-streets-over-jailing-a72646