Fluency News #66

Hello, everyone!

Sejam bem-vindos e bem-vindas a mais um episódio da nossa 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 falamos sobre a erupção do vulcão em Tonga e sobre o relatório que mostrou que os dez homens mais ricos do mundo dobraram suas fortunas durante a pandemia. Também falamos sobre os animais que duas empresas “plant-based” estão salvando.

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.

Episode Transcript:

What is up, folks! Welcome to another episode of Fluency News! I’m Scott Lowe, and thank you for joining me today! It’s great to have you here. We hope you’re having a fantastic day, and let’s just jump into it, shall we?

As always, we’re going to see some of this week’s most important or relevant stories, from all around the world, in English. After each story, you’ll hear me giving some explanations in Portuguese, of things we find might need an in-depth explanation. You can find links to all of our stories by going to fluencytv.com, where you’ll also find the transcript of this episode.

Now, without any further ado, let’s see what’s happening around the world.

Our main story today comes from Tonga, a Polynesian country formed by more than 170 South Pacific islands and home to about 100,000 people.

The eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano on Saturday sent tsunami waves crashing across the shore in Tonga, and rising water levels were reported on the coastline of Peru and the Pacific Coast in the United States.

Satellite photographs showed a huge gray mushroom cloud billowing over the Pacific Ocean, and the reverberations of the eruption could be heard in Vanuatu and Fiji. Some people reported mistaking the noise for thunder, and of feeling buildings shake for hours. The blast could be felt as far away as New Zealand, more than 2,000 km away.

Southern Peru, roughly 10,600 kilometers away, recorded light flooding in some coastal areas where dozens of people needed to be rescued, and two people drowned.

Waves of up to 1.2 m washed ashore in Tonga. Pictures emerged of the sky turned black in the middle of the day; ash and pebbles rained down on cars, while long lines of traffic snaked through the capital of Tonga, Nuku’alofa as people fled the city for higher ground.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the capital suffered “significant” damage, adding there had been no reports of injury or death, but a thorough assessment was not yet possible with communication lines down, and a blanket of volcanic ash covering the nation.

The country is calling for “immediate aid”, with an urgent need for fresh water and food.

The United Nations children’s agency said it was preparing emergency supplies to fly into Tonga in coordination with Australia and New Zealand.

The Red Cross has offered its assistance, and the Pacific Islands Forum said it was ready to assist in what it described as a “once in a millennium natural disaster”.

This is still developing, as the eruption happened on Saturday, January 15. So far, the main source of information comes from New Zealand, since the communication cable to and from Tonga was severed. Preparations are being made to send specialists to fix the cable, but it goes through near the underwater volcano, which might erupt again.

We’ll bring you updates next week, so stay tuned for that.

Thorough é uma das palavrinhas que assustam muitas pessoas que estão aprendendo inglês. Ela faz parte de um conjunto de palavras que também são formadas com as letras T, H, O, U, e às vezes, R e G. Elas são parecidas na escrita, mas muito diferentes em pronúncia e significado. Thorough, que temos aqui, significa “meticuloso”, “completo”. Também temos a palavra through, que significa “através” ou “por meio de”. Outros exemplos dessas palavras são “though”, que pode ser traduzido como: “mas”, “embora”, “ainda que”, “apesar”. “Tough” significa “duro”, “difícil”. “Thought” é o passado do verbo “think’, pensar. “Throughout”, que é a maior delas, significa “por todo”, “do começo ao fim”.

Com o contato frequente com o inglês, você vai conseguir identificar cada palavra e lembrar seu significado e pronúncia sem nenhum problema! E no nosso portal, você vê a escrita de cada uma delas.

Our second story of the day is about one of the legacies of the pandemic. It has made the world’s wealthiest men even richer, while poverty and inequality soared for the rest of the world.

The Oxfam report, titled “Inequality Kills” said that the wealth of the world’s 10 richest men doubled from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion during the pandemic.

The global charity said that the wealth of billionaires rose during the pandemic more than it did the previous 14 years.

It called this inequality “economic violence” and said inequality is contributing to the death of 21,000 people every day due to a lack of access to healthcare, gender-based violence, hunger and climate change. It also stated that the disparities that exist between countries “are tearing our world apart”.

The group said it based its wealth calculations on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available, and used the 2021 Billionaires List compiled by the US business magazine Forbes.

The CEOs of Covid vaccine-developers Moderna and BioNTech made billions in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Some of the men included in the “10 wealthiest” list are Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

At the same time, the vast majority of the population are worse off after losing income during Covid-19, and 160 million more people fell into poverty, the release said.

Oxfam urged tax reforms to fund worldwide vaccine production as well as healthcare, climate adaptation and gender-based violence reduction to help save lives.

“The coronavirus pandemic has been actively made deadlier, more prolonged, and more damaging to livelihoods because of inequality,” states Oxfam in their report. “Inequality of income is a stronger indicator of whether you will die from Covid-19 than age. Millions of people would still be alive today if they had a vaccine—but they are dead, denied a chance while big pharmaceutical corporations continue to hold monopoly control of these technologies. This vaccine apartheid is taking lives, and it is supercharging inequalities worldwide.”

According to Oxfam, if just the top 10 billionaires alone paid a 99% tax on their windfall profits generated during the pandemic, it would be enough to pay for “vaccines for every person in the world, universal healthcare, and social protection.”

Abigail Disney, Walt Disney’s grand-niece and a member of the U.S.-based Patriotic Millionaires, which advocates for higher taxes on the rich, agreed with Sanders that the solution is clear.

“The answer to these complicated problems is ironically simple: taxes,” said Disney. “Mandatory, inescapable, ambitious tax reform on an international level—this is the only way to fix what is broken.”

Você sabe o que o adjetivo worse off significa? Aqui no Fluency News nós já exploramos a palavra worse como comparativo, significando “pior”. Mas colocado junto da preposição off, o significado muda um pouco. Worse off significa mais pobre, com menos condições, em uma situação financeira pior. O adjetivo pode ser escrito com ou sem hífen separando as duas palavras.

In some very good news for all the animal lovers in the world, over 600,000 animals’ lives were saved in the US alone.

Just two plant-based food companies, Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, have helped spare the lives of over 211,000 pigs, 77,000 cows and 350,000 chickens. Non-profit World Animal Protection (WAP) compared the data, and stressed that the actual figure is likely significantly higher – nearing to one million.

The international charity looked at some of the US restaurant chains offering Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods’ products, such as Burger King and Panda Express.

WAP looked at each chain’s portion sizes, how many days a year they are typically open, and how much plant-based food they are likely selling.

Given that the calculations only scratch the surface of the plant-based movement, WAP believes the figure is closer to one million animals in the US alone.

“Our assessment does not account for the full plant-based product market, such as those sold in grocery stores, menu items that feature other plant-based brands or those made in-house, or Beyond and Impossible products offered at other types of restaurants,” the charity clarifies.

For instance, last year Impossible Foods rolled out its products to 20,000 grocery stores – up from just 150 locations.

Further, WAP’s analysis does not include egg or dairy products. But data provided by plant-based food brand Zero Egg indicates these figures are similarly impactful.

Looking purely at its own restaurant sales, Zero Egg revealed that more than a million conventional eggs were left out of US diets in 2021.

“We believe in making every bite count … Zero Egg’s vision is to empower the era of sustainable foods, and we understand that we won’t be able to protect the planet and improve the lives of animals without replacing ordinary eggs with a plant-based option,” said Joe Loria, Zero Egg’s director of communications and marketing.

Loria added that the company’s vegan eggs require 93 percent less water and 92 percent less land to produce compared to conventional eggs. Further, they generate 59 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

WAP acknowledges that there is still progress to be made. Roughly 120 million pigs, nine billion chickens, 30 million cows, and 320 million laying hens are raised or killed for food every year in the US.

But the tide appears to be turning, as more people (in the US and beyond) ditch animal-based foods. Research from late last year found that just under half (49 percent) of Americans were interested in swapping out meat and dairy in favor of plant-based alternatives.

And in Veganuary 2021, it’s predicted that more than two million animals’ lives were spared in just a month thanks to those who took the 31-day vegan pledge. This year’s Veganuary campaign is expected to be its biggest yet.

Nessa notícia, nós tivemos o uso de alguns advérbios. Em português, é possível identificar advérbios com relativa facilidade, já que muitos terminam em “mente”, como “facilmente”, “duramente”, “dificilmente”, “frequentemente”. Em inglẽs, advérbios também seguem um padrão. Nesse caso, é o sufixo LY. Sufixos são um conjunto de letras que adicionamos no final de uma palavra, para formar uma nova palavra. Ao adicionar LY, estamos criando um advérbio, que determina o modo como alguma coisa é feita. Alguns exemplos na história foram likely, significantly, typically e similarly.

And that’s the end of today’s episode, folks. Remember, we have a new episode every week, and we’ll do our best to bring updates to any stories that we cover.

E sabia que você pode ter aulas aprofundadas comigo e com os outros professores da Fluency TV? Se você quer aprender com os melhores experts em fluência de idiomas do mundo, inscreva-se na nossa lista de espera! Quem estiver nela será avisado antecipadamente sobre novas vagas e terá uma chance maior de entrar na próxima turma. Então aperte o link na descrição desse episódio e faça a sua inscrição 100% gratuita.

Don’t forget to check out fluencytv.com to have access to free content in seven different languages. I’ll see you soon. Peace out.

Stories

Tonga calls for ‘immediate aid’ after volcanic eruption, tsunami
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/16/explainer-what-does-volcanic-eruption-mean-for-tonga-world
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/17/tonga-calls-for-immediate-aid-after-volcanic-eruption-tsunami
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/17/not-knowing-is-heartbreaking-sleepless-nights-among-tongan-diaspora-after-contact-with-country-cut-off
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/127517682/cable-repair-ship-to-set-sail-from-png-to-restore-communications-to-tonga
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220116-two-women-drown-in-peru-due-to-tonga-volcanic-eruption
https://www.dw.com/en/tonga-volcano-eruption-significant-damage-likely-tsunami-threat-recedes/a-60439489
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300497686/tonga-volcano-ashcovered-runway-could-delay-air-force-landing-navy-to-head-north
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60009944
https://reliefweb.int/report/tonga/tonga-volcanic-eruption-and-tsunami-cuts-country-world
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/01/tonga-eruption-and-tsunami-new-zealand-officials-working-to-what-s-needed-for-pacific-island-nation-jacinda-ardern.html
‍‍https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tonga-volcanic-eruption-too-early-to-tell-jacinda-ardern-on-injuries-damage-from-disaster/ZRMNG2IXFYU6PYXYTMX3FPLPQ4/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60007119
Billionaires ‘Had a Terrific Pandemic’ While Inequality Killed Millions: Oxfam
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220117-world-s-10-richest-men-doubled-wealth-during-covid-report
https://www.dw.com/en/oxfam-10-richest-men-in-the-world-doubled-wealth-amid-covid-pandemic/a-60443448
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/17/oxfam-on-covid-inequality-tax-rich-to-pay-for-vaccines-protect-climate.html
Beyond Meat And Impossible Foods Helped Save Nearly 1 Million Animals In The US Last Year
https://plantbasednews.org/culture/wierd-wonderful/beyond-meat-impossible-foods-animals-us/