Fluency News: Fresh efforts to free civilians as new ceasefire agreed.

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 principais notícias da semana, tudo em inglês! Ao longo do episódio, nós também adicionamos explicações em português sobre as coisas que achamos que precisam de mais atenção, assim você não perde nenhum detalhe!

No episódio desta semana, nós falamos sobre o que está acontecendo na Ucrânia, como começou e o que pode acontecer. Nós também falamos sobre filhotes de cachorro e kiwis, para elevar nosso humor!

Nós temos uma página de dicas de inglês no Instagram, venha conferir! @fluencytvingles
Toda semana temos um novo episódio do Fluency News, não deixe de escutar!‍

See you!‍

Este episódio foi escrito por Lívia Pond.‍

TRANSCRIPTION

Hello, squad! Welcome back to Fluency News! I’m Thali Uba, one of your English teachers and host! It’s great to have you with me, to train your listening skills and improve your comprehension and understanding, with the bonus of staying an informed citizen of the world.

Before we get to the news, let me just remind you to head over to fluencytv.com to see all of our sources and have access to the transcript of this episode.

Quite a bit has been happening around the world lately, but our main story of the day and the main focus of this episode will be the Russian-Ukrainian conflict; how we got here, what’s actually happening and what we can expect. A couple of episodes ago, we talked about the threat looming over Ukraine, with Russian president Vladimir Putin making demands and moving in closer to the border.

On February 24, an end was brought to weeks of diplomatic efforts to avert war, when Russia invaded Ukraine from multiple sides. Fighting and other military activity took place around and on the way to Kyiv, the country’s capital.

The invasion has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two. Over 1 million people fled to Poland, with the government saying that it will create an 8 billion zloty, or almost R$9bn fund to help the war refugees. The Polish border town of Przemysl alone has welcomed 180,000 refugees in 10 days.

Irish homeowners have been registering their interest in providing accommodation to people, like it was done for Syrian refugees before. More than 20,000 Ukrainian citizens were evacuated to Turkey, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said, adding that Turkey is more than happy to welcome them.

Celebrities and companies are raising funds to send to the country, and people are gathering resources to help where they can. Western countries have broadly backed Ukraine, offering aid and weapon shipments, along with heavy sanctions on Moscow.

In the Ukrainian capital, troops have been preparing for another expected Russian assault on Kyiv, including planting explosives on what they say is the last intact bridge standing in the way of advancing forces.

Ukraine’s military is greatly outmatched by Russia’s, but its professional and volunteer forces have fought back with fierce tenacity. In Kyiv, volunteers lined up on Saturday to join the military.

Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations “in a moment” if Kyiv meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.

Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to preserve neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.

It was the most explicit Russian statement so far of the terms it wants to impose on Ukraine to halt what it calls its “special military operation”.

Peskov told Reuters in a telephone interview that Ukraine was aware of the conditions. “And they were told that all this can be stopped in a moment.” There was no immediate reaction from the Ukrainian side”.

The outlining of Russia’s demands came as delegations from Russia and Ukraine prepared to meet for a third round of talks aimed at ending the conflict.

Russia had been forced into taking decisive actions to force the demilitarization of Ukraine, Peskov said, rather than just recognizing the independence of the breakaway regions.

This was to protect the 3 million Russian-speaking populations in these republics, who he said were being threatened by 100,000 Ukrainian troops.

In the run-up to the Russian invasion, Ukraine repeatedly and emphatically denied Moscow’s assertions that it was about to mount an offensive to take back the separatist regions by force.

Peskov said Russia had also had to act in the face of the threat it perceived from NATO, saying it was “only a matter of time” before the alliance placed missiles in Ukraine as it had in Poland and Romania.

“We just understood we could not put up with this anymore. We had to act,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s “special military action” is needed “to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide”.

Ukraine sought an emergency order from the United Nations’ highest court on Monday to halt hostilities on its territory, arguing that Russia – which did not attend the hearing – had falsely applied genocide law to justify its invasion.

The hearing was held at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) without legal representation for Russia.

“The fact that Russia’s seats are empty speaks loudly. They are not here in this court of law: they are on a battlefield waging an aggressive war against my country,” Ukrainian envoy Anton Korynevych said.

An association of genocide academics has backed Ukraine and Western powers’ view that Russia was misappropriating the term genocide to describe the treatment of Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine.

“There is absolutely no evidence that there is genocide going on in Ukraine,” Melanie O’Brien, president of the international Association of Genocide Scholars, told Reuters.

As we said before, this is a rapidly developing story, and it’s impossible to know what will happen next. This episode is recorded in advance, so there might be some updates already, but we will leave links to some news outlets that are live reporting on this, so you can read more until our next episode, next week.

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Nessa história, nós temos uso de uma estrutura pouco usada em notícias em geral. O Simple Present. Apesar de poder ser usado para falar de fatos, é mais comum que as notícias sejam escritas em outros tempos verbais, principalmente o Present Perfect e o Simple Past. Nós já falamos um pouco desses dois tempos verbais, mas acho que nunca sobre o Simple Present. Essa estrutura é formada de formas diferentes em frases afirmativas, negativas e interrogativas. Nas frases afirmativas, é formada por um sujeito, verbo na forma presente e o complemento. Quando o sujeito for HE, SHE ou IT, precisamos colocar S no fim dos verbos regulares. Na frase “the situation shocks me”, por exemplo, adicionamos um S ao fim do verbo “shock”. Temos também verbos irregulares, que não seguem uma regra, e por isso têm que ser memorizados.

Para frases negativas e interrogativas, fazemos uso do auxiliar “do” para os sujeitos I, YOU, WE, THEY, e “does” para HE, SHE e IT.‍

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Since that was a very heavy topic, let’s see some good news, shall we? A county in the U.S. will be the first to have a dog stationed at the courthouse that is specifically trained to comfort people who are dealing with traumatic experiences.

County District Attorney Todd Collins wants Aroostook to become the first district in Maine to employ courthouse dogs to comfort children and victims of crimes throughout the legal process. His goal is to abate the stress and psychological damage incurred as survivors and witnesses relive the traumatic events that brought them to court.

Holiday, a yellow Labrador retriever who was donated by a local breeder, is being trained to work with people in a courtroom setting.

While it will take nearly two years for the precocious pup to complete her training, the 14 week-old dog is already melting hearts whenever she visits the offices.

A courthouse in the county already has an unofficial therapy dog — Nephi, a 3-year-old English Mastiff. Holiday will have a much more focused job than Nephi once she completes her training.

The difference between a therapy dog and a service dog is the level of attentiveness they have. Among other skills, Holiday will learn to be still and silent in a courtroom, walk to the witness stand on command and remain seated at that spot for long periods of time.

Holiday will also be able to help the DA Office’s staff cope with compassion fatigue – the burnout and vicarious traumatic stress they experience as they work with clients who have been through violence or other trauma. The workers can have frustration, anger, exhaustion and depression or experience traumatic stress from some of the more disturbing materials they work with to prove cases.

“A courthouse dog can provide emotional support for everyone,” Collins said.‍

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Pode ser que a palavra abate, usada nessa notícia, seja nova para você. Ela é mais formal, e por isso pouco usada no dia a dia. Ela significa diminuir, abater, minimizar ou moderar. Você pode usar sinônimos mais comuns, como “diminish”, “decrease”, “dull” ou “receive”, para dizer a mesma coisa. Palavras como essa podem aparecer em textos, notícias e livros, por exemplo, e é por isso que o contato frequente com o idioma é necessário! Você não vai estar errado usando a palavra abate, mas você vai se comunicar mais naturalmente usando um dos sinônimos mais informais.‍

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And finally, New Zealand’s national bird is no longer threatened, as population grows to 20,000.

After years declining, kiwi numbers are bouncing back thanks to intensive conservation efforts by the government and volunteers.

Of the five species of kiwi, the North Island brown kiwi is faring best.

Its numbers have grown to more than 20,000 which saw it reclassified from “at risk – declining” to “no longer threatened”, with its population expected to grow by more than 10 percent over the next three generations.

That status change came with the important warning that it was dependent on ongoing conservation intervention, DOC chief science advisor Hugh Robertson said.

Robertson has been working with kiwi for more than 30 years, and said a lot of work had gone into bringing the national bird back from the brink.

Being flightless ground-dwelling birds had not helped kiwi survive, especially with the introduction of predators such as stoats, rats and ferrets preying on nests and young hatchlings.

If left to their own devices, kiwi chicks only have a five percent chance of surviving to adulthood in the wild.

But with interventions such as Operation Nest Egg – where eggs were taken from wild nests, hatched and raised in captivity before being released into the wild – the survival chances go up to 30-50 percent, Robertson said.

And the efforts to save the kiwi had flow-on effects for many other birds, with the reduction in predators helping other species to thrive as well, he said.

The number of animals in the “threatened – nationally critical” category dropped from 25 in 2012 to 18 in 2021, the report showed.‍

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A palavra such é uma dessas que têm muitos significados e usos, dependendo do que a acompanha ou o contexto. Aqui, nós temos ela sendo usada com a partícula “as”, “such as”. Such as não é necessariamente uma estrutura formal, mas ela é menos usada do que “like”, que pode ter o mesmo significado. Nós usamos such as para dar exemplos do que estamos falando. Se fôssemos traduzir, such as significa “tal como”. É importante que você treine o seu cérebro para fazer o mínimo de traduções individuais possíveis. É que muitas palavras têm mais de um significado, e traduzir só uma perdida em uma frase pode te atrapalhar ao invés de ajudar. Sempre que se deparar com uma palavra ou estrutura que você não conhece, tente entender o contexto em que ela está sendo usada. Muitas vezes, você consegue deduzir o que a palavra significa, e acaba internalizando o significado em contexto‍

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And it’s with that that we’ll end today’s episode. We hope you’re having a great week, and we’ll see you soon. Remember to check fluencytv.com for the transcript of this episode, all of our sources and more free content in all the languages Fluency Academy currently teaches.

E se você quer aprender inglês, espanhol, francês, italiano, alemão, japonês, mandarim ou coreano, mais rápido e com todo o suporte da Fluency Academy, você precisa se inscrever na nossa lista de espera!

Garantir o seu nome nela é a sua melhor chance de se tornar aluno da Fluency Academy quando abrirmos uma nova turma. Então, aperte o link na descrição deste episódio e faça a sua inscrição 100% gratuita! Leva só uns 15 segundinhos!

There’s a new episode of Fluency News every week, and we’ll be waiting for you! Bye!‍

Stories

War in Ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/russias-war-in-ukraine-complete-guide-in-maps-video-and-pictures
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60641217
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/world/europe/ukraine-irpin-civilian-death.html
https://inews.co.uk/news/russian-invasion-ukraine-will-be-total-failure-could-spark-global-conflict-says-fsb-whistleblower-1501734
https://www.gbnews.uk/news/russian-spy-claims-ukraine-war-will-be-total-failure-and-predicts-collapse-like-fall-of-nazi-germany/241770
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-russia-face-off-world-court-over-genocide-claim-2022-03-06/
https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/top-wrap-1-ukrainians-trapped-besieged-city-fighting-blocks-evacuation-efforts-2022-03-07/
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2022/03/ukrainians-want-to-stay-and-fight-but-dont-see-russian-people-as-the-enemy-a-remarkable-poll-from-kyiv/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/top-wrap-1-ukrainian-refugees-near-15-million-russian-assault-enters-11th-day-2022-03-06/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/7/zelenskyy-ukraine-will-not-forgive-russia-for-invasion-shelling
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-06/ukraine-and-russia-to-face-off-at-world-court-over-genocide-claim
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/over-100-irish-households-have-already-registered-interest-in-taking-in-people-fleeing-war-torn-ukraine-41407957.html
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/zelensky-renews-demand-for-no-fly-zone-if-you-dont-you-want-us-to-be-killed-very-slowly/
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/03/7/7329022/
https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/turkey-welcomed-over-20000-ukrainian-refugees-soylu-says/amp‍

New courthouse pup will be 1st of its kind in Maine
https://bangordailynews.com/2022/03/01/news/aroostook/first-maine-courthouse-pup-joam40zk0w/‍

North Island brown kiwi ‘no longer threatened’ as population swells to 20,000
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/127469374/north-island-brown-kiwi-no-longer-threatened-as-population-swells-to-20000