Questões de Inglês

Wiser and older

Sometimes the world of science and medicine produces something that can only be described 

as unalloyed good news. We are used to stories about pollution scares and increases in the 

rates of cancer, but bubbling beneath is the stark reality that we live at a time when humans are

healthier and live longer than at any time in our history.

[5]  The Office for National Statistics figures, recently released, make heartening if surprising reading. 

They show that most men are surviving until the age of 85, while women are living four years 

longer. Furthermore, we can expect these figures to increase as the century progresses. What’s  

driving this extraordinary increase in human longevity?

The increase has been driven by a number of advances. Firstly, the huge reduction in neonatal 

[10]  and infant deaths. These days, nearly all babies born in a prosperous advanced nation can expect 

to survive into adulthood. Over half the couples in the world are having fewer than two children

each. This is partly because almost everywhere infant morta-lity is falling, globally faster today  

than at any time in human history.

Sanitation, vaccination and better diets have increased lifespans once we survive infancy, but 

[15]  they cannot wholly explain why people are living into their eighties and beyond. A cut in physical  

stress and a huge reduction in exposure to toxic and carcinogenic substances in the environment 

may explain much of the increase. In the 1950s, thousands died or became very ill during the  

London smogs. That threat, along with numerous other environmental containments, has gone. 

We have also begun to stop smoking and we are drinking less, too. 

[20]  Finally, life is much safer than it used to be. As psychologist Steven Pinker shows in his book, 

The better angels of our nature, the history of all socie-ties has shown an amazing decline in 

violence over the past century. We are ten times less likely to be murdered today than we were 

two hundred years ago, and three times less likely to be killed on the roads than we were in the 

1960s.

[25]  So, can the increase in longevity continue? According to gerontologists, there is no clear answer. 

Currently the maximum human lifespan is 122 years, attained by the French woman Jeanne Calment 

who died in 1997. Significantly, no one has come close to her astonishing record. Instead, more  

and more of us are dodging the bullets of middle age and living to our personal genetic potential.

So how long is the natural human lifespan? The answer seems to be that, in a world where 

[30]  infectious diseases are kept at bay and where we are safe from predators and starvation, and 

provided we keep our lifestyles in check, most people should reach 80 or 90.

Something very big is going on, wrote Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general. He 

warned that “the social and economic implications of this phenomenon are profound, extending 

far beyond the individual older person and the immediate family, touching broader society and

[35]  the global community in unprecedented ways”. What the figures show more than anything is  

that we need a rapid and radical rethink of how we treat the elderly among us, as they will soon 

be the majority

(telegraph.co.uk)

FAT IS BEAUTIFUL?

    Americans are fat, they are getting fatter and as soon as they out eat the South Sea Islanders, they will be the fattest people in the world. This alarming message, from the journalist Greg Critter, has helped promote the provocative bestseller Fat Land. It reveals that six out of every 10 Americans are already overweight and that, if they continue to expand at the current rate, by 2050 all of them will be. So what should they do about it?

    There is an obvious and a not-so-obvious answer to this question. Greg Critser provides the conventional solution: they should eat more carefully and do more exercise. He traces the expanding American waistline to Earl Butz, President Nixon’s foul-mouthed Secretary of Agriculture, who drastically brought down food prices in the ‘70s by introducing subsidies for farming. The other great architect of obesity was David Wallerstein, the McDonalds executive who discovered super sizing- offering vast single portions of food so people eat the equivalent of the double helpings that they were too embarrassed to ask for.

    But the issue has another reaction: not “I’m fat, so what can I do about it?” but “I’m fat, so what?” This is the line taken by fat activists and size awareness advocates. They believe that there is nothing wrong with being overweight: negative attitudes towards large people are simply prejudices that need to be fought.

    In part perhaps due to fat liberationists, the USA is changing its views on size. The fashion press, for instance, recently announced that “fat is the new thin.” According to American Vogue the voluptuously curved Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lopez and Kelly Osbourne are much more attractive than the “stick-thin” Hollywood stereotypes. There is also a popular backlash against “self-hating” attitudes of an older generation that was inspired by feminism and sexual liberation to try always be perfect and in control.

    In spite of this, one crucial factor seems destined to keep Americans trying to lose weight. Obesity, as Critser points out, is now - for the first time in the history - the disease of the poor, not the rich. And, in an aspirational society, if the well-off can see their feet, everyone else will want as well.

Adapted fromSPEAKUP n.196, pages 18 to 20.

FAT IS BEAUTIFUL?

    Americans are fat, they are getting fatter and as soon as they out eat the South Sea Islanders, they will be the fattest people in the world. This alarming message, from the journalist Greg Critter, has helped promote the provocative bestseller Fat Land. It reveals that six out of every 10 Americans are already overweight and that, if they continue to expand at the current rate, by 2050 all of them will be. So what should they do about it?

    There is an obvious and a not-so-obvious answer to this question. Greg Critser provides the conventional solution: they should eat more carefully and do more exercise. He traces the expanding American waistline to Earl Butz, President Nixon’s foul-mouthed Secretary of Agriculture, who drastically brought down food prices in the ‘70s by introducing subsidies for farming. The other great architect of obesity was David Wallerstein, the McDonalds executive who discovered super sizing- offering vast single portions of food so people eat the equivalent of the double helpings that they were too embarrassed to ask for.

    But the issue has another reaction: not “I’m fat, so what can I do about it?” but “I’m fat, so what?” This is the line taken by fat activists and size awareness advocates. They believe that there is nothing wrong with being overweight: negative attitudes towards large people are simply prejudices that need to be fought.

    In part perhaps due to fat liberationists, the USA is changing its views on size. The fashion press, for instance, recently announced that “fat is the new thin.” According to American Vogue the voluptuously curved Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lopez and Kelly Osbourne are much more attractive than the “stick-thin” Hollywood stereotypes. There is also a popular backlash against “self-hating” attitudes of an older generation that was inspired by feminism and sexual liberation to try always be perfect and in control.

    In spite of this, one crucial factor seems destined to keep Americans trying to lose weight. Obesity, as Critser points out, is now - for the first time in the history - the disease of the poor, not the rich. And, in an aspirational society, if the well-off can see their feet, everyone else will want as well.

Adapted fromSPEAKUP n.196, pages 18 to 20.

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

What is organized crime?

    Organized crime was characterised by the United Nations, in 1994, as: “group organization to commit crime; hierarchical links or personal relationships which permit leaders to control the group: violence, intimidation and corruption used to earn profits or control territories or markets; laundering of illicit proceeds both in furtherance of criminal activity and to infiltrate the legitimate economy; the potential for expansion into any new activities and beyond national borders; and cooperation with other organized transnational criminal groups.”

    It is increasingly global. Although links between, for example, mafia groups in Italy and the USA have existed for decades, new and rapid means of communication have facilitated the development of international networks. Some build on shared linguistic or cultural ties, such as a network trafficking drugs and human organs, which links criminal gangs in Mozambique, Portugal, Brazil, Pakistan, Dubai and South Africa. Others bring together much less likely groups, such as those trafficking arms, drugs and people between South Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan and Russia, or those linking the Russian mafia with Colombian cocaine cartels or North American criminal gangs with the Japanese Yakuza. Trafficked commodities may pass from group to group along the supply chain; for instance heroin in Italy has traditionally been produced in Afghanistan, transported by Turks, distributed by Albanians, and sold by Italians.

    Organized crime exploits profit opportunities wherever they arise. Globalization of financial markets, with free movement of goods and capital, has facilitated smuggling of counterfeit goods (in part a reflection of the creation of global brands), internet fraud, and money-laundering. On the other hand, organized crime also takes advantage of the barriers to free movement of people across national borders and the laws against non-medicinal use of narcotics: accordingly it earns vast profits in smuggling migrants and psychoactive drugs. Briquet and Favarel have identified deregulation and the “rolling back of the state” in some countries as creating lacunae that have been occupied by profiteers. The political changes in Europe in the late 1980s fuelled the growth in criminal networks, often involving former law enforcement officers. Failed states, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo or Sierra Leone, have provided further opportunities as criminal gangs smuggle arms in and commodities out, for example diamonds, gold, and rare earth metals, often generating violence against those involved in the trade and in the surrounding communities. Finally, there are a few states, such as the Democratic Republic of Korea and Burma and Guinea-Bissau (once described as a narco-state) where politicians have been alleged to have played an active role in international crime.

    Organized criminal gangs have strong incentives. Compared with legitimate producers, they have lower costs of production due to the ability to disregard quality and safety standards, tax obligations, minimum wages or employee benefits. Once established, they may threaten or use violence to eliminate competitors, and can obtain favourable treatment by regulatory authorities either through bribes or threats.

(www.globalizationandhealth.com. Adaptado)

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

What is organized crime?

    Organized crime was characterised by the United Nations, in 1994, as: “group organization to commit crime; hierarchical links or personal relationships which permit leaders to control the group: violence, intimidation and corruption used to earn profits or control territories or markets; laundering of illicit proceeds both in furtherance of criminal activity and to infiltrate the legitimate economy; the potential for expansion into any new activities and beyond national borders; and cooperation with other organized transnational criminal groups.”

    It is increasingly global. Although links between, for example, mafia groups in Italy and the USA have existed for decades, new and rapid means of communication have facilitated the development of international networks. Some build on shared linguistic or cultural ties, such as a network trafficking drugs and human organs, which links criminal gangs in Mozambique, Portugal, Brazil, Pakistan, Dubai and South Africa. Others bring together much less likely groups, such as those trafficking arms, drugs and people between South Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan and Russia, or those linking the Russian mafia with Colombian cocaine cartels or North American criminal gangs with the Japanese Yakuza. Trafficked commodities may pass from group to group along the supply chain; for instance heroin in Italy has traditionally been produced in Afghanistan, transported by Turks, distributed by Albanians, and sold by Italians.

    Organized crime exploits profit opportunities wherever they arise. Globalization of financial markets, with free movement of goods and capital, has facilitated smuggling of counterfeit goods (in part a reflection of the creation of global brands), internet fraud, and money-laundering. On the other hand, organized crime also takes advantage of the barriers to free movement of people across national borders and the laws against non-medicinal use of narcotics: accordingly it earns vast profits in smuggling migrants and psychoactive drugs. Briquet and Favarel have identified deregulation and the “rolling back of the state” in some countries as creating lacunae that have been occupied by profiteers. The political changes in Europe in the late 1980s fuelled the growth in criminal networks, often involving former law enforcement officers. Failed states, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo or Sierra Leone, have provided further opportunities as criminal gangs smuggle arms in and commodities out, for example diamonds, gold, and rare earth metals, often generating violence against those involved in the trade and in the surrounding communities. Finally, there are a few states, such as the Democratic Republic of Korea and Burma and Guinea-Bissau (once described as a narco-state) where politicians have been alleged to have played an active role in international crime.

    Organized criminal gangs have strong incentives. Compared with legitimate producers, they have lower costs of production due to the ability to disregard quality and safety standards, tax obligations, minimum wages or employee benefits. Once established, they may threaten or use violence to eliminate competitors, and can obtain favourable treatment by regulatory authorities either through bribes or threats.

(www.globalizationandhealth.com. Adaptado)

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

What is organized crime?

    Organized crime was characterised by the United Nations, in 1994, as: “group organization to commit crime; hierarchical links or personal relationships which permit leaders to control the group: violence, intimidation and corruption used to earn profits or control territories or markets; laundering of illicit proceeds both in furtherance of criminal activity and to infiltrate the legitimate economy; the potential for expansion into any new activities and beyond national borders; and cooperation with other organized transnational criminal groups.”

    It is increasingly global. Although links between, for example, mafia groups in Italy and the USA have existed for decades, new and rapid means of communication have facilitated the development of international networks. Some build on shared linguistic or cultural ties, such as a network trafficking drugs and human organs, which links criminal gangs in Mozambique, Portugal, Brazil, Pakistan, Dubai and South Africa. Others bring together much less likely groups, such as those trafficking arms, drugs and people between South Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan and Russia, or those linking the Russian mafia with Colombian cocaine cartels or North American criminal gangs with the Japanese Yakuza. Trafficked commodities may pass from group to group along the supply chain; for instance heroin in Italy has traditionally been produced in Afghanistan, transported by Turks, distributed by Albanians, and sold by Italians.

    Organized crime exploits profit opportunities wherever they arise. Globalization of financial markets, with free movement of goods and capital, has facilitated smuggling of counterfeit goods (in part a reflection of the creation of global brands), internet fraud, and money-laundering. On the other hand, organized crime also takes advantage of the barriers to free movement of people across national borders and the laws against non-medicinal use of narcotics: accordingly it earns vast profits in smuggling migrants and psychoactive drugs. Briquet and Favarel have identified deregulation and the “rolling back of the state” in some countries as creating lacunae that have been occupied by profiteers. The political changes in Europe in the late 1980s fuelled the growth in criminal networks, often involving former law enforcement officers. Failed states, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo or Sierra Leone, have provided further opportunities as criminal gangs smuggle arms in and commodities out, for example diamonds, gold, and rare earth metals, often generating violence against those involved in the trade and in the surrounding communities. Finally, there are a few states, such as the Democratic Republic of Korea and Burma and Guinea-Bissau (once described as a narco-state) where politicians have been alleged to have played an active role in international crime.

    Organized criminal gangs have strong incentives. Compared with legitimate producers, they have lower costs of production due to the ability to disregard quality and safety standards, tax obligations, minimum wages or employee benefits. Once established, they may threaten or use violence to eliminate competitors, and can obtain favourable treatment by regulatory authorities either through bribes or threats.

(www.globalizationandhealth.com. Adaptado)