Questões de Inglês - Grammar

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Pope Francis disappoints Rohingya by failing to condemn persecution

[1]   As the crowds trickled out of the  

Yangon sports ground where Pope Francis 

delivered his first public mass before tens of  

thousands of people, Khin Maung Myint, a  

[5] Rohingya activist, sat on the sidelines. He  

was disappointed. Not in Francis, but in the  

advisers who appear to have dissuaded the  

pontiff from bringing up the plight of the  

Rohingya people. “Rohingya are not the  

[10] ones who lost their dignity, but the people  

who silence the pope’s expression,” he said.  

“Those who pushed the pope not to use the  

word Rohingya, they are the ones who lost  

their dignity.” 

[15]   Francis is nearing the end of a  

four-day visit to Myanmar, previously  

known as Burma, in which he has not  

publicly spoken about the persecuted  

Muslim minority, more than 620,000 of  

[20] whom have fled to Bangladesh in recent  

months, escaping what western leaders are  

calling ethnic cleansing. 

  Among the guests in the VIP  

section, where a gazebo provided protection  

[25] from the hot Myanmar sun, was Aye Ne  

Win, the grandson of the country’s first  

dictator who attracted public derision  

recently after he dressed up as the pope for  

Halloween. Beside him, in a black veil, sat a  

[30] beauty queen who has described the  

Rohingya in a YouTube video as “harbingers  

of terror and violence”. 

  In his homily on Wednesday, the  

pope talked about the need for forgiveness  

[35] and ignoring the desire for revenge, but  

declined to reference violence meted out  

against the Rohingya, a campaign allegedly  

marked by gang-rape, massacres and  

arson. “We think that healing can come  

[40] from anger or revenge,” Francis said,  

speaking of the many “wounded” people in  

Myanmar. “Yet the way of revenge is not  

the way of Jesus,” he said. It was his  

second public address in Myanmar, coming  

[45] after he shared a stage with the state  

counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Tuesday,  

telling an audience of diplomats and  

journalists that all of Myanmar’s religious  

and minority ethnic groups – “none  

[50] excluded” – should be respected. 

  Both speeches have fallen short of  

what many expected from the pope, whose  

advocacy for refugees has been a  

benchmark of his papacy. He has previously  

[55] referred to “our Rohingya brothers and  

sisters”. At a press conference in Yangon on  

Wednesday night, papal spokesman Greg  

Burke said the moral authority of the Pope  

“still stands”. “You can criticize what is said  

[60] or not said but the Pope is not going to lose  

any moral authority on this question here,”  

he said.  

  The Rohingya have suffered  

decades of persecution in Myanmar, where  

[65] their freedoms have been slowly eroded and  

tens of thousands are confined to  

internment camps. They are widely deemed  

illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and  

labelled “Bengalis”. “For years the  

[70] international community has towed the  

government of Myanmar’s line, refusing to  

say ‘Rohingya’ for fear of doing harm,” said  

David Baulk, a Myanmar researcher for  

Fortify Rights. “There should be nothing  

[75] controversial about the pope identifying  

people by the name they want.” 

  Whether or not the pope should  

address the crisis has been a matter of  

debate within the Vatican since the visit was  

[80] announced, according to a source familiar  

with discussions. “There are probably a mix  

of voices in the Vatican,” they said. “Those  

who are old school diplomats for whom  

caution is always their watchword and  

[85] others who are a bit more bold.” 

  The most vocal was until recently  

Charles Maung Bo, Myanmar’s first cardinal,  

a powerful orator who has fiercely defended  

the Rohingya and condemned “merchants of  

[90] hatred” in the form of Buddhist  

ultranationalists who have sanctioned the  

violence. 

  Before this week’s visit he urged  

the pope not to use the word, though he  

[95] has made it clear he would have been  

happy with a compromise phrase, according  

to the source. “I think one factor in this was  

almost certainly pressure from within the  

church on him because he has been so  

[100] outspoken until now and I think there would  

have been an enormous amount of pressure  

from other bishops,” the source said. 

  Who are the Rohingya? 

  At the press conference on 

[105] Wednesday night, the split between the  

bishops was apparent, with one saying  

there was a lack of “reliable evidence” of  

atrocities and was not sure what was going  

on because he had not seen it himself. 

[110]   The silence is likely to appease  

many Catholics in the country who either  

share prejudices against the Rohingya or  

are afraid of a nationalist backlash against  

the 650,000-strong Catholic community in  

[115] Myanmar. 

  Francis is scheduled to fly to  

Dhaka in Bangladesh where he will meet  

Rohingya refugees on Thursday. But for  

some in Myanmar, the leader of the church  

[120] has a moral obligation not to leave the  

country without commenting on its most  

pressing crisis. 

  After the mass, Father Thomas, a  

Yangon priest, said he hoped the pope  

[125] brought the matter up in closed-door  

meetings this week with the army chief, Min  

Aung Hlaing, and Aung San Suu Kyi. 

  “This is the main issue in Burma,”  

he said. 

www.theguardian.com/nov.27.2017

The underlined verbs in “Both speeches have fallen short of what many expected from the pope, whose advocacy for refugees has been a benchmark of his papacy” (lines 51-54) are respectively 

Why Children Use Drugs

Parents often think that friends or drug dealers may have pressured their child into taking drugs. But children say that they choose to use drugs because they want to:

• (1) boredom

• Feel good

• Forget their troubles and relax

• (2) fun

• Satisfy their curiosity

• Take risks

• (3) pain

• Feel grown-up

• (4) their independence

• (5) to a specific group and look cool

Parents know their children best and are therefore in the best position to suggest healthy alternatives to doing drugs. Encouraging children to become involved in sports, clubs, music lessons, community service projects, church, and other after-school activities can keep children and teens active and interested, while building their confidence and interpersonal skills. These activities will also bring youth closer to parents and to other adults and peers who can influence them in positive ways.

Disponível em:< http://www.yic.gov/drugfree/whykiduse.htm>. Acesso em: 03 ago. 2010.

The next time the clerk at your favorite grocery store asks whether you prefer “paper or plastic” for your purchases, consider giving the truly eco-friendly response and saying, “neither.”

Plastic bags end up as litter that fouls the landscape, and kill thousands of marine mammals every year that mistake the floating bags for food. Plastic bags that get buried in landfills may take up to 1,000 years to break down, and in the process they separate into smaller and smaller toxic particles that contaminate soil and water. Furthermore, the production of plastic bags consume millions of gallons of oil that could be used for fuel and heating.

Paper bags, which many people consider a better alternative to plastic bags, carry their own set of environmental problems. For example, according to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags, which adds up to a lot of trees.

But if you decline paper and plastic bags, then how do you get your groceries home? The answer, according to many environmentalists, is high-quality reusable shopping bags made of materials that don’t harm the environment during production and don’t need to be discarded after each use.

Experts estimate that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed and discarded annually worldwide — more than a million per minute.

Disponível em: http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/reusablebags.htm. Adaptado.