Read the following text:

[…] The right of children to grow up and be educated, the right of women to receive protection, the right to conserve nature, the right to survival of other lives intimately connected with the survival of the human race – all these have now become major elements in the concept of human rights. As science and technology develop, authoritarian states invade privacy and limit personal freedom in the name of counter-terrorism and maintaining stability, intensifying psychological manipulation at all levels. Through control of the internet and command of facial recognition technology, authoritarian states tighten their grip on people’s thoughts and actions, threatening and even eliminating freedoms and political rights. Similar kinds of controls are being imposed to varying degrees within the global context. From this we can see that under these new conditions human rights have not gained a common understanding, and if discussion of human rights becomes narrow and shortsighted, it is bound to become nothing more than outdated, empty talk.

Analyse the content of the following sentences according to the ideas presented in the text:

I - Facial recognition is a new and important tool to catch bandits.

II - States consider counter-terrorism and maintaining stability more important than citzens privacy.

III - Facial recognition technology is being politically used as a form to limit personal freedom and to eliminate political rights. IV - The wrong use of technology for children is a problem in authoritarian states mainly.

Textfor question.

Humans Are Growing Weird, Bone Spikes on Their Skulls: Smartphones May Be the Culprit

1 The hours we spend scrolling through our smartphones appear to be changing our skulls. This may be the reason why some people — especially the younger crowd — are developing a weird, bony spike just above their necks.

2 The bony skull bump — known as an external occipital protuberance — is sometimes so large, you can feel it by pressing your fingers on the base of your skull.

3 "I have been a clinician for 20 years, and only in the last decade, increasingly, I have been discovering that my patients have this growth on the skull," David Shahar, a health scientist at the University of The Sunshine Coast, Australia, told the BBC.

4 A cause-and-effect relationship hasn't been identified, but it's possible that the spike comes from constantly bending one's neck at uncomfortable angles to look at smart devices. The human head is heavy, weighting about 10 lbs. (4.5 kilograms), and tilting it forward to look at funny cat photos (or however you spend your smartphone time) can strain the neck — hence the crick people sometimes get, known as "text neck."

5 "Text neck" can increase pressure on the juncture where the neck muscles attach to the skull, and the body likely responds by laying down new bone, which leads to that spiky bump, Shahar told the BBC. This spike distributes the weight of the head over a larger area, he said.

6 These bony spikes are likely here to stay, Shahar said. Luckily, they rarely cause medical issues. If you are experiencing discomfort, however, try improving your posture, he told.

TEXTO PARA AQUESTÃO

Assigning female genders to digital assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa is helping entrench harmful gender biases, according to a UN agency.

Research released by Unesco claims that the often submissive and flirty responses offered by the systemsto many queries – including outright abusive ones – reinforce ideas of women as subservient.

“Because the speech of most voice assistants is female, it sends a signal that women are obliging, docile and eager‐to‐ please helpers, available at the touch of a button or with a blunt voice command like ‘hey’ or ‘OK’”, the report said.

“The assistant holds no power of agency beyond what the commander asks of it. It honours commands and responds to queries regardless of their tone or hostility. In many communities, this reinforces commonly held gender biases that women are subservient and tolerant of poor treatment.”

The Unesco publication was entitled “I’d Blush if I Could”; a reference to the response Apple’s Siri assistant offers to the phrase: “You’re a slut.” Amazon’s Alexa will respond: “Well, thanks for the feedback.”

The papersaid such firms were “staffed by overwhelmingly male engineering teams” and have built AI (Artificial Intelligence) systems that “cause their feminised digital assistants to greet verbal abuse with catch‐me‐if‐you‐can flirtation”.

Saniye Gülser Corat, Unesco’s director for gender equality, said: “The world needs to pay much closer attention to how, when and whether AI technologies are gendered and, crucially, who is gendering them.”

Leia o anúncio para responder à questão.

Read the sentence below.

He feels like eating a lot of ice cream on Friday.

Leia o texto a seguir para responder à questão.

5 REASONS TO BE PROVEG

Many of the world’s most urgent problems share a common cause: our food choices. ProVeg is dedicated to raising awareness of how we can tackle these problems through diet.

OUR FOOD CHOICES ARE A MULTIPROBLEM SOLUTION

1. Health – Improve your health

It is now widely accepted that a plant-based diet offers numerous benefits compared with a diet centred on animal products. While animal-based diets carry several health risks, a rich and varied plant-based diet can offer prevention and treatment of a host of modern lifestyle diseases, including some forms of cancer and hypertension.

2. Animals – A better life for animals

Whether it is pigs, cows, chickens, or fish, industrial farming methods cause suffering to countless animals, all of whom are sentient beings and have complex social lives. A plant-based diet minimises the number of animals who live in these conditions, and is easier than ever thanks to the increasing variety of meat and dairy substitutes available.

3. Environment – Save the planet

A plant-based diet can have numerous positive effects on the environment, including the preservation of biodiversity, more sustainable use of resources, and combating climate change.

4. Justice – Help build a fairer world

As the world’s population expands, the question of how we can feed the world fairly and sustainably has never been more urgent. A plant-based diet can help to create a fairer world and a more sustainable food supply for all of us.

5. Taste – Enjoy delicious food

With the wide variety of vegetables available and the increasing number of vegan and vegetarian products on the market, a plantbased diet can be delicious and satisfying.

Read the comic strip bellow and answer question:

Women in Theatre: Why Do So Few Make It to the Top?

An all-female Julius Caesar (A Shakespeare play) has just hit the stage, but it's a rarity in theatre. In a special report, Charlotte Higgins asks leading figures why women are still underrepresented at every level of the business — and what needs to change.

TEXTO

Over the past few years as we've watched
the digital revolution help bring about political and
social revolutions around the world, it has seemed
inevitable that the Internet would set people free.
[5] But think again, say Jared Cohen of the Council on
Foreign Relations and Eric Schmidt, the chairman of

Google. "Technology doesn't just help the good guys
pushing for democratic reform. It can also provide
powerful new tools for dictators to suppress dissent,"
[10] they say. Western companies are more than happy
to help the tyrants. "Everything a regime would need
to build an incredibly intimidating digital police state"
is "commercially available right now," say Cohen and
Schmidt. And this isn't just about reading emails,
[15] tracking tweets, and checking out Facebook. Soon
dictators will be able to compile vast databases of
biometric information: DNA, fingerprints, voices.
Facial-recognition software is growing ever more
sophisticated. "With cloud computing," say Cohen and
[20] Schmidt, "it takes just seconds to compare millions
of faces." Big Brother will start to look like Tiny Tim.
Be warned: "By indexing our biometric signatures,
some governments will try to track our every move
and word."