Questões de Inglês - Voz Ativa e Passiva | Passive and Active Voice para Concurso

The internet vigilantes: Anonymous hackers' group outs man, 32, 'who drove girl, 15, to suicide by spreading topless photos of her'

Anonymous has named a man it claims posted topless pictures of a 15-year-old girl online and harassed her so relentlessly that she killed herself.

Amanda Todd, from Vancouver, Canada, was found hanged in her home on October 10, just weeks after she uploaded a video to YouTube detailing her horrific treatment at the hands of cyber bullies.

When she was just 12, a man in an internet chat room convinced her to flash her breasts, and a year later, he plastered a picture of the incident across Facebook.
Now in a vigilante move, Anonymous, the world's largest hacking group, has named the man allegedly responsible for the picture.

The group claims that he is a 32-year-old from British Columbia, but MailOnline has chosen not to identify him for legal reasons

As Todd's supporters set up Facebook pages warning the man to 'sleep with one eye open', the move by Anonymous sparks concerns over its abilities to create a 'trial by internet' - bypassing the justice system and casting guilt.

In a video posted to YouTube by Anonymous, a figure claims the group lists his personal information, including his date of birth and address

It explains that his username appears on websites where he 'blackmailed' and gave advice to young girls. The same username is also tied to a website with a 'jailbait' photo gallery. '[He] is an abomination to our society, and will be punished,' the Anonymous figure says.

Referring to the possibility they might have the wrong man, they add: 'At the most this is the person who did this to Amanda Todd, and at the least it's another pedophile that enjoys taking advantage of children.'

Following Anonymous' announcement, the web moved swiftly, with groups calling for his death and warning him to 'sleep with one eye open' cropping up on Facebook.

CKNW reporters have unsuccessfully tried to speak with the man, and neighbours have described his home as 'a known party house on the weekend with lots of young women coming and going'.

But police attended the home on Monday after a neighbour, Chyne Simpson, said Anonymous named the wrong address. He said he felt threatened by internet users and asked them to stay away.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police refused to confirm Anonymous have the right man but a spokesperson said they were aware that someone had been named.

'We are aware of what's being posted online and certainly following up what we feel is important to follow up,' Sergeant Peter Thiessen told The Globe and Mail, adding: '[Vigilantes] run the risk of committing a criminal offence.'

Todd's family members also said they are not sure the Anonymous report is accurate and said police have tracked down a person living in the U.S. whom they believed was involved.

The claims come weeks after Amanda posted a nearly nine-minute YouTube video detailing her treatment on a stack of notecards held up to the camera.

Todd says that a year after she flashed her breasts, the man tracked her down and demanded he put on a show for him or he would expose her.

When she refused, he created a Facebook page with a list of her friends and used her naked chest as the profile photo. The picture quickly spread across the internet and among her classmates.

It led to relentless bullying online, she said, and she was diagnosed with depression and started drinking. In the video, posted September 7, she admitted that she had previously tried to kill herself twice and has been hospitalised.

After moving to a different city and school, another instance of bullying occurred after she started a romantic relationship with an older man who had a girlfriend. Once that relationship soured, she was confronted and beaten up by the man's girlfriend. She was hit in front of a crowd of screaming people who encouraged her to be left in a ditch.

Amanda does not speak in the video, and her face is not fully shown, but she confirmed her identity with the last notecard which says her name.

One of the final images is a jarring picture of her arm which had been cut repeatedly. Just under six weeks after posting the video, Todd could take the bullying no longer, and took her own life.
During a memorial for Todd on Monday, her friends said they have been aware of a man in his 30s 'stalking' their friend for years.

'There were multiple accounts with random names,' one friend told QMI Agency. 'There were Twitter accounts also used.' The Vancouver Sun reported that Amanda was a student in Grade 10 at the Coquitlam Basic Alternative Education school. The principal of the school confirmed her death and said that she had become connected with many since she transferred to the school in the middle of last year.

'It is a very sad case,' Paul McNaughton told the paper. 'I can tell you we feel we tried everything we could to help her when she came to us.'
Her death prompted a local politician to release a video of her own that pleads to put an end to bullying.
'I just heard about Amanda. I want to say to everyone who loved her, to all her family and friends, how sorry I am about her loss,' British Columbia premier Christy Clark said.
'No one deserves to be bullied. No one earns it. No one asks for it. It isn't a rite of passage. Bullying has to stop.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2218532/Amanda-Todd-Anonymous-names-man-drove- teen-kill-spreading-nude-pictures.html

Subways: The New Urban Status Symbol
Business Week - December 5, 2007
by Jennifer Fishbein

It seems like everywhere you turn these days, a new
high-speed train is whisking more passengers across longer
distances faster than ever before. A [NOUN] to Paris from
London is quicker than flying; Japanese bullet trains traverse the
320 miles from Tokyo to Osaka in two and a half hours; and
magnetic levitating trains in Shanghai cut through the city at 268
miles per hour. But while high-speed trains may grab all the
glamour, the more mundane business of subway construction is
what's driving the biggest growth for transportation companies.
Indeed, the world is seeing an unprecedented boom in new
subways and expansion to existing systems. Thanks to surging
economic growth and urban populations, demand for subways is
soaring in China and India. Lots of other places around the
world also are building new lines, from Dubai to Santo Domingo,
capital of the Dominican Republic. And many European and
American cities ? including even such improbable locales as Los
Angeles and Phoenix ? have caught the transit bug.

Problem-Solving and Prestige

Some cities build out of necessity. Rising prosperity
prompted Dubai residents to buy so many cars that they realized
they could [ADVERB] longer drive these cars because they
were stuck in traffic. Others are keen on the environmental
benefits of metros, which produce far less pollution and
encourage drivers to leave cars at home. Some places, mainly
in the Middle East, are looking to diversify their oil-dependent
economies. And others, to be honest, are chasing an urban
status symbol. Building a metro won't turn any old town into
Paris or London, but it does tell the world that you've arrived.

"You have in some cases a prestige issue, which is more
the case in young cities in need of an image," says Jean-Noël
Debroise, vice-president for product and strategy at Alstom
(ALSO.PA), the French transport company that has built a
quarter of the world's metros.

Rennes is an example of the new trend. The city of about
212,000 people in northwestern France was looking to raise its profile when it installed a metro in 2002. It raised the bar by
opting for a driverless system made by Siemens ? just like the
shiny new No. 14 line in Paris ? protecting passengers from the
French penchant for transit strikes. Turin, Italy, did the same to
help win its bid for the 2006 Winter Olympics; its driverless
system opened just before the games. Even the Spanish island
of Mallorca inaugurated a short metro line in April in hopes of
luring even more tourists to its capital, Palma. Alas, it closed
indefinitely in September due to flooding, amid charges of
mismanagement.

A Boon for Transit Builders

The world's three largest metro manufacturers, Montrealbased
Bombardier (BBDB.TO), Alstom, and Munich-based
Siemens (SI) report high demand for mass transit, including
tramways and light-rail systems that run both under and
[PREPOSITION] ground. The global subway market was worth
9.3 billion dollars in 2005 and is projected to grow at a rate of
2.7% per year until 2015, according to a 2007 study by the
European Railway Industry Assn. Subway lines [TO BUILD] or
extended in 20 European cities and five Middle Eastern ones,
and dozens of towns are constructing light-rail systems, reports
the Brussels-based International Association of Public
Transport.

The size of a city determines its need for a metro system.
Cities of a few million people ? or those anticipating huge
population growth ? really can't do without a mass transit
system. But cities of one or two million inhabitants can choose
between a subway and a surface tramway, which costs far less
but also runs more slowly. [CONJUNCTION] funding is an issue,
cities usually will spring for a subway, says Debroise. "The
tramway has a very old image of the 19th century, with horses in
the streets," he says.

(Adapted from http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/
content/dec2007/gb2007125_600001.htm?chan=top+news_
top+news+index_global+business)

The oil and natural gas industry has developed and
applied an impressive array of innovative technologies to
improve productivity and efficiency, while yielding
environmental benefits. According to the U.S. Department
of Energy, "the petroleum business has transformed itself
into a high-technology industry."
State-of-the-art technology allows the industry to
produce more oil and natural gas from more remote
places - some previously unreachable - with significantly
less adverse effect on the environment. Among the
benefits: increased supply to meet the world's growing
energy demand, reduced energy consumption at oil and
natural gas facilities and refineries, reduced noise from
operations, decreased size of facilities, reduced
emissions of pollutants, better protection of water
resources, and preservation of habitats and wildlife.
With advanced exploration and production
technologies, the oil and gas industry can pinpoint
resources more accurately, extract them more efficiently
and with less surface disturbance, minimize associated
wastes, and, ultimately, restore sites to original or better
condition.
Exploration and production advances include
advanced directional drilling, slimhole drilling, and 3-D
seismic technology. Other segments of the industry have
benefited from technological advances as well. Refineries
are becoming highly automated with integrated process
and energy system controls; this results in improved
operational and environmental performance and enables
refineries to run harder and produce more products safer
than ever before. Also, new process equipment and
catalyst technology advances have been made very
recently to meet new fuel regulations requiring very low
levels of sulfur in gasoline and diesel.
Technology advances such as these are making it
possible for the oil and natural gas industry to grow in
tandem with the nation's energy needs while maintaining
a cleaner environment. The industry is committed to
investing in advanced technologies that will continue to
provide affordable and reliable energy to support our
current quality of life, and expand our economic horizons.
For example, we are researching fuel cells that may
power the vehicles of tomorrow with greater efficiency
and less environmental impact. We are investigating ways
to tap the huge natural gas resources locked in gas
hydrates. Gas hydrates are common in sediments in
the ocean's deep waters where cold temperatures and
high pressures cause natural gas and water to freeze
together, forming solid gas hydrates. Gas hydrates could
be an important future source of natural gas for our nation.
Some of our companies are also investigating
renewable energy resources such as solar, wind,
biomass and geothermal energy. By conducting research
into overcoming the many technological hurdles that limit
these energy resources, they hope to make them more
reliable, affordable and convenient for future use. Although
the potential for these energy resources is great,
scientists do not expect them to be a significant part of
the nation's energy mix for many decades. For this
reason, the industry must continue to invest in
conventional resources such as oil and natural gas. We
will need to rely on these important energy resources for
many decades to come.