Questões Militares Comentadas sobre preposições | prepositions em inglês

What is Interpol? 

      Founded in 1923, Interpol is an international police organisation made up of 194 member countries. It is not a police force in the traditional sense – its agents are not able to arrest criminals. Instead, it is more of an informationsharing network, providing a way for national police forces to co-operate effectively and tackle international crime ranging from human trafficking and terrorism to money laundering and illegal art dealing.

      The organisation, based in France, operates centralised criminal databases that contain fingerprint records, DNA samples and stolen documents: a treasure trove so valuable that police consulted it 146 times every second in 2017. Interpol’s other main function is to issue notices: alerts to member states for missing or wanted persons. The bestknown of these is the “Red Notice”, a notification that a member state would like someone arrested. States are not obliged to follow these notices, but will often treat them as a warrant for someone’s arrest and extradition. “Diffusions”, which can be issued with less bureaucracy, are another popular way of seeking arrests through Interpol.

      Notices and diffusions lie at the heart of the organisation’s recent turmoil. Though Interpol’s constitution explicitly forbids any activities of a political character, activists accuse it of failing to enforce this rule.

    (www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/11/22/ what-is-interpol. Adaptado)

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                                  Across the Atlantic!

_____ Monday May 24, 1976, two Concorde jets crossed the Atlantic ocean _____ three hours and fifty minutes. The planes took off and landed _____ the same time.

                                                 Source Bonner, Margaret – Grammar Express - Longman

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Many graduates earn ‘paltry returns’ for their degree

    Mr Halfon, a former skills minister, stated in his speech that the nation has “become obsessed ______(1) full academic degrees”.

    “We are creating a higher education system that overwhelmingly favours academic degrees, while intermediate and higher technical offerings are comparatively tiny. The labour market does not need an ever-growing supply of academic degrees. Between a fifth and a third of our graduates take non-graduate jobs. The extra return for having a degree varies wildly according to subject and institution. For many, the returns are paltry.”

    Mr Halfon said that there is a strong need for intermediate skills. “There are skills shortages in several sectors. And there are millions ______(2) people who want to get on in life – preferably without spending £50,000 on academic degrees,” he added. “There has been growing concern about the amount of debt students are accumulating and the interest being charged on that debt.”

    A spokesman for UUK (a representative organisation for the UK’s universities) said: “Official figures are clear that, on average, university graduates continue to earn substantially more than non-graduates and are more likely to be in employment. A university degree remains an excellent investment.”

    “We must, however, be careful to avoid using graduate salaries as the single measure of success in higher education. Many universities specialise in fields such ______(3) the arts, the creative industries, nursing and public sector professions that, despite making an essential contribution to society and the economy, pay less on average.”

Adapted from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42923529

                             Switzerland’s invisible linguistic borders

      There are four official Swiss languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh, an indigenous language with limited status that's similar to Latin and spoken today by only a handful of Swiss. A fifth language, English, is increasingly used to bridge the linguistic divide. In a recent survey by Pro Unguis, three quarters of those queried said they use English at least three times per week.

      In polyglot Switzerland, even linguistic divisions are divided. People in the German-speaking cantons speak Swiss-German at home but learn standard German in school. The Italian spoken in the Ticino canton is peppered with words borrowed from German and French.

      Language may not be destiny, but it does determine much more than the words we speak. Language drives culture, and culture drives life. In that sense, the Rõstigraben is as much a cultural border as a linguistic one. Life on either side of the divide unfolds at a different pace, Bianchi explained. “[In my opinion] French speakers are more laid-back. A glass of white wine for lunch on a workday is still rather usual. German speakers have little sense of humour, and follow rules beyond the rigidity of the Japanese."

      The cultural divide between Italian-speaking Switzerland and the rest of the country - a divide marked by the so-called Polentagraben - is even sharper. Italianspeakers are a distinct minority, accounting for only 8% of the population and living mostly in the far southern canton of Ticino. “When I first moved here, people told me, Ticino is just like Italy except everything works’, and I think that's true,” said Paulo Gonçalves, a Brazilian academic who has been living in Ticino for the past decade.

      Coming from a nation with one official spoken language, Gonçalves marvels at how the Swiss juggle four. “It is quite remarkable how they manage to get along,” he said, recalling going to a conference attended by people who spoke French, German, Italian and English. "You had presentations being given in four different languages in the same conference hall.’’

      Living in such a multilingual environment "really reshapes how I see the world and imagine the possibilities,” Gonçalves said. “I am a significantly different person than I was 10 years ago.”

      Switzerland’s languages are not evenly distributed. Of the country’s 26 cantons, most - 17 - are German speaking, while four are French and one Italian. (Three cantons are bilingual and one, Grisons, trilingual.) A majority of Swiss, 63%, speak German as their first language.

                                                                      (Abridged from http ://www.bbc.com)