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The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance
By The Editorial Board
May 10, 2014
The World Health Organization has surveyed the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs around the world – the first such survey it has ever conducted – and come up with disturbing findings. In a report issued late last month, the organization found that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria (the main focus of the report), fungi, viruses and parasites is an increasingly serious threat in every part of the world. “A problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine,” the organization said. “A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century.”
The growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens means that in ever more cases, standard treatments no longer work, infections are harder or impossible to control, the risk of spreading infections to others is increased, and illnesses and hospital stays are prolonged. All of these drive up the costs of illnesses and the risk of death. The survey sought to determine the scope of the problem by asking countries to submit their most recent surveillance data (114 did so). Unfortunately, the data was glaringly incomplete because few countries track and monitor antibiotic resistance comprehensively, and there is no standard methodology for doing so.
Still, it is clear that major resistance problems have already developed, both for antibiotics that are used routinely and for those deemed “last resort” treatments to cure people when all else has failed. Carbapenem antibiotics, a class of drugs used as a last resort to treat life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacterium, have failed to work in more than half the people treated in some countries. The bacterium is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns and intensive-care patients. Similarly, the failure of a last-resort treatment for gonorrhoea has been confirmed in 10 countries, including many with advanced health care systems, such as Australia, Canada, France, Sweden and Britain. And resistance to a class of antibiotics that is routinely used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli is widespread; in some countries the drugs are now ineffective in more than half of the patients treated. This sobering report is intended to kick-start a global campaign to develop tools and standards to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impact, and design solutions.
The most urgent need is to minimize the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, which accelerates the development of resistant strains. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued voluntary guidelines calling on drug companies, animal producers and veterinarians to stop indiscriminately using antibiotics that are important for treating humans on livestock; the drug companies have said they will comply. But the agency, shortsightedly, has appealed a court order requiring it to ban the use of penicillin and two forms of tetracycline by animal producers to promote growth unless they provide proof that it will not promote drug-resistant microbes.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged to develop new antibiotics to supplement those that are losing their effectiveness. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which represents pharmacists in Britain, called this month for stronger financial incentives. It said that no new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1987, largely because the financial returns for finding new classes of antibiotics are too low. Unlike lucrative drugs to treat chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular ailments, antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time, and any new drug is apt to be used sparingly and held in reserve to treat patients resistant to existing drugs. Antibiotics have transformed medicine and saved countless lives over the past seven decades. Now, rampant overuse and the lack of new drugs in the pipeline threaten to undermine their effectiveness.
(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)
Leia o texto para responder a questão.
The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance
By The Editorial Board
May 10, 2014
The World Health Organization has surveyed the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs around the world – the first such survey it has ever conducted – and come up with disturbing findings. In a report issued late last month, the organization found that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria (the main focus of the report), fungi, viruses and parasites is an increasingly serious threat in every part of the world. “A problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine,” the organization said. “A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century.”
The growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens means that in ever more cases, standard treatments no longer work, infections are harder or impossible to control, the risk of spreading infections to others is increased, and illnesses and hospital stays are prolonged. All of these drive up the costs of illnesses and the risk of death. The survey sought to determine the scope of the problem by asking countries to submit their most recent surveillance data (114 did so). Unfortunately, the data was glaringly incomplete because few countries track and monitor antibiotic resistance comprehensively, and there is no standard methodology for doing so.
Still, it is clear that major resistance problems have already developed, both for antibiotics that are used routinely and for those deemed “last resort” treatments to cure people when all else has failed. Carbapenem antibiotics, a class of drugs used as a last resort to treat life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacterium, have failed to work in more than half the people treated in some countries. The bacterium is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns and intensive-care patients. Similarly, the failure of a last-resort treatment for gonorrhoea has been confirmed in 10 countries, including many with advanced health care systems, such as Australia, Canada, France, Sweden and Britain. And resistance to a class of antibiotics that is routinely used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli is widespread; in some countries the drugs are now ineffective in more than half of the patients treated. This sobering report is intended to kick-start a global campaign to develop tools and standards to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impact, and design solutions.
The most urgent need is to minimize the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, which accelerates the development of resistant strains. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued voluntary guidelines calling on drug companies, animal producers and veterinarians to stop indiscriminately using antibiotics that are important for treating humans on livestock; the drug companies have said they will comply. But the agency, shortsightedly, has appealed a court order requiring it to ban the use of penicillin and two forms of tetracycline by animal producers to promote growth unless they provide proof that it will not promote drug-resistant microbes.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged to develop new antibiotics to supplement those that are losing their effectiveness. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which represents pharmacists in Britain, called this month for stronger financial incentives. It said that no new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1987, largely because the financial returns for finding new classes of antibiotics are too low. Unlike lucrative drugs to treat chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular ailments, antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time, and any new drug is apt to be used sparingly and held in reserve to treat patients resistant to existing drugs. Antibiotics have transformed medicine and saved countless lives over the past seven decades. Now, rampant overuse and the lack of new drugs in the pipeline threaten to undermine their effectiveness.
(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)
Leia o texto para responder a questão.
The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance
By The Editorial Board
May 10, 2014
The World Health Organization has surveyed the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs around the world – the first such survey it has ever conducted – and come up with disturbing findings. In a report issued late last month, the organization found that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria (the main focus of the report), fungi, viruses and parasites is an increasingly serious threat in every part of the world. “A problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine,” the organization said. “A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century.”
The growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens means that in ever more cases, standard treatments no longer work, infections are harder or impossible to control, the risk of spreading infections to others is increased, and illnesses and hospital stays are prolonged. All of these drive up the costs of illnesses and the risk of death. The survey sought to determine the scope of the problem by asking countries to submit their most recent surveillance data (114 did so). Unfortunately, the data was glaringly incomplete because few countries track and monitor antibiotic resistance comprehensively, and there is no standard methodology for doing so.
Still, it is clear that major resistance problems have already developed, both for antibiotics that are used routinely and for those deemed “last resort” treatments to cure people when all else has failed. Carbapenem antibiotics, a class of drugs used as a last resort to treat life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacterium, have failed to work in more than half the people treated in some countries. The bacterium is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns and intensive-care patients. Similarly, the failure of a last-resort treatment for gonorrhoea has been confirmed in 10 countries, including many with advanced health care systems, such as Australia, Canada, France, Sweden and Britain. And resistance to a class of antibiotics that is routinely used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli is widespread; in some countries the drugs are now ineffective in more than half of the patients treated. This sobering report is intended to kick-start a global campaign to develop tools and standards to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impact, and design solutions.
The most urgent need is to minimize the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, which accelerates the development of resistant strains. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued voluntary guidelines calling on drug companies, animal producers and veterinarians to stop indiscriminately using antibiotics that are important for treating humans on livestock; the drug companies have said they will comply. But the agency, shortsightedly, has appealed a court order requiring it to ban the use of penicillin and two forms of tetracycline by animal producers to promote growth unless they provide proof that it will not promote drug-resistant microbes.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged to develop new antibiotics to supplement those that are losing their effectiveness. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which represents pharmacists in Britain, called this month for stronger financial incentives. It said that no new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1987, largely because the financial returns for finding new classes of antibiotics are too low. Unlike lucrative drugs to treat chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular ailments, antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time, and any new drug is apt to be used sparingly and held in reserve to treat patients resistant to existing drugs. Antibiotics have transformed medicine and saved countless lives over the past seven decades. Now, rampant overuse and the lack of new drugs in the pipeline threaten to undermine their effectiveness.
(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)
Leia o texto para responder a questão.
The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance
By The Editorial Board
May 10, 2014
The World Health Organization has surveyed the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs around the world – the first such survey it has ever conducted – and come up with disturbing findings. In a report issued late last month, the organization found that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria (the main focus of the report), fungi, viruses and parasites is an increasingly serious threat in every part of the world. “A problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine,” the organization said. “A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century.”
The growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens means that in ever more cases, standard treatments no longer work, infections are harder or impossible to control, the risk of spreading infections to others is increased, and illnesses and hospital stays are prolonged. All of these drive up the costs of illnesses and the risk of death. The survey sought to determine the scope of the problem by asking countries to submit their most recent surveillance data (114 did so). Unfortunately, the data was glaringly incomplete because few countries track and monitor antibiotic resistance comprehensively, and there is no standard methodology for doing so.
Still, it is clear that major resistance problems have already developed, both for antibiotics that are used routinely and for those deemed “last resort” treatments to cure people when all else has failed. Carbapenem antibiotics, a class of drugs used as a last resort to treat life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacterium, have failed to work in more than half the people treated in some countries. The bacterium is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns and intensive-care patients. Similarly, the failure of a last-resort treatment for gonorrhoea has been confirmed in 10 countries, including many with advanced health care systems, such as Australia, Canada, France, Sweden and Britain. And resistance to a class of antibiotics that is routinely used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli is widespread; in some countries the drugs are now ineffective in more than half of the patients treated. This sobering report is intended to kick-start a global campaign to develop tools and standards to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impact, and design solutions.
The most urgent need is to minimize the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, which accelerates the development of resistant strains. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued voluntary guidelines calling on drug companies, animal producers and veterinarians to stop indiscriminately using antibiotics that are important for treating humans on livestock; the drug companies have said they will comply. But the agency, shortsightedly, has appealed a court order requiring it to ban the use of penicillin and two forms of tetracycline by animal producers to promote growth unless they provide proof that it will not promote drug-resistant microbes.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged to develop new antibiotics to supplement those that are losing their effectiveness. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which represents pharmacists in Britain, called this month for stronger financial incentives. It said that no new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1987, largely because the financial returns for finding new classes of antibiotics are too low. Unlike lucrative drugs to treat chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular ailments, antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time, and any new drug is apt to be used sparingly and held in reserve to treat patients resistant to existing drugs. Antibiotics have transformed medicine and saved countless lives over the past seven decades. Now, rampant overuse and the lack of new drugs in the pipeline threaten to undermine their effectiveness.
(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)
Leia o texto para responder a questão.
The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance
By The Editorial Board
May 10, 2014
The World Health Organization has surveyed the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs around the world – the first such survey it has ever conducted – and come up with disturbing findings. In a report issued late last month, the organization found that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria (the main focus of the report), fungi, viruses and parasites is an increasingly serious threat in every part of the world. “A problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine,” the organization said. “A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century.”
The growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens means that in ever more cases, standard treatments no longer work, infections are harder or impossible to control, the risk of spreading infections to others is increased, and illnesses and hospital stays are prolonged. All of these drive up the costs of illnesses and the risk of death. The survey sought to determine the scope of the problem by asking countries to submit their most recent surveillance data (114 did so). Unfortunately, the data was glaringly incomplete because few countries track and monitor antibiotic resistance comprehensively, and there is no standard methodology for doing so.
Still, it is clear that major resistance problems have already developed, both for antibiotics that are used routinely and for those deemed “last resort” treatments to cure people when all else has failed. Carbapenem antibiotics, a class of drugs used as a last resort to treat life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacterium, have failed to work in more than half the people treated in some countries. The bacterium is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns and intensive-care patients. Similarly, the failure of a last-resort treatment for gonorrhoea has been confirmed in 10 countries, including many with advanced health care systems, such as Australia, Canada, France, Sweden and Britain. And resistance to a class of antibiotics that is routinely used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli is widespread; in some countries the drugs are now ineffective in more than half of the patients treated. This sobering report is intended to kick-start a global campaign to develop tools and standards to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impact, and design solutions.
The most urgent need is to minimize the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, which accelerates the development of resistant strains. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued voluntary guidelines calling on drug companies, animal producers and veterinarians to stop indiscriminately using antibiotics that are important for treating humans on livestock; the drug companies have said they will comply. But the agency, shortsightedly, has appealed a court order requiring it to ban the use of penicillin and two forms of tetracycline by animal producers to promote growth unless they provide proof that it will not promote drug-resistant microbes.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged to develop new antibiotics to supplement those that are losing their effectiveness. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which represents pharmacists in Britain, called this month for stronger financial incentives. It said that no new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1987, largely because the financial returns for finding new classes of antibiotics are too low. Unlike lucrative drugs to treat chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular ailments, antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time, and any new drug is apt to be used sparingly and held in reserve to treat patients resistant to existing drugs. Antibiotics have transformed medicine and saved countless lives over the past seven decades. Now, rampant overuse and the lack of new drugs in the pipeline threaten to undermine their effectiveness.
(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)
Wearable tech for kids coming from LeapFrog
By Doug Gross, CNN
updated 12:57 PM EDT, Thu May 1, 2014
(CNN) – The wearable technology movement is in full effect, and exercise-based activity trackers lead the way. Now, it’s becoming child’s play.
LeapFrog, the maker of education-oriented tablets and apps for children, has unveiled1 LeapBand, a wearable activity tracker designed with kids in mind.
The band fits around the user’s wrist and looks a lot like a kids version of a smartwatch. By performing actions like “walk like a crab,” “spin like a helicopter” or “pop like popcorn,” kids can unlock new games and a group of Pokemon-like “digital pets” on the device.
The band connects to a website or app that lets parents monitor their children’s activities and choose which challenges they can select, and which they can’t.
Moving past smartphones and tablets, wearable tech has become arguably the hottest digital trend in the past year or so.
(http://tinyurl.com/noswsfc Acesso em: 20.07.2014. Adaptado)
Glossário 1
unveil: revelar, apresentar.
Wearable tech for kids coming from LeapFrog
By Doug Gross, CNN
updated 12:57 PM EDT, Thu May 1, 2014
(CNN) – The wearable technology movement is in full effect, and exercise-based activity trackers lead the way. Now, it’s becoming child’s play.
LeapFrog, the maker of education-oriented tablets and apps for children, has unveiled1 LeapBand, a wearable activity tracker designed with kids in mind.
The band fits around the user’s wrist and looks a lot like a kids version of a smartwatch. By performing actions like “walk like a crab,” “spin like a helicopter” or “pop like popcorn,” kids can unlock new games and a group of Pokemon-like “digital pets” on the device.
The band connects to a website or app that lets parents monitor their children’s activities and choose which challenges they can select, and which they can’t.
Moving past smartphones and tablets, wearable tech has become arguably the hottest digital trend in the past year or so.
(http://tinyurl.com/noswsfc Acesso em: 20.07.2014. Adaptado)
Glossário 1
unveil: revelar, apresentar.
Wearable tech for kids coming from LeapFrog
By Doug Gross, CNN
updated 12:57 PM EDT, Thu May 1, 2014
(CNN) – The wearable technology movement is in full effect, and exercise-based activity trackers lead the way. Now, it’s becoming child’s play.
LeapFrog, the maker of education-oriented tablets and apps for children, has unveiled1 LeapBand, a wearable activity tracker designed with kids in mind.
The band fits around the user’s wrist and looks a lot like a kids version of a smartwatch. By performing actions like “walk like a crab,” “spin like a helicopter” or “pop like popcorn,” kids can unlock new games and a group of Pokemon-like “digital pets” on the device.
The band connects to a website or app that lets parents monitor their children’s activities and choose which challenges they can select, and which they can’t.
Moving past smartphones and tablets, wearable tech has become arguably the hottest digital trend in the past year or so.
(http://tinyurl.com/noswsfc Acesso em: 20.07.2014. Adaptado)
Glossário 1
unveil: revelar, apresentar.
Wearable tech for kids coming from LeapFrog
By Doug Gross, CNN
updated 12:57 PM EDT, Thu May 1, 2014
(CNN) – The wearable technology movement is in full effect, and exercise-based activity trackers lead the way. Now, it’s becoming child’s play.
LeapFrog, the maker of education-oriented tablets and apps for children, has unveiled1 LeapBand, a wearable activity tracker designed with kids in mind.
The band fits around the user’s wrist and looks a lot like a kids version of a smartwatch. By performing actions like “walk like a crab,” “spin like a helicopter” or “pop like popcorn,” kids can unlock new games and a group of Pokemon-like “digital pets” on the device.
The band connects to a website or app that lets parents monitor their children’s activities and choose which challenges they can select, and which they can’t.
Moving past smartphones and tablets, wearable tech has become arguably the hottest digital trend in the past year or so.
(http://tinyurl.com/noswsfc Acesso em: 20.07.2014. Adaptado)
Glossário 1
unveil: revelar, apresentar.
Wearable tech for kids coming from LeapFrog
By Doug Gross, CNN
updated 12:57 PM EDT, Thu May 1, 2014
(CNN) – The wearable technology movement is in full effect, and exercise-based activity trackers lead the way. Now, it’s becoming child’s play.
LeapFrog, the maker of education-oriented tablets and apps for children, has unveiled1 LeapBand, a wearable activity tracker designed with kids in mind.
The band fits around the user’s wrist and looks a lot like a kids version of a smartwatch. By performing actions like “walk like a crab,” “spin like a helicopter” or “pop like popcorn,” kids can unlock new games and a group of Pokemon-like “digital pets” on the device.
The band connects to a website or app that lets parents monitor their children’s activities and choose which challenges they can select, and which they can’t.
Moving past smartphones and tablets, wearable tech has become arguably the hottest digital trend in the past year or so.
(http://tinyurl.com/noswsfc Acesso em: 20.07.2014. Adaptado)
Glossário 1
unveil: revelar, apresentar.
Pakistan army demands TV channel closure over assassination dispute
Pakistan’s army demanded the closure of the country's most popular television channel on Tuesday following allegations that the military's main intelligence agency had ordered an assassination attempt on its star journalist.
Disponível em: <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/pakistan-army-demands-tv-station-closure-assassination?CMP=EMCNEWEML661912> Acesso em: 23 abr. 2014.
O texto acima trata de:
Popes John XXIII and John Paul II to be made saints in historic ceremony
As many as one million people are expected in Saint Peter's Square and nearby streets of Rome to witness the canonisation of popes John XXIII and John Paul II later today.
Disponível: <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-27/an-two-popes-to-be-made-saints/5413850>. Acesso em: 27 abr. 2014.
O texto acima trata de:
Heartburn drug Motilium should be restricted due to heart deaths, says medicines regulator
Around two million people were prescribed Motilium, also known as domperidone, for sickness and nausea symptoms, stomach conditions and heartburn. Now following a review at European level, the drug will be restricted for those with sickness and nausea only. […] The drug is widely prescribed by GPs for babies with severe reflux and can continue to be used in this way under caution and when the doctor has carefully calculated the dose according to the child's weight and is satisfied they do not have a heart condition, a spokesman for the drugs regulator said.
Disponível em: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10788459/Heartburn-drug-Motilium-should-be-restricted-due-to-heart-deaths-says-medicines-regulator.html. Acesso em: 26 abr. 2014.
O texto trata de:
1With the increasing popularity of wireless devices like smartphones — devices that can move lots of data very quickly — users have access to their social networks 24 hours a day. Most social networking sites have developed applications for your mobile phone, so logging on is always convenient. Social networks also tap into our human desire to stay connected with others. Besides, the rush of nostalgia as you connect with your former grade-school classmate on Facebook can be quite heady and exciting.
2But what's the main reason we find these sites so addictive? Plain old narcissism. We broadcast our personalities online whenever we publish a thought, photo, YouTube video or answer one of those “25 Things About Me" memes. We put that information out there so people will respond and connect to us. And being part of a social network is sort of like having your own entourage that follows you everywhere, commenting on and applauding everything you do. It's very seductive.
3In 2008, researchers at the University of Georgia studied the correlation between narcissism and Facebook users. Unsurprisingly, they found that the more “friends" and wall posts a user had, the more narcissistic he or she was. They noted that narcissistic people use Facebook in a selfpromoting way, rather than in a connective way. It may be an obvious theory, but it also suggests that social networks bring out the narcissist in all of us.
4Social networks are also a voyeuristic experience for many users. Following exchanges on Twitter or posts on Facebook and MySpace are akin to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. It's entertaining and allows you to feel like a “fly on the wall" in someone else's life.
5Social networking sites also publicly list your “friends" or “followers" — giving you instant status. How many people do you know online who spend all their time trying to get more friends, more followers, more testimonials? We work hard in real life to elevate our statuses, make friends and search out boosters for our self-esteem. Online social networking provides this to us, and we don't even have to change out of our sweatshirts to get it.
(adapted from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socialnetworking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive2.htm)
Glossary
addictive: viciante; tap into: explorar/tirar proveito; broadcast: anunciar; entourage: comitiva/séquito; akin to eavesdropping: parecido com bisbilhotar; booster: aquilo que impulsiona; sweatshirts: camisetas
1With the increasing popularity of wireless devices like smartphones — devices that can move lots of data very quickly — users have access to their social networks 24 hours a day. Most social networking sites have developed applications for your mobile phone, so logging on is always convenient. Social networks also tap into our human desire to stay connected with others. Besides, the rush of nostalgia as you connect with your former grade-school classmate on Facebook can be quite heady and exciting.
2But what's the main reason we find these sites so addictive? Plain old narcissism. We broadcast our personalities online whenever we publish a thought, photo, YouTube video or answer one of those “25 Things About Me" memes. We put that information out there so people will respond and connect to us. And being part of a social network is sort of like having your own entourage that follows you everywhere, commenting on and applauding everything you do. It's very seductive.
3In 2008, researchers at the University of Georgia studied the correlation between narcissism and Facebook users. Unsurprisingly, they found that the more “friends" and wall posts a user had, the more narcissistic he or she was. They noted that narcissistic people use Facebook in a selfpromoting way, rather than in a connective way. It may be an obvious theory, but it also suggests that social networks bring out the narcissist in all of us.
4Social networks are also a voyeuristic experience for many users. Following exchanges on Twitter or posts on Facebook and MySpace are akin to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. It's entertaining and allows you to feel like a “fly on the wall" in someone else's life.
5Social networking sites also publicly list your “friends" or “followers" — giving you instant status. How many people do you know online who spend all their time trying to get more friends, more followers, more testimonials? We work hard in real life to elevate our statuses, make friends and search out boosters for our self-esteem. Online social networking provides this to us, and we don't even have to change out of our sweatshirts to get it.
(adapted from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socialnetworking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive2.htm)
Glossary
addictive: viciante; tap into: explorar/tirar proveito; broadcast: anunciar; entourage: comitiva/séquito; akin to eavesdropping: parecido com bisbilhotar; booster: aquilo que impulsiona; sweatshirts: camisetas
1With the increasing popularity of wireless devices like smartphones — devices that can move lots of data very quickly — users have access to their social networks 24 hours a day. Most social networking sites have developed applications for your mobile phone, so logging on is always convenient. Social networks also tap into our human desire to stay connected with others. Besides, the rush of nostalgia as you connect with your former grade-school classmate on Facebook can be quite heady and exciting.
2But what's the main reason we find these sites so addictive? Plain old narcissism. We broadcast our personalities online whenever we publish a thought, photo, YouTube video or answer one of those “25 Things About Me" memes. We put that information out there so people will respond and connect to us. And being part of a social network is sort of like having your own entourage that follows you everywhere, commenting on and applauding everything you do. It's very seductive.
3In 2008, researchers at the University of Georgia studied the correlation between narcissism and Facebook users. Unsurprisingly, they found that the more “friends" and wall posts a user had, the more narcissistic he or she was. They noted that narcissistic people use Facebook in a selfpromoting way, rather than in a connective way. It may be an obvious theory, but it also suggests that social networks bring out the narcissist in all of us.
4Social networks are also a voyeuristic experience for many users. Following exchanges on Twitter or posts on Facebook and MySpace are akin to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. It's entertaining and allows you to feel like a “fly on the wall" in someone else's life.
5Social networking sites also publicly list your “friends" or “followers" — giving you instant status. How many people do you know online who spend all their time trying to get more friends, more followers, more testimonials? We work hard in real life to elevate our statuses, make friends and search out boosters for our self-esteem. Online social networking provides this to us, and we don't even have to change out of our sweatshirts to get it.
(adapted from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socialnetworking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive2.htm)
Glossary
addictive: viciante; tap into: explorar/tirar proveito; broadcast: anunciar; entourage: comitiva/séquito; akin to eavesdropping: parecido com bisbilhotar; booster: aquilo que impulsiona; sweatshirts: camisetas
1With the increasing popularity of wireless devices like smartphones — devices that can move lots of data very quickly — users have access to their social networks 24 hours a day. Most social networking sites have developed applications for your mobile phone, so logging on is always convenient. Social networks also tap into our human desire to stay connected with others. Besides, the rush of nostalgia as you connect with your former grade-school classmate on Facebook can be quite heady and exciting.
2But what's the main reason we find these sites so addictive? Plain old narcissism. We broadcast our personalities online whenever we publish a thought, photo, YouTube video or answer one of those “25 Things About Me" memes. We put that information out there so people will respond and connect to us. And being part of a social network is sort of like having your own entourage that follows you everywhere, commenting on and applauding everything you do. It's very seductive.
3In 2008, researchers at the University of Georgia studied the correlation between narcissism and Facebook users. Unsurprisingly, they found that the more “friends" and wall posts a user had, the more narcissistic he or she was. They noted that narcissistic people use Facebook in a selfpromoting way, rather than in a connective way. It may be an obvious theory, but it also suggests that social networks bring out the narcissist in all of us.
4Social networks are also a voyeuristic experience for many users. Following exchanges on Twitter or posts on Facebook and MySpace are akin to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. It's entertaining and allows you to feel like a “fly on the wall" in someone else's life.
5Social networking sites also publicly list your “friends" or “followers" — giving you instant status. How many people do you know online who spend all their time trying to get more friends, more followers, more testimonials? We work hard in real life to elevate our statuses, make friends and search out boosters for our self-esteem. Online social networking provides this to us, and we don't even have to change out of our sweatshirts to get it.
(adapted from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socialnetworking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive2.htm)
Glossary
addictive: viciante; tap into: explorar/tirar proveito; broadcast: anunciar; entourage: comitiva/séquito; akin to eavesdropping: parecido com bisbilhotar; booster: aquilo que impulsiona; sweatshirts: camisetas
1With the increasing popularity of wireless devices like smartphones — devices that can move lots of data very quickly — users have access to their social networks 24 hours a day. Most social networking sites have developed applications for your mobile phone, so logging on is always convenient. Social networks also tap into our human desire to stay connected with others. Besides, the rush of nostalgia as you connect with your former grade-school classmate on Facebook can be quite heady and exciting.
2But what's the main reason we find these sites so addictive? Plain old narcissism. We broadcast our personalities online whenever we publish a thought, photo, YouTube video or answer one of those “25 Things About Me" memes. We put that information out there so people will respond and connect to us. And being part of a social network is sort of like having your own entourage that follows you everywhere, commenting on and applauding everything you do. It's very seductive.
3In 2008, researchers at the University of Georgia studied the correlation between narcissism and Facebook users. Unsurprisingly, they found that the more “friends" and wall posts a user had, the more narcissistic he or she was. They noted that narcissistic people use Facebook in a selfpromoting way, rather than in a connective way. It may be an obvious theory, but it also suggests that social networks bring out the narcissist in all of us.
4Social networks are also a voyeuristic experience for many users. Following exchanges on Twitter or posts on Facebook and MySpace are akin to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. It's entertaining and allows you to feel like a “fly on the wall" in someone else's life.
5Social networking sites also publicly list your “friends" or “followers" — giving you instant status. How many people do you know online who spend all their time trying to get more friends, more followers, more testimonials? We work hard in real life to elevate our statuses, make friends and search out boosters for our self-esteem. Online social networking provides this to us, and we don't even have to change out of our sweatshirts to get it.
(adapted from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socialnetworking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive2.htm)
Glossary
addictive: viciante; tap into: explorar/tirar proveito; broadcast: anunciar; entourage: comitiva/séquito; akin to eavesdropping: parecido com bisbilhotar; booster: aquilo que impulsiona; sweatshirts: camisetas
Cristina Fernández argues that her country's latest default is different. She is missing the point.
Aug 2nd 2014
ARGENTINA'S first bond, issued in 1824, was supposed to have had a lifespan of 46 years. Less than four years later, the government defaulted. Resolving the ensuing stand-off with creditors took 29 years. Since then seven more defaults have followed, the most recent this week, when Argentina failed to make a payment on bonds issued as partial compensation to victims of the previous default, in 2001.
Most investors think they can see a pattern in all this, but Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, insists the latest default is not like the others. Her government, she points out, had transferred the full $539m it owed to the banks that administer the bonds. It is America’s courts (the bonds were issued under American law) that blocked the payment, at the behest of the tiny minority of owners of bonds from 2001 who did not accept the restructuring Argentina offered them in 2005 and again in 2010. These “hold-outs”, balking at the 65% haircut the restructuring entailed, not only persuaded a judge that they should be paid in full but also got him to freeze payments on the restructured bonds until Argentina coughs up.
Argentina claims that paying the hold-outs was impossible. It is not just that they are “vultures" as Argentine officials often put it, who bought the bonds for cents on the dollar after the previous default and are now holding those who accepted the restructuring (accounting for 93% of the debt) to ransom. The main problem is that a clause in the restructured bonds prohibits Argentina from offering the hold-outs better terms without paying everyone else the same. Since it cannot afford to do that, it says it had no choice but to default.
Yet it is not certain that the clause requiring equal treatment of all bondholders would have applied, given that Argentina would not have been paying the hold-outs voluntarily, but on the courts' orders. Moreover, some owners of the restructured bonds had agreed to waive their rights; had Argentina made a concerted effort to persuade the remainder to do the same, it might have succeeded. Lawyers and bankers have suggested various ways around the clause in question, which expires at the end of the year. But Argentina's government was slow to consider these options or negotiate with the hold-outs, hiding instead behind indignant nationalism.
Ms Fernández is right that the consequences of America's court rulings have been perverse, unleashing a big financial dispute in an attempt to solve a relatively small one. But hers is not the first government to be hit with an awkward verdict. Instead of railing against it, she should have tried to minimise the harm it did. Defaulting has helped no one: none of the bondholders will now be paid, Argentina looks like a pariah again, and its economy will remain starved of loans and investment.
Happily, much of the damage can still be undone. It is not too late to strike a deal with the hold-outs or back an ostensibly private effort to buy out their claims. A quick fix would make it easier for Argentina to borrow again internationally. That, in turn, would speed development of big oil and gas deposits, the income from which could help ease its money troubles.
More important, it would help to change perceptions of Argentina as a financial rogue state. Over the past year or so Ms Fernández seems to have been trying to rehabilitate Argentina's image and resuscitate its faltering economy. She settled financial disputes with government creditors and with Repsol, a Spanish oil firm whose Argentine assets she had expropriated in 2012. This week's events have overshadowed all that. For its own sake, and everyone else's, Argentina should hold its nose and do a deal with the hold-outs.
(http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21610263. Adapted)
Cristina Fernández argues that her country's latest default is different. She is missing the point.
Aug 2nd 2014
ARGENTINA'S first bond, issued in 1824, was supposed to have had a lifespan of 46 years. Less than four years later, the government defaulted. Resolving the ensuing stand-off with creditors took 29 years. Since then seven more defaults have followed, the most recent this week, when Argentina failed to make a payment on bonds issued as partial compensation to victims of the previous default, in 2001.
Most investors think they can see a pattern in all this, but Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, insists the latest default is not like the others. Her government, she points out, had transferred the full $539m it owed to the banks that administer the bonds. It is America’s courts (the bonds were issued under American law) that blocked the payment, at the behest of the tiny minority of owners of bonds from 2001 who did not accept the restructuring Argentina offered them in 2005 and again in 2010. These “hold-outs”, balking at the 65% haircut the restructuring entailed, not only persuaded a judge that they should be paid in full but also got him to freeze payments on the restructured bonds until Argentina coughs up.
Argentina claims that paying the hold-outs was impossible. It is not just that they are “vultures" as Argentine officials often put it, who bought the bonds for cents on the dollar after the previous default and are now holding those who accepted the restructuring (accounting for 93% of the debt) to ransom. The main problem is that a clause in the restructured bonds prohibits Argentina from offering the hold-outs better terms without paying everyone else the same. Since it cannot afford to do that, it says it had no choice but to default.
Yet it is not certain that the clause requiring equal treatment of all bondholders would have applied, given that Argentina would not have been paying the hold-outs voluntarily, but on the courts' orders. Moreover, some owners of the restructured bonds had agreed to waive their rights; had Argentina made a concerted effort to persuade the remainder to do the same, it might have succeeded. Lawyers and bankers have suggested various ways around the clause in question, which expires at the end of the year. But Argentina's government was slow to consider these options or negotiate with the hold-outs, hiding instead behind indignant nationalism.
Ms Fernández is right that the consequences of America's court rulings have been perverse, unleashing a big financial dispute in an attempt to solve a relatively small one. But hers is not the first government to be hit with an awkward verdict. Instead of railing against it, she should have tried to minimise the harm it did. Defaulting has helped no one: none of the bondholders will now be paid, Argentina looks like a pariah again, and its economy will remain starved of loans and investment.
Happily, much of the damage can still be undone. It is not too late to strike a deal with the hold-outs or back an ostensibly private effort to buy out their claims. A quick fix would make it easier for Argentina to borrow again internationally. That, in turn, would speed development of big oil and gas deposits, the income from which could help ease its money troubles.
More important, it would help to change perceptions of Argentina as a financial rogue state. Over the past year or so Ms Fernández seems to have been trying to rehabilitate Argentina's image and resuscitate its faltering economy. She settled financial disputes with government creditors and with Repsol, a Spanish oil firm whose Argentine assets she had expropriated in 2012. This week's events have overshadowed all that. For its own sake, and everyone else's, Argentina should hold its nose and do a deal with the hold-outs.
(http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21610263. Adapted)
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