Elan Steinberg Dies at 59; Led World Jewish Congress

Giao duc | school of medicine |

Elan Steinberg, who brought what he called a new, "American style" assertiveness to the World Jewish Congress as its top executive, winning more than $1 billion from Swiss banks for Holocaust victims and challenging Kurt Waldheim, the former United Nations secretary general, over his Nazi past, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 59.

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: April 6, 2012

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Elan Steinberg in 1986. He resigned from the congress in 2004.

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The cause was complications of lymphatic cancer, his wife, Sharon, said.

As its executive director from 1978 to 2004, Mr. Steinberg was a key strategist for the congress as it grew bolder under a younger generation of Jews. He helped organize the research, hearings, press leaks and lawsuit that led the Swiss banks to agree to pay $1.2 billion to Holocaust victims in the late 1990s.

He also ruffled feathers. Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told The New York Times that he applauded the congress's "persistence," but worried that the Swiss might begin to see Jews as "their enemy." He said the congress's crusade "fed into the stereotype that Jews have money, that it's the most important thing to them."

Even Simon Wiesenthal, the relentless hunter of Nazi war criminals, questioned the congress's new aggressiveness when it threw itself into the Austrian presidential campaign in 1986 to try to defeat Mr. Waldheim, who was ultimately elected. Mr. Waldheim had hidden his membership in a Nazi military unit linked to atrocities.

Mr. Wiesenthal argued that Mr. Waldheim was "an opportunist" but not a war criminal. He worried that the congress, by inserting itself into Austria's internal politics, was undoing years of patient work toward reconciling young Austrians and Jews.

Mr. Steinberg countered that electing Mr. Waldheim would stain all Austrians. "In the whole world it will be said that a former Nazi and a liar is the representative of Austria," he said.

The tough stance was a departure for the congress, which was formed in 1936 in response to the rising Nazi threat in Europe and whose headquarters are now in New York. Mr. Steinberg himself used the word "strident" to describe his approach in taking the once-staid organization into quarrels, as it did in 1985 when President Ronald Reagan, alongside Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, visited a German cemetery in which Nazi SS soldiers were buried.

"For a long time," Mr. Steinberg said, "the World Jewish Congress was meant to be the greatest secret of Jewish life, because the nature of diplomacy after the war was quiet diplomacy. This is a newer, American-style leadership — less timid, more forceful, unashamedly Jewish."

Mr. Steinberg steered the congress in opposing the presence of a Carmelite convent at the site of the Auschwitz death camp and championing former slave laborers under the Nazis in their fight for compensation.

When Steven Spielberg was making the 1993 film "Schindler's List," he wanted to shoot scenes inside a building that had been part of the Auschwitz camp, Mrs. Steinberg said. As she recounted the episode, Mr. Spielberg went to the congress and conferred with Mr. Steinberg, who told him, "You cannot film on the graves of Jews." Mr. Spielberg instead built a replica of the building.

"Whenever Jews were in danger, or Jewish honor offended, he vigorously yet elegantly spoke up," Elie Wiesel, the author and Holocaust survivor, said in a statement read at Mr. Steinberg's funeral. "Whenever Jewish memory was attacked, he attacked the attacker."

Elan Steinberg was born in Rishon LeZion, Israel, on June 2, 1952, to Holocaust survivors. He grew up in the Brownsville and Borough Park sections of Brooklyn and was a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and Brooklyn College. He received a master's degree in political science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, then taught there.

He joined the congress in 1978 as its United Nations representative, and rose to executive director — first of the American section, then of the world body. Menachem Rosensaft, the congress's general counsel, said Mr. Steinberg was instrumental in persuading the Vatican and Spain to recognize Israel.

Mr. Steinberg resigned in 2004 but remained a consultant to the congress's president, Ronald S. Lauder. He was vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants.

In addition to his wife, the former Sharon Cohen, Mr. Steinberg, who lived in Manhattan, is survived by his children, Max, Harry and Lena Steinberg, and his brother, Alex.

Mr. Rosensaft told another story to illustrate his friend's mix of grit and wit. Mr. Steinberg was negotiating one day with the French culture minister to recover paintings stolen from Jews during the Holocaust. The minister huffed that Mr. Steinberg knew nothing about art.

"You're right," Mr. Steinberg said. "I don't know anything about art. I'm from Brooklyn. I know about stolen goods."

Theo www.nytimes.com

National Briefing | Science

hinh nen dep | school of medicine |

Bat Deaths Are Traced to Fungus From Europe

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 9, 2012

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The mysterious deaths of millions of bats in the United States and Canada over the past several years were caused by a fungus from Europe, scientists reported Monday. Experts had suspected that an invasive species was to blame for the deaths, which were caused by white nose syndrome. Now there is direct evidence that the culprit was not native to North America. More than 5.7 million bats have died since 2006 when white nose syndrome was first detected in a cave in upstate New York. The disease does not pose a threat to humans, but people can carry fungal spores. The fungus may have accidentally been introduced by tourists from Europe. The findings were reported online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

Theo www.nytimes.com

Migratory Hearts

scholarship.edu.vn | harvard summer school 2011 |

'The Newlyweds,' by Nell Freudenberger

By MOHSIN HAMID

Published: April 26, 2012

At the end of Nell Freudenberger's second novel, "The Newlyweds," we encounter the following sentence: "I believe that it is only by sharing our stories that we truly become one community."

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Ashley Gilbertson/VII, for The New York Times

Nell Freudenberger

THE NEWLYWEDS

By Nell Freudenberger

337 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $25.95.

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Illustration by Christopher Brand

A worthy objective, surely. Nonetheless we're on tricky ground here, and a little probing on our part is called for. The sentence quoted above is in fact part of a Starbucks "Reach for the Stars" writing competition entry attributed to the novel's protagonist, Amina, a Bangladeshi woman who has immigrated to America. But Amina's entry, it turns out, was not actually written by Amina. It was written, and submitted, by Kim, an American cousin of Amina's American husband, George. Kim is a yoga instructor. She is a storyteller, a bit of a liar. Like Freudenberger herself, she has spent time in South Asia. And Kim is held up, at least partly, as a stand-in for the author:

" 'But you always wear Indian clothes,' Amina said.

"Kim laughed. 'I wear my own version. This kind of thing.' She indicated the bulky sweater she was wearing over an unseasonable cotton dress and a pair of black tights. 'But trust me — I look stupid in a sari.' "

Freudenberger is aware of the pitfalls she faces in telling us Amina's tale, and she wants us to be aware of them too. If Kim has invented a competition-­winning story as Amina, about Amina, without Amina's permission, and with various inaccuracies, what, Freudenberger invites us to ask, has Freudenberger done?

At stake here isn't — or shouldn't be — the question of authenticity, which is a red herring: nationalities, ethnicities, genders and even species do not "own" the right to fictional narratives spoken in what purport to be their voices. Such a proposition, taken to its logical extreme, would reduce fiction to autobiography, and while fiction may well be alive and kicking in the belly of many an auto­biography, to confine fiction solely to that domain would be madness.

No, the more pressing issue is that of verisimilitude, truthlikeness, the illusion of being real, a quality without which fiction that adheres to the conventions of what is commonly called realism (a problematic term, but useful shorthand for the more cumbersome "let's try not to draw attention to the fact that this is all made up"-ism) starts to feel to its audience like an ill-fitting and spasmodic sock puppet.

For despite the subversive wink embodied in Kim — her name of course brings to mind a certain Kipling character who could blend in with the natives but risked occasionally getting caught — the experience of reading "The Newlyweds" remains substantially the experience of reading a work in the realist vein. This is a third-­person account that hews closely to Amina's point of view. Truthlikeness is thus important to its ambitions.

And Freudenberger brings impressive attributes to bear in her attempt to achieve it: a powerful sense of empathy, of being able to imagine what it is to be someone else, to feel what someone else feels; an effective but unfussy writing style that avoids drawing attention to itself; and an international sensibility, which allows her to write about places outside America not as peripheral — mere playgrounds for American characters — but as central to themselves.

The novel begins with Amina recently settled in Rochester, checking for her green card in her new mailbox — new, as George says, because of: "Thugs. Potheads. Smoking weed and destroying private property." This vandalism is no directed, racist attack, but a continuing, community­wide problem, one of many symptoms revealing an America where things aren't as good as they used to be.

But the past hasn't exactly been wonderful either, not for Amina, and not for George, as may go without saying for a couple who meet online across continents through AsianEuro.com and agree, with barely any physical interaction — and despite obvious differences in nationality, culture and religious upbringing — to wed.

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Mohsin Hamid is the author of "Moth Smoke" and "The Reluctant Fundamentalist." His third novel will be published next spring.

Theo www.nytimes.com

Delta Airlines to Produce Its Own Jet Fuel

loa | harvard summer school 2011 |

U.S.-based Delta Airlines will soon be the world"s first air carrier to produce its own jet fuel.

Delta announced Monday it is buying a struggling oil refinery near Philadelphia from the Phillips 66 oil company for $150 million.

The refinery has been losing money and its owner had planned to shut it down, leading to thousands of job losses.

Delta chief Richard Anderson calls buying a refinery an innovative approach to managing the airline's largest expense.

Delta spent $12 billion on jet fuel last year, which was about 36 percent of its operating expenses.

Delta says making its own fuel will save it about $300 million a year.

Theo www.voanews.com

Flag raised to celebrate National Unification Day

NguyenQuangTruong.Name.vn | harvard summer school 2011 |

A flag-raising ceremony was held at historic Hien Luong Bridge across the Ben Hai River on April 30 to mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Quang Tri province and the 37th anniversary of the Liberation of South Vietnam.

The national flag is a symbol of the nation's confidence, iron will, and strength, proclaiming "Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom."

The people rallied around the flag during the protracted resistance war against the US and overcome tremendous odds and extreme hardships to gain independence for Vietnam.

Tens of thousands of people from all parts of the country sacrificed their lives in their desire for peace, national independence and reunification and to see the national flag flying on Hien Luong Bridge and both banks of the Ben Hai River.

In his speech at the ceremony, Chairman of the Quang Tri provincial People's Committee, Nguyen Duc Cuong, recalled the tradition of heroism during the 20 years of resistance against the US for national salvation.

On the occasion, the Party Committee and people of Quang Tri were awarded two mementos of the Khue Van Cac pavilion, which symbolizes Hanoi, and Nha Rong Wharf in HCM City.

Source: VOV

Theo en.baomoi.com

Burma Opposition Ends Boycott as UN Chief Addresses Parliament

may quay phim | harvard summer school 2011 |

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her opposition National League for Democracy party have ended their week-long boycott of parliament, after accepting oath-of-office language that calls on her party to "safeguard" the constitution.

Photo: AP

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi talks to reporters at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy party, April 30, 2012, in Rangoon.

The Nobel laureate and 42 other NLD colleagues will enter Burma's parliament for the first time Wednesday. They had objected to the words "safeguard the constitution," arguing the language was crafted by a military junta that ruled the country for decades and jailed thousands of democracy activists.

The tactical retreat came Monday, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the Burmese parliament, in a show of support for democratic reforms initiated by the new, nominally-civilian government that took office last year.

"The dramatic changes sweeping Myanmar [Burma] have inspired the world.  And we know that your ambitions for the future reach higher still," Ban said. "I have no doubt that Myanmar will quickly regain its place as a respected and responsible member of the international community."

Reuters

Burma's President Thein Sein (L) and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon shake hands before their meeting.

Ban, speaking in the administrative capital, Naypyitaw, hailed what he called the "vision, leadership and courage" of President Thein Sein, whose post-election initiatives include clearing the way for Aung San Suu Kyi and her party's successful run for office April 1.

The U.N. chief also praised the international community for its moves to ease long-standing sanctions imposed on the former military regime, and called for foreign investment.

"I urge the international community to go even further in lifting, suspending or easing trade restrictions and other sanctions," he said. "Second, Myanmar needs a substantial increase in international development assistance as well as foreign direct investment."

Meanwhile, in Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi addressed the NLD decision to be seated in the new parliament.  She said she and her NLD colleagues were yielding to "the desires of the people" who elected them, and to those who have voiced disapproval for her party's boycott of the legislative body.

She is set to meet with the U.N. chief Tuesday, ahead of Mr. Ban's scheduled visit to upper Burma's Shan state.

Theo www.voanews.com

Rural areas in need of eye care

dau thu ki thuat so | harvard summer school 2011 |

VietNamNet Bridge – Up to 80 per cent of people with visual problems could be treated for eyesight improvement if there were more funding and human resources, according to eye care experts.

VietNamNet Bridge – Up to 80 per cent of people with visual problems could be treated for eyesight improvement if there were more funding and human resources, according to eye care experts.

A doctor examines a child's eyes at the Viet Nam National Institute of Ophthalmology in Ha Noi. Only 211 among 697 districts nationwide have qualified ophthalmologists. (Photo: VNS)

"Millions of rural people, especially the disabled, have no access to eye care services due to shortages of qualified ophthalmologists and eye care clinics," said the Viet Nam National Institute of Ophthalmology Director (VNIO), Do Nhu Hon.

He described this as an "ignored area" of eye care services in Viet Nam.

Hon said that, nearly 1,200 ophthalmologists in Viet Nam were working in the largest cities; Ha Noi, HCM City and Da Nang.

The institute statistics said that the rate of eye doctors per capita in large cities was about 1.4 per 100,000 people in rural areas, compared to 6.5 per 100,000 as country average.

There are only 211 among 697 districts nation-wide that have ophthalmologists or assistants. Half the staff at communal health care clinics have not been trained in eye care.

"Two-thirds of people who have eye problems are unaware that they could be treated," said Hon.

A study by the German CBM Organisation and the National Steering Committee for Blindness Prevention indicated that the negligence of eye care could pose a problem, both at the communal and national scale.

Lack of priority policies to support human resource training and medical staff working in rural, mountainous and remote areas are existing barriers to help the disabled and the blind rehabilitating into community.

A health official from the northern province of Son La Luong Xuan Hia said that the province could not handle an increasing number of blind people.

"The province needs a plan to restructure health care system, particularly training more staff to take care of the disabled, including the blind," said Hia.

"Disabled patients usually receive fewer support from medical staffs than normal patients," said Doctor Nguyen Thi Thu Hien from the VNIO.

She said that the country is lacking programmes for the disabled, and especially for those with visual problems. Most of eye care programmes are funded by NGOs.

"Visual care programmes should receive more attention in this country. This could help improve living standards for the general population," she said.

According to data collected by the General Statistics Office, in 2009 there were 6.7 million people in Viet Nam living with disabilities, of which 75 per cent lived in rural areas, and 33 per cent of them were visual problems.

Nun Van Nga from Nhat Hong Humanity Centre in HCM City, said the lack of awareness and available knowledge about visual health has led many people to go blind. Another problem she pointed out was a lack of training by medical specialists.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

Theo en.baomoi.com

Viral Videos, Activists Discussed as Tools to Prevent Atrocities

News | education services |

A panel in Washington has discussed viral videos, empowering local activists and setting international moral values as means to prevent future mass atrocities against civilians.

Photo: AP

A box full to the brim with KONY 2012 campaign posters are shown Thursday March 8, 2012 at the Invisible Children Movement offices in San Diego.

The panel called "The Responsibility to Protect" was organized during the two-day Clinton Global Initiative University Meeting, and attended by dozens of students from across the United States, many of them foreigners.  Former President Bill Clinton launched these programs in 2007 to engage the next generation of leaders.

Drawing on current violence taking place against civilians in Syria, international relations professor Amitai Etzioni called for urgent action when what he called a moral minimum is under threat.

"If you stand by and allow a government to take its tanks and shell civilians and then go and pull people out of hospital beds and knife them, then what are we standing for?  So there I would say all pragmatic considerations have to be set aside, and I don't think we always have to have a national interest.  I think we have some moral duties which even if they conflict with our national interests, there is a level, a Holocaust, where we cannot just stand by," he said.

Etzioni called on the international community to have standby troops to quickly intervene in such situations.

But Michael Gerson, who works for the One Campaign which aims to improve international aid, warned that any multilateral solution, even if essential, can quickly get bogged down.

"It is not possible just for one country to come in and take care of all these problems, but multilateral institutions are not designed for speed.  And we find that again and again and again, when it comes to the United Nations Security Council, which we have seen with the role of Russia and China, when it comes to organizations like NATO which we tried to get involved in Darfur," he said.

Despite massive attention to the problems in Sudan's Darfur region, the violence there, which began nine years ago, continues.

In such situations, Juliana Rotich, the executive director of Ushahidi, a non-profit technology company managing crisis information, recommended empowering local activists.

"It takes the involvement of the local activists who know the situation best to make the recommendations that fit the issue.  Our part as a technology provider is to provide the skeleton on which they can flesh out the issue that they care about, and they can put in place the processes that fit that particular issue," she said.

Also on the panel was U.S. film actress Kristen Bell, who defended her involvement with the controversial but hugely successful online video against the roving Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony by the U.S. group Invisible Children.

The LRA has been maiming and abducting children across Central Africa, as well as killing civilians for over two decades, something Bell said she wanted to use her fame to fight against. "Listen, I am not a foreign policy expert.  I do not know a ton about government.  But I do know that I care about people, and I do not really care what country they live in because technology has given me the ability to look into someone's face and see them across the world," she said. "And I just want to be able to say, 'hope you are doing well.  I am here if you need me.'"

The video was again criticized by panel members, as it has been previously for being too simple and aimed too much at a U.S. audience.  But since being viewed tens of millions of times, the "Kony 2012" video has been followed by a new U.S. Congressional resolution backing U.S. military efforts to help eradicate the LRA, as well as a decision by the African Union to send 5,000 troops to find Kony.  The elusive LRA leader is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity.

Theo www.voanews.com

Staying Ahead of Asias Next Natural Disaster

the vietnam times | harvard summer school 2011 |

This week"s strong earthquake that shook Japan, one of the best prepared Asian countries for natural disasters, was a stark reminder of the value of readiness in a region disproportionately targeted by the forces of nature.

Photo: Reuters

Students cover their heads after they ran out of the school building during an earthquake drill at the Baclaran Elementary School Unit-1 in Paranaque city, metro Manila, the Philippines, February 7, 2012

While Japan continues to dig out from last year's triple disaster, Thailand is scrambling to avert a repeat of last year's historic floods.

Since then, Thai authorities have set aside billions of dollars for a long-term water resource management plan that they say will ensure that the disaster will not be repeated.

Bangkok resident Suthi Sun remembered the floods like a bad dream. When the waters reached his residence, he said in an e-mail interview that "this was the first time I found the high level of flooding. The highest level was 1.5 meter[s]. Meanwhile my ceiling is about 2.2 to 2.5 meters."

Sun said the Thai government tried to do its best but had no "clear or certain policy." Ruengrawee Pichaikul , Senior Program Coordinator for the Asia Foundation in Thailand, agreed, saying in an e-mail interview that some believed the scale of the flooding was beyond the government's capacity.

When responding to similar charges leveled against the government during the flood, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said, "I tell you the truth, we have done everything to the best of our ability."

"We are facing the most severe flooding ever. We need encouragement, support and cooperation from all sectors and from all the people as well," she said.

Thai authorities have also set up a disaster fund to compensate victims and are struggling to provide affordable insurance to vulnerable citizens. Similar efforts are underway in the Philippines to provide victims of a recent earthquake with insurance and compensation.

USAID 's Principle Regional Advisor William Berger underscored the importance of disaster preparedness, particularly building resilient infrastructure, which can be costly. "It pays to invest in disaster risk reduction. Having...buildings built to a code that meets the threats that the country is facing is absolutely critical."

Reuters

An aerial view of Namche Bazaar, the last town before the Everest region in Nepal, December 2009 file photo.

Nepal sits on the collision point of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates that created the Himalayas. Cornell University 's Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Larry Douglas Brown said major earthquakes will re-occur there "because the two plates are continuing to come together."

"The fact that they occur close to the population centers puts them at risk," he said. "And I say that also the complicating factor is that the resources are either not available or have not been applied to protect the infrastructure that exists there against these large earthquakes.

One possibility, said Steven Rood , the Asia Foundation Country Representative for the Philippines and the Pacific Island Nations, is to turn Nepal's historical structures into tourist attractions and use those revenues to retrofit them to withstand seismic activity. That is the approach USAID has used since 1995. The U.S. agency has helped build government and community capacity to reduce disaster risk and foster public partnerships to reconstruct old buildings and turn them into tourist attractions.

Japan, meanwhile, has invested heavily in being ready for the worst that nature can offer up. Berger was in Tokyo 24 hours after the March 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck.

"I sat in those buildings in Japan. And they swayed and they rocked, but they didn't fall down. A lot of other countries in Asia, if you were in a building, it would have fallen down," Berger said. "So Japan is invested and understands that these things are important. And … they're wealthy enough that they can construct buildings in a seismic-resistant fashion."

But public awareness is also key to limiting casualties. "Part of the reason why the Japanese came through it so often is they all know what to do when an earthquake happens," Rood said.

Reuters

Officers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department take part in an earthquake disaster drill in Tokyo, Japan, September 1, 2011

Brown added that Japan's response earthquakes was good, keeping casualties and damage to a minimum. He said its state-of-the-art warning systems worked very well. Until the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Brown said Japan knew there was a tsunami risk, but did not know it was going to be as bad as it was. That information had "simply not worked its way through the system from scientific observations into practice early enough," he said.

That learning process cost thousands of lives in the case of Indonesia, which was the hardest-hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami .

Hawaii's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center sent an early tsunami warning to Indonesia, which was then passed it down the official channels. But the entire region, according to the center, did not have warning systems in place that might have spared some of the more than 200,000 lives lost to the disaster.

"Indonesia is a little more prepared for a repeat because they have set up an early warning system," said Rood. "Now that early warning system doesn't work all the time...but other times it has actually produced a good warning so that when the earthquake happens and a tsunami threatens, the people are getting some warning."

Arshinta , the Director of YAKKUM Emergency Unit in Yogyakarta, Indonesia said in an email interview that the trend shows a decreased casualty rate since 2004. In 2006, about 6,000 people died in a magnitude 6.3 earthquake compared to 704 deaths in a 2009 magnitude 7.6 tremor, she said. And according to an Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency report, 1,711people died in 2010 due to natural disasters, compared to 2,620 deaths in 2009.

While much has been done to empower communities, Arshinta said the capacity of Indonesian disaster agencies remains low.

But some problems "require long-term systematic changes to the way society is configured and the way it uses the landscape," said Brown. "If you don't build to reduce the casualties, you lose lives. If you do build to reduce the casualties, you lose money because all of that investment and infrastructure is lost to the disaster," he said.

The point, according to Tom Murphy , Senior Research Fellow at the Urban Land Institute , is "to understand that you need to not act like it's never going to happen again."

Murphy, a former Pittsburgh mayor who coordinated rebuilding efforts in U.S. states ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said people in parts of New Orleans built 15 feet below sea level. "So you could stand in your front yard and watch a ship go by 15 feet above you in the Industrial Canal." He said the lesson there is that "countries and regions need to be very careful about how they permit people to develop in the areas that are at risk of disaster."

Reuters

A May 2008 file photo shows an aerial view of a flooded village near an airport in Rangoon after Cyclone Nargis slammed into Burma's main city, ripping off roofs, felling trees and raising fears of major casualties

This is also true of Bangladesh, a South Asian country typically vulnerable to storms and floods by virtue of being situated on the Ganges Delta and its tributaries.

When a cyclone struck the country in 1991 , nearly 139,000 people perished, mostly by drowning. But the next same-size cyclone in 2007 claimed 4,000 lives - a significantly lower number of casualties. In contrast, Burger said Burma lost over 100,000 people to Cyclone Nargis the following year, even though both storms were of the same size.

"A lot of contributions and investments have been made by the international community and the government of Bangladesh in improving their response. And unfortunately, that hadn't been done in Burma," said Berger.

Even countries typically in the path of storms are caught unprepared. That was the case with the Philippine's Mindanao region, an area unaccustomed to typhoons, which recently encountered Typhoon Sendong .

Reuters

A resident carries items he salvaged from his damaged shanty after flash floods brought by Typhoon Washi (Sendong) hit Iligan city, southern Philippines, December 18, 2011.

When the storm struck, for example, Rood said tree logs that were stacked came down with the flood and battered houses. "And because they were so unprepared, more than a 1,000 people died," he said.

Rood said there is a tendency in disasters - not just in Asia – to respond rather than prepare. But as natural disasters increase in frequency, he said many people are beginning to understand that disaster risk reduction is a long-term concern.  "Even the current levels of…natural disasters leave a terrible human toll," said Rood. "And as the world gets more crowded with people, that human toll will only increase," said Rood.

"You can't put a price on the lives saved when we invest in disaster risk reduction," Berger said.

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UNAMID, Worlds Largest Peacekeeping Mission, Faces Cuts

mua sam truc tuyen | central school |

The United Nations and the African Union are reducing the size of their hybrid peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID. Conditions in the western Sudanese region are said to be improving, even as tensions flare along the Sudan/South Sudan border.

Photo: AP

Jordanian peacekeepers of the United Nations African Mission In Darfur, UNAMID, patrol the refugee camp of Abou Shouk at the outskirts of the Darfur town of el Fasher, Sudan (File Photo)

Sudan, the African Union and the United Nations Wednesday agreed to reduce the UNAMID force. With its authorized force of 28,000, the Darfur mission is currently the largest peacekeeping operation in the world.

It was not immediately clear how large the cutback will be. Officials say that decision will be made by the UN Security Council over the next few weeks.

AU Political Commissioner Julia Dolly Joiner said the cuts reflect   improved security conditions that are prompting Darfur's refugees and internally displaced people to return home.

"There has been significant progress in the peace process in Darfur, which is evident in an increase in voluntary returns of IDPs and refugees back to their places of origin," said Joiner.

UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous noted a marked decrease in the organized violence that raged in Darfur from the outbreak of civil war in 2003 through early 2005. But he said rising crime rates in the region had increased the need for a new type of force capable of rapid reaction.

"Certainly there is an increase in common criminality and that is a threat to the safety of civilians, which is one of the main concerns, but much less organized violence, and we have to account of this new situation and we will do that by making it so that UNAMID will be made more agile, more responsive, more mobile," said Ladsous.

Ladsous said the force reduction would be accomplished over an 18 month period.

News of the improvement in Darfur came as officials from Sudan and South Sudan are due to meet in Addis Ababa to avert an all out war following days of airstrikes and border clashes. The African Union  expressed deep concern Wednesday at what it called an "escalating security situation" along the border, and called on both sides to pull back 10 kilometers from the disputed frontier.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week said the Khartoum government bore the brunt of the responsibility for the renewed hostilities.

Theo www.voanews.com

France Cracks Down on Radical Islam, Arresting 19

nguoi noi tieng | central school |

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says more suspected Muslim extremists will be rounded up, following a series of arrests Friday in operations around the country. The arrests are part of a larger crackdown against radical Islam following a string of killings by an al-Qaida-inspired gunman.

Photo: AFP

Policemen (GIPN) take part in a search in Coueron, western France as part of dawn raids in several French cities, March 30, 2012.

Interviewed on France's Europe 1 radio Friday, President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed police commandos had staged a series of early morning raids around the country, rounding up 19 suspected Muslim radicals.

Mr. Sarkozy said police had seized a number of weapons, notably Kalashnikov rifles. He said more operations will continue and some people will be expelled from the country.

Mr. Sarkozy's interior minister, Claude Gueant, provided more details, saying those arrested embraced an extremely violent, jihadist and combat ideology.

Speaking to reporters following a meeting with Muslim associations, Gueant says the government and the Muslim groups are united in fighting against radical Islam. He says the laws of the French Republic must protect Islam, which is the faith of about 5 million people living in the country.

Gueant says those arrested include the head of a banned Muslim group called Forsane Alizza, or "Knights of Pride." The group is known for having called for a boycott of McDonald's in the French city of Limoges, on grounds of serving Israel.

In a radio interview, French journalist Mohammed Sifaoui, who has penetrated the group, describes Forsane Alizza as an activist organization that has harassed a number of secular personalities in France. He says they could just be considered bearded people trying to disrupt things - but he says this also fits the background of terrorist groups.

The arrests are part of a larger crackdown against radical Islam following a string of killings this month by Islamist Mohammed Merah.

Separately, the government has banned six Islamic preachers from entering the country to participate in a Muslim conference in Paris next week. It said some had called for hate and violence and risked upsetting public order. Those barred include prominent Egyptian preacher Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi.

Merah was buried Thursday in Toulouse a week after he died in a firefight with French police following a shooting spree in which he shot dead seven people, including two Muslims and four Jews. Just what kind of terrorist ties he has remains unclear, but his older brother, Abdelkader, has been charged with complicity in the attacks.

The Toulouse killings have shaken the nation. Muslim and Jewish leaders organized a joint march to commemorate the victims last Sunday.

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Prosecutor in Martin Case Will Alone Determine Its Merits

game | educator |

MIAMI — Angela B. Corey, a Republican state attorney with a reputation for toughness, has decided not to seek a grand jury review of the Trayvon Martin shooting, keeping the resolution of a case that has transfixed the nation solely in her hands.

Ed Linsmier/Reuters

A protest over the Trayvon Martin shooting in Miami on April 1. Many people are angry that no charges have been filed yet.

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ and JOHN SCHWARTZ

Published: April 9, 2012

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The Events Leading to the Shooting of Trayvon Martin

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Bruce Lipsky/Florida Times-Union, via Associated Press

Angela B. Corey, the prosecutor, has taken more cases to trial and won more convictions than her predecessor, a study found.

Ms. Corey, 57, who was appointed special prosecutor in the case by Florida's governor and attorney general, must decide herself how to proceed with the particularly difficult case, in which many facts are in dispute and no witnesses have come forward publicly. She alone must determine whether to file charges against George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator who shot and killed the unarmed Mr. Martin, or to drop the case.

The decision on Monday about how to proceed puts Ms. Corey not only at the center of a national discussion of race and violence — Mr. Zimmerman, 28, is Hispanic; Mr. Martin, 17, was black — but also of the finer points of law. The fact that no arrest has been made nor legal action taken in the Feb. 26 shooting has enraged many people across the country and has led to angry marches and protests.

The pressure to bring charges is "unbelievable," said Tor J. Friedman, a criminal defense lawyer in Tallahassee. "We always talk about a rush to judgment in other cases," he said, but in this case the question is more like, "Why wasn't this person taken to the town square and flogged in front of everybody?' "

But legal experts say the need for caution over speed is especially great in a case like this one.  Mr. Zimmerman said he acted in self-defense, and law enforcement officials chose not to charge him under Florida's lenient self-defense law, known as Stand Your Ground. Under the law, anyone person who perceives a threat to his life is not required to attempt a retreat and has a right to use a weapon. It requires law enforcement officials to prove that a suspect did not act in self-defense, and sets the case on a slow track.

Unless investigators find witnesses or direct evidence of the confrontation preceding Mr. Martin's death, such as signs of a struggle, prosecutors would have to build a circumstantial case, often the hardest to make. In high-profile cases, the constitutional principle of the presumption of innocence can be especially strong — another reason to proceed with care, according to legal experts.

Florida criminal law, like most states, does not require a rush to file charges in such a case, Mr. Friedman said; the statute of limitations in manslaughter cases is measured in years, not weeks.  Mr. Friedman, a former prosecutor, said that it served no one to take a defendant to trial before the evidence for a conviction could be collected; a prosecutor, he said, has "an ethical obligation" to build and believe in a case that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Once the evidence is in hand, Ms. Corey will have to determine not just whether to file charges but if so, which ones. By stating that she will not be using the grand jury, she has signaled that charges of first-degree murder are not on the table. In Florida, those charges can be issued only by a grand jury, and require a finding that the act was premeditated. A more likely charge under Florida law is manslaughter, but lesser charges like aggravated battery with a firearm are also a possibility, Mr. Friedman said.

Ms. Corey's decision to forgo a grand jury is not unusual. Like other chief prosecutors in Florida, she typically steers clear of grand juries, unless required as in requests to try juveniles as adults.

Jeffrey S. Weiner, a criminal defense lawyer in Miami, said, "This is a courageous decision, no matter what she decides to do. A grand jury would have been a cop-out."

While Ms. Corey's office cautioned that bypassing the grand jury should not be interpreted as an indication of how she would decide to handle the case, she is widely considered one of Florida's most aggressive prosecutors. When she first ran for state attorney in 2008 , she joked that she was so tough on crime that she would throw her own mother in jail if she broke the law.

"I don't play," she said, "even when it's people in my own family."

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Iberia Pilot Strike Grounds 150 Flights

ABCD | school of medicine |

The Spanish airline Iberia grounded 150 flights Monday as pilots struck to protest the start-up of the low-cost carrier Iberia Express.

Photo: AFP

Planes of Spanish airline Iberia are parked at the Madrid's Barajas airport, at the start of a series of one-day strike by Iberia pilots, April 9, 2012.

The Iberia pilots say they plan to strike 30 times - every Monday and Friday between now and July 20. The pilots said the start of the new airline is a threat to their jobs and working conditions, and violates labor agreements forged when Iberia merged with British Airways.

Low-cost Iberia Express started operations late last month. Its shorter routes to Spanish cities and some European destinations are designed to supplement Iberia's longer flights to other locations.

The owner of the airlines, International Consolidated Airlines Group, said it had to create the low-cost carrier to increase its profitability.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.

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Study Centuries-Old Farming Methods Hold Key to Rainforest Conservation

Phan mem diet virus pro | school of medicine |

The Amazon region of South America, the largest tropical rainforest and river basin on Earth, is disappearing at a rate of around 800,000 hectares a year, but a new study finds one possible strategy for reversing this trend in ancient Amazonian farming methods.

Photo: Stephen Rostain

Unaltered agricultural raised fields in French Guyana that remain much as ancient Amazon farmers left them. The simulated background flames represent the European slash-and-burn agriculture that came afterward.

Analysis of a 1,000-year-old ecological record in the Amazon provides a rare glimpse at early farming practices before European explorers began arriving in the Americas more than 500 years ago.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , finds the ancient farming methods could slow the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

The rapid expansion of agriculture and cattle ranching, road and dam construction, and illegal logging are the biggest drivers of this massive deforestation.

Lead author Jose Iriarte , a paleoethnobotonist at the University of Exeter in England, focused on a coastal wetland savanna in present-day French Guyana, on South America's northeastern coast, where ancient farm beds and canals remain, unaltered, on the landscape.  In pre-colonial history, Iriarte says, this was a period when farmers "reclaimed these seasonally flooded savannas into raised-field agricultural landscapes."

A sediment core from the site provided the team with an unusually intact archive of how farmers farmed these fields. It shows pollen, plant species and charcoal before and after the European colonization in the late 15th and 16th centuries.

Geographer Mitchell Power , curator of the Natural History Museum at the University of Utah, studied charcoal in the core. He says while evidence shows that naturally-occurring fires began decreasing globally around 1500 - a period of documented climate cooling - that's not what they saw in the Amazonian record.

"When we went to the French Guyana site to try to understand the record, the most surprising thing to me was that it was the opposite trend.  Fire was very low and then after 1500, fire increased," he said. "That was contrary to what 90 percent of the rest of the records around the world are telling us."

Stephen Rostain

Before European settlers arrived, farmers on the rainforest savanna grew crops in raised beds, a practice which would be forgotten for 500 years.

Iriarte says the farmers understood how fire could harm the land and agricultural production.

"We know that fire results in the loss of crucial nutrients for crops, [and that] fallows without fires are most effective in restoring soil organic matter and preserving soil structure," he said. "So we interpreted that they were limiting fires because it was better to grow crops in these raised field systems."

Iriarte says use of this fire-free method by the pre-Columbian farmers helped them transform the seasonally-flooded savanna into productive cropland.

"Raised fields provided better drainage, soil aeration, and also moisture retention during the dry season. These raised fields were constructed mainly with the muck from these seasonally flooded savannahs," he said. "So they are really fertile and they can be recycled every season."

Mitchell Power says this labor-intensive approach ended abruptly when as much as 95 percent of the indigenous population died from a variety of Old-World diseases brought by the European settlers.

"Once the Columbian encounter happens we don't see that type of agriculture any more," he said. "We start to see increased burning and a shift toward dry land farming. So people were then clearing forests and making their raised beds in the forests. And what we think is happening was a huge demographic collapse in this region."

Slash-and-burn agriculture - introduced to the Amazon not by the native farmers but by European colonizers - remains today a major threat to the rainforest. Experts say if such practices continue at the current rate, more than half of the Amazon's tropical rainforest could be gone by 2030.

Iriarte says pre-Columbian farming methods offer a tried-and-true alternative.

"It has the capability to help curb carbon emissions and at the same time provide food security for the more vulnerable and poorest rural populations of rural Amazonia," he said.

The authors say bringing back these labor-intensive but productive farming systems to serve today's - and tomorrow's - food needs will require extensive farmer re-training - and the political will of the region's governments. And they believe that if the Amazon's current stewards can reclaim the wisdom of their ancestors, the damage to the world's greatest rainforest can be slowed.

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Reply All | Letters

Nguyenquangtruong.com | school of medicine |

A triumph at every level — reporting, tone, perspective — I couldn't recommend it more. And though [Nathaniel] Rich doesn't directly address it, beneath the surface looms the bigger issue — the recovery of the land is not going to take good and competent managers but something more transcendent: the "big idea" that no one has come up with yet. Who knows if that will happen.

Jungleland

Published: April 6, 2012

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PAUL JACKSON,
New York, posted on thepaulies.tumblr.com

For those who say that the Lower Ninth Ward shouldn't have been rebuilt, Lakeview is probably the more dangerous area to live in, as it's several feet lower than the Lower Ninth — really is below sea level. But I don't hear anyone saying it shouldn't have been rebuilt. Because Lakeview is more affluent (and almost entirely white), it has had more opportunity and resources to rebuild and therefore looks quite nice these days.

NADINE WU,
New Orleans, posted on nytimes.com

Theo www.nytimes.com

Ho Chi Minhs prison diary on display in RoK

MonNgon.org | school of medicine |

A calligraphy exhibition featuring excerpts from late President Ho Chi Minh's Prison Diary, opened on April 9 at the Suncheon National University's museum, in the south Jeolla province in the Republic of Korea.

On display at the event, which marks the anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh's 122 nd birthday, were 45 calligraphic works by 23 calligraphers from Gwangju and south Jeolla provinces.

Addressing the event, the Rector of the University, Song Yeong-moo, said the exhibition is taking place at the same time as the two countries are celebrating the 20 th anniversary of their diplomatic ties and preparing for the 2012 Vietnam-RoK Friendship Year.

He expressed his hopes that the exhibition will help the students and local people understand more about President Ho Chi Minh's life and Vietnam 's revolutionary cause.

According to Vietnam 's Ambassador Tran Trong Toan, the Prison Diary was first translated from Vietnamese to Korean for the first time in 2003 and made a huge contribution to helping Korean people understand more about Vietnam and President Ho Chi Minh.

The exhibition, which will run until April 25, once again expressed Korean people's interest in and respect for President Ho Chi Minh, he said.

He also expressed his hope that the event will help consolidate Vietnam-RoK friendship and strategic cooperation.

According to the organising board, all the works of art will be transferred to two RoK cultural centres in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and put on display to mark Uncle Ho's birthday on May 19.-VNA

Theo en.baomoi.com

National Briefing | South

phan mem ban quyen | school of medicine |

Florida: Man Executed in Serial Killings

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 13, 2012

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David Alan Gore, 58, was put to death Thursday, nearly three decades after the murder of 17-year-old Lynn Elliott, one of several killings that shook the quiet coastal town of Vero Beach. In all, Mr. Gore killed four teenage girls and two women, authorities say. Ms. Elliott's 1983 murder was the only one for which he was sentenced to death.

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Iran Urges West To Drop Conditions Ahead of Nuclear Talks

tai nghe nao tot | medical school interview questions |

Iran has confirmed it will meet with Western powers in Istanbul Saturday but is urging them to take pre-conditions off the table ahead of the nuclear talks.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council confirmed Monday it will meet with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France -- plus Germany.  Iran wants a further round of talks held in Baghdad at a later date to discuss its controversial nuclear program.

There was no immediate response from the world powers. Iran has been balking at holding talks in Istanbul because it says Turkey has turned against its ally, Syria.

World powers say the talks, the first since January 2011, should bring a curtailment of Iran's high-level uranium enrichment and the closing of an underground nuclear development site,

But Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told Iranian media Monday that pre-conditions on the talks are "meaningless."

Western powers suspect Tehran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons.  Iran denies the allegation and maintains its nuclear activities are purely for power generation and medical research purposes.

Iran's nuclear chief Fereidoun Abbasi told Iranian media Sunday the country may scale back production of highly enriched uranium. Abbasi said Iran may eventually reduce production of 20 percent enriched uranium to 3.5 percent enrichment levels -- the purity needed for power generation -- once enough fuel is created to keep its research reactor going.

Iran's uranium enrichment lies at the heart of the dispute between Tehran and Western powers.  Uranium enriched to 20 percent could be turned into weapons-grade material within months.

Earlier this year, Iran confirmed it had started enriching uranium at an underground facility near the Shi'ite holy city of Qom.  The Fordo complex is beneath a mountain and is better protected from potential air strikes by nations suspicious of the intent of Iran's nuclear program.

^{_{Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.}}

Join the conversation on our social journalism site - Middle East Voices . Follow our Middle East reports on Twitter and discuss them on our Facebook page.

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National Briefing | Mid-Atlantic

may quay phim | school of medicine |

Pennsylvania: Bomb Threats Continue After Arrest

By JENNIFER PRESTON

Published: April 13, 2012

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The police at the University of Pittsburgh have arrested a New York man on charges of making terrorist threats to four professors, but he was not charged with making more than 60 bomb threats that have caused major disruptions across the campus since mid-February. The man, Mark Lee Krangle , 65, of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., a graduate student at the university in the mid-1970s, was arrested as he stepped off a plane at Pittsburgh International Airport on Wednesday, university officials said. The bomb threats, however, continued Thursday morning, causing hundreds of students to be rousted from dormitories, libraries and classrooms. No devices have been found.

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Editorial

may hut bui | school of medicine |

Mr. Obama and the 'Buffett Rule'

Published: April 10, 2012

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President Obama accomplished two things when he made the case on Tuesday for the so-called Buffett Rule, which would require millionaires to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. He persuasively argued that it would be a step toward fairness in a tax code tilted in favor of the wealthiest Americans. Not incidentally, it allowed him to take an implicit shot at his virtually certain opponent, Mitt Romney, both personally and politically.

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Mr. Romney disclosed in January that his tax bill last year came to about 14 percent of his $21 million income, roughly the same percentage faced by middle-rung taxpayers. Even more important, Mr. Romney is determined to continue slashing taxes for the rich, starving the nation of needed revenue, while deepening the deficit.

The Buffett Rule, which would raise an estimated $50 billion over 10 years, would not make an appreciable dent in the deficit or provide a lot more for essential programs. By comparison, letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for taxpayers making more than $250,000 a year, as the president has also called for, would raise $800 billion over 10 years.

Mr. Obama must ensure that the Buffett Rule does not become a substitute for ending those tax cuts.

The president is right that income inequality is a serious and growing problem and should be a central issue in this year's campaign. On Tuesday, he said the big question for Americans is, can "we succeed as a nation where a shrinking number of people are doing really, really well, but a growing number are struggling to get by? Or are we better off when everybody gets a fair shot?"

Unfairness in the tax burden is one important example and driver of that divide. The White House released tax data showing that the average federal tax rate of the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans has fallen from 51 percent to 26 percent over the last 50 years. At the same time, the middle-class tax burden was basically unchanged or slightly higher, with those taxpayers paying 16 percent of their income in federal taxes in 2010, versus 14 percent 50 years ago.

What Mr. Obama did not say, but which must be part of a serious tax debate, is that the main reason for the low tax rates on the wealthy is the preferential treatment of investment income. It is taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, versus top rates between 25 percent and 35 percent on wages and salary for many working Americans. Applying the same tax rates to all forms of income would be a more direct way to address tax inequality.

The Buffett Rule is a compelling symbol, but it comes with policy risks. After setting the standard for wealth at $1 million in annual income, Mr. Obama will now have to vigilantly fend off lawmakers, from both parties, who will be eager to preserve the Bush-era tax cuts for everyone making less than that. The $250,000 threshold is not only fair, it is essential for raising substantial and much-needed revenue.

The discussion of inequality must not end with a debate on taxes. To ensure that the benefits of economic growth are shared among all Americans, Washington must do a lot more to strengthen the institutions that foster broad prosperity. Those include public education, universal health care, Social Security, affirmative action, financial regulation and the minimum wage.

Mr. Obama has set his campaign in the right direction. But it is only a start.

Theo www.nytimes.com

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Takes the White House

may in hoa don | school of medicine |

Julia Louis-Dreyfus spent much of her childhood in and around Washington, D.C. But when she returned last September to shoot HBO's new comedy "Veep," in which she plays Vice President Selina Meyer, decked out in a power bob and important-Washington-lady stockings, she got used to something new about the city: traveling by motorcade. She also noticed some curious overlaps between her life as a highly recognizable celebrity and the lives of highly recognizable politicians. Occasionally, for instance, a group of people on the street would see her emerging from the motorcade and react to her; she'd respond in character as Vice President Meyer, pantomiming the exaggerated greeting a famous actress might bestow upon fans. "It was worlds colliding in ways I hadn't anticipated," she says.

Photo illustration by Zachary Scott for The New York Times

Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

By CARINA CHOCANO

Published: April 12, 2012

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Photo illustration by Zachary Scott for The New York Times

This interplay between politics and show business has grown increasingly strange and tangled. There has been a profusion lately of celebrities portraying real-life female politicians, from Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live" to Julianne Moore's more sober (or, rather, sobering) treatment of Palin in "Game Change," to Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady." As for Louis-Dreyfus as Meyer, the pairing of her sex and her office might seem like yet another allusion to Palin. But Meyer is an entirely fictional, even chimerical, creation. The central joke of "Veep," in fact, is that Meyer, whose party affiliation is never revealed, is far from an ideologue; rather, she is a political animal struggling for survival in an alternately hostile and indifferent environment. Unlike Palin, who seemed to come out of nowhere, the very point of Meyer is that she's a consummate insider. She knows exactly how the Washington sausage is made. She knows because she is the sausage.

There's something about Selina that's also inescapably familiar. It has to do with her combination of intelligence and petulance, self-confidence and neuroticism, narcissism and charm. In many ways, Selina is the quintessential Julia Louise-Dreyfus character: a power-suited version of Elaine from "Seinfeld."

Louis-Dreyfus, however, turns out to be distinctly un-Elaine-like in person. Not only is she much more stylish than the characters she usually plays, but she's also considerably sunnier. And unlike her perennially single or prolifically divorced characters, she has been married to the same person for the past 25 years, the writer-producer Brad Hall (with whom she has two sons, Henry, 19, and Charlie, 14).

There is one way in which Louis-Dreyfus is like her new character: She curses like a sailor. "I'm a big swearer in my life," she says. She sees it as a way of keeping the private self separate from the public, and of releasing some of the tension that builds from being constantly on display. The proclivity comes in handy for "Veep," where characters' frustrations tend to culminate in soaring arias of profanity so ardent and genuine and unguarded that they can only be described as life-affirming. What better way to purge the phoniness from your system, Louis-Dreyfus says, "before you end up eating your own arm off, you know?"

Every decade gets the political show it deserves, or thinks it deserves, though some decades are pretty disingenuous. "The West Wing" gave us an idealized account of the Clinton era, with a saintly president and high-minded pols. In the '00s, "24" offered an ultraparanoid version of the Bush era that legitimized torture as the primary means of dealing with a world in a constant state of crisis.

"Veep," by contrast, comes not to justify Caesar but to goose him. It captures our post-Reagan, post-Clinton, post-Bush, 24-hour tabloid news and Internet-haterade dystopia, and reflects our collective queasy ambivalence toward a political system that we fear simply reflects our own shallowness back at us. If "The West Wing" was a fantasy of hyper-competence, "Veep" is its opposite: a black-humor vision of politics at its bleakest, in which both sides have been co-opted by money and special interests and are reduced to posturing, subterfuge, grandstanding and photo ops. Naturally, it's hilarious.

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Carina Chocano is a writer in Los Angeles. She last wrote for the magazine about '' Downton Abbey .''

EDITOR: Adam Sternbergh

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