Word: claims
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Naypyidaw is very big and very empty. Even after Cyclone Nargis devastated Rangoon, Burma's former capital, that metropolis of 5 million still teems with life. The authorities claim that Naypyidaw, untouched by the storm, is home to nearly 1 million residents. But on a recent visit, I saw only a few dozen people apart from the gangs of manual laborers painting crosswalks and sweeping spotless boulevards. On the 20-minute drive from the airport to the hotel zone--where all six of Naypyidaw's hotels are located--I passed just three other vehicles. One was a horse-drawn buggy...
Tens of thousands of civil servants have been forced to abandon Rangoon for Naypyidaw, but the new capital has only two markets catering to their needs. There's no sign of movie theaters or karaoke dens, and no cell-phone coverage--for "security reasons," the locals claim. (That still doesn't explain why junta leader Than Shwe has refused to take calls from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was phoning to urge more government aid for cyclone victims...
...every American.” While this allusion to the Declaration of Independence’s preamble is sweetly sentimental, there is no guaranteed right to happiness in the Constitution (and for good reason). By giving credit to this argument, Sullivan opens up the door to all sorts of claims of happiness and unhappiness that are completely relative. An opponent of gay marriage, for instance, could claim that the existence of the practice would make him personally miserable. Sullivan would do better to stay true to the conservative-values arguments that he makes elsewhere. Probably the strongest of these...
...Soraya (Suheir Hammad), a young Palestinian woman born in Lebanon and brought up in Brooklyn, goes to Jaffa to claim money her grandfather lost in the "catastrophe" (the founding of the Israeli state). There she meets handsome young Emad (Saleh Bakri, the young stud from The Band's Visit) and gets embroiled with him in a crime that might be described as the reassignment of property. The politics are plausible, the lead actors charming enough, and it's nice to see Palestine by sunset. But in its making, this is an all-too-familiar melodrama. Ordinary is the last word...
...There is also little evidence to support the claim made by antivaccine activists that the battery of shots kids receive can damage the immune system rather than strengthen it. Experts stress that it's not the number of inoculations that matters but the number of immune-stimulating antigens-or proteins-in them. Thanks to a better understanding of which viral or bacterial proteins are best at activating the immune system, that number has plummeted. The original smallpox injection alone packed 200 different immune-alerting antigens in a single shot. Today there are only 150 antigens...