Word: flood
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Nonetheless, the Clinton team is determined to try. It lives in dread of an NSSE--the Disneyesque abbreviation for a national-security special event that triggers special precautions. But with Y2K happening all across the world, a flood of threats has washed in from every corner of the globe, and suspicious characters have been arrested. There's no shortage of danger out there. The government has conducted drills in 27 cities for an NSSE, but the real strategy is "Raise your defenses and plan for the aftermath." So when the Administration's heavy hitters convened in the basement...
Venezuelans may agree with President Chavez on the causes of the country's high flood-death toll, but they may not like his solutions. Chavez blamed the "criminal irresponsibility" of previous governments for the estimated 50,000 deaths from last week's floods, citing the widespread construction of illegal shantytowns on hillsides. The left-leaning populist president warned that there would be no rebuilding of some of the worst-hit neighborhoods, and that people would be forbidden from building in areas vulnerable to mudslides. And while the former paratrooper has earned top marks for his hands-on supervision of relief...
...Floods and earthquakes usually spell political trouble for Latin American strongmen, but Venezuela's killer flood may affirm the popularity of President Hugo Chavez. The former paratrooper, who once served jail time for a failed coup attempt, personally took command of 1,000 elite paratroopers over the weekend and supervised the delivery of disaster relief. By deploying the military throughout the country to help Venezuela cope with the devastation that has killed at least 10,000 people, Chavez appears to be delivering on his populist commitment to share the oil-rich country's resources more equitably. And to underscore...
...constitution in a referendum. The constitution entrenches the president's power and allows him to potentially remain in office until 2012. It also affirms state ownership of Venezuela's oil industry, which Chavez hopes will fuel his "new economy" that redistributes wealth among the poor. While the flood is a win-win scenario for Chavez - he's rushed resources to the aid of those most in need, and any recriminations over the building practices that allowed for such a heavy death toll will be directed at his predecessors - it contains an element of danger, too. The devastation will fuel demands...
...couple of reasons. First, the principle of free trade may be true, but it's not obviously true. In fact, it's counterintuitive. If a factory shuts down because of a flood of cheap foreign products, how is that good? If middle-class Americans find themselves competing with foreigners being paid practically nothing and living in squalor, how can this send Americans' standard of living up and not down? If another nation is willing to pollute its air and water in order to produce goods for sale in the global economy, how can America join that economy and still hope...