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Poll shows rising popularity of Brazilian government
The approval rating of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government has risen despite a faltering economy, a poll published Sunday shows.
Of 2,605 people interviewed in 130 municipalities across Brazil,45 percent thought Lula's government was excellent or good, up from 42 percent two months earlier, the poll shows.
Only 10 percent of the respondents considered Lula's government to be bad or very bad, one percentage point down from two months earlier, according to the poll conducted Aug. 20-23.
The rising popularity of Lula's administration came when the Brazilian economy fell into recession in the second quarter, with gross domestic product going down 1.6 percent from the previous quarter.
The survey has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Most US voters cannot name any of Democratic presidential candidates
Two-thirds of American voters were unable to name any of the nine Democratic presidential candidates, a sign that the Democratic presidential race has yet to caught the public eyes, according to a CBS News poll released Sunday.
The poll showed that Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri, and former Vermont governor Howard Dean topped the field, but only with slim leads. Lieberman had the backing of 14 percent, compared with Gephardt, 11 percent and Dean, 10 percent.
All other candidates were in single digit support.
Dean, who has strongly opposed to the war the Bush administration launched against Iraq, has surged as the front-runner in the latest months. Latest polls
gave him an advantage of as many as 21 points over his nearest rival, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
The surprising rise of Dean in the field has made him a target of other Democratic candidates. Appearing on major television networks Sunday, both Kerry and Lieberman pointed to his lack of experience in international affairs and questioned his ability to lead the country in a new security environment created by the Sept.11 attacks.
"Howard Dean has zero experience in international affairs," Kerry said on the "Meet the Press" of the NBC. "The presidency is not the place for on-the-job training in this new security
world, "he said.
On the CBS "Face the Nation," Lieberman said Americans want a leader "who will protect them in a dangerous world," accusing
Dean of flip-flopping on some of his positions. "He's got to let the American people know exactly where he stands."
The CBS News poll of 775 registered voters was taken Aug. 26-28and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Most victims' families have yet to apply for Sept. 11 compensation
Nearly two years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, most victims' families reportedly have not applied for compensation from the federal government, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The most recent statistics show that 3,016 people died in the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and aboard an airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania. But as of Friday, with the Dec. 22 deadline for applications less than four months away, only1,240 death claims had been filed with the fund. And while no one knows exactly how many people were injured in the attacks, so far only 1,035 of them have sought compensation from the fund, which has no cap.
As families who accept a payout from the fund have to give up their right to sue for additional compensation, so some of the holdouts may be waiting on legal developments.
Some families say they are deciding whether to file a lawsuit instead. Others, especially high-income families who lost a breadwinner in the collapse of the trade center, may be awaiting developments in a federal lawsuit in Manhattan. And still others say they have not recovered sufficiently from their grief to face the paperwork involved in filing a claim, and the painful
memories it would bring to the surface.
The fund, created by Congress as part of a legislative package to protect the airline industry from ruinous litigation, requires those who file claims to waive their right to sue over the
attacks other than lawsuits filed against the terrorists who planned the attacks and those who are accused of harboring or financing them.
The Victim Compensation Fund has paid out more than 600
million dollars, but the awards could eventually total as much as 3 billion dollars.
The families of those killed and survivors who were injured
are entitled to federal compensation that varies based on a formula taking into account lost income, insurance, dependents and other factors.
By most measures, the financial incentives for filing would seem to be substantial. Roughly 800 claims have been approved,
and the average tax-free award for a death claim has been 1.6 million dollars, after all the deductions for insurance and other offsetting awards. Individual awards range from 250,000 dollars to6.1 million dollars, and awards for injury claims range from 500 dollars to 6.8 million dollars, with the higher figures
reflecting claims by burn victims.
Those awards may seem inadequate, however, for families of high-income or well-insured victims, some lawyers and family representatives said. Those families may be postponing the decision about whether to file a claim with the fund until a significant decision is made in court cases pending against the airlines.
For some low-income families, fear seems to be as much at work as grief, officials said. About 100 undocumented workers are thought to have died in the attacks, but the fund has received claims on behalf of only about 30 of them. The others, he said, are afraid of deportation or other sanctions if they file,
despite written reassurances to the contrary from Justice Department and immigration officials.
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