Wine drinkers who stop and smell the rosé may be more likely to stave off Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
A study recently published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
found that master sommeliers — who have acute senses of smell — also
have larger, thicker parts of the brain that are vulnerable to
Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s than non-wine experts.
“Though we don’t know for sure, there is a possibility that when it comes to the brain, thicker is better,” Dr. Sarah Banks,
head of neuropsychology at the Cleveland Clinic in Las Vegas and author
of the study, tells The Post. “It seems like if you have more brain in
those areas, it’ll take longer to feel the effects of the disease, but
it’s speculation.”
Banks performed brain scans on 13 master sommeliers and 13 non-wine
experts while they smelled wine and fruits and found that the former
group had a larger brain reaction to smell — specifically in the areas
of the brain that store memory.
Harley Carbery, master sommelier at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas and one of the study’s subjects, says his profession requires him to home in on his senses.
“Sommeliers tend to smell things and enjoy things a little bit
longer, and we pick up notes and flavors that a lot of other people
can’t,” Carbery, 38, tells The Post.
Banks admits more research needs to be done, but adds, “It’s
encouraging that these areas have some plasticity, which means those
parts of your brain can change even in adulthood.”
She notes that the findings could suggest that living like a
sommelier and paying close attention to how things taste could improve
your health in the long run. Cheers to that.
_______
Researchers say the findings – published online in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior – are part of the first large-scale study of how sex affects heart health in later life.
“These findings challenge the widely held assumption that sex brings
uniform health benefits to everyone,” chief researcher Hui Liu, a
Michigan State University associate professor of sociology, said in a
statement Tuesday.
Researchers mulled over data from 2,204 people aged 57 to 85 gathered
between 2005 and 2006 and then again five years later for the
federally-funded study.
Older men who had sex once a week or more were more likely to
experience heart problems five years later than men who had no sex at
all, while no risk was found among older women, the study revealed.
“Strikingly, we find that having sex once a week or more puts older
men at a risk for experiencing cardiovascular events that is almost two
times greater than older men who are sexually inactive,” Liu said.
“Moreover, older men who found sex with their partner extremely
pleasurable or satisfying had higher risk of cardiovascular events than
men who did not feel so.”
Liu said that the findings suggest that the health of older men is
more negatively impacted because they exert themselves more than younger
men to achieve an orgasm, resulting in more strain on the heart.
“Because older men have more difficulties reaching orgasm for medical
or emotional reasons than do their younger counterparts, they may exert
themselves to a greater degree of exhaustion and create more stress on
their cardiovascular system in order to achieve climax,” said Liu.
High testosterone levels and the use of medication designed to boost
sexual function may also contribute to the harmful effects on men’s
hearts, Liu said, though noting that scientific evidence to support this
is rare.
On the other hand, older women with a robust sex life were found to have a lower risk of hypertension.
“For women, we have good news: Good sexual quality may protect older women from cardiovascular risk in later life,” Liu said.
The female sex hormone released during orgasm and the effects of
“good quality relationships” may also improve women’s health, she said.
________
Photos:Rodrigo Duterte has said some outrageous things.
After
US president Barack Obama said he would raise extrajudicial killings in
a meeting with Duterte, the Philippines President responded angrily on
September 5, first in English then in Tagalog. As a result, Obama
canceled the meeting.
(CNN) President
Barack Obama bade farewell to G20 leaders in Hangzhou, China, on Monday
by reminding them they're living in "turbulent" times -- and he wasn't
kidding.
His valedictory Asia
tour, which moved on to Laos later in the day, is unfolding amid
diplomatic slights and great power rivalries that reflect the unstable
nature of the world Obama will bequeath to his successor in January.
New players
The controversies reflect the way
international politics is now a stew of many competing, rising or
resurgent powers that see fewer reasons to simply fall into line behind
the United States than was the case following World War II and the Cold
War. And it may suggest that foreign leaders are now just as interested
in who will sit in the Oval Office next as they are in Obama as he heads
for the exit.
Obama is not only
confronting regimes in Russia, China and North Korea that are at times
openly hostile to Washington -- or at least willing to make clear they
don't want to play by its rules -- but over the long weekend, he got
headaches from allies as well, notably Turkey and the Philippines.
"Who
is he?," the fiery new President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte,
asked Monday at a news conference, referring to Obama. The Southeast
Asian leader warned he would lash out if the US President raised
extrajudicial killings in the Philippines' new war on drugs in an
anticipated meeting in Laos.
"I am a president of a sovereign state. And we have long ceased to be a colony of the United States," Duterte continued. "Son of a b****, I will swear at you."
It was a stunning show of disrespect for an American president. And
though Obama shrugged off the comments from the "colorful" leader during
his own news conference Monday, the White House later canceled his
meeting with Duterte, conferring instead with the President of South
Korea. Duterte later apologized for any offense caused.
Asian troubles
Duterte
is not the first erratic president of the Philippines, but his
unpredictability and willingness to fan latent colonial resentment
against the US represents an unwanted disruption for the White House at
the end of Obama's tenure.
It
comes in a regional cauldron where Beijing is making aggressive moves in
the South China Sea and Southeast Asian nations are increasingly
important to US efforts to rein in the rising power.
Obama
had hoped to spend his final journey to Asia as president talking up
the highlights of his pivot to the region. The fact sheet the White
House put out at the conclusion of the G20 touted the economic progress
under the eight years of the Obama presidency. And in one key outcome of
the summit, he and Chinese President Xi Jinping formally agreed that
both their nations would join the Paris Climate Agreement committing to
cutting carbon emissions.
But that
bright spot aside, his trip to China has offered reminders that since
Obama took office in 2009 -- and especially since Xi emerged as a
nationalist leader after taking office in 2012 -- Sino-US relations have
worsened.
Obama comments on 'friction' during his China arrival01:25
At
the start of his trip, a logistical spat over missing airline airplane
stairs needed for Obama to reach the red carpet at Hangzhou airport and
verbal altercations between US and Chinese officials grabbed headlines.
At
one point, a White House official warned a Chinese counterpart against
restricting access of pool reporters under the wing of Air Force One,
noting that it was, after all, a US plane. "This is our country," the
man yelled back.
Obama
shrugged off that incident, too, acknowledging that disagreements over
press access often arise with China but contending that they were not
emblematic of the US-China relationship.
The Republican hoping to succeed Obama, however, took a much dimmer view of the episode.
"Can
you believe that the Chinese would not give Obama the proper stairway
to get off his plane - fight on tarmac!" Donald Trump tweeted.
Beijing said that an "unprofessional" American press had "hyped" up the incident.
"China
has warmly and friendly welcomed all the leaders who are attending the
G20 summit, why would we cause problems to the American delegations on
purpose?" said Hua Chunying, China's foreign ministry spokesperson.
Either
way, the flap served as a symbol of the tensions over issues of
sovereignty that can occur between an ascending authoritarian state and
an established democratic superpower used to getting its own way --
clashes that some analysts fear could play out on a geopolitical stage
in years to come.
Frosty ties
Obama and Putin met in Hangzhou.
Another
country that has expanded its power base by thumbing its nose at the
United States -- Russia -- also grabbed the spotlight during the G20
summit. Obama and President Vladimir Putin were pictured on Monday
locked in an unfriendly stare, clearly with little love lost between
them.
"Typically, the tone of our
meetings are candid, blunt, businesslike -- and this one was no
different," was how Obama described it to reporters.
He
referred to "gaps of trust" over Syria, warned that the US has "more
capacity" both "offensively and defensively" when it comes to cyber
espionage and stressed that the US has no intention of easing sanctions
against Russia over its action in Ukraine.
The
tough talks were a reminder that the "reset" of Russia relations that
Obama pioneered at the start of his administration is now but a memory,
while Putin has also taken advantage of chaos in the Middle East to
reinstate Russian influence with Syria and Iran.
Turkish tensions
Obama meets Erdogan, promises cooperation02:35
Obama
also invested significant first-term political capital in improving
relations with another foreign leader he met at the G20 -- President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey -- with whom tensions were on display in
their joint appearance.
Even though
Obama bemoaned the "terrible attempted coup" that failed to topple
Erdogan in July, the Turkish President did not shy away from raising
differences with the US in front of the press.
"All
forms of terrorism are bad. All forms of terrorism are evil," Erdogan
said, then mentioned the names of a Kurdish group with which the US is
allied in Syria but is regarded by Ankara as a terrorist organization.
As
he headed to Laos, Obama professed to being undeterred by the
unpredictable unfriendly international environment at the end of his
presidency.
"I think we all to have
recognize these are turbulent times. A lot of countries are seeing
volatile politics," he said at his news conference. "But then when you
look back over the course of eight years, actually you find out things
have gotten better.
"I tell my
staff when they feel worn out sometimes that better is always good," he
added. "It may not be everything that needs to get done, but if it's
better than before we started, we'll take it."
When
used correctly and consistently, condoms are one of the most effective
ways people can avoid catching STDs, say global health experts.
The growing global threat of antibiotic resistance has prompted
the World Health Organization to update treatment guidelines for three
sexually transmitted diseases: gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia.
The World Health Organization (WHO) say that in general, antibiotics successfully cure all three sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which are caused by bacteria.
However, the WHO note that these three diseases often go undiagnosed
and are becoming increasingly difficult to treat, and now, because of
misuse and overuse, some antibiotics have no effect at all.
The United Nations health agency estimates that every year, 131 million people are infected with chlamydia, 78 million are infected with gonorrhea, and 5.6 million with syphilis.
Dr. Ian Askew, WHO's director of reproductive health and research, says:
"Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis are major public health problems
worldwide, affecting millions of peoples' quality of life, causing
serious illness and sometimes death."
The biggest concern is gonorrhea - and the one for which new
treatment guidelines, not updated since 2003, are most urgently needed,
say the WHO.
Multidrug-resistant gonorrhea strains that do not respond to
any available antibiotics have already been detected and are considered
untreatable.
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States says the growing threat
of untreatable gonorrhea, together with rising rates of the disease,
means preventing new infections is more important than ever.
'Condoms are the most effective protection against STDs'
Although antibiotic resistance in chlamydia and syphilis is less
common, it does exist, note the WHO, and their prevention and treatment
is also critical.
The organization says that when used correctly and
consistently, condoms are one of the most effective methods of
protection against STDs.
If they are not diagnosed and treated, gonorrhea, syphilis, and
chlamydia can cause serious health problems and complications for women,
including: pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, and miscarriage.
For pregnant women, gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia infections raise the chance of stillbirth and newborn death.
The three diseases can also double or treble a person's risk of HIV infection and untreated gonorrhea, and chlamydia can also make both men and women infertile.
The new guidelines for treating the three sexually transmitted
diseases are based on the latest evidence about the most effective
available treatments.
Start using new guidelines straight away, urge WHO
The WHO are urging countries to immediately start using
the updated guidelines - which are consistent with the global action
plan on antibiotic resistance adopted by governments at the World Health
Assembly in May 2015.
Gonorrhea is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae
that infects the genitals, rectum, and throat. Widespread resistance to
antibiotics means older and cheaper drugs no longer kill the bacterium.
Among other things, the new guidelines urge health authorities to
advise doctors to prescribe whichever antibiotic is likely to be most
effective, depending on local patterns of drug resistance.
The WHO do not recommend quinolones for the treatment of gonorrhea, due to widespread high levels of resistance.
Syphilis is caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum,
which spreads via contact with a sore on the genitals, anus, rectum,
lips, or mouth. It can also spread from mother to child during
pregnancy. If an infected pregnant women goes untreated, and her fetus
becomes infected, it can to die.
The new WHO guidelines recommend a single dose of benzathine penicillin
for the cure of syphilis. The antibiotic - which is given as an
injection into the buttock or thigh - is considered the most effective
against syphilis. It is better and cheaper than oral antibiotics.
The organization notes there are reports of shortages of benzathine
penicillin in regions with high burdens of syphilis and says they are
working with partners to resolve the problem.
Chlamydia is the common bacterial STD caused by infection with Chlamydia trachomatis.
People with this infection are often also co-infected with gonorrhea.
While most people infected with chlamydia experience mild or no
symptoms, others have discharge and feel a burning sensation when
urinating. However, even if no symptoms emerge, the disease can still
damage the reproductive system.
________
More women than men who reported no sexual problems at study baseline developed problems in the year after the heart attack.
Impaired sexual activity and sexual function problems are more common
among young women than men in the year following a heart attack, finds a
study published in JAMA Cardiology.
Almost 20 percent of acute myocardial infarctions, also known as AMIs - or more universally as heart attacks - occur among people between the ages of 18-55 years, and one third of these people are women.
While most younger adults who experience a heart attack are reported to
be sexually active before the event, little is known about sexual
activity or sexual function of those patients in the period following a
heart attack.
Previous studies have shown women to be less likely than men to receive counseling about sex after a heart attack.
Stacy Tessler Lindau, M.D., M.A.P.P., of the University of Chicago, and
colleagues conducted research to analyze patterns of sexual activity and
function and identify indicators of a decrease in sexual activity in
the year after a heart attack.
The team used data from the Variation in Recovery: Role of Gender on
Outcomes of Young AMI Patients (VIRGO) study - a multicenter study of
U.S. and Spanish patients that investigates the differences in the paths
of recovery between men and women in the year after heart attack -
which took place from 2008-2012.
The VIRGO study includes data on sexual activity and function of heart
attack patients from 103 U.S. hospitals and 24 Spanish hospitals.
Participants were assessed at entry to the study (baseline), at 1 month
and 1 year.
A total of 2,802 patients between the ages of 18-55 years were included
in the analysis, of which 1,889 - 67.4 percent - were women. The average
age of participants was 49 years.
Men more likely than women to resume sexual activity
Results showed that among patients who were sexually active at baseline,
men (64 percent) were more likely than women (55 percent) to have
resumed sexual activity by 1 month and by 1 year - 94 percent and 91,
respectively - after a heart attack.
Among people who were sexually active before and after a heart attack,
40 percent of women and 55 percent of men reported no sexual function
problems in the year after the attack. Additionally, more women than men
- 42 percent versus 31 percent - who reported no sexual problems on
entry to the study developed one or more problems in the year after the
heart attack.
At the 1-year follow-up, the most common sexual problems among
women included lack of interest (40 percent), trouble lubricating (22
percent), and difficulty breathing (20 percent). Erectile difficulties
(22 percent), lack of interest (19 percent), and anxiety about sexual
performance (16 percent) were the most common problems among men.
Few men across all hospitals in both the U.S. and Spain reported the use of medications to treat erectile dysfunction at baseline, 1 month, or 1 year after a heart attack.
Patients who had not communicated with a physician about sex in the
first month following a heart attack were more likely to delay resuming
sexual activity. In the year after the attack, women were less likely
(27 percent) than men (41 percent) to receive counseling regarding
restarting sexual activity.
Findings could help expand couseling, care guidelines
Significant indicators of the probability of never resuming sexual
activity in the year following heart attack included older age,
unpartnered status, higher stress levels, and diabetes.
The authors write:
"Patients want to know what level of sexual function to expect during
recovery from AMI. Our findings can be used to expand counseling and
care guidelines to include recommendations for advising patients on what
to expect in terms of post-AMI sexual activity and function. Attention
to modifiable risk factors and improved physician counseling may be
important levers for improving sexual function outcomes for young women
and men after AMI."
Limitations of the study include that the findings relied on patient
self-reporting, which may have introduced recall bias, and a higher
proportion of partnered people in the analytic sample could produce an
upward bias on the sexual activity and sexual problem estimates.
Finally, a larger sample size and additional data would be needed to
examine the effects of specific comorbidities, medications, procedures,
tests, and effects of rehabilitation, prolonged or rehospitalization, or
a subsequent heart attack or other health events on sexual activity.
Darren Tay used a pair of briefs as a comedic prop.Toastmasters International
On Saturday, August 20, 27-year-old Singaporean lawyer Darren Tay became the Toastmasters International
world champion of public speaking. He survived several rounds of a
competition that lasted six months and included more than 30,000
competitors from Toastmasters public speaking clubs around the world.
He and nine other finalists competed at the Toastmasters annual
convention, held this year at Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C. Tay
took home first place for his speech "Outsmart; Outlast," in which he
tells the story of how he met a childhood bully as an adult, and how
this reformed bully surprisingly taught him a valuable insight about
dealing with inner struggles.
Business Insider spoke with Tay about his winning speech and what others can learn from it:
He immediately disarms the audience
Tay walks onto the stage, takes a beat as he stares into the
audience, and then awkwardly steps into a pair of Calvin Klein briefs.
He puts his hands on his hips to accentuate the underwear over his
tailored suit and then begins telling the story of how his childhood
bully once forced him to wear a similar pair of briefs over his pants
and walk around school. That story could be told in a painful way, but
Tay decided to keep it light.
"That is to get the audience comfortable first," he told Business
Insider. "And when audience members laugh they are more open to your
message."
When a speaker goes before a receptive audience, the audience is also brimming with energy, hoping that the speaker will succeed. Speakers don't have to crack a joke, but regardless of the context they are tasked with breaking this inherent tension.
He develops a message
Every effective presentation, whether it's on a Toastmasters stage or
a conference room, needs to have a thesis that the audience members
take with them when they leave, Tay explained.
Tay's full message is that we are all our own worst bullies, and that
the best way to deal with that is by acknowledging the presence of
negative thoughts rather than fighting or ignoring them, as if we were
observing a storm from inside a house. He uses a personal story to
illustrate the effect childhood bullying had on him (hence the underwear
over his suit) and gradually develops his message before leaving the
audience with a clear, actionable takeaway.
He lets that message guide his speech
Tay said that he initially struggled with drafting "Outsmart;
Outlast" because he was too focused on telling an amusing story. "That
really got my speech message very diluted and disconnected," he said.
His mentor, the 2000 Toastmasters International world champion of
public speaking, Ed Tate, told him that he needed to start over and have
the message be what guided his writing, and that the entertaining
aspects would naturally follow.
He effectively uses body language
Tay said that it's common for novice public speakers to have their gestures
centered either too close to their face, which suggests nervousness, or
too low, which is distracting. He said the ideal center is around the
belly button.
Tay used his belly button area as the center of his gestures, moving beyond it for dramatic effect.Toastmasters International
And when he uses a prop, the pair of underwear, he uses it as a sight
gag, but not before turning it into a metaphor for shame. Then, he
takes them off and tosses them away to accentuate his message: that we
do not have to live with shame and regret.
He has a dialogue with the audience
Great speeches make audience members feel like the speaker is talking directly to them, Tay said. The way to do this is by sharing personal details and reading the energy of everyone in the crowd.
"When it comes to crafting a speech, audience members, what they want
is a story," Tay said. "And if you tell a very powerful story, it can
help to bring a message across much better."
In addition to sharing personal details about himself, Tay asks
rhetorical questions of the audience, including when he addresses the
absurdity of giving his speech with a pair of briefs over his suit
pants, which he then uses as a transition to the next part of his
presentation.
Before he leaves the stage, he leaves the audience with the advice
that they embrace being vulnerable during difficult moments and work
with others to move on from such struggles.
____
Source: BUSINESS INSIDER
BRASÍLIA — The Senate on Wednesday impeached Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s
first female president, and removed her from office for the rest of her
term, the capstone of a power struggle that has consumed the nation for
months and toppled one of the hemisphere’s most powerful political
parties.
But the final removal of Ms. Rousseff, who was suspended in May to face trial,
was much more than a judgment of guilt on any charge. It was a verdict
on her leadership and the slipping fortunes of Latin America’s largest
country.
The impeachment puts a definitive end to 13 years of governing by the leftist Workers’ Party,
an era during which Brazil’s economy boomed, lifting millions into the
middle class and raising the country’s profile on the global stage.
But sweeping corruption scandals,
the worst economic crisis in decades and the government’s tone-deaf
responses to the souring national mood opened Ms. Rousseff to withering
scorn, leaving her with little support to fend off a power grab by her political rivals.
“She
lacked it all,” said Mentor Muniz Neto, a writer from São Paulo who
described Ms. Rousseff’s final ouster as a “death foretold,” asserting
that she lacked charisma, competence and humility. “We deserved better.”
To her many critics, the impeachment was a fitting fall for an arrogant leader at the helm of a political movement that had lost its way. But Ms. Rousseff and her supporters call her ouster a coup that undermines Brazil’s young democracy.
Michel
Temer, 75, the interim president who served as Ms. Rousseff’s vice
president before breaking with her this year, is now expected to remain
in office until the end of the current term in 2018.
But Mr. Temer’s centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party,
which anchored the Workers’ Party’s governing coalition for more than a
decade, was also deeply enmeshed in the colossal graft schemes staining
Brazil’s political system in recent years. It arguably benefited as
much as the Workers’ Party from huge bribes and illicit campaign
financing.
Since becoming interim president in May, Mr. Temer has had approval ratings nearly as dismal as Ms. Rousseff’s. Shifting the government to the right, he named a cabinet without any female or Afro-Brazilian ministers, outraging many in a country where nearly 51 percent of people define themselves as black or mixed race, according to the 2010 census.
Several of the men named by Mr. Temer have already resigned under the cloud of scandal, including his anticorruption minister
and his planning minister, amid claims that they were trying to stymie
investigations into the bribery engulfing the national oil company,
Petrobras.
Mr.
Temer was recently found guilty of violating campaign finance limits, a
conviction that could make him ineligible to run for office for eight
years. Beyond that, a construction executive has testified that Mr. Temer was the beneficiary of a $300,000 bribe, an assertion Mr. Temer disputes.
The
impeachment effort has divided the nation and stirred passions on both
sides. Of the four Brazilian presidents elected since Brazil’s democracy
was re-established in the 1980s, Ms. Rousseff is the second to be
forced from office through the impeachment process. In 1992, Fernando Collor de Mello resigned before the Senate could convict him on corruption charges.
“It’s
painfully obvious that Temer is a slap in the face to Brazilian
democracy,” said Creuza Maria Oliveira, the president of the National
Federation of Domestic Workers, which represents millions of maids who
benefited from the strengthening of labor laws by Ms. Rousseff.
“Dilma
is a champion of the poor,” said Ms. Oliveira, who was among the
supporters of Ms. Rousseff who accompanied her to the Senate this week.
“Temer is a champion of his own political class, which he wants to
shield from justice.”
Some
prominent business and political figures in Brazil counter that Mr.
Temer, a former speaker in the lower house, has the political skills
needed to muster support in a fractious, discredited Congress for
ambitious measures aimed at increasing investment in the economy and
easing a major pension crisis.
Mr.
Temer’s administration has “all the conditions needed to embark on a
new route,” Philipp Schiemer, the head of Mercedes-Benz’s operations in
Brazil, told reporters in recent days. “We need to decide if we want a
Brazil like Venezuela or a Brazil inserted in the new world.”
Still
others, including Ms. Rousseff, contend that the ease with which the
political elite shunted aside the president will bring more divisiveness
and political tumult in Brazil.
“This
is serious because other presidents of the republic will have to deal
with this,” Ms. Rousseff said this week in her testimony in the Senate,
comparing her ouster to the coups toppling Brazilian leaders throughout
much of the 20th century. “If that isn’t political instability, then I
don’t know what is.”
Unlike
many of the politicians who led the charge to oust her, Ms. Rousseff,
68, remains a rare breed in Brazil: a prominent leader who has not been
accused of illegally enriching herself.
Instead, her trial revolved around a contentious legal question of whether she committed an impeachable offense by employing budgetary tricks to conceal yawning deficits.
Ms. Rousseff repeatedly insisted that she did nothing illegal, pointing out that her predecessors also manipulated the federal budget.
But her opponents argued that the scale of her administration’s
transfers of funds between giant public banks, to the tune of about $11
billion, seriously eroded Brazil’s economic credibility and helped her
get re-elected unfairly in 2014.
Ms.
Rousseff will not go to jail after her conviction, but she expressed
defiance throughout her trial, insisting that Brazil’s economic crisis
was largely the result of shifts in the global economy that cut
commodities prices.
A
bureaucrat who specialized in overseeing giant public companies in
Brazil’s energy industry, Ms. Rousseff had not held elected office until
her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, anointed her as his heir
after other leaders in the Workers’ Party were tarnished by a
vote-buying scandal. As a divorced grandmother known as an avid reader of literature, she was an exception in the male-dominated political scene.
Brazil’s Line of Succession Is Engulfed in Scandals
The impeachment of the president
has come to embody public anger over corruption and a battered economy.
But those in the succession chain are also engulfed in scandals.
The impeachment of the president
has come to embody public anger over corruption and a battered economy.
But those in the succession chain are also engulfed in scandals.
In
addition to serving as Mr. da Silva’s hard-charging chief of staff, she
was known for her involvement with the Palmares Armed Revolutionary
Vanguard, an urban guerrilla group, in her youth. Agents of the military
dictatorship captured Ms. Rousseff and tortured her repeatedly in the early 1970s.
But
the qualities that made her a compelling chief of staff did not carry
over when she became president. Her autocratic persona and short temper
became legendary
in Brasília, a capital where back-room deals are customary when forging
and nurturing alliances with an array of bickering parties.
Many
voters also felt betrayed after Ms. Rousseff’s re-election campaign,
when she narrowly won on promises to maintain extensive state control
over the economy, resulting in generous public spending. But once
re-elected, she went in another direction, appointing a finance minister
who tried to win approval for market-friendly policies.
“She
simply lied through her teeth to get re-elected, forming a wave of
national indignation,” said Antonio Risério, a historian and cultural
commentator. “Upon perceiving that they voted for one person and elected
another, the majority of the population started to want her head.”
With
Ms. Rousseff deposed, the Workers’ Party, a dominant force in Brazilian
politics for much of the past decade and a half, is now scrambling to
find its way in a political landscape where conservative voices are
growing more powerful.
João Santana, the party’s campaign strategist
who helped Ms. Rousseff win two presidential elections, faces charges
of illegally receiving millions of dollars in offshore accounts from the
bribery scheme involving the national oil company.
Even
more damaging for the party, federal investigators are seeking graft
charges against Mr. da Silva, the former labor leader universally known
as Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010. The move adds to mounting
legal problems faced by Mr. da Silva, who is still signaling that he
plans to run for president in 2018.
Ms.
Rousseff found herself increasingly isolated in recent months, with
many in her party quietly withdrawing their support. But some in the
party defended Ms. Rousseff as she made her last-ditch effort before the
Senate this week.
“You
veered from the narrative when you were elected president of the
republic as a woman, from the left, a former militant against the
dictatorship, without a husband to pose by your side in the
photographs,” said Regina Sousa, a Workers’ Party senator from Piauí in
northeast Brazil.
“You never fit in the cute little dress designed by the conservative elite of this country,” Ms. Sousa added.
Heated
tempers marked the trial in the Senate. Crying as she spoke, Janaína
Paschoal, the law professor who was an author of the impeachment
request, said she had been inspired by God and that she was seeking
impeachment for the good of Ms. Rousseff’s grandchildren.
Ms.
Rousseff’s lawyer, José Eduardo Cardozo, said he was stunned that her
opponents had dragged Ms. Rousseff’s family into the acerbic debate,
pointing out that Ms. Rousseff was never accused of embezzling public
funds to benefit her family.
“If
you want to condemn her, go ahead, but don’t mock the honor of a
dignified woman,” said Mr. Cardozo, also crying as he spoke.
