Question:
The Legal Services Corp. (LSC), a quasi-governmental agency that provides legal aid for the poor, would receive $329 million in fiscal 2004 under President Bush's proposal - the same amount requested in 2003 and approved for 2002 and 2001. If approved, the hold-the-line request for LSC means its budget would erode with inflation for another year, but it could be worse for the organization: Many conservatives fought for years to do away with the LSC altogether, saying legal services attorneys were spending too much time fighting for liberal causes or pursuing politically charged cases against the government instead of representing the needy. Opposition to the organization has cooled since 1996, when Congress approved restrictions (PL 104-134) on the sorts of cases federally funded legal aid attorneys can take. (1996 Almanac, p. 5-36) Republicans cut the organization's budget deeply in 1996, but its funding has recovered slowly. Last month, in the omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2003, the Senate added a onetime increase of $19 million, which, if approved in the final version, would bring the LSC budget to $348 million. The money would go to help states, such as Michigan and Ohio, that lost money when the organization redistributed its funding based on census counts made in 2000 of poor households. If the extra money survives a conference with the House and makes it to the president's desk, LSC supporters may try to include it in the organization's fiscal 2004 funding. The federal government began funding some programs to provide legal assistance to the poor in the late 1960s; the Legal Services Corporation was created in 1974 (PL 93-355). LSC gives nearly all its money to state and local agencies, which provide civil legal assistance to those whose income is less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level - $11,075 a year for an individual and $22,625 for a family of four. Funding for legal services goes to defend needy clients in domestic violence cases, custody cases and other such matters, according to LSC. Since 1996, lawyers who receive money from Legal Services have been prohibited from such activities as lobbying legislatures, filing class-action suits, participating in political demonstrations or strikes, pursuing abortion-related litigation, representing illegal aliens or prisoners, or defending public housing tenants evicted because they were charged with selling drugs After reading the above, is "1996" the correct answer to the question "What year did the Republicans cut the LSC's budget?"? OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer:
yes

Question:
He repeatedly calls on his followers to embrace martyrdom since "The walls of oppression and humiliation cannot be demolished except in a rain of bullets." For those yearning for a lost sense of order in an older, more tranquil world, he offers his "Caliphate" as an imagined alternative to today's uncertainty. For others, he offers simplistic conspiracies to explain their world. Bin Laden also relies heavily on the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood executed in 1966 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government, Qutb mixed Islamic scholarship with a very superficial acquaintance with Western history and thought. Sent by the Egyptian government to study in the United States in the late 1940s, Qutb returned with an enormous loathing of Western society and history. He dismissed Western achievements as entirely material, arguing that Western society possesses "nothing that will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence." Three basic themes emerge from Qutb's writings. First, he claimed that the world was beset with barbarism, licentiousness, and unbelief (a condition he called jahiliyya, the religious term for the period of ignorance prior to the revelations given to the Prophet Mohammed). Qutb argued that humans can choose only between Islam and jahiliyya. Second, he warned that more people, including Muslims, were attracted to jahiliyya and its material comforts than to his view of Islam; jahiliyya could therefore triumph over Islam. Third, no middle ground exists in what Qutb conceived as a struggle between God and Satan. All Muslims-as he defined them-therefore must take up arms in this fight. Any Muslim who rejects his ideas is just one more nonbeliever worthy of destruction. Bin Laden shares Qutb's stark view, permitting him and his followers to rationalize even unprovoked mass murder as righteous defense of an embattled faith. Many Americans have wondered, "Why do 'they' hate us?" Some also ask, "What can we do to stop these attacks?" Bin Laden and al Qaeda have given answers to both these questions. After reading the above, is "Why do they hate us?" the correct answer to the question "According to the author, what questions do Bin Laden and Al Quada answer for Americans?"? OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer:
yes

Question:
Washington (CNN) -- The Pacific island nation of Palau has agreed to take in 17 Chinese Muslims held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the country's ambassador to the United States said Wednesday. The map shows the Pacific island nation of Palau in relation to China. Details of the transfer are still being worked out, Ambassador Hersey Kyota told CNN. But Kyota said his country, a former U.S. Pacific trust territory, has agreed to take in the ethnic Uighur detainees "for humanitarian reasons" and because of the "special relationship" between Palau and the United States. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly would not comment on the announcement, telling reporters, "We're still involved in ongoing discussions." The agreement includes some U.S. aid for Palau, Kyota said, but he said those details remained to be worked out as well. The country, with a population of about 20,000, is about 1,000 miles southeast of Manila, Philippines, and about 4,600 miles west of Hawaii. Palau has received nearly $900 million in U.S. aid since independence in 1994, according to congressional auditors, and depends on Washington for defense. The "Compact of Free Association" between Palau and the United States is up for review, but Kelly said any additional aid offer "is not linked to any other discussions we may be having with the government of Palau." The Uighurs were accused of receiving weapons and military training in Afghanistan. After reading the above, is "It includes some US aid" the correct answer to the question "What is the agreement between Palau and United States?"? OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer:
yes