Peacekeeper abuses.
Byline: The Register-Guard They're supposed to be the good guys, right? Whenever a spot on the globe plunges into chaos, blue-helmeted United Nations peacekeepers often are dispatched to perform vital tasks, from guarding refugee camps to building schools to disarming ex-combatants. But a...

Scripted for Change: The Institutionalization of the American Presidency.
Scripted for Change: The Institutionalization of the American Presidency. By Victoria A. Farrar-Myers. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. 268 pp. The thesis of Scripted for Change is that "shared understandings" or norms between the president and Congress are the vehicle through which the institutionalization of...

World foodgrain stocks down to the lowest since 1980s.
NEW DELHI: Welcome to the New World defined by food demands. In just a few years from now, your roti-chawal could be sourced in a sustained manner from the African continent as part of a food JV. This is because the world has only enough wheat and...

The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar.
THE UNEXPECTED WAR Canada in Kandahar Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang Toronto: Viking, 2007. 304pp, $35.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0670067220) As Afghanistan continues to generate headlines in Canada, many have come to wonder how and why Canada became engaged in such...

Safe schools: Every girl's right.
On the eve of International Women's Day, Amnesty International called on governments and school officials around the world to take concrete action to end violence against girls, particularly inside schools. In their report, Safe Schools: Every Girl's Right, the organisation shows how violence in and around educational...

Medicine's best-kept secret.
Dr. Marc F. Stern says he feels safer l as an internist working in correctional settings than he did in his previous career working for the Veterans Affairs health system. In that setting, he said, one patient pulled a machete on him in the emergency department. Another...

Worldwide, Residents of Richer Nations More Satisfied; Findings suggest citizens worldwide rate their lives against a global standard.
Byline: Angus Deaton, Ph.D. Synopsis: Does money buy contentment? Gallup World Poll data suggest that life satisfaction increases with per-capita income levels, across poor and rich countries alike. PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup World Poll data provide new evidence that all along the national income scale,...

Even Before Crisis, Affording Food a Challenge for Many; Across 134 countries, a median of 26% said they could not buy food at times.
Byline: Julie Ray and Cynthia English Synopsis: Even before the current global unrest over soaring food prices, Gallup found a median of 26% of world citizens surveyed said they were already struggling at times to afford food for themselves and their families. WASHINGTON, D.C. --...

Stock markets: Growth and inflation hold the key.
Byline: Shubha Ganesh It is all about balancing growth and inflation. Like the Finance Minister said recently, "Inflation-control measures like drawing excess money out of the economy and the robust GDP growth cannot go hand-in-hand". The matter, as it stands today, is how much growth should we...

Get ready to groove.
Byline: REAGAN GAVIN RASQUINHA (##include msid=2162032,type=11 ##) READY TO ROCK: Wyclef Jean The rejoicing for music lovers across the country continues, for the continuing spate of foreign artistes coming down here is as unabated as ever. And this time, it's Wyclef...