How do you evaluate a term of service?

Kara Snider, 23, from Kitchener, Ontario, returned in May from a year in Tlapacoya, Mexico, where she worked with the local Mennonite church in teaching peace to preschoolers and setting up groups for women and teens. Following are some of her reflections.

The first few hours back at home are atrocious. The emotions are much more intense and chaotic than expected. I am struck with an overwhelming desire to share my experience with everyone, and yet giving it away seems to cheapen it. I can't possibly do it justice.

On my 25th day at home, I wake up with a start. I am living exactly how I was before the word "overseas" became a part of my vocabulary. And I like how I'm …

Mosley faces Mayorga, wants Margarito next

Former four-time champion Sugar Shane Mosley intends to prove again that he's one of the best fighters around, so that means he must beat the best.

Mosley, who turns 37 on Sept. 7, faces Ricardo Mayorga on Sept. 27 but already is lobbying for a shot at WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito.

"I go after the best fighter. It doesn't matter who it is," Mosley said. "When Mayweather (Floyd Mayweather Jr.) was on top before he retired, I wanted Mayweather. Margarito is the best welterweight out there right now, so I want Margarito.

"I love the challenge. I've always been that way, wanted to be the best. So if he's the best …

Improving lives of youngsters by a degree

It could be the nearest thing to a degree in Kevin the Teenager.

The University of Bath has launched a degree to improve the livesof children.

It prepares students to tackle some of society's most challengingissues and to help improve the lives of youngsters.

The course, a BA Hons in Childhood, Youth & Education Studies,comes at a time when Government policies are focusing on issuesdirectly affecting young lives.

It should advance students' understanding of how children andyoung people develop and live their lives by combining thedisciplines of …

South Africa TB Patients May Be Detained

LONDON - Doctors have recommended forcibly detaining people in South Africa who refuse treatment for a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, an extreme measure meant to keep the infected away from others to curb the spread of the disease, according to a paper published Monday in an international medical journal.

Since detecting extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, also known as XDR-TB, in South Africa last year, health officials have called for increased measures to combat the strains, including better surveillance, diagnostics and drugs.

In their paper in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, physicians Jerome Amir Singh, Ross Upshur and Nesri Padayatchi …

US special ops use new Belgian rifle in Afghan war

HERSTAL, Belgium (AP) — An unconventional Belgian assault rifle is emerging as the favorite of U.S. special operations forces looking for more firepower to turn the tide in Afghanistan.

The Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle — also known as SCAR — is intended redress the shortcomings of the M-4, an updated version of the M-16 which has been in service since the mid-1960s.

The U.S. military's workhorse rifle did well in Iraq, where much of the fighting was in urban settings. But its light rounds have underperformed in Afghanistan, where the Taliban tend to rely on deadly long-range fire.

An Army study found that the M-4s 5.56mm bullets don't retain enough …

China, Taiwan sign trade pact linking economies

China and Taiwan have signed a trade pact that boosts economic ties and further eases political tensions six decades after the rivals split amid civil war.

Beijing hopes the deal signed Tuesday can lead to political accommodation. Taiwan is looking for the tighter economic links to keep the island from being economically marginalized as China's global clout grows.

The pact will end tariffs on hundreds of products traded across the strait and allow Taiwanese firms access to 11 service sectors on the mainland, including banking, accounting, insurance and hospitals. It should boost bilateral trade already totaling about $110 billion a year: some $80 billion in …

Orla Barry

Orla Barry

CAMDEN ARTS CENTRE

According to the catalogue accompanying the show (now at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin), Orla Barry's Portable Stones, 1005, indicates "the limits that apply to putting any flow of ideas into words. The impossibility of language and communication plays an important part in the film. Language as an obstacle that creates distance and can result in loneliness." The inherent contradiction in such assertions of language's inadequacy is that they are themselves made with language. Language can't accomplish its own disappearance, but it can eloquently gesture toward the inner wordlessness-the numbing loss of interior dialogue-that …