The world economy has run into a brick wall. Despite countless warnings in recent years about the need to address a looming hunger crisis in poor countries and a looming energy crisis worldwide, world leaders failed to think ahead. The result is a global food crisis. Wheat, corn and rice prices have more than doubled in the past two years, and oil prices have more than tripled since the start of 2004. These food-price increases combined with soaring energy costs ...

A clinical psychologist practicing in Newcastle, Australia, Michael Currie has worked with adolescent boys and their families for 20 years. Much of his attention has centered on the anger that can consume boys during their high school years. Manifesting in the home as sullenness, disobedience and fierce assertions of independence, teen rage confuses and distresses parents, who often make matters worse with their clumsy, if well-meaning, attempts to address it. In his new book, Doing Anger Differently, ...

Lofty, lovely and fertile are the valleys of the Samoa Islands, which lie in the South Pacific more than halfway from Hawaii to New Zealand, in the latitude of Australia's northernmost tip. Some of the islands, including Upolu , were once a German, have been since the War a New Zealand mandate. The eastern group—Tutuila, Aunuu, Ofu, Olosega, Tau and Rose—belong to the U. S. by an Anglo-German treaty of 1900. And in 1925 the U. S. annexed tiny Swain's ...

On the afternoon of April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant snapped. A striking figure with his long blond hair and milky skin, he had just eaten lunch at a caf within the historic site of Port Arthur, a former prison in Australia's island state of Tasmania. Described later by his sentencing judge as a "pathetic social misfit," the 28-year-old then reached into his sports bag and, in the manner that others might pull out a sweater, withdrew two ...

Asia stocks rise as China manufacturing gains pace Asian stock markets climbed Monday, boosted by faster growth in Chinese manufacturing and expectations the U.S. central bank will pump more money into the world's largest economy to rejuvenate a sluggish recovery. Oil prices rose to near $82 a barrel following the release in Shanghai of a survey that showed a jump in China's manufacturing activity for October, especially in orders for new equipment. In currencies, the dollar rose against the yen but dropped ...

No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us. It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 4 storm with wind bursts that reached 125 m.p.h.--exploded through northeastern Australia. It ...

Valentino Rossi was crowned MotoGP world champion for the sixth time as he took third place in Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang behind Casey Stoner of Australia.

A six-month-old baby had a miraculous escape after his stroller rolled off a railway station platform and into the path of an incoming train. The incident, which happened Thursday at Ashburton railway station in Melbourne, Australia, was captured by CCTV. The footage shows the baby's mother momentarily letting go of the stroller, which then rolls over the edge of the platform. Second later, a train pulls in to the station. The stroller and baby were dragged 30 meters further up ...

Five men were convicted on Friday in Sydney, Australia, of trying to commit terrorist acts, court officials said. The guilty verdicts came after a jury deliberated for 23 days, according to a statement from the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The men -- Mohamed Ali Elomar, Abdul Rakib Hasan, Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho and Mohammed Omar Jamal -- were found guilty of "conspiracy to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act or acts." The men will be sentenced ...