New Releases by Robert Davies

Hi! My full name is Konstantina Cassandra Flanagan, but my friends call me K.C. My older brother Rudy says that K.C stands for Kook Case! I am 14 and three quarters years old (some folks say I look 18!) and I live with my father, James Flanagan, Esq. He is a lawyer for an international construction and investment company, so when he travels, he usually works. My mom Trina Gigantes is a sculptress who lives in Dallas with an oilman named Darrell Hughes. He''s pretty swift. And rich! As you probably guessed, my parents are divorced, and our family is all over the place, but what the heck, we''re ready for this new millennium. At least, that''s how I see it. My brother Rudy is 17-plus - well, physically, anyway. Actually, the boy is pretty smart when he applies himself to something. And like all my friends tell me, he''s cute too. But don''t tell him ! I guess he''s an okay kind of brother, even if he never believes me at first when I stumble across crime. As you might imagine, my extended-blended parental units travel a lot and as long as we keep our grades up, Rudy and I go with them. What I like about travel is, you never know what you''ll find when you get where you''re going. Last year, for example, we went to paradise on Earth, the island of Maui, where I thought I was going to rest up and help Mom with a new show of her sculpture. Instead, I ended up crossing swords with a really dreadful Yakuza gangster named Hiroshi, who would have burned alive Rudy, me and a friend we made there named Kenji, except that - well, read on and you''ll find out! Anyway, I''m keeping this journal to chronicle my life so that someday when I''m a famous and respected archaeologist and movie star it''ll be easy for people to read my autobiography right up to the moment when I find the Holy Grail. Or maybe the Lost City of Atlantis, whichever comes first. Also, because I get extra credit for my English composition class. I''ll write more later I have a lot to, tell about my latest adventure, in Orlando. You know, the place with the castle and the mouse. I learned a lot there about the three E''s: entertainment, ecology and... evil, - excerpt from K.C.''s travel diary.

Bonjour, le monde ! Je m''appelle Konstantina Cassandra Flanagen, mais ça fait un peu accordéon comme nom, alors mes amis disent Cassie (je préfère). Selon mon très cher frère, c''est l''abréviation de Casse-pieds ! J''ai quatorze ans et trois quarts et vis à Montréal avec mon frère Rudy et mon père, James Flanagan. Papa est avocat. Il doit se déplacer beaucoup pour son travail, et c''est la même chose pour sa tendre moitié, Linda Hébert, qui est journaliste et photographe. Quand ils partent en voyage, Rudy et moi pouvons souvent les accompagner. Même s''ils m''ont affublée du prénom de la sœur bizarre de ma mère et même s''ils sont maintenant divorcés (sans aucune faute de ma part, bien entendu), mes parents sont plutôt chics. Mon arrière-grand-père paternel était originaire d''Irlande. Comme beaucoup d''Irlandais, Papa n''a pas dans sa poche, une faculté qu''il prétend (à tort selon moi) m''avoir léguée. En tout cas, je pense que ça ne lui nuit pas dans sa profession d''avoir toujours réponse à tout. Ma mère Katrina (je l''appelle Trina) est sculpteur et vit à Dallas au Texas. Elle est fiancée à un dirigeant de compagnie pétrolière, le grand, beau (et riche !) Darrell Hughes. Rudy est mon frère aîné : dix-sept ans et beaucoup de cran ! Ses loisirs sont, d''abord et avant tout, les sports et les filles. Dans n''importe quel ordre, selon le moment. Tout de même, il est plutôt brillant quand il s''applique sérieusement à quelque chose. Comme me le disent souvent mes amies, il est aussi très mignon. Mais il ne faut surtout pas le lui dire : il a déjà la tête assez gonflée comme ça ! Enfin, il fait plutôt l''affaire comme frère, même s''il me taquine tout le temps. J''ai déjà visité plein d''endroits vraiment cool j''écris le récit de ces expériences dans mes carnets de voyage, parce qu''il m''est arrivé des aventures plutôt extraordinaires. Rudy dirait que j''ai le don d''attirer les problèmes, mais c''est absolument faux. La vérité La vérité vraie, c''est que je possède un œil de lynx auquel rien n''échappe et une grande puissance de déduction. Quand des événements étranges se produisent autour de moi, j''aime bien enquêter pour comprendre ce qui se passe. Je reviens tout juste par exemple de Cancùn, dans l''Etat mexicain de Quintana Roo, où j''ai eu affaire à des archéologues intrépides près des ruines du temple de la déesse lxchel et revu mon grand ennemi, le diabolique Hernan Colon !

In Power and Regionalism in Latin America: The Politics of MERCOSUR, Laura Gómez-Mera examines the erratic patterns of regional economic cooperation in the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), a political-economic agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and, recently, Venezuela that comprises the world''s fourth-largest regional trade bloc. Despite a promising start in the early 1990s, MERCOSUR has had a tumultuous and conflict-ridden history. Yet it has survived, expanding in membership and institutional scope. What explains its survival, given a seemingly contradictory mix of conflict and cooperation? Through detailed empirical analyses of several key trade disputes between the bloc''s two main partners, Argentina and Brazil, Gómez-Mera proposes an explanation that emphasizes the tension between and interplay of two sets of factors: power asymmetries within and beyond the region, and domestic-level politics. Member states share a common interest in preserving MERCOSUR as a vehicle for increasing the region''s leverage in external negotiations. Gómez-Mera argues that while external vulnerability and overlapping power asymmetries have provided strong and consistent incentives for regional cooperation in the Southern Cone, the impact of these systemic forces on regional outcomes also has been crucially mediated by domestic political dynamics in the bloc''s two main partners, Argentina and Brazil. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, the unequal distribution of power within the bloc has had a positive effect on the sustainability of cooperation. Despite Brazil''s reluctance to adopt a more active leadership role in the process of integration, its offensive strategic interests in the region have contributed to the durability of institutionalized collaboration. However, as Gómez-Mera demonstrates, the tension between Brazil''s global and regional power aspirations has also added significantly to the bloc''s ineffectiveness. "In a very engaging and accessible manner, Laura Gómez-Mera has successfully applied the standing theories of international relations to the case of MERCOSUR. She has woven together international/systemic and domestic theories as these pertain to the role and interaction of Brazil and Argentina, the two main middle powers in MERCOSUR. Through this analysis of regional integration and interstate conflict and cooperation, Gómez-Mera thoroughly covers all the necessary methodological bases while also bringing her subject to life. The sectoral case studies she provides reflect a tremendous amount of original fieldwork; those, combined with a sophisticated conceptual framework, comprise a valuable contribution to the field." --Carol Wise, University of Southern California

Fourteen year-old K.C. helps a wayward American archealogist escape the clutches of treasure thieves, while discovering the majesty of the Chichén Itzá pyramids and the temple of the goddess Ixchel.

These photocopiable worksheets are designed to support the reading, writing and practical skills of special needs pupils, who may have problems in reading or understanding their science textbooks. This may be the result of general reading and writing difficulties, the use of specific scientific language, or having English as a second language.