Going by TIMSS data, the US is neither "A Nation at Rest" as some have claimed, nor a nation straining under excessive homework load.
But as head of a nation strained by political, economic, ethnic and religious tensions, Mr. Wahid is virtually the only religious leader who directly confronts the challenge of translating such convictions into policy.
The important question is not whether pension cuts might harm military recruitment, but whether devoting disproportionate resources to the military in a nation straining under its financial burdens undermines civilian interests.
After Thatcher's third election victory, she offered the Welsh Office to Peter Walker, the great cabinet survivor of the one-nation strain of Toryism.
The recovery that has flickered to life in the United States and much of Northern Europe is missing in euro zone nations straining under huge debt and harsh austerity measures — places like Greece, Ireland and Portugal that have imposed large spending cuts and tax increases.
Until Hamied's announcement, most leaders and even many charitable organizations had dismissed the possibility of treating impoverished Africans and Asians who were infected with H.I.V. Drug combinations that kept the infection at bay cost upward of $15,000 per year, a price even those in rich nations strained to bear.
He also defended proposed welfare reforms, arguing that benefit claimants "owe it to the nation" to "strain every sinew to find a job".
In a survey by The Princeton Review, Union College placed second in the nation for "strained town-gown relations".
As the pursuit of Al Qaeda and America's confrontation with Iraq intensifies, Arabic-speaking educators and Islamic organizations, as well as universities and schools across the nation, are straining to respond to requests by students and the public for information and instruction about the language and culture of Islam.
And that raises difficult questions for a nation already straining to pay for health costs.
KHARTOUM, Sudan — Negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan over billions of gallons of oil have ended with very little progress, prolonging a dispute that is undermining the fragile economies of both nations and straining the tenuous peace between them after decades of war.
