Periscope

Can President Felipe Calderón pull an Alvaro Uribe? Since taking office on Dec. 1, the embattled Mexican president has been aping the tough tactics of his Colombian counterpart. In December, he sent 7,000 troops to Michoacán to destroy marijuana crops; last week, 3,000 soldiers descended on the drug- and crime-ridden border town of Tijuana, and ordered the allegedly corrupt local police to disarm.

The military moves are part of Calderón's broader goal of cracking down on a soaring crime rate, taking the drug war to the enemy and, perhaps most important, showing a firm hand in the face of challenges to his presidency. Six months after the vote, Calderón is shoring up his hold on the presidency, as the defeated opposition continues to challenge the legitimacy of his victory.

Whether he can achieve Uribe's success is another matter. Elected in 2002 by a nation fed up with violence, the right-wing leader has battled urban crime with military might. The result: last week, police announced that the Colombian murder rate is at its lowest in 20 years, while a new survey by the country's Security and Democracy Foundation showed that cities in Colombia are now as safe as those in the United States (15 percent of Colombians said they had been victim of a crime compared with 17 percent of Americans). "Uribe sensed public opinion in 2002," says Michael Shifter, a Latin America expert at the Inter-America Dialogue think tank. "Calderón is tapping into that too."

There are risks to the law and order strategy. Uribe has faced the wrath of human-rights activists who say he has gone too far, and analysts say Calderón is already treading dangerously by using force primarily in opposition-dominated areas like Tijuana and Michoacán. The wrong move in an area in favor of the PRD--which is still contesting his legitimacy--could trigger an escalation of violence. "It's a big gamble," says Shifter.

--Malcolm Beith

Roh Moo Hyun is turning into the Donald Rumsfeld of South Korea, a leader with a diplomatic touch so abrasive, he annoys his own countrymen. The difference is that Roh holds a higher office, has an even more caustic tongue and is still in power. A former activist, he is entering his last year in office with an approval rate of just 15 percent, and he seems to have lost all restraint. During a recent speech, Roh said South Korea should stop "clinging to the crotch of America" and "hiding behind the ass of the U.S." Last week, he called the Korean national media "defective products."

How statesmanlike. True, Roh's mouth appeals to young backers, but it is grating on adults. His own ruling Uri Party is trying to distance itself from Roh ahead of a December presidential vote. Political scientist Lee Jung Hee calls Roh's remarks a "desperate effort not to become a lame duck." Expect worse to come. Calling himself "conflict-friendly," Roh has forecast a "noisy" year ahead.

--B.J. Lee

Romania's entry into the EU last week raised new fears of surging immigration from the east. Yet a recent survey shows that, as a whole, Europeans remains strikingly immobile.

21: Percentage of EU residents who are "regionally mobile" (have lived in a different region or country)

32: Percentage of Americans who have lived in different parts of the United States

40: Percentage of Nordic nationals who are regionally mobile

10: Approximate percentage of Southern Europeans who are regionally mobile

Anyone who's ever glanced at a magazine rack will have noticed a slew of cover stories on the latest diet tricks. Now a study by researchers at the University of Minnesota shows that teenage girls who frequently read about weight loss are actually more susceptible to unhealthy dieting down the road. (No such link was found with boys of the same age range.) Five years after reading such articles, they were found to be three times more likely to have resorted to extreme weight-loss measures, such as vomiting or laxatives, and become twice as likely to turn to unhealthy methods like fasting or smoking than teens who ignore magazine advice.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, surveyed 2,516 middle and high school students in 1999 and 2004, and examined whether weight-conscious teens seek out diet articles more than the average teen. (They don't.) "We have fairly strong support that the direction is from magazine reading to eating behaviors," says Patricia van den Berg, coauthor of the study. "What might seem to be innocuous messages for adults, focusing on health rather than appearance, might not be so for adolescents."

One solution: The study suggests parents limit exposure to magazines that promote a thin ideal. Better yet, says van den Berg, teach kids who publishes what--and why.

Hard-working employees encourage lazier colleagues to be more productive, according to researchers at the University of California Berkeley and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Tracking the work speed of 370 supermarket staffers for two years, researchers clocked productivity by the second and noted changes depending on who else was working the same shift. An otherwise average employee works 1.7 percent faster when working beside a faster-than-average peer, which implies that watching quick hands is inspiring.

Fact: At the checkout, employees were placed facing in one direction. Researchers found that looking at a fast worker in front made no speed difference, but the awareness that a quick colleague was behind encouraged a faster pace. Seems knowing someone efficient is looking over your shoulder is motivation indeed.

Going nuts try ing to name that song stuck in your head? Relief may be a Web site away. "If you can hum it, you can search it," says Jay Bose, COO of Nayio.com. His firm offers a new search engine that takes a tune you hum into your PC's mike and compares it with a library of 500-byte "MuGenes"--virtual fingerprints of songs based on unique melodic transitions. The site returns a list of potential matches.

So far Nayio.com has encoded about 5,000 oldies and modern songs. Although Nayio wouldn't give a success rate, Rafe Needleman, editor of tech blog Webware.com, said his Juilliard-trained wife found her songs about 30 percent of the time in a quick trial. Now if they could only design one for the shower.

Children napping in car seats are at risk of asphyxiation, says a recent New Zealand study. But it still pays to buckle the little tykes in. Crashes kill 1,200 children under the age of 12 in the United States each year. Car seats reduce the death rate dramatically--by 71 percent for infants and 54 percent for children 4 and under. Restraints also prevent 40 percent more injuries than ordinary seat belts in nonfatal crashes.

As New Orleans continues to rebuild, editors are scrambling--to revise. Zagat publishes its first post-hurricane survey of New Orleans restaurants next week, and an updated "Frommer's Complete" guide to the Big Easy drops in February, following a pocket book in July. "In a way it felt frivolous to be doing a guidebook so soon after Katrina," says Tom Downs, author of Lonely Planet's new 2007 guide. "But knowing how important tourism is for the economy"--it's the city's No. 1 employer, generating $5 billion in annual visitor spending pre-flood--"we have to be optimistic that New Orleans will bounce back and travelers will want to go there."

According to the guides, much of the city is open for business, especially in the hotel- and restaurant-heavy French Quarter, which was spared the worst of Katrina's fury. "The great places are still the great places," says Zagat founder Tim Zagat, referring to legendary eateries like Commander's Palace. But entire neighborhoods are still abandoned, causing staff shortages, so tourists are advised to call ahead almost everywhere. The devastated areas are now must-see attractions, too: Fodor's includes a "sobering" driving tour of the worst damage.