Support for UNRWA's survival

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides life-saving humanitarian aid for 5·4 million Palestine refugees now entering their eighth decade of statelessness and conflict. About a third of Palestine refugees still live in 58 recognised camps. UNRWA operates 702 schools and 144 health centres, some of which are affected by the ongoing humanitarian disasters in Syria and the Gaza Strip. It has dramatically reduced the prevalence of infectious diseases, mortality, and illiteracy. Its social services include rebuilding infrastructure and homes that have been destroyed by conflict and providing cash assistance and micro-finance loans for Palestinians whose rights are curtailed and who are denied the right of return to their homeland

POLG2 deficiency causes adult-onset syndromic sensory neuropathy, ataxia and parkinsonism.

OBJECTIVE: Mitochondrial dysfunction plays a key role in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative disorders such as ataxia and Parkinson's disease. We describe an extended Belgian pedigree where seven individuals presented with adult-onset cerebellar ataxia, axonal peripheral ataxic neuropathy, and tremor, in variable combination with parkinsonism, seizures, cognitive decline, and ophthalmoplegia. We sought to identify the underlying molecular etiology and characterize the mitochondrial pathophysiology of this neurological syndrome. METHODS: Clinical, neurophysiological, and neuroradiological evaluations were conducted. Patient muscle and cultured fibroblasts underwent extensive analyses to assess mitochondrial function. Genetic studies including genome-wide sequencing were conducted. RESULTS: Hallmarks of mitochondrial dysfunction were present in patients' tissues including ultrastructural anomalies of mitochondria, mosaic cytochrome c oxidase deficiency, and multiple mtDNA deletions. We identified a splice acceptor variant in POLG2, c.970-1G>C, segregating with disease in this family and associated with a concomitant decrease in levels of POLG2 protein in patient cells. INTERPRETATION: This work extends the clinical spectrum of POLG2 deficiency to include an overwhelming, adult-onset neurological syndrome that includes cerebellar syndrome, peripheral neuropathy, tremor, and parkinsonism. We therefore suggest to include POLG2 sequencing in the evaluation of ataxia and sensory neuropathy in adults, especially when it is accompanied by tremor or parkinsonism with white matter disease. The demonstration that deletions of mtDNA resulting from autosomal-dominant POLG2 variant lead to a monogenic neurodegenerative multicomponent syndrome provides further evidence for a major role of mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathomechanism of nonsyndromic forms of the component neurodegenerative disorders

Reviews of Books

AZAR GAT. War in Human Civilization. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xv, 822. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by William R. Thompson ROBIN WATERFIELD. Xenopkon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii, 248.$27.95 (us). Reviewed by Noreen Humble VICTOR H. MAIR, ed. Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. Pp. ix, 310. $57.00 (us). Reviewed by Paul D. Buell SERHII PLOKHY. The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xix, 379.$90.00 (us). Reviewed by Paul Bushkovitch NAOMI STANDEN. Unbounded Loyalty: Frontier Crossing in Liao China. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2007. Pp. xiii, 279. $53.00 (us). Reviewed by Leo K. Shin CHRISTOPHER TYERMAN. God's War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi, 1,023.$35.00 (us). Reviewed by John France BJÖRN K. U. WEILER. Henry HI of England and the Staufen Empire, 1216-1272. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press for The Royal Historical Society, 2006. Pp. xi, 247. $80.00 (us). Reviewed by William Chester Jordan SABINE MACCORMACK. On the Wings of Time: Rome, the Incas, Spain, and Peru. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xix, 320.$35.00 (us). Reviewed by Richard L. Kagan LEO K. SHIN. The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xxi, 246. $93.95 (us). Reviewed by Geoff Wade JOHN G. DEMARAY. From Pilgrimage to History: The Renaissance and Global Historicism. New York, NY: AMS Press, 2006. Pp. xv, 250.$82.50 (us). Reviewed by Felipe Fernández-Armesto ANDRE THEVET. Histoire: D'André Thevet Angoumoisin, Cosmographe du Roy, de deux voyages par luyfaits aux Indes Australes, et Occidentals, ed. Jean-Claude La-borie and Frank Lestringant. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2006. Pp. 496. CHF. 153.60. Reviewed by Margaret Sankey JESSICA L. HARLAND-JACOBS. Builders oj Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1777-1927. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Pp. xiv, 384. $39.95 (us). Reviewed by Andrew S. Thompson RENÉ HANKE. Brühl und das Renversement des alliances: Die antipreuβische Auβenpolitik des Dresdener Hofes, 1744-1756. Münster: Lit Verlag, 2006. Pp. xii, 383. €39.90. Reviewed by Franz A. J. Szabo SIMON BURROWS. Blackmail, Scandal, and Revolution: London's French libellistes, 1758-92. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006; dist. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Pp. xiv, 256.$50.00 (us). Reviewed by Jennifer Mori CYNTHIA RADDING. Landscapes of Power and Identity: Comparative Histories in the Sonoran Desert and the Forests of Amazonia from Colony to Republic. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv, 431. $24.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Stuart McCook JEAN BARMAN and BRUCE MCINTYRE WATSON. Leaving Paradise: Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, 1787-1898. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. Pp. xiii, 512.$45.00 (us). Reviewed by James N. Nason JEREMY ADELMAN. Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006. Pp. x, 409. $39.95 (us). Reviewed by Timothy E. Anna VICTOR BULMER-THOMAS, JOHN H. COATSWORTH, and ROBERTO CORTÉS CONDE, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America: I: The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century. Pp. viii, 607; II: The Long Twentieth Century. Pp. viii, 755. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006.$300.00 (us), 2 vol. set. Reviewed by Eric Van Young MAN-HOUNG LIN. China Upside Down: Currency, Society, and Ideologies, 1808-1856. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. xxvi, 362. $49-95 (us). Reviewed by Evelyn S. Rawski MATT D. CHILDS. The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Pp. xi, 300.$21.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Christopher Schmidt-Nowara ALAIN LE PICHON, ed. China Trade and Empire: Jardine, Matheson & Co. and the Origins of British Rule in Hong Kong, 1827-1843. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xvii, 626. $125.00 (us). Reviewed by Kent G. Deng STEPHEN BROADBERRY. Market Services and the Productivity Race, 1850-2000: British Performance in International Perspective. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xix, 409.$95.00 (us). Reviewed by Alan Booth ERIC T.JENNINGS. Curing the Colonizers: Hydrotherapy, Climatology, and French Colonial Spas. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2006. Pp. xi, 271. $21.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Patricia M. E. Lorcin JACOB A. TROPP. Natures of Colonial Change: Environmental Relations in the Making of the Transkei. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv, 268.$24.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Norman Etherington PING-HUI LIAO and DAVID DER-WEI WANG, eds. Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895-1945: History, Culture, Memory. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi, 416. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by E. Patricia Tsurumi MAGNUS BRECHTKEN. Sckarnierzeit 1895-1907: Persönlichkeitsnetze und international pohtik in den deutsch-britisch-amerikanischen beziehungen vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2006. Pp. xvii, 454. €73.90. Reviewed by Matther Seligmann MÉLANIE MORIN-PELLETIER. Briser les ailes de l'ange: Les infirmières militaires canadiennes (1914-1918). Outrement, QC: Athéna éditions, 2006; dist. Boisbriand, QC: Prologue. Pp. 185.$19.95 (CDN)> paper. Reviewed by Amber Lloydlangston CLIFFORD ROSENBERG. Policing Paris: The Origins of Modern Immigration Control between the Wars. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2006. Pp. xviii, 241. $23.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Vicki Garon MRINALINI SINHA. Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring oj an Empire. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii, 366.$23.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Sarah Ansari UZI RABI. The Emergence of States in a Tribal Society: Oman under Sa'id bin Taymur, 1932-1970. Brighton and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2006. Pp. xii, 299. $75.00 (us). Reviewed by Joseph A. Kéchichian FRANK UEKOETTER. The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xv, 230.$23.99 (us), paper. Reviewed by Roger Chickering ROBERT B. BRYCE. Canada and the Cost of World War II: The International Operations of Canada's Department of Finance, 1939-1947, ed. Matthew J. Bellamy. Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005. Pp. xvi, 392. $49.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Hector Mackenzie KENNETH SLEPYAN. Stalin's Guerrillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006. Pp. xi, 409.$34.95 (us). Reviewed by Evan Mawdsley H. JAMES BURGWYN. Empire on the Adriatic: Mussolini's Conquest of Yugoslavia 1941-1943. New York, NY: Enigma, 2005. Pp. xxi,385. $27.50 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Brian R. Sullivan R. A. RATCLIFF. Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra, and the End of Secure Ciphers. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xvii, 314.$30.00 (us). Reviewed by Calder Walton LUMANS, VALDIS O. Latvia in World War II. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2006. Pp. xi, 547. $65.00 (us). Reviewed by David J. Smith NIKOLAI LITVIN. 800 Days on the Eastern Front: A Russian Soldier Remembers World War II, trans, and ed. Stuart Britton. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007. Pp. xv, 159.$24.95 (us). Reviewed by James F. Gebhart JEFFREY HERF. The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. ix, 390. $29.95 (us). Reviewed by Susan L. Carruthers HEIDE FEHRENBACH. Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. Pp. xiii, 263.$29.95(us). Reviewed by Donna Harsch FRANK CAIN. Economic Statecraft during the Cold War: European Responses to the US Trade Embargo. London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xii, 211. $120.00 (us). Reviewed by Alan P. Dobson BRUNELLO VIGEZZI. The British Committee on the Theory of International Politics (1954-1985): The Rediscovery of History, trans. Ian Harvey. Milan: Edizioni Unicopli, 2005. Pp. xxviii, 440. €30.00, paper. Reviewed by Tim Dunne JAGAT S. MEHTA. Negotiating for India: Resolving Problems through Diplomacy (Seven Case Studies, 1958-1978). New Delhi: Manohar, 2006. Pp. 296. Rs 750. Reviewed by Walter K. Andersen PATRICKJ. HANEY and WALT VANDERBUSH. The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Pp. xi, 222.$24.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Joaquín Roy NICHOLAS TARLING. Regionalism in Southeast Asia: To Foster the Political Will. London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. Pp. 276. $125.00 (us). Reviewed by Nicholas J. White ROBERT D. SCHULZINGER. A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xix, 252.$30.00 (us). Reviewed by Kenton Clymer MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT. Central Asia's Second Chance. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005. Pp. xiii, 389. $24.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Shahram Akbarzadeh RYANC HENDRICKSON. Diplomacy and War atNATO: The Secretary Generaland Military Action after the Cold War. Columbia, MO and London: University of Missouri Press, 2006. Pp. viii, 172.$16.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by James Sperling SCOTT STRAUS. The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv, 273. $27.95 (us). Reviewed by Howard Adelman BILL ONG HING. Deporting Our So