Feature Article

How can countries cope in the short and medium term with the sharp rise in wheat prices? The global movements of the past suggest that in the case of wheat, prices are influenced by the stock and output policies of just a handful of countries. It would be dangerous for large countries like China and India to depend on the global market for their food security. And it is time world bodies consider establishing a global reserve to help food-deficit countries in times of crisis.

There is unfortunately little questioning of the need for nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan. (Editorial)

It was interesting to read the article 'Rural Short-term Cooperative Credit Structure' by Mandira Sharma and Rajiv Kumar (March 1, 2008) but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. The authors would have done well to fist understand some basic concepts like capital, non-performing assets, majority shareholding, etc, before commenting at such length on the Vaidyanathan Committee recommendations and implementation of the government of India's revival package based on it. (Letter)

Modern facades on Victorian buildings in Chicago and other industrial cities of the American Midwest often hide a secret. Scattered through old drugstores and boarded-up banks from Madison to Fort Wayne, curiously shaped glass tiles known as Luxfer prisms lie just a few centimetres behind the paint and plaster. Luxfers were one of the 19th century's greatest innovations in lighting, and an idea that is beginning to make a comeback in our own energy-conscious times.

We've all heard about the deforestation of the Amazon, but what's it like to be caught between the loggers and the people living in the forests? Mauricio Torres is employed by the Brazilian government to monitor this front line. He tells Adrian Barnett how he has come up against corruption and violent aggression - and how his faith lies with the rural poor, who have nothing to lose but the trees.

News from Burma keeps getting worse: dire poverty, murderous repression and now cyclone Nargis has killed some 100,000 people. Disease and starvation could push the toll over the million mark as the country's despots, unbelievably, impede emergency aid while exporting rice - literally making a killing on inflated international prices. Burma is suffering even more than it might because it neglected its farms.

While green campaigners push for ever more wind turbines, a new wave of environmentally motivated engineers is already considering turbines to be a little old-school. One of the pioneers of the concept of a kite as a renewable energy source is Peter Lynn, a New Zealand kite designer.

Gas from rotting manure could fuel the future. Biogas digesters, devices that turn decomposing manure into fuel, are cost-effective, environmentally friendly and improve the health of rural people who use them.

It's the latest in a growing list of health problems linked to air pollution: dangerous blood clots triggered by smog from traffic and factories. If a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) breaks loose from where it forms in the lower leg or thigh and travels to the lungs, it can cause breathing problems and sometimes death. Andrea Baccarelli and colleagues at Harvard School of Public Health monitored the air quality in different parts of the Lombardy region of Italy.

Grind it down, pour in a sprinkle here and a dash there, and wait for results. That's the recipe for helping the oceans to absorb more of our carbon dioxide emissions: add limestone. It may not only help reduce global warming but could even reinvigorate ailing coral reefs.