One doesn't usually associate medical and scientific journals with anti-poverty campaigns. But more than 200 such journals from 34 nations ran simultaneous articles on a range of poverty and

Sri Lanka has raised taxes on a range of goods and services to meet its war expenses. Coming ahead the country's budget due in early November, the move is a stopgap measure to raise around Sri Lankan Rs 10 billion (US $88 million) to finance the country's renewed war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) and to stabilise its economy.

"Why shouldn't salt-making be classed as agriculture?' asks R Potharaju. "Both require land, water and sunshine, and are subject to vagaries of nature,' he reasons. Potharaju is convenor of the

French multinational Lafarge's limestone quarries in Meghalaya, which supply raw material to its cement plant across the border in Bangladesh have been shut down by the government. This comes

Conventional thinking has it that combating climate change will be a drain on the global economy. But Barclays Capital, a leading investment bank in the us, has recently said that combating