While cutting down rainforests to grow palm oil for biofuels may constitute "madness" (1 December 2007, p 50), burning other vegetable oils is no more sane, nor less damaging to Indonesia's rainforests. Indonesia is expected to increase its palm oil production by more than half over the next 10 years. This is driven, in part, by China, which used to buy rapeseed oil from Europe for food and for industrial uses, but is switching to Indonesian palm oil because Europe's cars and trucks now burn the rapeseed oil as a biofuel.

Lusi, as Indonesians call the mudflow, is one of the more bizarre expressions of Indonesia's geologic turmoil. Since May 2006, it has spewed millions of barrels of heated sludge, blanketing an area twice the size of New York City's Central Park. Villages have disappeared under the mud, 60 feet (18 meters) deep in places, and 10,000 families have been forced from their homes. So far, according to an IMF estimate, the catastrophe has cost Indonesia 3.7 billion dollars

On July 1, England joins the growing list of countries that have introduced laws to protect the public and employees from the harmful eff ects of passive smoking. From July 1, smoking in almost all enclosed public or work places will be illegal, with fines for smokers who break the law and for those who fail to prevent smoking on their premises. (Editorial)