Global climate change is today a spectre which allows for no ostriches. Scientific data is piling up to indict human activity as the source of the current phase of warming. The debate is whether the affluent North or the developing South has been more responsible and who will be polluting more in the near future.

In the past decade there has been extensive research into tropical intraseasonal variability, one of the major components of the low frequency variability of the general atmospheric circulation. This paper briefly reviews the state-of-the-art in this research area: the nature of the Madden-Julian Oscillation, its relation to monsoonal and extratropical circulations, and the current theoretical understandings.

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The Kandy lake, situated in the heart of Sri Lanka's second largest city with a population of nearly 120,000, has been monitored to probe the extent of heavy metal pollution. Although the lake is a source of drinking water to the city, a large number of effluent canals drain into the lake carrying a continuous flow of industrial and domestic waste matter. A total of 66 surface water samples were analyzed for their Fe2+, total Fe, total V, SO 4 2− , Cd2+, and Pb2+ contents.

The mid-canal of Kandy, a 8-km effluent canal that runs through the city, collects massive quantities of domestic, municipal, and agricultural waste products. In this study, 37 samples from canal water and 13 from nearby drinking water wells were analyzed for their total Pb, Cd, V, Fe, and ferrous ion content. The following average values for the canal water were recorded: Pb, 269 μg/liter; Cd, 138 μg/liter; V, 18 μg/liter; total Fe, 4 mg/liter. These values indicate the relative levels of metal input from the effluent sources of the city of Kandy, the second largest city in Sri Lanka.

Brief studies of microearthquakes in four separate parts of eastern Afghanistan reveal a high level of seismicity over a broad area. In general, the activity is not concentrated on well-defined faults, nor does it define new faults, but seismicity on or close to the Chainart and Sarubi faults attests to their activity. First motions of P waves are consistent with left- and right-lateral strike-slip motion, respectively, on these two faults.