  Intermediate energy Coulomb excitation and dissociation is a useful tool for
nuclear structure and astrophysics studies. Low-lying strength in nuclei far
from stability was discovered by this method. The effective range theory for
low-lying strength in one-neutron halo nuclei is summarized and extended to
two-neutron halo nuclei. This is of special interest in view of recent rather
accurate experimental results on the low-lying electric dipole strength in
$^{11}$Li. Another indirect approach to nuclear astrophysics is the Trojan
horse method. It is pointed out that it is a suitable tool to investigate
subthreshold resonances.
