  This paper summaries the status of a large project to improve distance scales
of various classes of variable stars. This is being carried out by a large
group in Cape Town, Japan, England and the USA. The results are illustrated by
giving the distances of the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Galactic Centre (Ro)
as well as the value of the Hubble Constant, Ho, based on our current results.
The classes of variables considered are; Classical Cepheids, Type II Cepheids,
RR Lyrae stars, O- and C-Miras

Astrophysics