Environment

The Vietnam Fisheries Association has urged the government and concerned ministries to speed up the investigation into the recent mass fish deaths in the central region.

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has approved US$119 million in additional financing for an ongoing project to respond to key urban development challenges focusing on assuring water supply and wastewater needs of selected urban areas in Vietnam.

An official from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has claimed the ministry will announce the official cause of the mass fish deaths when the investigation is finally finished, denying that they are burying the news.

HCM City authorities said they have cancelled the licences of hundreds of suspended public projects that have affected the lives of the public, but many people said a number of projects remain “suspended” and continue to affect their living conditions.

Hanoi is facing more serious flooding this year and the city's drainage system remains still unable to deal with heavy rains.

The Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) has pledged 50,000 USD of aid to save elephants in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak between 2016 and 2017.

Beijing plans to roll out China's tightest fuel standards by January 2017, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Monday citing the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, as the smog-choked city aims to drastically cut vehicle emission.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed former Irish president Mary Robinson and Kenyan diplomat Macharia Kamau as special envoys for El Nino and climate.

Pangolin hunters and smugglers could face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison under the Penal Code No 100/2015/QH13, as from July 1, 2016, according to Nguyen Van Thai, Director of Save Vietnam’s Wildlife.

The Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment issued a fine of nearly USD181,800 to three companies in Thanh Hoa Province for discharging untreated wastewater which killed thousands tonnes of fish in Buoi River.

As many as 70 tonnes of dead fish have been collected from the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal in HCM City over the last two days according to a local official.

An exhibition featuring 150 photos on the ‘Life of the red-shanked douc langur (Pygathrix nemaeus) in Son Tra Peninsula' opened on May 17 at Da Nang City’s Science Library.

The vital role of women in alleviating the risks of disasters was highlighted at a regional Asia-Pacific conference on gender and disaster risk reduction that opened in Hanoi on May 16.

Some expatriates and local people used last Sunday to clean a seriously polluted canal on Hanoi's Nguyen Khang Street, surprising the local authorities.

Dozens of elephants in Dak Lak Province have been scaring people and destroying crops while searching for food outside of the forest because of drought and disappearing forest land.

More than 2,000 households along the Hồng (Red) and the Thái Bình rivers will be relocated as part of the new national plan for flood prevention and control.

HCM City authorities have approved an anti-flooding plan for the 2016-2021 period including the use of USD400m from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has sent an inspection team to analyse the waste water treatment systems at three companies following the mass fish deaths on the Buoi River in Thanh Hoa Province.

Over 80 percent of the world's city dwellers breathe poor quality air, increasing their risk of lung cancer and other life-threatening diseases, a new World Health Organization report warned.