Environment

Haze from Indonesian forest fires has spread to the southern Philippines, disrupting air traffic and prompting warnings for residents to wear face masks, authorities said Friday.

Tofu makers in a small village on the island of Java are putting waste water from producing the soybean-based product to good use by generating biogas, a source of renewable energy, and reducing environmental pollution.

An ASEAN declaration on climate change is expected to be scrutinised and approved at the 13th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on the Environment (AMME 13) in Hanoi from October 26 to 31, said the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Developing nations accused rich ones Monday of sidelining their interests at crunch climate talks, as the UN chief and France's president beat the drum for an ambitious global deal.

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has called for strengthened inspection and severe penalties towards seriously polluting businesses.

Zimbabwe National Parks have said that it is difficult to track down poachers who used cyanide poison to kill the animals since they could sneak into game parks with the lethal substance.

Four men in central Quang Nam Province were fined VND6 million for killing two weasels and posting their actions on Facebook.

Pollution in nearly 80 percent of Chinese cities surveyed by Greenpeace "greatly exceeded" national standards over the first nine months of this year, the advocacy group said.

Vietnam hopes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8 per cent a year by 2030. This is equal to about 787.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

HCM City's District 2 wants a chemical storage site near residential areas moved after years of complaints.

Wild animal traps were found in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in the central province of Quang Binh, the Park’s management board said.

The Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre has successfully rescued many bears, but faces challenges in their rehabilitation and their eventual release into the wild.

Indonesia agreed Thursday to accept international help to combat forest and agricultural fires cloaking Southeast Asia in haze, after weeks of failed attempts to douse the blazes that have infuriated its neighbours.

Indonesia has unveiled its third batch of stimulus measures in the space of a month, including a cut to energy prices, as Southeast Asia's biggest economy battles a slowdown.

Tay Ninh’s Forest Management Department said on October 6 it was completing procedures to hand two Mustela putorius weasels and two Manouria emys turtles to the Kien Giang forest management department’s Wild Animal Rescue Centre.

Thick haze blanketing HCM City in recent days has been blamed on city pollution and possibly the affects from forest fires in Indonesia as local experts claim.

Fifty highly-polluted craft villages across Hanoi will be helped with waste treatment between now and 2020, according to the municipal Department of Industry and Trade.

Viet Nam's Law on Forest Protection and Development has become backwards and exposed numerous disadvantages, after more than 10 years of implementation, a senior official from the Viet Nam Forestry Administration has said.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has called on Indonesia to take action against people setting fires that have caused choking smoke to drift across the region, with the sky over southern Thailand the latest to be clouded by the pollution.