Environment

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.

Vietnamese scientists and foreign partners have discovered new plant organisms living 1,000 metres above sea level at the Hon Ba Natural Reserve 30 kilometres away from central Khanh Hoa province’s Nha Trang city.

Hundreds of people in Thanh Hoa Province surrounded the Thanh Son communal headquarters to oppose a decision to build a waste treatment plant.

The gas-rich United Arab Emirates will invest $35 billion in clean energy by 2021 as it seeks to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels following crude's global price slide, it said.

The El Nino weather patterns are expected to be severe between this October and next February, possibly causing serious water shortages in many areas across Vietnam, experts forecast.

About 50 international and domestic companies are displaying their technologies to protect the environment at the International Exhibition on Environment 2015 by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

A group of Vietnamese artists have participated in a photo collection featuring environmental-friendly activities to raise the public awareness over green issues.

International experts and Ho Chi Minh City authorities met to seek flood prevention measures in the city.

A seminar on animal welfare in HCM City pressed the call for better treatment of animals in Vietnam.

Singapore’s National Environment Agency has sent warning notices to four Indonesian companies, which were determined to cause the current haze pollution in Singapore.

The increasing overuse of chemical pesticides and fertilisers are posing more threats to farmers' health and agroproduct consumers, but authorities have never had an eye on the overwhelming consumption of the chemicals in agriculture.

The Singaporean Ministry of Education has announced that the country would close all schools on September 25 due to worsening haze situation.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Takehiko Nakao today announced that ADB will double its annual climate financing to $6 billion by 2020, up from the current $3 billion. ADB’s spending on tackling climate change will rise to around 30%

Seven moon bears were rescued from two bear farms in the north-eastern Quang Ninh Province by Animals Asia and the provincial Forest Management Department.

Animals Asia Foundation and the Vietnam Oriental Traditional Medicine Association have signed an agreement to end the use of bear bile in oriental medicine in Vietnam by 2020.

Vietnam is quickly finishing the Intended National Determined Contributions to participate in the 21st Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, set to be held in Paris this December.