US regulators are proposing to weaken air quality laws, which would allow new coal-fired power plants to pollute US parks from Shenandoah in Virginia to the Great Basin in Nevada, a new report said on Thursday. Amid rising power demand and flat US natural gas output, electricity generators are seeking to build power plants fired by abundant coal. The fuel is cheap compared with other fossil fuels, but emits more pollutants, such as mercury and smog components sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, as well as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

The CNG conversion kits prices reached historic peak after witnessing 10 percent further increase following the fresh hike in petroleum products. The prices of CNG kits were earlier increased twice soon after the increase in gasoline rates, which had been raised four times during the last two months.

Environmental pollution and consumption of polluted water are at the root of ever-shrinking life expectancy in countries like Pakistan where pollution fails to make to the top of the government's priority list, say speakers at a seminar on "Urban and Rural Environmental Issues'. The seminar organised by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at Sindhi Language Authority to mark the Earth Day on Monday urged the agency to act on all environmental issues of the province.

With a smile on her tanned face, skiier Kazumi Furukawa can vividly recall the time three years ago she stood here on Mount Zao and looked down at fir trees turned into glittering crystals. "The sky was cobalt blue and I could see the tiny snow crystals on the tips of the tree branches," Furukawa, 56, remembers. But these days the natural phenomenon is growing rarer and scientists say the culprit is beyond Japan's control -- industrial pollution from China.

toxic organic compounds of tin, called organotins used as plastic stabilisers, catalysts, preservatives, and anti-fungicides in paints, enter the environment and pose a threat to human health