The Chinese government recently announced that it will close down around 4,000 small coal mines annually, over the next three years. Zhao Tiechui, head of the state administration of Coal Mine Safety

Over the past few years, Indian plants pay Rs 40 per tonne of limestone as royalty to state governments. According to information provided to the Green Rating Project, on an average, industry spent Rs 74 per tonne of limestone used for all mining and related activities (including royalties, dead rent, operating expenses and reclamation).

flare-down: The burning of natural gas by oil firms in the Niger Delta violates the human rights of local people and should be stopped immediately, ruled the high court of Benin City in Nigeria. The

Thabo Mbeki, President, African National Congress, expressed his concerns to the eu regarding its Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (reach) legislation. reach is designed to

• Army contractors halted operations at the Newport Chemical Depot, in western Indiana, as nearly 500 gallons of caustic wastewater containing hydrolysate, leaked into a sealed area at the facility. This plant is used for destroying Cold War era chemical weapon VX.

Indians from western Venezuela demanded a halt to coal mining in their region and called government efforts to formalize their ownership of ancestral lands a "fraud'. The protesters said three mines