The latest results from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) mobile air quality monitoring station continue to present a bleak picture for road users in Lahore.

Babar Zaheer, an EPA official, said the station continuously monitored levels of respirable dust, ozone, non-methane hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides from a van parked at Yateem Khana, Multan Road between 2pm on July 23 to 3pm on July 24.

Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf constituted on Tuesday a committee to recommend suggestions to resolve the issue of the power crisis in the city and to improve the Karachi Electric Power Company's (KESC) existing system. He took this decision while presiding over a meeting with the KESC management at his ministry.

Traders on Monday demonstrated against hours-long load shedding in front of district nazim office.

They later blocked Mardan-Nowshera Road for one hour while shouting against WAPDA, provincial government and district authorities. Markazi Tanzeem Tajiran President Hajji Muhammad Aslam, Carpenter Association President Iftikhar Khan and General Secretary Syed Muhammad led the demonstrators.

They said traders had been suffering heavy losses due to high inflation coupled with load shedding lasting for 16 hours a day.

The government has approved an Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) recommendation of upward revision of POL prices, a statement issued by the regulatory authority said on Sunday.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday launched monsoon tree plantation campaign, dedicating year 2009 to environment protection and greener Pakistan.

He kicked off the plantation campaign by planting a sapling of araucaria in the lawns of Prime Minister's House.

Talking to newsmen, he symbolised the freshly planted sapling with a tree of democracy which he said grew in the hands of Benazir Bhutto.

He said forests covered five percent of the land and would be stretched over 6 percent by 2015.

The Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) has barred the Sindh government from entering into any joint venture with investors for a 1000 MW coal-fired power plant without prior consultation with the power purchaser, well-placed sources told Business Recorder.

Rising petroleum prices would affect Pakistan's agriculture sector as farmers depend on fuel to operate their tube-wells to get irrigation water the prime requirement for the growth of crops.

'Due to inadequate canal system, farmers are dependent on electric and diesel run tube-wells for irrigation but price escalation of oil would have negative impact on their production,' the Secretary General, Kisan Bachao Tehreek, Ahmed Noor Advocate told APP.

As the mercury shot up to 34 degrees Celsius with 66 per cent humidity on Monday, the city experienced more than eight hours of staggered load-shedding as the privatized Karachi Electricity Supply Company faced a shortfall of 500 megawatts in meeting the demand. The power outage was caused by problems faced by the utility's Bin Qasim plant's Unit 6, but the utility's management was not prepared to admit this.

The slow pace of work and change of government has put the fate of Rs225 million proposed Combined Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) in the balance, exposing the eco-system of the area to further degradation at the hands of industrialists of the Hattar Industrial Estate (HIE), sources told Dawn here on Sunday. Since the Hattar-based industrial units were predominantly export-oriented ones, the non-compliance of national and international legislation regarding environmental requirements, it might expose the country to threat of non-tariff barriers under the WTO regime internationally.

The Liquid Petroleum Gas Distributors Association Pakistan (LPGDAP) has asked the government to ensure monitoring of LPG prices by Ogra and the petroleum ministry to check undue increase in gas prices such as the one introduced by LPG marketing companies during last two months. In a press statement issued here on Sunday, FPCCI chairman zonal committee on LPG and LPGDAP office-bearer Muhammad Irfan Khokhar said that LPG marketing companies have increased the per kg price of LPG by Rs 14.50 from Rs 48 to Rs 62, due to which the price of domestic cylinder has risen from Rs 505 to Rs 675.