"Hundreds of people took to the streets of the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming on Thursday to protest against the planned production of a chemical at a refinery, the second demonstration this month against the project."

"DHAKA, Bangladesh -- A cyclone blowing across the Indian Ocean is expected to hit Bangladesh on Thursay, threatening the lives of 8.2 million people in northeast India, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma). The highest storm surge and rainfall predictions are for Bangladesh’s coastal cities of Chittagong and Cox’s Bazaar."

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"BEIJING -- China's H7N9 bird flu spread west to the central province of Henan on Sunday, as government websites and state media reported two deaths and 11 new cases nationwide."

"About 120 tons of contaminated water has leaked from an underground storage tank at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and may have mixed with underground water, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said April 6."

"Most city governments on the mainland withheld vital information on pollution from the public last year, with many scaling back their disclosure to protect polluters as economic growth slowed, two major environmental organisations said in a study released in Beijing yesterday."

"BEIJING — The dead pigs keep bobbing up in Shanghai’s rivers.

"When China's environment ministry told attorney Dong Zhengwei he couldn't have access to two-year old data about soil pollution because it was a 'state secret', it added to mounting public outrage over the worsening environment."

"US officials have been fighting to stop a $7.5 billion gas pipeline that would transport natural gas between Iran and Pakistan."

"TOKYO -- A wildlife conservation group said in a report on Wednesday that Japan has been propping up its whaling industry with nearly $400 million in tax money in recent years, stepping up subsidies even as consumption of whale meat here has slumped."

Climate change is already creating refugees along the coastal lowlands of Bangladesh.

"BEIJING — The Chinese state news media on Monday published aggressive reports on what they described as the sickening and dangerous air pollution in Beijing and other parts of northern China, indicating that popular anger over air quality had reached a level where Communist Party propaganda officials felt that they had to allow the officially sanctioned press to address the growing concerns of ordinary citizens."

"BEIJING — One Friday more than two years ago, an air-quality monitoring device atop the United States Embassy in Beijing recorded data so horrifying that someone in the embassy called the level of pollution 'Crazy Bad' in an infamous Twitter post. That day the Air Quality Index, which uses standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, had crept above 500, which was supposed to be the top of the scale."

"Every night, hundreds of cancer patients from the farming region of southern Punjab huddle together with their families in an overnight train journey to the nearest cancer hospital, 220 miles away. ... The patients travel from the fertile farming areas of the northern state of Punjab, a region that reports an alarmingly high use of pesticides."

"HONG KONG — China began service Wednesday morning on the world’s longest high-speed rail line, covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that from New York to Key West, Florida, or from London across Europe to Belgrade."

"The capital's initiative to rid the city of polluting vehicles has taken 458,000 old cars off the road, and the government is providing more benefits to local motorists to encourage them to scrap aging vehicles."