Nepal started counting endangered Royal Bengal tigers in its vast forested southern plains, officials said Monday, as conservationists help the big cats claw their way back from near extinction.

Deforestation, habitat encroachment and poaching have devastated tiger populations across Asia, but Nepal and 12 other countries signed a pledge in 2010 to double their numbers by next year.

The CityBlu and Ramco companies have stopped waste sweeping and collection operations in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, which might lead to a new garbage crisis in the country, al-Jadeed TV said.

The TV network said the suspension comes in protest at “the failure to settle the contracts” with the state-run Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR).

Almost 30 percent of the UK's bird species including greenfinches and swifts are facing serious threat to survival due to factors including climate change, a report published Wednesday warned.

A powerful storm pounded Istanbul and other parts of Turkey on Monday, killing at least one person and causing havoc in the city of around 15 million people, reports said.

A woman was killed in Istanbul's Esenyurt district where strong gusts tore off part of a roof which landed on top of her and her child, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The child survived with injuries.

University of Maine researchers are trying to produce potatoes that can better withstand warming temperatures as the climate changes.

Warming temperatures and an extended growing season can lead to quality problems and disease, Gregory Porter, a professor of crop ecology and management, told the Bangor Daily News.

Weather officials urged Northwest residents to remain alert Sunday as more rain was predicted to fall in an area with lingering water from extreme weather earlier this month.

"There's some good news and some pending news," said Steve Reedy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.

Iraqi volunteers started planting the first of thousands of trees in war-ravaged Mosul on Thursday, hoping to green the former Islamic State group stronghold.

The UK's COP26 Regional Ambassador for the Middle East and Africa, Janet Rogan, ended a two-day visit to Lebanon this week. This was her first official visit to the MENA region since the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference concluded in Glasgow earlier this month.

At a Kabul market, coal is arriving by the ton as the winter cold sets in.

Even as prices rise, Afghans have few options but to burn it for heat, creating some of the world's most dangerous air.

India's polluted capital will reopen schools on Monday, one week after it announced a partial shutdown over dangerous air pollution levels, authorities said Wednesday.

Gopal Rai, Delhi state's environment minister, told journalists that pollution levels in the city had "improved in the last three days" and some of the restrictions would be relaxed.