French pharmaceuticals group Sanofi announced late Monday an immediate halt in production at a chemical factory in southwest France, in the wake of media reports that toxic waste emissions exceeded the norms.

An environmental pressure group claimed Monday that Chinese factories are illegally using ozone-depleting CFCs, which have recently seen a spike in emissions that has baffled scientists.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) campaign group said 18 factories in 10 Chinese provinces they looked into admitted to using banned chlorofluorocarbons.

Malaysian wildlife officers arrested six Vietnamese suspected poachers and seized a large cache of animal parts, including skins of the critically endangered Malayan tiger, during a raid this week, officials said Friday.

Agricultural production in Western Europe is set to decline over the coming decade, with output in Africa and Asia expected to increase, the OECD and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report Tuesday.

Californian authorities have issued red flag weather warnings and mandatory evacuation orders after a series of wildfires fanned by high winds and hot temperatures ripped through thousands of acres.

For decades, plastic straws have been essential props for cocktail makers, smoothie lovers and fast food addicts.

Bali opened its international airport Friday after a volcanic eruption temporarily grounded flights, stranding thousands of tourists on the Indonesian holiday island

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday offered a glimmer of hope to Florida in its decades-long water dispute with its northern neighbor Georgia.

Palm oil production has "decimated" animal and plant life in Malaysia and Indonesia and threatens pristine forests in central Africa and South America, a leading international conservation group warned Tuesday.

The change is drastic: around the region of Heroshah, previously arid hills are now covered with forest as far as the horizon. In northwestern Pakistan, hundreds of millions of trees have been planted to fight deforestation.