Asia

"One of the world’s smallest ethnic groups is finding its cultural traditions on the wrong side of Mongolian law, putting its very existence in peril."

"Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s 'frozen wall of earth' has failed to prevent groundwater from entering the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, and the utility needs a new plan to address the problem, experts said."

"A Chinese city has suspended preliminary work on a proposed 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) nuclear waste processing plant following protests by local residents concerned about health risks."

"An anthrax outbreak in remote western Siberia has led to the hospitalization of at least 90 people in the Arctic town of Salekhard, with at least 20 confirmed cases of the illness. One person, a 12-year-old boy, has died from anthrax according to the TASS News Agency and other media reports."

"The Chinese government is trying to slow down the approval of new coal-fired power plants because of overcapacity, but projects already in the pipeline, as well as loopholes in policy, mean China is on track to add an average of one new coal-fired plant a week until 2020, according to a report released on Wednesday by Greenpeace East Asia."

"Super typhoon Nepartak hit Taiwan on Friday, driving thousands of people from their homes, disrupting power supply and forcing the cancellation of more than 600 flights, emergency authorities said."

"Severe flooding across central and southern China over the past week has killed almost 130 people, damaged more than 1.9 million hectares of crops and led to direct economic losses of more than 38 billion yuan ($5.70 billion), state media said on Tuesday."

"The stink from Vietnam’s fish kill scandal — which left some 70 tons of dead fish scattered across the beaches of four of the country’s provinces and fishermen out of work — is symptomatic of something greater than worries about food security and the environment: access to information and the ability to distribute it."

"Vietnam’s government has said toxic discharges from a Taiwanese-owned steel plant were responsible for massive fish deaths that have decimated tourism and fishing in four provinces and highlighted the risks of rapid growth in foreign investment."

"Tukaram Jadhav was barely surviving off of his tiny cotton farm when he killed himself last September. His widow, a petite mother of two, pulls her purple sari tightly around her, and says she discovered her husband as he lay dying."