Environment

All schools were declared closed in the Iranian province of Tehran, where the capital city is located, for Wednesday due to higher-than-normal pollution levels.

Tehran Air Quality Control Company says the poor air quality in the Iranian capital is due an exceptional dust storm, caused by Turkey’s dam construction, that has overwhelmed the Middle East over the past days.

Tehran’s Air Quality Control Company says the Iranian capitals’ air quality index is now at 220 , which is in the very unhealthy zone.

Iran and Armenia have agreed to discharge pollution from the Aras River. The agreement was made during an official meeting between Iran’s Minister of Energy Ali Akbar Mehrabian and Armenia’s Minister of Environment Hacop Simidian in Tehran on Wednesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian says Iran considers “unacceptable” Turkey’s moves in the area of dam construction, which have created problems for the people of Iran and beyond in the region.

The 18th International Exhibition of Flowers and Plants, Park Equipment and Related Industries is under way in Tehran's Goftegou Park.

Iran’s Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri has issued a directive to the Ministry of Energy to work to establish Iran’s water share from Aras River given the recent surge in dust storms in the country’s western and southern regions.

An official at Iran’s Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences says 41,000 Iranian die annually from air pollution.

The air quality in the Iranian capital Tehran is once more in the unhealthy range for all age groups with the Air Quality Index reading 196. That’s bordering on the very unhealthy level.

An Iranian official says Afghanistan should work with Iran to determine water shares from Helmand River to help end the dust storms that plague southern Afghanistan.

The CEO of Iran’s East Azerbaijan Province water utility says the water volume of Lake Urmia is 3.14 billion cubic meters, which is down over 2 billion cubic meters compared to the same time last year.

Iran’s ambassador to Iraq has dismissed accusations that Iran is to blame for lower water-levels in common rivers with Iraq.

The Iranian parliament’s environment commission says the wild birds market of the northern city of Fereydunkenar has been permanently closed upon an order from the judiciary.

A panicked leopard, seeking food in a northern city in Iran, has died after a police officer fired a tranquilizer at it.

Iran’s Supreme Court has put on hold a death sentence handed down to a wildlife ranger who was found guilty of premeditated murder last year.

A Taliban official says the acting Afghan government remains fully committed to providing Iran with access to its share of water from the Helmand River under a 1973 treaty signed between the two neighbors.

An Iranian official says some ducklings, known as the rarest in the world, have been spotted inside and on the margins of the Huweizeh Marches in southwestern Iran.

A prosecutor at Iran’s Supreme Court has ordered the stoppage of the implementation of the Miankaleh Petrochemical Project in northern Iran due to its adverse environmental impacts.

The Iranian capital Tehran’s air pollution is at levels described as unhealthy for sensitive groups.

Iran’s National Cartographic Center has said satellite images show that the focal point of the formation of the thick layer of dust and pollutants that hit Iran a couple of days ago, was the border between Iraq and Syria.

Iran’s Department of Environment has announced the suspension of Miankaleh Petrochemical Project in the country’s northe, which has triggered a flurry of criticism by environmental activists.

The Iranian government is reportedly taking steps to end the construction of a controversial petrochemical plant in Miankaleh Peninsula, amid criticism that it will have a destructive effect on local environment.

Iran’s Vice President for Environmental Affairs says the Organization for the Protection of Environment will not back down on its opposition to establishment of a petrochemical factory in the Miankaleh region due to its adverse environmental impact.

The Iranian capital Tehran’s real-time air quality index is in the red zone.

The U.N. health agency says nearly everybody in the world breathes air that doesn’t meet its standards for air quality. It calls for more action to reduce fossil-fuel use, which generates pollutants that cause respiratory and blood-flow problems and lead to millions of preventable deaths each year.