NEW DELHI (AP) — Thick smog shrouded New Delhi and other cities around South and Southeast Asia as air pollution levels soared Thursday.

Air pollution in the region worsens particularly in winter when the burning of crop residue in agricultural areas coincides with cooler temperatures that trap the smoke. The smoke is blown into cities, where there are more people and where auto emissions further add to the pollution. Emissions from industries without pollution controls and the use of coal to produce electricity are also linked to poor air quality in urban areas.

Several studies have estimated more than a million Indians die each year from air pollution-related diseases.

New Delhi’s air quality fell into the severe category, according to SAFAR, India’s main environmental monitoring agency. It measures particulate matter in the air that can enter the lungs.

In many areas of the city, the levels were more than 50 times higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended safe limit. Forecasters warned air quality will worsen before the arrival of cold winds next week that could blow away the smog.

Lahore, Pakistan, which is on the border with India, had an air quality index level considered hazardous, according to the Swiss group IQAir, which tracks global air quality.

The levels in Hanoi, Vietnam, were unhealthy, according to IQAir.

Transport, industry and construction were the main causes of bad air in Hanoi, Nguyen Hoang Anh, deputy head of the environmental quality management division at the ministry’s Pollution Control Department told state media on Monday.

Hanoi has around 1 million cars and nearly 7 million motorbikes. Many are old and don’t meet emission standards. Construction projects also don’t stop dust from escaping, and factories use fossil fuel for power, contributing to the city’s smog.

Bangkok’s air quality was unhealthy for sensitive groups on IQAir. The Meteorological Department said air ventilation rates have been poor recently and an atmospheric inversion layer caused airborne particles to accumulate.

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The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog warned this week the window to “maneuver” a diplomatic solution to halt Iran’s nuclear development was beginning to “shrink.” 

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, issued an urgent message in an interview with AFP at the COP29 climate summit in Baku.

“The Iranian administration must understand that the international situation is becoming increasingly tense and that the margins to maneuver are beginning to shrink,” he said.

“It is imperative to find ways to reach diplomatic solutions.” 

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The warning came ahead of Grossi’s trip to Tehran this week for “high-level” meetings with Iranian government officials, where he was set to hold “technical discussions” relating to Tehran’s agreement under a March 2023 Joint Statement to adhere to IAEA safeguard parameters.

Grossi landed in Tehran Wednesday, and state media showed the IAEA chief meeting with the spokesperson for Iran’s state atomic energy agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, upon his arrival.

In the lead-up to the meeting, Grossi said in a statement Sunday, “It is essential that we make substantive progress in the implementation of the Joint Statement agreed with Iran in March 2023. My visit to Tehran will be very important in that regard.”

The IAEA is further permitted to inspect all nuclear sites as a part of its safeguard duties, but Grossi told AFP, “We need to see more.”

“Given the size, depth and ambition of Iran’s program, we need to find ways of giving the agency more visibility,” he added.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei alongside a look inside a Uranium plant. (Getty Images)

Concerns over Iran’s nuclear program have remained heightened since the U.S. pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement, in May 2018, despite IAEA assurances that Iran was not in violation of its nuclear agreements. 

Grossi is expected to push Iran for increased access to its nuclear sites and for an explanation regarding the traces of uranium that have been found at undeclared sites, Reuters reported Wednesday. 

The IAEA director general has been sounding the alarm for months that Iran’s nuclear program has essentially run unchecked since Tehran stopped adhering to its commitments under the JCPOA, and it has since increased its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium metals to 60% purity levels, just shy of the steps needed to reach weapons-grade uranium enriched to 90% purity.

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Grossi’s trip comes at a pivotal time for geopolitical relations with President-elect Trump returning to the Oval Office come January, where he is expected to take a hardline approach when it comes to Tehran.

During his first term, President Trump maintained that the agreement was a “terrible deal” cemented under the Obama administration by Secretary of State John Kerry and signed by Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the deal.

After the U.S. withdrawal, Tehran claimed the agreement had been voided and said it was no longer bound under the international nuclear agreement.

Despite the withdrawal by the U.S., the other international co-signatories, including Russia, urged Tehran to continue to adhere to the JCPOA, though, by 2022, Moscow dropped its diplomatic encouragement as tensions with the West escalated over its invasion of Ukraine. 

Grossi told AFP the deal now sits as “an empty shell.”

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi meets with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Tehran, Iran, May 6, 2024.  (Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters)

According to Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert and senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the best way to stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions is to move past the Biden administration’s ambitions to restore a nuclear deal and to rely on Cold War-era tactics of nuclear deterrence. 

“The irreversible and knowledge-based nuclear gains Tehran has made under Biden’s policy of maximum deference are what actually have shut the window for anything meaningful, even if only transactional with Tehran,” he told Fox News Digital. “The incoming Trump administration will be faced with an increasingly risk-tolerant Islamic Republic that is either on the nuclear threshold and keen to exploit this status or one that will have weaponized. 

“Deterring and confronting such a regime will require pushing past Washington’s obsession with a deal and embracing other tools of national power.”

But the IAEA chief said he isn’t worried by the prospect of another Trump presidency despite the tense geopolitical framework he now operates under with the West’s unification against Russia and Iran amid the war in Ukraine and Israel’s fight against Tehran-backed proxies.

“I already worked with the first Trump administration, and we worked well together,” he said.

Scientists have found the largest coral in the world near the remote Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean, a gigantic organism that can be seen from space.

The “mega coral” is 32 metres (105 feet) long and 34 metres (111 feet) wide and is believed to be about 300 years old, the National Geographic Society said on Thursday. It is mainly brown but features splashes of bright yellows, blues and reds, and is covered with ripples of waves, mirroring the ocean’s surface.

The organism, which has a circumference of 183 metres (600 feet), is made up of a network of coral polyps, tiny individual creatures. It was discovered by members of National Geographic’s Pristine Seas team – a group of scientists working on board a research vessel in the southwest Pacific Ocean in October.

Unlike a reef, which is a network of many coral colonies, the newly discovered structure is a standalone coral that has grown uninterrupted for hundreds of years.

Warming oceans caused by climate change have drained the life from corals, including in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The researchers said, “Witnessing this large healthy coral oasis in slightly deeper waters is a beacon of hope.”

The coral species, Pavona clavus, provides habitat, shelter and breeding grounds for an array of species from shrimp and crabs to fish.

Despite its colours and size, to the naked eye, the coral looks like a giant rock beneath the ocean surface. When the researchers initially spotted it, they thought it might be remnants of a shipwreck due to its size until one of the team dove for a closer look.

“Just when we think there is nothing left to discover on planet earth, we find a massive coral made of nearly one billion little polyps, pulsing with life and colour,” said Enric Sala, National Geographic explorer in residence and founder of Pristine Seas.

“This is a significant scientific discovery, like finding the world’s tallest tree,” Sala said.

It is three times bigger than the previous record-breaker, known as Big Momma, in American Samoa, and is about the size of two basketball courts or five tennis courts.

But there is cause for alarm, Sala said, noting that the coral is not safe from global warming despite its remote location.

“The genetic code of these simple polyps is an enormous encyclopaedia that has written how to survive multiple climatic conditions, and until now it does so in the face of ocean warming,” said Manu San Felix, underwater cinematographer of Pristine Seas – the first to spot the coral.

The discovery comes as delegations from 200 countries are meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the United Nations climate summit (COP29). The event is being held during another year of record-breaking temperatures, adding pressure to the negotiations aimed at curbing climate change.

The last global scientific consensus on climate change was released in 2021 through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, however, scientists say evidence shows global warming and its effects are unfolding faster than expected.

The world may already have hit the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F) of warming above the average pre-industrial temperature, beyond which it is at risk of irreversible and extreme climate change, scientists say.

Concerning life underwater, scientists fear the world’s reefs have passed a point of no return, with the world in the throes of a fourth mass coral bleaching event – the largest on record. On Wednesday, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said 44 percent of reef-building coral species globally are at risk of extinction.

The Solomon Islands, where the coral was discovered, are on the front line of risks posed by global warming and ranked as the second-most at-risk nation for natural disasters.

“The ocean provides for our livelihoods and has contributed so much to our national economy and communities,” said Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele. “Our survival depends on healthy coral reefs, so this exciting discovery underlines the importance of protecting and sustaining them for future generations.”