New Delhi: prayers and pollution

With untreated sewage in the water and rubbish piled on the sand, pollution on Tripoli's Mediterranean coast is denying many residents of the war-torn Libyan capital a much-needed escape.

Around 300 Afghan refugees in New Delhi shout slogans demanding human rights and resettlement by UN Agencies. The refugees say most of them have not received any help from the UN agencies in India. "We have nothing, no future, no education," says a 14-year-old Afghan refugee in India.

Much animosity has built up since India scrapped Kashmir's special status two years ago. DW spoke with several Kashmiris, many of whom have harsh feelings about the Indian government.

The UN health agency now ranks air pollution on a par with smoking or an unhealthy diet. As a result, it has issued new, stricter guidelines they claim could save millions of lives.

Lake Victoria, the planet's second-largest freshwater lake and the largest in Africa, is in serious danger from pollution. Because lakeside communities from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania have practically no access to sewage infrastructure, a constant flow of sewage, fertilisers, garbage and plastic waste is suffocating what has long been the main provider of food and livelihoods in this part of East Africa. Despite what seems like an uphill struggle, young activists are sounding the alarm in order to raise awareness. Our France 2 colleagues report, with FRANCE 24's James Vasina and Camille Nedelec.

Revelers burst firecrackers through the night in spite of a ban, plunging air quality levels to toxic lows by Friday.

The yearly practice of "stubble burning" in Northern India has far-reaching effects. Delhi, some 250 kilometers away, once again faces dangerous levels of smog as farmers burn off their fields to prepare for the next crop. It's a major cause of air pollution in the country.

New air quality guidelines from the WHO could have saved the lives of almost 180,000 people in 2019, the European Environment Agency has revealed.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has called China a "savior." The people around the Bor copper mine, however, fear for their future, as Bor is part of the strategic investments around China's New Silk Road to Europe.

Oil giant Shell will pay a Nigerian community $111m (£80m) over an oil spill more than 50 years ago. A spokesman said the payment would mark the "full and final settlement" to the Ejama-Ebubu community over a spill during the 1967-70 Biafran War. The company has maintained that the damage was caused by third parties.

In Ghana, second-hand clothes once worn by Westerners are polluting ecosystems and causing significant public health problems. Every day, 160 tonnes of clothes arrive in the country: garments that were donated to charities in Europe or the US and are sent to Africa by recycling companies. An entire economy is based on the reselling of these old clothes, but few are in a fit state to be sold on. In the capital Accra, these unsellable garments form a huge textile mountain on the edge of the Atlantic. Residents regularly burn it, exposing locals to harmful fumes. Our France 2 colleagues report, with FRANCE 24's Camille Nedelec.

Nigerian civil servant and mother of four Grace Ekang has been having chest pains lately, and when she sneezes, black stains appear on her handkerchief. Inside her house in the Rivers state city of Port Harcourt, Ekang has noticed that the soot gathering on her floor is getting heavier. She and other residents blame this on illegal, makeshift oil refineries scattered across the Niger Delta.