Air quality index

Students and civil servants in parts of Iran were ordered to stay home on between Dec. 11 and 12, due to "unhealthy" air pollution, state media reported.

Tehran, where high pollution levels are common, has been engulfed in smog in recent days.

The capital is located in the southern foothills of the Alborz Mountains, which tower over the city and trap polluted air.

The onset of the New Year has ushered in a worrying surge in pollution across Bulgaria. Reports from the European Air Quality Index have flagged 11 cities in the country, including Sofia, for hazardous levels of particulate matter, double the permissible limits.

Tens of millions of North Americans are at risk of poor air quality from raging wildfires in Canada.

Authorities in New York are starting to distribute free masks today. In a phone conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US President Joe Biden offered additional help to deal with forest fires.

The air quality in Turkey's prominent cities is deteriorating day by day, with experts raising concerns as the air pollution in some cities of Turkey has reached alarming levels, according to the data of the Environment and Urbanization Ministry's Continuous Monitoring Center.

When is unhealthy air acceptable air? In the Balkans, it depends who you believe: mobile apps or state data.

The quality of air in the region has become a hot topic since the capitals of Bosnia and Serbia, Sarajevo and Belgrade, made the top 10 in the list of most polluted cities on the planet.

India's capital, New Delhi, has the world's most polluted air, according to an air quality monitoring agency.

Two other Indian cities, Kolkata and Mumbai, also ranked among the top 10 cities with the dirtiest air, on the sixth and ninth position respectively, Swiss-based IQ AirVisual said on Friday.

Dangerously high pollution was registered this morning in Vidin, Ruse and Plovdiv, according to a NOVA report on the European Commission's Air Quality Index portal.

In Vidin, measuring instruments of the Environmental Executive Agency reported a fine particulate matter concentration of 125 micrograms per cubic meter, which is more than 2 times the norm.

With winter on the way, the capitals of Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Bulgaria, as well as some other industrial centres in these countries, are again suffering alarming levels of air pollution, charts show.

Big cities in Bulgaria remain in the grip of the dirty air in the next few days, NOVA said.

Lack of wind and the keeping of cold air low above the ground are the reason why we will breathe poisons. According to the European Commission's "Air Quality Index" this morning, the fine particulate matter (PM10) concentration is above the norm in almost every major city.

Exposure to air pollution may impede cognitive ability as people become older, with less-educated men the worst affected, a new study has found.

"Most existing research on air pollution focuses on its health effects," study author Xiaobo Zhang told Euronews. "Our study shows a persistent negative effect on cognitive health, which not been widely discussed."