BUENOS AIRES - The Citizens' Coalition against Incineration, founded in 1995 by environmental and neighborhood organizations in Argentina, has asked the government to investigate the companies that incinerate toxic waste. The groups suspect they are emitting carcinogenic substances.

The companies must be monitored to ensure they are complying with the commitments assumed when Argentina signed the Convention on the Elimination of Persistent Organic Pollutants, including dioxins, says the coalition of environmental and community activists.

Dioxins are emitted into the air when certain toxic wastes are burned. They are known to cause cancer in humans.

HAVANA - Cuba's largest natural lagoon continues to be in danger of contamination, in spite of a clean-up program launched two decades ago.

The Leche Lagoon, 461 km from Havana, receives industrial waste runoff from a nearby railroad factory. The toxic substances in the runoff endanger the bay’s broad variety of plant and animal life.

Located on the northern coast in Ciego de Avila province, the cove is home to some 90 species of land vertebrates and more than 100 kinds of birds, both endemic and migratory. Abundant vegetation is also found there, with mangroves and marsh forests.

LIMA - A Peruvian lawmaker proposes moving the mining city of Cerro de Pasco, and its 70,000 residents, to a site that is less contaminated and has sufficient potable water.

In Cerro de Pasco, where silver is mined, "water is available just 90 minutes each day, and the air and land are contaminated with waste from the mining operations," says the author of the legislative bill, Clodomiro Sánchez.

The congressman stated that the opencut mining has already forced the evacuation of part of the population. "It is urgent to move the city to a healthier area," Sánchez said when he announced the proposal to the Environment, Ecology and Amazon Commission of parliament.

Cerro de Pasco, 315 km east of Lima, is one of the highest altitude cities in the world at 4,400 meters about sea level. It was founded in the 18th century by Spanish colonizers as a camp for enslaved indigenous mine workers.

QUITO - Environmental groups in Ecuador have asked the Spanish government to demand corporate responsibility from its multinational Repsol-YPF, partner in a consortium that is constructing a new pipeline to transport heavy crude across Ecuador.

Repsol-YPF is contributing to the "irreparable ecological damage" of Ecuador through its role in the consortium, the environmentalists say.

One stretch of the pipeline is slated to cross the Mindo-Nambillo nature preserve, one of the few remaining old-growth cloud forests in the Andes and home to 450 species of birds, many of which are endangered, according to the organization ‘Izquierda Verde’.