A Romanian court annulled a zoning plan in a decision that may further delay a project to set up Europe's largest open-cast gold mine in the Carpathian town of Rosia Montana, opponents of the mine said on Thursday.

Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC), majority-owned by Canada's Gabriel Resources Ltd, aims to use cyanide to extract 314 metric tonnes (346 tons) of gold and 1,500 tonnes of silver in the western Romanian county of Alba. The project has dragged on for 14 years and still needs an environmental permit.

The United States remained the primary backer of biotech crop technology in 2011, but adoption spread internationally as the total global planted area of genetically modified seeds grew 8 percent from a year ago, according to a report issued Tuesday.

Roughly 160 million hectares, or 395.2 million acres, were planted with biotech crops in 2011, up 8 percent from 2010, said the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) in its annual report on biotech seed use.

Hundreds of Romanians protested on Saturday against a plan to set up Europe's biggest open-cast gold mine in a small Carpathian town, joining a wave of anti-government rallies.

For the past two weeks, thousands of citizens have gathered in cities across Romania to demand the resignation of President Traian Basescu and his close ally, Prime Minister Emil Boc, as anger over austerity measures and falling living conditions have spread.

Due to increasing costs of production, a slowed demand for electricity, and fresh memories of disaster in Japan, production of nuclear power fell in 2011, according to the latest Vital Signs Online (VSO) report from the Worldwatch Institute. Despite reaching record levels the previous year, global installed nuclear capacity—the potential power generation from all existing plants—declined to 366.5 gigawatts (GW) in 2011, from 375.5 GW at the end of 2010.

Air pollution caused more than 100 billion euros ($134.95 billion) in health and environmental damage, highlighting the need for more renewables sources of energy, a report published on Thursday by the European Environment Agency found.

Europe's 10,000 largest factories and energy facilities resulted in 102-169 billion euros in health issues, such as respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and environmental costs because of air pollution in 2009, the most recent available data.

Per citizen, the cost was between 200-300 euros.

Romania's centrist coalition government late on Wednesday approved a much awaited support scheme for renewable energy producers which would lead to a 2.5 percent rise in electricity tariffs for household consumers next year, it said in a statement.

The support scheme, which is based on green certificates and has been key to attracting billions of euros to wind energy, has been revised after the European Commission expressed concern it may overcompensate developers.

A U.N. panel suspended Romania from trading its surplus carbon emission rights for breaching Kyoto Protocol rules on reporting emissions, the country's environment ministry said on Sunday.

The compliance committee of the UNFCCC was sitting in a week-long meeting in Bonn, Germany and decided to suspend Romania from trading assigned amount units (AAUs) after a preliminary hearing in July, when it found the country did not report its national emissions inventory properly.

It may shock the Indian middle-class to know that it lives

European environment ministers could agree to tighten up widely flouted acid pollution laws this week after rapid progress in recent negotiations over industrial emissions brought a compromise within reach.