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1. In Norilsk the soil around the city is so polluted that it's economically feasible to mine it for nickel.
2. There is an alternative list with more information and better research from the Blacksmith Institute: The World's Worst Polluted Places. (However, it contains Europe's biggest de facto nature reserve as one of the most polluted places in the world (Chernobyl exclusion zone))

There are many thousands of Bugzilla accounts. Anyone can sign up. Just because you saw something in Bugzilla doesn't mean a developer said it. Most comments are not from developers, especially in bug reports with many comments about a hotly debated topic. It also depends on the context; in some bug reports, the reporter may be mistaking caching for a memory leak. In that context, not releasing memory is a feature, not a bug. That doesn't mean they're saying that Firefox has absolutely no memory leaks whatsoever. Sorry for the confusion.

I've had your perfect example of a killer memory leak open for over two hours in Firefox 3 beta 1 on Windows XP. You weren't kidding when you said it reloads itself; it's constantly downloading and rendering the iframe. Memory started (of course, after a full day of using Firefox) at 91 MB Mem usage and 84 MB VM Size. The memory use is now still at 91 MB Mem usage and 84 MB VM Size. You can file a bug report on Firefox 2 if you like.

I wondered have any other slashdot readers had the misfortune of actually going to any of these places?

I myself live and work in Azerbaijan and have driven through Sumgayit. It's a horrific industrial wasteland. We spent 30+ minutes driving at highway speed through abandoned factory complexes. Our driver even pointed out the chlorine processing plant, and inforrmed us that if you walk on the ground around the plant puddles of mercury form in the holes left by your boot prints.

Think of it like this: How good will your economy be when people take days off from work for bronchial infections, asthme, and are dropping like flies from cancer? Have a look at the heavy industrial cities of Russia and China, where life expectancy is falling by the year, and the economies are tanking because no one wants to live or invest there?

Worst polluted cites

DZERZINSK, RUSSIA
In Dzerzhinsk, a significant center of the Russian chemical manufacturing, the average life expectancy is 42 years for men and 47 for women. Despite the heavy toll on the populations health, a quarter of the city's 300,000 residents are still employed in factories that turn out toxic chemicals. According to a 2003 BBC report it is the young who are most vulnerable. In the local cemetery, there are a shocking number of graves of people below the age of 40. In 2003 it was reported that the death rate exceeded the birth rate by 2.6 times and it is easy to see why. The dioxins that get into the water as a by-product of chlorine production are reported to cause cancer even in minute doses.

LINFEN, SHANXI PROVINCE, CHINA
Shanxi Province is considered to be the heart of Chinas enormous and expanding coal industry, providing about two thirds of the nations energy. Within it, Linfen has been identified as one of Shanxis most polluted cities with residents claiming that they literally choke on coal dust in the evenings, according to a BBC report. Local clinics are seeing growing cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung cancer. Lead poisoning was also seen at very high rates in Chinese children in the Shanxi Province.

LA OROYA, PERU
Since 1922, adults and children in La Oroya, Peru - a mining town in the Peruvian Andes and the site of a poly-metallic smelter - have been exposed to the toxic emissions from the plant. Currently owned by the Missouri-based Doe Run Corporation, the plant is largely responsible for the dangerously high blood lead levels found in the children of this community. Ninety-nine percent of children living in and around La Oroya have blood lead levels that exceed acceptable amounts. Sulfur dioxide concentrations also exceed the World Health Organization emissions standards by ten fold. The vegetation in the surrounding area has been destroyed by acid rain due to high sulfur dioxide emissions.

• Radioactive cobalt dumped in vacant lot in Bangkok. 3 dead, 12 injured.
• Radioactive cobalt shows up in scrapyard in Turkey. Two injured cutting up the scrap.
• Radioactive cobalt shows up in scrapyard in Brazil. Four dead, 300 exposed.
• Radioactive cobalt shows up in Mexico. Recycled into rebar and metal furniture. One known dead, injuries unknown. Discovered when some of the furniture was trucked to Los Alamos and set off radiation alarms.