Three icebreaking ships were Thursday hurrying to reach a Russian vessel carrying 74 people on a scientific expedition which is trapped by ice off Antarctica, with Australian authorities coordinating the rescue mission.
A British Greenpeace protester Tuesday said he was "jubilant" after Russia closed the criminal case against him for staging a protest on an oil rig, and vowed to keep fighting for environmental issues.
Local officials in a Beijing suburb have built themselves a white-walled, gold-domed office complex resembling Moscow's Kremlin, state media reported, prompting anger among Chinese who condemned the lavish buildings.
Just six months after first leaking National Security Agency secrets in a move that triggered a revaluation of US surveillance policies, Edward Snowden is declaring "mission's already accomplished."
Two American astronauts prepared to step out Tuesday on a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk to wrap up repairs to the cooling system at the International Space Station, NASA said.
Intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and faces US espionage charges, on Sunday lauded Brazil's vibrant democracy.
Pussy Riot bandmember Maria Alyokhina, who was freed from prison Monday under a Kremlin-backed amnesty, slammed the measure as a mere publicity stunt and said that she would have preferred to remain in prison.
Russia's former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Sunday after walking free from a decade in jail that he would stay away from his homeland but help to free Russian political prisoners still behind bars.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a decree granting a pardon to Russia's former richest man and bitter Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, allowing his release after more than a decade in prison.
Chinese workers are on their way to build the country's fourth Antarctic research base and a fifth is being planned, state-run media said Thursday as the country expands its imprint on the icy continent.
Washington has joined Russia's neighbours in voicing alarm after Moscow revealed it had moved nuclear-capable Iskander missiles closer to EU borders in response to the US-led deployment of a disputed air defence shield.
The month of November was the hottest experienced on Earth since record-keeping began in 1880, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday said that Western countries appear to have lost "their sense of reality" over the pro-EU protests in Ukraine, which he called the work of provocateurs.