Just outside the Olympic Park in Sochi, where the Winter Games open on Friday, is a green space with benches, artificial ponds and a couple of hides. "Ornithological Park", the sign declares.

The problem is that there is not a bird in sight in the park, which was set up as a replacement for sensitive wetlands that were covered over for the construction of Games venues.

All the pieces of the most powerful space telescope ever are ready for assembly at NASA, the U.S. space agency said Monday.

The $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled for launch in 2018 and aims to provide an unprecedented look at far-away planets and the first galaxies formed.

Iran on Monday unveiled two domestically-made communication satellites, one to bolster its wireless connections and the other capable of taking high-resolution pictures, media reported.

Iran's space program has prompted concern among Western governments, which fear Tehran is trying to master the technology required to deliver a nuclear warhead.

The amount of harmful pollutants released in the process of recovering oil from tar sands in western Canada is likely far higher than corporate interests say, university researchers said Monday.

Actual levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emissions into the air may be two to three times higher than estimated, said the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed U.S. journal.

A series of explosions rocked Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano, spewing columns of ash into the air that reached as far as Quito.

Ash fall from the plumes was reported up to 130 kilometers (80 miles) north in the Ecuadoran capital, authorities said.

The United Nations Security Council is cracking down on ivory hunters and traffickers who finance armed groups in Africa in a new initiative that has been welcomed by conservationists.

Two resolutions adopted by the council last week -- one relating to the Central African Republic, the other to the Democratic Republic of Congo -- stated that the trade in illegal wildlife was fueling conflicts in the region and bankrolling organized crime.

The Bob Barker, belonging to the militant anti-whaling campaigners Sea Shepherd, is moored in Hobart, Australia on December 13, 2011

Japan on Monday said it was asking the Netherlands to take "practical measures" against a Dutch-registered vessel that collided with a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean.

As he trains his .458 Winchester Magnum rifle on a tethered goat he is using as bait, tiger-hunter Nawab Shafat Ali Khan whispers that it is only a matter of time before his real prey reappears.

"Now is a very dangerous time. The next human attack could happen anytime," said the 55-year-old, who is leading a major tiger hunt on the outskirts of India's Jim Corbett National Park.

The controversial policy to catch and kill sharks off popular west coast beaches in Auatralia was given the green light last month

Thousands of people rallied across Australia Saturday against a controversial shark culling policy designed to prevent attacks, saying killing the marine animals was the not the answer.

Furious tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef on Saturday (Shenzhen: 002291.SZ - news) threatened legal action after approval was given to dump of up to three million cubic metres of dredge waste in park waters.

Association of Marine Park Tour Operators president Colin McKenzie, the peak industry lobby group covering tourism in the World Heritage-listed reef region, accused the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority of pandering to politicians.