Songbirds fly thousands of miles to return to the northern hemisphere every spring, just as regularly as the sun comes up every morning.

Songbirds fly thousands of miles to return to the northern hemisphere every spring, just as regularly as the sun comes up every morning.

The Arctic ice caps and Antarctic glaciers are well-known barometers of global warming, but melting masses of ice in the Himalayas are in perhaps even more danger.

A Russian opposition activist was forced into a mental hospital in one of many signs of the Russian government's crackdown ahead of elections next month.

Tibetan nomads (right, in a tourist's photo) may seem to exist outside of politics and time, but more than 1,000 battled Chinese authorities last month over the detention of three monks. Several more nomads were given 10-year jail sentences for demanding the return of the exiled Dalai Lama.