New evidence of climate change as blazes come six weeks early in 2014.

Around 400 delegates are expected including representatives of 41 ethnic minorities representing around a quarter of a million people. 

From 'fireworks' made from nothing more than hot water in minus 50C, to surfing in the Pacific, this is the New Year on our doorstep.

Keep this to yourself, but one of the last great undiscovered travel secrets on our planet is the Land of Fire and Ice.

Another success in major operation to clamp down on illegal batches of luxury food during fishing season in Siberia.

Earlier reports suggested organised gangs seek to sell gyrfalcons on the black market for as much as $50,000 each. 

Beast was seen daily on roadside begging for food from humans, but he fell for a cabbage pie bait and was returned to wild.

Grigory Akhara, 21, was unconscious but alive when driver Ulyana Lobanova, 30, and her foul-mouthed husband Roman, 42, refused to back-up.

Geysers, active volcanoes, thermal lakes, mountains, Pleistocene glaciers, cascading rivers... and a lot of bears!