Nepal's tourism ministry said Friday it plans to exercise tighter control of climbers scaling Mount Everest to make sure they keep the world's highest peak clean and to prevent rows.

The ministry will set up a 10-member team made up of government officials, veteran Nepalese climbers and security officers that will start work when the next climbing season opens in the spring.

A wrangle over growing genetically modified crops in France flared anew on Thursday as the country's top administrative court overturned a government ban on growing GM corn sold by the U.S. giant Monsanto.

In the second legal setback to French restrictions on MON810 corn in five years, the Council of State court said a moratorium imposed on the product since March 2012 failed to uphold European Union law.

The Marshall Islands has warned of a Pacific "climate catastrophe" that will wipe it off the map without decisive action on global warming, saying the next 12 months are critical.

Tony de Brum, minister in assistance to the Marshall Islands' president, is in Australia making the case for a major climate declaration at the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum it will host in September which he has insisted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry must attend.

A rare southern right whale covered in what appear to be shark bites has washed up on an Australian beach, exciting scientists who Thursday said it will help boost knowledge of the species.

The carcass, estimated at 12 metres (39 feet) long and weighing up to 50 tonnes, came ashore on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, an area known for great white sharks.

A major research aquarium able to simulate ocean warming and carry out key studies on the deadly crown-of-thorns starfish devastating the Great Barrier Reef opened in Australia on Thursday.

The Aus$35 million (U.S.$31.4 million) National Sea Simulator, or SeaSim, was unveiled in the northern city of Townsville by Industry Minister Kim Carr, who said it was a vital weapon in protecting the reef and Australia's vast territorial waters.

A $60 million research ship funded by a Google executive is setting sail from San Francisco to study a so-called "dead zone" in the Pacific Ocean and other mysteries of the sea.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports the 272-foot (83-meter) vessel called Falkor was scheduled to leave port Thursday.

A big new study says as the world gets warmer, people are more prone to get hot under the collar. Scientists found that aggressive acts like violent crimes and wars become more likely with each added degree.

The research analyzed 60 studies of such things as the historic collapses of empires, recent wars and violent crime rates in the United States. They found a common thread: Extreme weather — hot or dry — means more violence.

Puerto Ricans are used to wet tropical weather, but the past few weeks have unleashed a series of storms of almost biblical proportions, destroying hundreds of homes, sweeping away cars and leaving tens of thousands without power.

It has been the wettest July ever recorded in the U.S. island territory, with 14 inches (36 centimeters) so far drenching the capital. More rain fell on July 18 than had ever come down in a 24-hour period.

Deep in India's northeast, villagers use grass to sound-proof their huts from deafening rain, clouds are a familiar sight inside homes and a suitably rusted sign tells visitors they are in the "wettest place on earth".

Oddly enough, lifelong residents of Mawsynram, a small cluster of hamlets in Meghalaya state have little idea that their scenic home holds a Guinness record for the highest average annual rainfall of 11,873 millimeters (467 inches).

Environmentalists accused a Thai energy firm on Tuesday of understating the extent of a major pipeline leak as the navy warned the oil slick might reach the mainland.

Tourists were leaving the resort island of Ko Samet in the Gulf of Thailand as workers in protective suits used hoses, buckets and shovels to clean up blackened sand and oil which washed ashore on a once-idyllic beach.