AUSTRALIA - An apocalyptic dust storm has been filmed engulfing a farm in Australia in the latest extreme weather to hit the country. Following months of devastating bushfires, the barren country was finally given a reprieve with rain sweeping across the country. Gigantic hailstorms were then spotted battering parts of the country and now footage has emerged of a terrifyingly huge dust storm engulfing a region. The first clip – taken by Jason Herbig from his farm in New South Wales – shows the wall of dust stretching out as far as the eye can see on the horizon. It then seems to completely block out the sun and Jason is even forced to turn on his car’s headlights to see – despite it being the middle of the day.

CHINA - The mysterious new virus that is starting to spread very rapidly in China has global health officials extremely concerned. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization will convene an emergency meeting to discuss whether this outbreak should be “declared a global health crisis”, and screeners are being put in place at airports all over the world. But to a certain extent it may already be too late, because we know that this virus has already spread via airplane to at least three other countries. And since the early symptoms of this disease are so similar to what one would expect after coming down with a common cold, there could potentially be countless numbers of victims that have not even gone to the hospital because they don’t think that anything is seriously wrong

LIBYA - Libya consists almost entirely of desert. Temperatures often climb above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) and some parts of the country haven't seen rain in decades. In total, only 1 percent of the land is fertile enough to cultivate. What's more, it has never really had a government, not even under the dictator Moammar Gadhafi. In Libya, tribes, elders and militias have always ruled. And yet, major world powers are currently fighting over it. A civil war has been raging here for years, one that has grown into a proxy war involving almost a dozen powers: Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Italy and France. Libya, that inhospitable corner of North Africa, is particularly important for Europe - indeed, there's a lot more at stake here than just a bit of desert.

CANADA - Canadians who cannot afford regular meals are more likely to die early, according to a study released on Monday, showing that people are dying from hunger even in wealthy countries. The study of more than half a million Canadian adults found that hunger was linked to raised mortality from all causes of death except cancer. But infectious diseases, unintentional injuries and suicide were twice as likely to kill those who faced severe problems finding enough food as those who do not, said the paper, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. "It's like we found third-world causes in a first-world country," lead author Fei Men, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. More than 4 million people in Canada struggle to get enough to eat, official data show, a problem that ranges from running out of food or skipping meals to compromising on quantity and quality.

USA - Over the past several months, we have witnessed one of the greatest stock market rallies in American history. The S&P 500 has gone 70 days in a row without a 1 percent loss, and most weeks we have seen one daily surge after another. If stock prices were exploding because the underlying US economy was performing extremely well, we would have reason to celebrate. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. In fact, last week I shared 12 signs that the economy is actually slowing down substantially.

USA - As various pro-gun rights groups prepare to gather at Virginia's state capitol in Richmond on Monday in what's expected to be one of the largest pro-gun rallies in recent memory, Democratic Governor Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency, police are busy setting up barricades and temporary holding pens - and one lawmaker has even arranged to spend most of the day in a safe house, according to the Washington Examiner.

LEBANON - Police in Lebanon tackled protesters with water cannons and tear gas, while demonstrators hurled stones and debris back at law enforcement, as unrest on the streets of Beirut escalated into violence on Sunday. Footage from the scene shows protesters and police clashing with each other on smoke-filled streets in downtown Beirut. Some of the protesters reportedly tried to force their way into the parliament, with police attempting to force them to disperse by using water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets. Graphic images purportedly showing injuries from rubber bullets have been shared online. The Lebanese Red Cross tweeted that a dozen of its teams were responding to the protests, adding that “30 people have been transported, until now, to nearby hospitals and 40 have been treated at the scene.” "We're not scared. This is all for our future and our children," shoemaker Bassam Taleb told Reuters at the protest. "The country is frozen. The state is not doing a thing, they're a bunch of thieves. And if you have money in the bank, you can't even get a hundred dollars out."

GERMANY - Upcoming talks in Berlin are an “important step” towards finally facilitating a long-lasting ceasefire in civil-war-torn Libya, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said ahead of negotiations on Sunday. “We see the ceasefire as a particularly important step toward reconciliation and political settlement” in Libya, Erdogan said, reiterating that peace can be achieved only through dialogue. The Turkish leader stated that a call to end hostilities, which was jointly made by him and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, has created the groundwork for further negotiations.

UK - Last week, millions of pounds in “constraint payments” were paid to wind energy farms to not run their turbines. Over £12 million was handed out to wind farms in the United Kingdom last week, following a major outage in a powerline that transported energy from Scottish wind farms to England. The handouts will be tacked onto consumers’ energy bills throughout the country. The firms were paid between 25 and 80 per cent more than they would have earned were the turbines actually running, reports The Telegraph. A study conducted in December by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) found that the UK handed out a record high £136 million to 86 wind farm owners last year in “constraint payments” when the grid was incapable of handling the energy flow.

CANADA - In Canada, the intense storm hit the Newfoundland province Friday with a blizzard that prompted St John’s authorities to declare a state of emergency. “This storm was a bomb cyclone, which intensified rapidly once it moved off the coast of New England,” according to the Weather Channel. The storm brought wind gusts that reached up to 97 miles per hour and caused huge snowdrifts that blocked roads, buried vehicles, and filled resident’s yards. I’ve never seen the combination of the amount of snow, the rate of snowfall and the wind speed that we’ve had here over the past couple of days,” said St John’s Mayor Danny Breen.

INDIA/AFRICA - It is almost as if someone flipped some sort of a switch as 2020 began, because we have been seeing really weird things happen all over the globe so far this year. First I want to discuss the massive armies of locusts that are voraciously eating crops in Asia and in Africa. Right now, a “deadly invasion by millions and millions of locusts” in India is absolutely devastating farm after farm, and the media in India is calling this locust invasion “the worst in over six decades”…

USA - The United States and Turkey are on a collision course. Although the two countries have been NATO allies for nearly 70 years, that partnership has gradually deteriorated over the past few years, as Washington wondered if it could rely on Turkey and Ankara feared that the United States didn't take its security concerns seriously. In the last six months, however, relations have taken a real nose-dive. In July, Turkey acquired advanced Russian air defense systems over US objections, and in October, it targeted Syrian Kurdish militias allied with the United States as part of an incursion into northern Syria.

POLAND - Polish MEPs spark Brussels panic after standing ovation for 'POLEXIT' demands. There is increasing fear in Brussels that another country is about follow Britain in leaving the EU, as the leader of the governing Law and Justice Party in Poland said this morning that "Poles deserve to live in a sovereign state". Polexit was trending on Twitter this morning, after several leading Polish politicians hit back at the EU for interfering in its domestic reforms. A British Brexiteer MEP received a standing ovation from his Polish counterparts after he urged the Polish Government to follow the UK and quit the European Union. Even Jarosław Kaczyński, the former Prime Minister and current Polish MEP, threatened to quit the EU, saying today that "Poles deserve to live in a sovereign state". The row between the EU and Poland escalated on Wednesday when the European Parliament debated the Article 7 probes underway against Poland and Hungary.

USA - In Manhattan, the homeless shelters are full, and the luxury skyscrapers are vacant. Such is the tale of two cities within America’s largest metro. Even as 80,000 people sleep in New York City’s shelters or on its streets, Manhattan residents have watched skinny condominium skyscrapers rise across the island. These colossal stalagmites initially transformed not only the city’s skyline but also the real-estate market for new homes. From 2011 to 2019, the average price of a newly listed condo in New York soared from $1.15 million to $3.77 million. But the bust is upon us. Today, nearly half of the Manhattan luxury-condo units that have come onto the market in the past five years are still unsold, according to The New York Times.

USA - The United States’ scientific lead is shrinking as China and other nations build up their science resources, says a report prepared by the National Science Board. “Other nations, particularly China, are rapidly developing their science and technology (S&T) capacity,” says the report, titled “The State of US Science and Engineering.” The report continued: ...the United States has seen its relative share of global S&T activity remain unchanged or shrink, even as its absolute activity levels have continued to rise … Increasingly, the United States is seen globally as an important leader rather than the uncontested leader. The report suggests the problem is a lack of federal funding: ...the share of US R&D funded by the federal government has declined. This decline is notable as federally funded R&D is an important source of support, particularly for the higher education sector and for the nation’s basic research enterprise.