Australia's multi-billion dollar tourism industry is under increasing threat from climate change with some of the nation's top natural wonders in the firing line as temperatures and sea levels rise, a study warned Thursday.

At least four people were killed and two more are missing after Indonesia's capital region was hit by severe flooding and landslides, authorities said Tuesday, as thousands fled  waterlogged neighbourhoods.

Moscow authorities battled to clear streets and told children they could skip school as the city was blanketed by its heaviest snowfall in 100 years.

Freezing weather at the Winter Olympics threatens to force some athletes and staff to pull out of Friday's opening ceremony as Pyeongchang shivers in temperatures plunging to minus 20 degrees Celsius.

At least one person died and several were injured after Moscow experienced its heaviest day of snowfall since records began, the city's mayor and agencies said Sunday.

Bundle up America, the world's furriest weather forecaster says six more weeks of winter are in store.

The Iraqi capital's decrepit water network will be overhauled under a $210 million World Bank project aimed at tackling chronic supply shortages and outbreaks of disease.

A powerful 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan Wednesday, the USGS said, sending people in Kabul rushing into the streets with tremors felt as far away as Islamabad and New Delhi.

The European Union on Tuesday gave France, Germany, Britain and six other polluting member states until next week to meet the bloc's air quality standards or face legal action. 

The number of Filipinos fleeing from the erupting Mayon volcano to safe zones has swelled to nearly 90,000, officials said Monday, worsening a sanitation crisis in the already stretched relief camps.