Hello Australia!! - Dozens die in an Asian Cold Snap - A costly mishap cold hamper the search for MH370 - Afghanistan's President says peace talks with the Taliban must take place - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

An unusual cold snap in East Asia is being blamed for dozens of deaths.  The temperature dropped to 4 C Degrees in Taipei, Taiwan and went even lower in neighboring New Taipei City.  Authorities say most of the 57 fatalities were elderly people who suffered heart troubles and shortness of breath because of the cold.  Snow fell on the southern Japanese cities of Kagoshima and Nagasaki, and a few centimeters even accumulated on Amami Island, a subtropical island located some 380 kilometers southwest of Kagoshima City where it hasn't snowed in 115 years.  Five deaths are blamed on the cold in Japan.  Flights are cancelled in Japan and South Korea because of snow, and Hong Kong residents shivered in 3 C degrees, the lowest temperature there in nearly 60 years.

A big snag in the search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 in the Indian Ocean:  The sonar-equipped robot sub collided with an undersea volcano - the device and 4,500 meters of snapped cable are now resting on the sea floor.  The Joint Agency Coordination Center (JACC) did not specify how this would impact the search, which was expecting to be completed by June.  Meanwhile, four Malaysian officials and two Thai experts have been sent to southern Thailand to examine newly found wreckage, a curved piece of metal measuring about two meters by three meters that some think might have  come from MH370.

Seven people were hurt and an American Airlines jet had to make an emergency landing after running into terrible turbulence.  The Boeing 767 carrying 192 passengers and 11 crew members was en route from Miami to Milan, Italy when it happened.  The plane put down in Saint John's, Newfoundland in far eastern Canada, where three flight attendants and four passengers were transported to hospital for further evaluation.  Their injuries are said to be non-life threatening.

The Afghanistan Taliban is demanding the foreign troops leave the country before it will join formal peace talks.  It also wants Afghanistan to release Taliban prisoners.  That isn't likely to happen, but the Afghan government is keen to get the talks moving as quickly as possible.  President Ashraf Ghani warned that if peace talks with the Taliban did not start by April the conflict would intensify, with consequences across the region:  "Time is not a friend," he said. "We all understand that February and March are crucial."