The Omicron variant of COVID-19 was only named on Friday, but it's already notorious.

Even though there are still more questions about it than answers, the new variant is already wreaking havoc worldwide, as governments pre-emptively throw up borders and reintroduce restrictions in a bid to slow its spread.

So what do we know about Omicron for sure?

And among the known unknowns, what is the greatest cause for concern?

Today on The Signal: Omicron, the latest twist in the pandemic.

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Professor Nancy Baxter, Head of Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne

This pandemic is far from over, with scientists scrambling to get a handle on the Omicron variant as governments worldwide throw up hard borders.

Nevertheless, countries from around the world are already starting to prepare for the next one, with a meeting underway today to potentially thrash out a new pandemic treaty.

So what options are on the table?

And can the world's nations really agree on where they failed against COVID-19 in order to do better?

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Professor Adam Kamradt-Scott, Chair of Global Public Health, School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute, Florence, Italy

Vaccinated, cured, or dead: those are the three likely paths ahead for Germans, according to the country's Health Minister, as it prepares to plunge into pandemic winter.

Many European countries are currently in the grips of a brutal fourth wave of COVID-19.

It's so bad that Austria has just gone back into lockdown in an attempt to spare the country's already overwhelmed ICUs.

Only two thirds of Europeans have been fully vaccinated so far, and many of those people are at a point now where their immunity is starting to fade.

It's a pattern that's making health officials worried about what the next few months have in store.

Today on the Signal, Europe's backsliding COVID situation. Is it a sign of things to come for Australia?

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Eva Schernhammer, Professor of Epidemiology, Medical University of Vienna

Religious discrimination, voter ID laws, a federal anti-corruption watchdog: Scott Morrison's end-of-year parliamentary to-do list is long.

So why is a group of the government's own parliamentarians trying to derail it with a fight over state vaccine rules?

Today on The Signal, why backbenchers are revolting, and what it might mean for the Morrison government's re-election.

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David Speers, Host, ABC TV Insiders

The Victorian Government's own logging business, VicForests, is facing new allegations of illegal logging.

In the past it's been found to have been clearing in protected areas -- including the habitat of endangered species.

This time, the allegations are to do with illegally clearing within the Melbourne catchment area in a way that scientists say could threaten the quality of the city's drinking water.

Today on The Signal, a special investigation into allegations of illegal logging by a Government-owned company.

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Michael Slezak, National Science, Technology and Environment Reporter, ABC

COVID-19 had been largely kept out of the Northern Territory, but in the past few days that changed.

Now, residents in a string of communities are living under some of the harshest lockdowns yet imposed in Australia, as the virus spreads in Katherine and across the outback.

So what went wrong?

Today on The Signal, we're examining how the virus spread in the NT, and asking whether the lockdowns and a reinvigorated vaccination campaign will halt its spread.

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Jane Bardon, ABC Northern Territory reporter

Deb Aloisi, Binjari Community Aboriginal Corporation

Kevin Rogers, Rockhole resident

Lisa Mumbin, Chairwoman, Wurli Wurlinjang Aboriginal Health Service, Katherine

Jack Green, Garawa elder

Malarndirri McCarthy, NT Labor Senator

Dr Robert Parker, Australian Medical Association NT President

John Paterson, Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance chief executive

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been talking up the future of the coal industry in the decades to come.

That's despite a COP26 promise to "phase down" coal, and frequent widespread predictions that market forces are already forcing coal into terminal decline.

So who's right?

Today on The Signal, the surprisingly bright future of mining in Australia.

How much more coal are we really going to dig up and sell?

And what other kinds of mining might take its place?

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Dr Richard Denniss, Chief Economist, The Australia Institute

Most of the world's nations struck a major deal on Sunday in Glasgow to do more to bring down their emissions.

But for the deal to be worth the paper it's written on, one key assumption has to be true: that we actually know what our emissions are.

So can we really keep track of our climate-altering emissions?

And if we can't, how much trouble are we in?

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Dr Philippe Ciais, Researcher and Associate Director, Climate and Environmental Science Laboratory, Pierre Simon Laplace Institute, Paris

A new migrant crisis is building on the European Union's eastern frontier.

At the border with Poland, thousands of migrants and asylum seekers are camped out in forests and woodlands in Belarus trying to enter.

So how did they get there?

And how does this impasse resolve?

Today on The Signal, how Belarus engineered a migrant crisis, and why.

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Sara Cincurova, independent journalist, Bratislava, Slovakia

You don't see gallows at a protest all that often in Australia, but they've appeared more than once lately in Melbourne.

The scenes are just the most visible part of the backlash to the Victorian Government's new pandemic power bill, which has been described as an attack on democracy by the state opposition.

So what is it about this bill that's inspired so much anger?

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Josh Taylor, reporter, The Guardian Australia