Good Morning Australia!! - A racist murderer is convicted of a cowardly slaughter - Greece's holiday stand against austerity - Israel's miniskirt rebellion - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

A jury in South Carolina didn't take long to convict the racist Dylann Roof of last year's massacre at a predominantly black church in Charleston that left nine people dead.  Roof brought a handgun into a bible study group at the Emanuel AME Church and opened fire.  Prosecutors said he showed "tremendous cowardice" and "tremendous hatred".  The jury reached a verdict before many news outlets had the chance to report that deliberations had begun.  Roof is eligible for the death penalty.

The International Red Cross has evacuated hundreds of people from eastern Aleppo via a convoy of buses and ambulances.  The full evacuation will likely take a few days.  Government troops and their Russian allies have taken most of the city after four years of rebel occupation.  It's unclear how many rebels are being transported out alongside civilians.

The Greek Parliament went ahead and defied its scrooge-like European creditors by approving a one-time, pre-Christmas payout of more than AU$875 Million to some very, very poor pensioners - those who have suffered the most under the years of economic crisis extended by EU-imposed austerity.  Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the pension payment would come out of a One Billion Euro tax surplus.  Athens also scrapped a VAT tax for Aegean Islanders who are hit hard by the waves of Migrants trying to pass through to Europe.  The EU creditors are now deciding if any more financial aid will be coming for Greece.

Traces of explosives have been found on the bodies of victims of the crash of EgyptAir Flight MS804 last May.  The Airbus A320 was traveling from Paris to Cairo when it plunged into the Mediterranean Sea, killing all 66 people on board.  The findings by Egyptian investigators means a criminal investigation will now begin.  There has been no credible claim of responsibility.

The Anglican Archbishop of Perth Roger Herft has resigned after admitting he let down survivors of sexual abuse.  "I've become aware that the sacred trust that the people of this region placed upon me," said Rev. Herft.  This came months after he testified before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about his time as Bishop of Newcastle from 1993 - 2005.  The Anglican Diocese of Perth says Rev. Herft's replacement will be named next year.

Israel's parliament has has hemlines, after a protest by women who were sick of being told their clothing was "inappropriate".  In recent weeks, Knesset security had strictly enforced rules on the length of skirts, going as far to ban some women from entering the building.  While defending the need for decorum, Speaker Yuli Edelstein said the Knesset had not gone "Iran-Taliban".

A trophy hunting veterinarian who was roundly lambasted on the internet for posing next to a lion he killed has himself died in a hunting accident.  55-year old Luciano Ponzetto of Italy reportedly slipped on ice in the hills outside Turin while hunting wild birds, falling 30 meters and dying upon impact.  Ponzetto's Instagram account was chock full of photos of him with dead leopards, lions, rams, and boars.  The backlash to being an animal doctor who kills animals forced him to step down from his previous job as medical director of a kennel business last year. 

A Tennessee newspaper is retracting its heartbreaking Christmas story of a Santa who went to comfort a five-year old patient in hospital, only to have the child die in his arms.  The Knoxville News-Sentinel says it cannot find any area hospital that will corroborate the tale told by professional Santa Eric Schmitt-Matzen.  The paper uncritically reported the story in the first place without Schmitt-Matzen providing the name of the boy, his family, the nurse who called him to the hospital, or even the hospital.  So, journalism.. try it sometime.

Windows cleaners dressed up as the current and the next Chinese zodiac animals and washed windows in Tokyo in anticipation of the coming new year.