Good Morning Australia!! - An exploding van crashes into an Aussie religious lobbying office - Indonesia claims to stop a plot to attack Bali - Germany names the suspect in the truck attack in Berlin - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The Canberra office of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) is badly damaged after it was hit by what's been described as a "car bomb", a van loaded with gas bottles that burst into flame.  Windows on both floors of the two-storey building, located less than a 10 minute drive from Parliament House, are broken; furnishing and light fixtures are said to be strewn about.  The driver is reportedly seeking medical attention.  ACL managing director Lyle Shelton claims the office was deliberately targeted in an "attack on free speech".

Indonesian police shot and killed three people who were allegedly plotting a bombing attack in Bali over the Christmas and New Year's holiday.  A fourth suspect in the house in Jakarta's Tangerang district was wounded and placed under arrest.  Authorities have busted up a number of alleged terror plots in Indonesia recently, leading to fears of more home-grown terrorism in the world's most-populous Muslim country.

The prime suspect in the truck ramming attack on a Christmas Market in Berlin has ties to the so-called Islamic State.  There is a Europe-wide manhunt going on for 24-year old Tunisian migrant Anis Amri.  Germany refused him asylum when he arrived in in the country a year ago, but deportation was on hold because Tunisia wouldn't take him back.  Finding the "violent and armed" Anis Amri will not be easy, as he is known to use multiple identities and claims of ethnicity.  But there is now a face and a focus to the investigation, and authorities are hoping a 100,000 Euro/AU$144,000 reward will help.

The Italian Parliament has approved a government plan for a 20 Billion Euro/AU$28.7 Billion bailout of the nation's banks.  The third largest bank - and the oldest in the world - Monte dei Paschi will probably need the lifeline by the end of the week.  Others will get attention in the coming weeks.

Brazil's largest construction company, Odebrecht, has admitted to paying bribes to officials in the US, Brazil and Switzerland to get lucrative contracts.  This admission came in a US court; the Justice Department says the US$3.5 Billion/AU$4.83 settlement from Odebrecht and its co-defendant, Brazilian petrochemical firm, Braskem, is the largest foreign bribery case yet.  This investigation is the sibling to Brazil's ongoing corruption probe into the state-owned oiled company Petrobras.

The death toll in the fireworks blast outside Mexico City has been raised to 31 lives lost, with more than 70 injured.  Only 13 bodies have been identified because the corpses are badly charred.

The evacuation of Aleppo is on-again, on snowy roads.  I really don't care which of the zillion different sides caused the latest delay, but there are still a few thousand people who'd like to get out of the war-ravaged city. 

Nigeria has confiscated 2.5 tons of fake "plastic rice" from China, smuggled into the country by unscrupulous businessmen who intended to sell it as food for Christmas.  The plastic beads turn soft and slightly sticky when boiled - "Only God knows what would have happened" if people ate it, said Customs chief Haruna Mamudu.

Poland's far-right authoritarian government is rejecting more pressure from the opposition and the European Union to respect human rights and press freedoms.  Opposition Civic Platform party chief Grzegorz Schetyna says his bloc will remain camped out in Parliament until it resumes on 11 January to protest plans to limit media access.  Ruling PiS party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski issued a cowardly threat, describing the sit-in as having a "criminal nature".  Meanwhile, EU Vice-President Frans Timmermans says PiS has limited time to reply to a list of recommendations to re-democratize Warsaw, after a year of consolidated power:  "We feel a strong, strong feeling of solidarity with the Polish people who deserve, like all Europeans, to have an independent judiciary, to have a full separation of powers," said Mr. Timmermans.

Playful Panda valiantly defends his home from an interloping snowman.  At the Toronto Zoo.