Good Morning Australia!! - Racism and ethics allegations taint Trump's cabinet picks - Is Indonesia heading for a showdown over religion versus democracy? - Europe's worst killer acts the part - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Lawyers for former detainees in Darwin's notorious youth detention centers have filed a class action against the Northern Territory Government, seeking compensation for years of physical and psychological abuse.  The legal firm Maurice and Blackburn is representing two men who say they were subjected to "unlawful" mistreatment including false imprisonment, and assault and battery.  The class action suit could see hundreds of victims of abuse getting compensated.  An investigation by the ABC last year showed numerous cases of children being stripped naked, tear-gassed, and physically abused inside NT youth detention facilities.

The ideologue chosen by Donald Trump to be America's next top law enforcer has denied being a racist Ku Klux Klan sympathizer.  Alabama Republican US Senator Jeff Sessions also claims he opposes banning Muslim immigration to the United States.  Opposition Democrats don't have enough votes to stop the confirmation of Jeff Sessions - like they did when then-President Ronald Reagan tried to appoint him to the federal bench in the 1980s - but they will use his confirmation hearings to bring up every weird, racist thing he ever did.  Meanwhile, the publisher Harper Collins has withdrawn the book written by Trump's NSA communications nominee Monica Crowley amid plagiarism allegations.  Because the orange clown's cabinet will be populated by racists, buffoons, and people without ethics.

Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is more radical than ever, warn Norwegian prosecutors.  Norway is appealing a lower court ruling that said Breivik's treatment in prison amounted to "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".  Breivik, who basically proved prosecutors correct by giving  did a nazi salute upon entering court, is convicted of murdering 77 people, mostly children, at a political party youth camp in 2011.  BTW, a Norwegian prison cell is about the size of a small studio apartment, with an ensuite.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has sided with Switzerland, which fined Muslim parents who refused to send their teen daughters to compulsory mixed swimming lessons.  ECHR judges said the lessons it did not violate the family's religious rights.  The ruling insists that schools and schooling play an important role in social integration, and exemptions from some lessons are "justified only in very exceptional circumstances".

Morocco is reportedly banning the burka.  Local media reports stores and manufacturers are being told to get rid of their existing stock.  The government hasn't officially commented on the head-to-toe covering worn by women in Muslim nations, but one minister noted that "bandits have repeatedly used this garment to perpetrate their crimes".

Al Shabaab gunmen publicly executed two men accused of being Gay.  This happened in Buale town in Somalia's Middle Juba region.

The Taliban is blamed for killing several people in twin bomb blasts in Afghanistan.

Former Indonesian president Megawati Soekarnoputi is offering her political foot soldiers to defend the government against a hardline Islamist insurgency led by malcontent cleric Habib Rizieq.  In a speech supporting President Joko Widodo, Megawati said: "My men don't always behave, Mr. President.  But when it comes to defending the nation and the country, they will give their souls," and her PDIP party will "stand strong" with the administration "that has been elected constitutionally through a direct election".

Repression in Thailand is about to get worse, as junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha and King Maha Vajiralongkorn have hatched a plan to change the country's draft constitution to "ensure" the king's "royal powers".  Prayuth didn't specify what would happen, but critics suspect that the post-Democracy constitution would lose some articles that would have restricted the king's authority.  Thailand already has the world's most-restrictive lese majeste rules, with jail terms of up to 15 years for each count of royal defamation. 

At least eleven people are dead in the collapse of a pedestrian bridge made of rope and planks in Colombia.

The Roman Catholic Church is Mexico is calling on authorities to search fora priest who went missing in the northern state of Coahuila, which has been plagued by drug cartel violence.  Fr. Joaquin Hernandez Sifuentes has been missing since 3 January.  The Mexican Council of Bishops said "crime and violence destroy the most sacred thing we have, life".

Mexico's new Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray firmly said "there is no way" that his country will pay for US fascist demagogue and pretender-elect Donald Trump's proposed border wall.  "There are no circumstances," said Videgaray, "not even the best possible trade deal, investments, support which would justify taking a step that would violate the dignity of Mexicans to such an extent."  Trump in recent days asked the US Congress to pay for the idiotic wall, breaking his promise to the dupes and rubes who voted for him that Mexico would somehow pay.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has reshuffled his cabinet in what might be a reaction to the insanity south of his border.  He named Chrystia Freeland as Canada's new foreign minister: She's an experienced trade negotiator amid worries Trump will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, and she's a former journalist of Ukrainian descent is barred from Putin's Russia, something she has called an honor.

Snow?  In Greece?  Yep.