Howdy Australia!! - Lula walks out of Prison - A court ruling could ignite India's religious divide - Wouldn't it be common sense to allow people to see what they're doing at work? - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The New South Wales fires have been pretty bad:  At least 100 homes have been burned and one person is dead while two are unaccounted for.  The poor Koalas are in trouble.  Have a good thought for the firies and the people who needed help today.

Lula has walked out of a Brazilian prison, and is now free to appeal his conviction on corruption charges from the outside.  Brazil's Supreme Court yesterday ruled that defendants should not be jailed until after the appeals process is exhausted.  The popular former president whose full name is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was greeted by happy supporters as he walked out of the federal police headquarters in the city of Curitiba where he has been lock up for 580 days.  Lula has always denied the charges and his conviction - which supporters have long maintained was a political hit to knock him out of the 2018 presidential election - is in doubt after the website The Intercept revealed collusion between the judge Sergio Moro and prosecutors to go after political rivals of the far right.

India is on edge as it awaits a key Supreme Court ruling, and either way it goes it could be trouble.  This is over the highly disputed religious site of Ayodhya, which Hindus claim is the birthplace of their god Ram.  A Mughal mosque had stood there from the 16th Century until 1992, when rioting fundamentalist Hindus tore it down.  Subsequent archaeological digs suggest the mosque was built over an earlier Hindu temple.  A 2010 court ruling sought to divide the site 2/3s to the Hindus, 1/3 to the Muslims - no one was pleased with that particular dispensing of the wisdom of Solomon.  Police in Ayodhya city are on high alert because no matter what happens, there are going to be a lot of upset people.

US House Impeachment investigators released more transcripts of testimony from White House officials, and it keeps pointing to scheme to illegally shake-down Ukraine into coming up with fake evidence on Trump's political rival by withholding pre-approved military aid.  Dr. Fiona Hill, the former senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council, testified that EU ambassador Gordon Sondland blurted out the scheme to her.  And the National Security Council's Ukraine expert Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified that Sondland revealed it was White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney who coordinated the quid pro quo.  

The Philippines is granting asylum to an Iranian former beauty queen who fears she would be executed if she returns to Iran because she has criticized the government.  Bahareh Zare Bahari had been stuck in the airport at Manila for weeks after Iran filed an Interpol "Red Notice" for her because she spoke out for women's rights and displayed an image of crown prince Reza Pahlavi from the deposed Shah's family at the 2018 Miss Intercontinental beauty contest in Manila.  She's been living there since 2014 to study dentistry; now as a refugee, all work restrictions will be lifted.

There's a growing movement of Japanese women demanding to be allowed to wear eyeglasses at work in the often-ridiculously sexist country, which ranks 110 out of 149 in the World Economic Forum's latest global gender gap report.  Social media exploded after a TV exposed businesses that were imposing the bans on female staff.  "If the rules prohibit only women to wear glasses, this is a discrimination against women," said Kanae Doi if Human Rights Watch.  Earlier this year, women were enraged by employers who demand they wear high heels, only to have the liver-spotted fossil who pretends to be the health, labour and welfare minister rule that such dress codes were "necessary and appropriate".