Hello Australia !! - Japan is rapidly militarizing its laid back southern islands to answer China - Beijing's extra-chunky air prompts another smog Red Alert - Brazil's president gets some much-needed breathing room against forces that want her impeachment - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Beijing officials issued another air pollution Red Alert, coming just a little more than a week after the first-ever such warning.  Beijing's Meteorological Service says the Chinese capital will experience dense, dangerous smog from Saturday to Tuesday.  China's national meteorologists say there will be a massive blanket of smog from Xian in central China to Harbin in the northeast.  Coal-powered industry and power generation causes the problem.  China still depends on coal for more than 60 percent of its power needs.

China's military conducted war games in the South China Sea earlier this week, according to the People's Liberation Army Daily Newspaper.  These included warships, submarines and fighter jets simulating cruise missile strikes on ships.  Beijing claims almost all of the resource and energy rich waters between the Philippines and Vietnam, which are hundreds of kilometers beyond China's internationally recognized territorial limits.  Australia has a stake in it as well, as more than $4 Billion in international trade passes through the waters.

Japan is beefing up its armaments and fortifications in its islands in the East China Sea, a drastic change from the strategy that served it for decades after World War II.  This comes after the US asked its Asian partners to help it contain a more aggressive China.  Tokyo is stringing a line of anti-ship, anti-aircraft missile batteries along 200 islands in the East China Sea stretching 1,400 kilometers from the country's main islands toward Taiwan.

An Israeli court released supermodel and TV host Bar Refeali on A$270,000 bail after she was accused of failing to report millions of dollars in income earned abroad and tens of thousands of dollars in "celebrity benefits".  Refaeli spent several hours being questioned at the Tel Aviv offices of the Israel Tax Authority earlier this week.

Brazil's Supreme Court has annulled an opposition-appointed commission set up to deal with impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.  It's a much-needed victory for Dilma as she fights the process.  Justices ruled the secret ballot to establish the panel was wrong, and ordered the procedure be restarted in an open vote.  It also gave the final word on whether to open an impeachment trial to the Senate, where Rousseff has greater support.  Opponents accuse Rousseff of wrongfully borrowing money to fill out budget holes in the federal budget, she says she did nothing wrong.

Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou says his government has foiled a coup plot.  He didn't go into a lot of detail, but four senior military officials had been arrested according to local media.  Mr. Issoufou says the plot involved the use of "aerial firepower" to unseat him.

US Federal agents arrested the friend who sold two assault weapons to the husband and wife shooters who attacked a Christmas Party in San Bernardino, California killing 14 people before they died in a shootout with cops.  Prosecutors say 24-year old Enrique Marquez, Jr. is a convert to radical Islam and plotted other attacks with Syed Rizwan Farook, including trapping motorists in rush hour traffic and killing them with pipe bombs and assault weapons.