Hello Australia! - The EU Parliament backs Edward Snowden - China says the US "risks war" in the South China Sea - The law may finally be catching up to a famous director - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is calling for "flexibility" at talks aimed at finding a political solution to Syria's four year old civil war.  For the first time, Iran is being included in the discussion; Tehran, along with Russia, backs the government of Bashar Al-Assad.  The US and its allies say Assad cannot play any long-term role in Syria's future.  Mr. Ban is urging all parties to abandon "national perspectives" in favor of "global leadership".

The US and China held a video conference and have agreed to maintain dialogue, after a US warship challenged China's claim to artificial islands in the South China Sea.  Chinese military officials got all bombastic, warning the US against "dangerous and provocative acts" and claiming the sail-by risked "a minor incident that sparks war".  The US maintains those waters are international shipping lanes, and they will be kept open.

Men armed with knives and swords attacked an opposition political rally in Yangon, just a week before the country's elections.  The candidate for the National League for Democracy Naing Ngan Lin was taken to hospital with head and hand injuries, and several people were arrested.  The NLD, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyii, is expected to win most seats in the 8 November poll.

The European Union Parliament is calling on member countries to grant asylum to Edward Snowden as a whistleblower and "international human rights defender".  Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Snowden revealed America's surveillance on its own citizens and on citizens and leaders of friendly nations, and is now living in exile under the protect of the Russian government in Moscow.  The US indicted him for espionage and unauthorized leaking in 2013, and the EU vote does not change its positions.  It's up to individual EU members to decide if they'll grant asylum to Snowden.

Director Roman Polanski is expected in a Krakow, Poland court on Friday for a hearing on whether he should be extradited to the US to face his child molestation conviction from the 1970s.  Polanski fled the US before completing a simple 90-day sentence, famously living in exile in Europe and continuing to direct Oscar-winning movies over the decades.  However, Poland's new right-wing government is changing the country's stance on Polanski's status:  "There was open talk that he should not be made responsible for his deeds because he is an outstanding, world-famous film-maker," said Jarislaw Kaczynski of the ruling Law and Justice party.  "We will totally reject this attitude," he said.

Spain's Iberia Airlines says one of its pilots did not announce that his flight had landed in "Palestine" when it touched down at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, as some passengers had claimed.  The airlines now says it reviewed that audio from the flight and determined that the man did his job correctly.  The offended passengers (who apparently can't speak Spanish very well) misheard the pilot when he spoke in Spanish, announcing that the flight from Madrid had reached its "destino", which sounds a bit like "Palestina".  It shows how easy it is for any situation to spin out of control in the tiny, parched strip of land claimed by two groups who are always on the defensive.

A Lesbian couple is suing police in Hawaii after they were arrested for kissing in a grocery store by a homophobic off-duty cop.  Courtney Wilson and Taylor Guerrero say they were holding hands and kissing at the Foodland store in northern Oahu, when beer-bellied, double-chinned Officer Bobby Harrison unloaded his white male raged all over them.  The confrontation escalated and the ladies were arrested.  But later, the store security video that would have showed the cop's actions magically disappeared and all charges against the young ladies were dropped.  Police officials opened an investigation into Harrison.