Good Afternoon, Australia! – Israel plans to answers Hezbollah’s deadly missile attack – The Philippine economy shows surprising growth – OMG I LOVE THE NEW GREEK GOVERNMENT – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Israel is vowing that Hezbollah will pay the “full price” for the missile attack and battle along the northern border that killed two Israeli soldiers and one UN peacekeeper from Spain.  The two soldiers were killed when Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile at a military convoy, and the peacekeeper died in southern Lebanon as the two sides exchanged mortar fire.  The Lebanese say Israel’s initial retaliation hit several villages.  Tension has been building in the area since an Israeli drone strike took out six Hezbollah terrorists and an Iranian general on 18 January.

An Israeli human rights group accuses Israel of lacking the legal or moral justification to launch missile strikes on 70 homes in Gaza during last year’s war.  B’Tselem says the policy of striking residences led to the deaths of 606 people in 70 attacks on homes that it examined.  Among the dead were 93 children under the age of five.  It comes as the International Criminal Court is investigating Israeli actions during the 50-day conflict.

Scientists tracking the Ebola outbreak in Guinea say the virus has mutated, and they’re worried that it could have become more contagious.  This discovery comes as new vaccines and treatments are finishing clinical tests and are being rushed to Africa.  More than 22,000 people have been infected during the West African Ebola Epidemic, with about 8,800 fatalities. 

Philippine officials say growth of more than six percent for a third straight year proves his country is no longer “the sick man of Asia”.  The Philippines’ economy slowed down and grew at 6.1 percent in 2014, but keep in mind that this was despite the massive natural disaster that was Typhoon Haiyan.  It’s still ahead of its regional rivals that didn’t have a once-in-a-century storm to clean up.  Outsourced business services accounted for more than half of the growth.

Greece’s brand-new Leftist government is halting all sorts of privatization schemes launched under the terms of the EU bailout.  The new energy minister halted plans to sell off the nation’s largest power supplier a day after the government stopped a scheme to sell off the two largest shipping ports.  More reforms: Restitution of the pre-bailout Minimum Wage; cancellation of public sector layoffs; health insurance for ALL; and automatic citizenship to Immigrant Children.

Greece’s new government has also said that EU sanctions against Russia are not in Greece’s best interests.  This comes as Europe and the US discuss new punitive measures against Moscow because of the advance of Russian-backed rebels outside Donetsk and near Mariupol in eastern Ukraine.  EU leaders will meet on 12 February and might approve the new measures.  The EU and the US have already slapped asset freezes and travel bans on Russian individuals and businesses as well as Ukrainian separatist leaders.