Hello Australia!! - Europe's most-draconian Abortion law falls as Women gain their rights - Israel can't get a government - The countries where inequality sparked massive uprisings - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Women's Reproductive Rights have been decriminalized in Northern Ireland, after conservative Unionist parties and religious leaders failed to prevent the region's law being brought in line with the rest of the United Kingdom.  Here's why:  Northern Ireland has been without a devolved government since January 2017 when the power-sharing parties - the loyalist DUP and nationalist Sinn Fein - split after a bitter row.  All of NI's decisions are being made by local civil servants with input from Westminster - which earlier this year passed a bill to eliminate the most restrictive, Victorian-era anti-abortion rights laws in Europe and have a uniform set of laws across the UK.  The DUP was unable to put Storemont back together again in time, and the new legislation came into force.

This means that from Tuesday, it will no longer be illegal for a woman in Northern Ireland to have an abortion or for a healthcare professional to assist her, although such services won't be available for months.  A framework for the delivery of abortion services is set to be finalized and approved by March 2020.  But as an added bonus, the Westminster legislation also legalized Same-Sex marriages in Northern Ireland, and the first ceremonies will take place next Valentine's day, 14 February 2020.  Same-sex marriage and abortion rights were already legalized by plebiscite in the Republic of Ireland in 2015 and 2018 respectively.

Anyway..

UK Parliament speaker John Bercow refused allow a vote on PM Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, saying the issue had been decided on Saturday.  Johnson will try againt to have the vote, but the ball appears to be in the European Union's court as it decides whether to grant the UK another extension on leaving the EU.

Canada's national election is today.  It'll remain to be seen of PM Justin Trudeau can survive a blackface scandal, an ethics scandal, and the general sense from the Left of his party that he pulled an Obama and governed way more to the center than promised four years ago.

Israel is plunging towards its third election since April after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave up on trying to form a national unity government.  His main rival, Benny Gantz of the Blue and White party, has refused to join a government with a premier who is facing criminal charges.  President Reuven Rivlin will now ask Mr. Gantz to try and form a government, and if he can't it will more than likely cause that third election.  Netanyahu refuses to step down as PM and give up his protection from prosecution; Israeli police last December recommended that bribery charges be brought against Netanyahu and his wife, though the final decision of whether to indict rests with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

Los Angeles fire fighters are dropping water on a bushfire in the Pacific Palisades, a wealthy area of multi-million dollar hilltop homes along the coast between Malibu and Santa Monica.

And now...

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet is demanding and independent probe into protester deaths during the civil unrest in Chile, citing "disturbing allegations" of excessive use of force by security services.  As many as 13 people are reported to have been killed, and scores are injured.  Ms. Bachelet is the former center-Left president of the long, thin South American who served before the current right-wing president Sebastian Pinera, who said curfew would take place again on Monday night.  Bachelet quote Chile's interior ministry saying that more than 1,900 people have been arrested. 

The unrest started last week when Pinera tried to raise subway fees; he has since backed down, but it was the last straw with students and workers who've seen inequality widen over the past 30 years.  Pinera defended his decision to call a state of emergency: "But nobody, nobody, has a right to behave with the brutal illegal violence of those who have destroyed, set fire to or damaged more than 78 stations of the metro of Santiago," he said.  Troops will continue to patrol the streets of Santiago, the first such deployment since the end of the fascist Pinochet dictatorship in 1990.  And yet, the clashes continue.

Alrighty..

Lebanon's government approved a series of economic reforms designed to placate the tens of thousands of protesters who returned to the streets of Beirut for a fifth day of demonstrations.  PM Saad Hariri said on TV that the protesters' voices had been heard, as he announced cuts to politicians salaries and boosts to aid to poor families.

The king of Thailand has stripped his girlfriend of her rank and honors over alleged "misbehaviour and disloyalty against the monarch".  Of course, we may never know the real reason for whatever is going on because of the nation's strict lese-majeste laws.  But the officials statement says King Vajiralongkorn demoted Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi for being "ambitious" and trying to "elevate herself to the same state as the queen".  Sineenat, a trained nurse and fighter pilot, will no longer be considered a Major General in Thailand's military.  She was the first person in more than four decades to have the title "Royal Consort", which she was given a few weeks ago right after the king elevated his fourth wife to queen.