Good Morning Australia!! - Heating things up in eastern Australia - Pakistan boils as blasphemy is thrown out of court - France races agaisnt a medical mystery - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Be careful of the first heatwave of the year:  Temperatures in parts of Queensland and New South Wales are expected to meet of exceed 40 C degrees, while even Sydney could see the mercury top out at 37 C.  "Heat can kill, which is why it’s so important to stay hydrated and look out for the elderly, the young and pets," said NSW Ambulance chief superintendent Alan Morrison.  The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) is predicting a long, hot, and dry summer in the east, and abnormal temps already popped up in places like Birdsville, QLD which reached 44.7 C degrees.  "Queensland over the last weekend did see some record maximum temperatures for October," said BOM's Jenny Shurrock, "These kinds of values - into the low 40s - are what we would expect in summer." 

France has launched an investigation into a number of babies born with missing or malformed hands or arms.  Authorities already dismissed a cluster of seven such occurrences between 2007 and 2013 in western France as coincidence within the usual statistics of annual birth defects.  But now, eleven more cases have been identified.  "I want to know, I think all of France wants to know," French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn told BFM TV.  "It could be an environmental factor.  Maybe it is due to what these women ate, drank or breathed in." 

Russian investigators are determining why a 17-year old boy detonated an explosive inside a FSB security force headquarters in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk, killing himself and injuring three workers.  A political message attributed to the boy accusing the FSB of brutality appeared online and then disappeared from a social media network.  It is not at all clear that the boy was responsible for the post.

And now..

Pakistan's highest court threw out the blasphemy conviction of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who had spent nearly a decade in prison and was facing the death penalty for alleged blasphemy.  "The verdict has shown that the poor, the minorities and the lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings," said Ms. Bibi's lawyer Saiful Malook.  Bibi was picking fruit in 2009 when she got into a beef with two Muslim women who refused to share a water cup with her, and accused her of blasphemy; critics of the law say such accusations are a common way for nefarious elements within the Muslim majority to bully others and settle personal scores.  It is believed that Asia Bibi will be flown out of Pakistan for her own safety. 

Protests against the verdict quickly broke out around Pakistan, led by hard-line Muslim clerics and ultra-religious Pakistani political parties like Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP).  They are openly calling for the Pakistani Supreme Court's justices to be killed, and for Bibi to be publicly hanged, and they are vowing to continue blocking road and rail traffic until that happens.  The threat of things getting worse is very real:  A politician who once tried to advocate in Ms. Bibi's defense and against the blasphemy law was murdered by one of his own bodyguards, who was lauded by extremist groups by naming mosques after him and showering him with rose petals as he was led off to jail.  "We will embrace death but will not compromise on our stance (against Bibi)," said TLP spokesperson Pir Ejaz Shah.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Kahn condemned the TLP protests for stirring up deadly trouble for political gain:  "And who suffers due to this?  Our Pakistanis.  The common people, the poor.  You block the roads, you rob people's livelihood," Mr. Khan said in a televised address, "This is not the service of Islam, this is enmity with the country.  Only anti-state elements talk like this, that kill the judges, start a revolt in army.  They are only trying to beef up their vote bank." 

Moving along..

Istanbul's chief prosecutor said Saudi Arabian dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled the moment he walked into the city's Saudi consulate on 3 October, and then "the victim's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation."  The statement is part of Turkey's slow release of bits of information about the death of the prominent critic of Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), which has kept the Saudis on the backfoot and spinning ever-changing stories about Khashoggi's death.  Saudi Arabia claims to have detained 18 people in the Khashoggi killing, but negotiations to extradite them to to Turkey are going nowhere.  Turkey and the West believe the killers all have close ties to MBS.

A governor in Tanzania announced he is forming an anti-LGBT "task force" dedicated to hunting down gay people.  Governor Paul Makonda of Dar es Salaam, the country's economic capital, said round-ups would begin next week.  Homosexuality is illegal in Tanzania, but rhetoric and attacks have grown worse since anti-LGBT president John Magufuli was elected in 2015.

India's prime minister officially dedicated the Statue of Unity, a 182-meter tall depiction of one of the country's founding fathers that is now the world's tallest statue.  The ceremony took place on 31 October, the 143rd anniversary of the birth of Sardar Patel, a contemporary of Mohandas K. Gandhi and the country's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru. 
Gujarat
Then India's Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Patel had famously promised Gandhiji that he would never quit public service and would work to unify the Indian nation.  That very night, Gandhiji was assassinated, and Patel kept his promise.
Nehru, Gandhi, Patel
Located in Gujarat state, the Statue of Unity pushes China's Spring Temple Buddha (Varacana) to second-tallest, followed by Myanmar's Laykyun Setkyar Buddha (Gautama), and Japan's Ushiku Buddha north of Tokyo (Amitabha).

Baby Zebra Alert!  Baby Zebra Alert!  At the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah.