Good Morning Australia!! - Iran wins one over the US - A crackdown on journalism in the Philippines - Labor comes alive in Mexico - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) dealt a blow to the US and ruled that Iran could attempt to recover some US$2 Billion in assets that are frozen in the United States.  Washington had argued that Iran was a state sponsor of terrorism, but the ICJ ruled in favor of Tehran's assertion that keeping the assets frozen was illegal because it breached the "Treaty of Amity" signed by both nations.  The 1955 agreement barred "restrictions on the making of payments, remittances, and other transfers of funds".  Most of the assets are already gone, seized by the US government to compensate victims of allegedly Iranian-backed terrorism who sought redress through US courts.

A Sunni militant group took credit for a suicide bombing that killed at least 27 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.  The al Qaeda-backed Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice) targeted a bus carrying troops back from the Pakistan border with a car bomb.  It's one of the deadliest attacks on Iran's elite forces in years, according to observers.

The US charged a former Air Force counterintelligence officer in absentia with spying for Iran.  Monica Witt worked in the US Air Force from 1997 to 2008 with the highest security clearance level, and was reportedly last seen "in southwest Asia" teaching English in 2013. For years, the FBI had her on a list of missing and possibly kidnapped Americans;  but now they say she actually defected to Iran, handing over information on her former colleagues in order to cause "serious damage" to the United States. 

Philippine cops arrested Maria Ressa, the CEO of the news website Rappler at its headquarters in Manila.  They accuse Ms. Ressa of "cyber-libel" over a report that linked a prominent businessman to a former supreme court judge, but the site is well-known for its critical reporting on the regime of President Rodrigo Duterte.  "The arrest of Ressa on the clearly manipulated charge of cyber-libel is a shameless act of persecution by a bully government," said the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, "The government now proves it will go to ridiculous lengths to forcibly silence critical media."

Days after France reported a jump in anti-Semitic crime, Germany is following suit.  The Left Party requested the stats, which confirm a ten percent increase from 2018 over 2017.  "It corresponds to what I have learned in conversation with Jewish groups and representatives," said Felix Klein, who leads the government's anti-Semitism office.  "Unfortunately, anti-Semitism is rising all over Europe."

Tens of thousands of Argentine protesters packed the capital Buenos Aires to condemn the failing neo-liberal economic policies of conservative President Mauricio Macri.  After years of success in ending extreme poverty and joblessness under the administrations of Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, Macri's "reforms" have brought back high employment, higher consumer prices, and cuts to health, education, and housing for the people.  The Argentine Peso is at its weakest and getting worse.

The Union has declared victory in a major strike in Mexico that was pretty much ignored by most of the world media.  The Industrial Workers and Laborers' Union won 20 percent wage increases for about 25,000 worker at all 48 plants impacted by the strike along the northern border with the US.  Mexico's labor movement is suddenly waking up since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was inaugurated in December, replacing the rule of the pro-management PRI party.

NASA's Mars Opportunity Rover mission "is at an end after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping lay the groundwork for NASA's return to the Red Planet," according to a release from the US space agency.  The Rover was only supposed to last for a few months after landing on Mars in 2004, but continued to send data back home from years.  That is, until a devastating dust storm a few months ago knocked it out of commission.  Scientists called it "one of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration".