Good Morning Australia!! - Australia is set to for one of the biggest auto recalls because of exploding airbags - Wintery weather in Europe belies the real crisis above the Arctic Circle - The Mafia is fingered in a journo's murder - Shorten shorts Adani? - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The Federal Government is about to announce the recall of some two million Australian cars because of potentially-faulty Takata airbags, which have been associated with 20 deaths and 180 injuries globally.  The airbag inflators have malfunctioned, blasting a potentially-deadly spray of shrapnel into the faces and chests of drivers and passengers.  The ABC reports that around 2.3 million vehicles will be subject to the compulsory recall and the airbags must be replaced within two years.  Check with your dealer!

While a polar vortex has brought freezing, snowy weather down from the Arctic to most of Europe, freakishly warm temperatures in the Arctic itself are alarming climate scientists.  Transportation around the UK was bogged down as heavy snow in some areas disrupted road, rail, and air travel, as well as forcing hundreds of schools to close.  British Airways cancelled a number of short flights while trying to preserve its long-haul schedule to and from London Heathrow. 
Cor Blimey!
London, UK
Now there's a Christmas Card for ya..
Despite the pretty pictures and jolly tone of the corporate media coverage of the snow, the cause is terrifying.  Climate change is believed to be weakening the the polar vortex.  That's the circle of winds surrounding the Arctic that help to deflect warmer air masses and keep the region cool.  With that "wall" gone, the cold spills out to the Northern Hemisphere while the Arctic warms:

With no sunlight above the Arctic circle until sometime in March, temperature have raced above freezing in several area - causing melting of what was the thickest ice of the North, just above Greenland.  "It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying - it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate," said Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center.  Temperatures above the Arctic Circle have ranged from 20 to 31 C degrees above normal at various points in the Northern Hemisphere winter.  "Going back to the late 1950s at least we have never seen such high temperatures in the high Arctic," said Ruth Mottram of the Danish Meteorological Institute.

Anyway..

Opposition labor leader Bill Shorten might revoke the license of the Adani mine if Labor comes into power.  Businessman and environmentalist Geoff Cousins told the ABC's 7:30 that Shorten told this to him in a conversation last month.  Mr. Cousins said he is revealing the conversation publicly to put pressure on Labor.  A spokesman for Mr.Shorten would not confirm this, but explained:  "It's no secret that Bill is deeply skeptical of the proposed Adani coal mine.  He believes if it cannot stack up environmentally or commercially, it should not go ahead.  So far it hasn't, and he doesn't believe it will."

Bombs and rockets continued to fall on East Ghouta, even upon the so-called "humanitarian corridor" that was supposed to allow civilians to escape the rebel-held suburb of Syria's capital.  Syria's ally Russia accused rebels of shelling their own escape route, the rebels said it was Damascus' fault.  No one got out of enclave, where there is more rubble than there is town at this point, and no UN aid got in.

Macedonia is considering four new names for the country, which emerged in the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.  "The suggestions are Republic of North Macedonia, Republic of Upper Macedonia, Republic of Vardar Macedonia, and Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)," said Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.  Why the modifiers?  Antsy Greek nationalists say the tiny republic on its northern border shouldn't be called Macedonia because there was already a Greek province with the same name, and it implies a territorial claim on Greek soil (that Macedonia has never even once hinted at).  But we're still sweeping up the 1990s.

Italy's most-violent Mafia group murdered an investigative journalist in Slovakia, according to the victim's friend and co-worker.  27-year old Jan Kuciak was working on a story about "the fraudulent payment of European Union transfer funds to Italian nationals resident in Slovakia with alleged ties to the 'Ndrangheta organized crime group from Italy's Calabria region," the colleague said.  Local crime gangs never murdered a journalist before - the 'Ndrangheta has never shown that sort of restraint.  Organized crime groups are suspected in the October car bombing murder of an investigative journalist looking into corruption on Malta.

A Russian-American tourist has led Japanese police to the wooded areas around Osaka and Kyoto, Japan where he disposed of the body parts of a local woman.  Cops looked for the unnamed woman who went missing after telling friends she was going on a date with "an American".  They found her head in Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar's holiday rental and arrested him.  His mother in New York said he had gone to Japan to find a wife.