Good Morning Australia!! - Trump holds an unhinged news conference after an embarrassing leak - A rough confirmation process for America's potential next Secretary of State - The fate of one of the world's worst war criminals is revealed - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

US Pretender-elect Donald Trump held a news conference, the morning after an intelligence brief showing his "perverted" behavior in Moscow made him a target for Russian blackmail made the rounds in Washington.  Trump blasted the mean old media for non-specific reasons, without ever specifically saying,"I didn't pay those Russian hookers to pee while I watched," or any words to that effect.  He said the compromising material on him was "fake news, phony stuff", put together by "sick people" - but never said "I didn't do that".  Likewise, spokeshobbit Sean Spicer and Vice President-elect Mike Pence threatened and criticized "the media", but didn't explicitly defend Trump's alleged conduct in a Moscow hotel room in 2013.

During the crap show, Trump repeated his usual word salad promises of how "great" things are going to be.  But he refused to take any questions from CNN, and argued with the CNN reporter in attendance.  CNN helped break the story of potential business and personal conduct issues, but - like most US media outlets - didn't specify the freaky sex stuff.  When it came to questions of Russian hacking to influence the US presidential election, Trump played both sides of the fence - at one point he appeared to accept that Russia was responsible, but later backed off and suggested that other parties could have done it. 

Trump left several important questions unanswered:  Did any of his associates have specific contacts with Russian officials?  Will he reduce or remove economic sanctions on Russia?  He refused to specify a health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), nor did he detail a capital repatriation plan or corporate tax cuts. 

In Washington, DC, Trump's nominee for Secretary of State ran into some unexpected rough patches in his confirmation hearing.  Floida Senator Marco Rubio grilled Exxon Mobil's former CEO Rex Tillerson on whether US intelligence reports about Russia's involvement in hacks on the US election were accurate.  Tillerson acknowledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind it.  Tillerson's and Trump's close ties to Putin have set off alarms in the US, although few appear willing to do anything about it.

In another Senate chamber, Senator Corey Booker and Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis led other prominent Democrats from the Congressional Black Caucus in testimony against Alabama Republican US Senator Jeff Sessions' nomination to Attorney General.  Before Booker's testimony, no sitting US Senator had ever testified against a colleague in their confirmation hearings for a Cabinet position.  They say Sessions is unfit to lead the Justice Department because he has voted against measures aimed at criminalizing attacks on gays as hate crimes and the Violence Against Women Act, will not aggressively protect the rights of marginalized groups.  In 1986, the Senate denied Sessions a federal judgeship because of his frequent use of the n-word and jokes about the Ku Klux Klan.

China's only aircraft carrier entered the Taiwan Strait with a contingent of warships, prompting Taipei to scramble fighter jets.  Authorities are asking the Taiwanese people to remain calm amid this escalation in tensions between the two.  Beijing considers Taiwan to be a rebellious province.  The carrier Liaoning is seen as China's attempt to project military power far from its shores - but like I said, there's only one of them so far.  Even Italy has two.  The US has ten.

Brazil's Maracana Stadium has been ransacked, looted of copper electrical wire as well as fixtures such as water foundations, fire hoses, lights, and other stuff.  Brazil spent billions rehabbing it as the premier venue of the World Cup as well as the 2016 Olympics; but it has since languished as the cash-strapped Rio De Janeiro government bickers with four football teams over who will pay maintenance and security costs. 

Gambian strongman Yahya Jammeh vows to stay on as president at least as long as May, when the Supreme Court is to rule on the case.  Jammeh lost last year's presidential election; at first he said he'd honor the result, but later claimed vote fraud and refused to leave office.  Jammeh took power in The Gambia in a 1994 coup, and has been accused of human rights abuses.

One of the world's most-wanted nazi war criminals died in pain and squalor in 2001 in a Syrian basement.  France's Revue XXI says its investigation shows that Alois Brunner "suffered and cried a lot in his final years".  The Austrian-born anti-Semite SS commander condemned 128,000 Jewish men, women, and children from around Paris and from southern France to their deaths during the occupation from 1943 - 1945.  In 1950, he fled to Syria where he lives sheltered by successive regimes.  Although he apparently survived until almost age 90, "We are satisfied to learn that he lived badly rather than well," said renowned Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld.

Japanese Emperor Akihito will step down in two years, on the eve of New Year's 2018 - it is understood that his son Crown Prince Naruhito would ascend to the Chrysanthemum throne the following day.  Being Japanese emperor doesn't involve a lot of heavy lifting, but he has already survived cancer and is in his eighties, and thus is having a harder time carrying out his duties of comforting disaster victims and cutting the ribbon on new shopping centers.  Akihito expressed his desire to resign last year, interpreted as a shot across Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's bow over the nationalist government's desire to rewrite parts of the pacifist constitution.