Good Morning Australia!! - Merry Christmas Soccer fans, Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini finally get the Red Card - Muslims rescue Christians from terrorists - The host of the Miss Universe pageant crowns the wrong beauty queen - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The world football body's ethics committee has suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA boss Michel Platini for eight years from all football-related activities following an ethics investigation.  Although Blatter still insists he is in charge and will appeal his case through arbitration, it's a crushing end for the man whose name came to symbolize corruption in world football and the man once seen as his successor in waiting.  The committee found Blatter guilty of violating FIFA's ethics rulesvwith a US$2 million payment to Platini.  But the catalyst behind it all is US Attorney Loretta Lynch, who filed charges against several football officials earlier this year, culminating in the infamous dawn raids on a hotel in Switzerland.

Burkina Faso has issued an arrest warrant for ousted dictator Blaise Compaore over his alleged role in the 1987 murder of then-President Thomas Sankara in the coup that toppled Mr. Sankara.  Compaore is now in exile in Ivory Coast after being forced to resign last year amid widespread street protests.  Compaore's ally, General Gilbert Diendere, is already charged for his role in Sankara's murder.

A suicide attacker on a motorcycle attacked a column of coalition troops in Afghanistan, killing six US service members.  It's one of the deadliest attacks on Americans in Afghanistan this year.  This happened in a village close to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan as the troops were meeting a local Afghan leader.

Kenyan Muslims on a bus shielded Christians from Islamist attackers, saving many lives.  The terrorist group Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack on the bus in the northeastern town of Mandera, and two people were killed.  But when the terrorists started to separate the bus passengers to single out the Christians, the Muslims refused to budge and reportedly told th attackers to "kill them together or leave them alone".  During Al Shabaab's attack on Garrisa University in April, the gunmen sorted out students to release the Muslims and killed the Christians.  148 people died in that earlier attack.

Russia's military says the data on the flight recorder of the Russian war plane downed by Turkey last month is unreadable.  The memory chips on the Sukhoi SU-24 were badly damaged in the 24 November attack.  Turkey insists the Russian warplane crossed into its territory while fighting Syrian insurgents.

Police in Paris are holding two people over the bomb scare on a Mauritius to Paris Air France flight.  The crew calmly put down in Kenya after a "device" was found in a lavatory - it was quickly determined to be a harmless mock-up of cardboard tubes and a kitchen timer.  The suspects are reportedly a 58-year old former Police officer on the French island of Reunion and his wife.  There had been three previous bomb scares on Air France jets in the last two weeks, and the nation is still on high alert after the 13 November terrorist attacks in Paris.

Chicago Comedian Steve Harvey is apologizing and taking responsibility after the most awkward moment in beauty pageant history:  He announced the wrong winner in the Miss Universe in front of global audience of millions of people who think these archaic, misogynist crap shows are still relevant, giving the crown to Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez.  And then after a few moments, they were all like, "Yeah, we're going to need that crown back.."  Gutierrez was instead declared runner-up and surrendered her crown to Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach.  Although the contestants were gracious, people in Colombia were rightly pissed that their representative was humiliated, and people in the Philippines didn't like that their contestant didn't get her shining moment.