Good Morning Australia!! - The wealth gap gets wider - The US government shutdown is apparently ending - The Pope apologizes for "a slap in the face" to sex abuse victims - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The world's wealthiest one percent got 82 percent of the world's wealth last year, according to Oxfam.  The charity blames tax evasion, corporate influence on policy, the erosion of workers' rights, and cost cutting for the widening wealth gap.  "However you look at it, this is an unacceptable level of inequality," said Oxfam chief executive Mark Goldring.  Last year, an Oxfam report calculated that the world's eight richest individuals had as much wealth as the poorest half of the world.

The US Senate struck a deal to resolve the budget impasse that shutdown the US Government.  Democrats didn't appear to get much out of the deal except a promise of a debate on legislation to provide a path to citizen for the children of undocumented workers - and to some, the appearance of being the reasonable party in all of this.  Polls indicated most Americans blamed the Republicans for the shutdown, since they control both houses of congress and the White House.  Diminished in all of this was the self-styled king of deals, the orange clown Donald Trump, who both sides acknowledged didn't do a thing.

Julian Assange is a lousy house guest, according to Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno who refers to the Wikileaks founder as "an inherited problem" and "more than a nuisance".  Assange has been living inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London since June 2012, when he granted political asylum for then-President Rafael Correa.  President Moreno promised Ecuador will maintain that asylum but is actively seeking ways to get Assange (and his purported foul personal hygiene) to leave on his own.

Pope Francis is apologizing for demanding clergy sex abuse victims bring him "proof" before he believes allegations against Chilean Bishop Juan Barros.  "I apologize to them if I hurt them without realizing it, but it was a wound that I inflicted without meaning to," he said on Monday, "It pains me very much," he added, acknowledging his comments were a "slap in the face" to victims.  Visiting the South American country last week, the Pope snapped at reporters who questioned him about the scandal surrounding Barros, who is accused of being present when another priest molested young boys. 

A mudslide slammed into a bus in Colombia, sending it into a ravine and killing at least 13 people.

Germany and the US are among the nations calling on Turkey to scale back its offensive against Kurdish YPG forces in Syria.  Germany's foreign minister put in a call to his counterpart in Ankara, only days after the two reestablished relations after a year-long blackout due to a disagreement on an unrelated matter.  But Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said there would be "no stepping back" from the air and ground push across the border.  Turkey considers the US-backed Kurdish YPG fighters who control Syria's Afrin region to be an extension of Kurdish separatists in Turkey.

Thousands of Philippine villagers were forced to evacuate when the Mount Mayon volcano exploded, ejecting a cloud of ash and lava fragments five kilometers into the sky.  Authorities ordered airplanes to stay away from the crater and its ash-laden winds, and several flights were canceled.  Civil defense sent 30,000 ash masks, about 5,000 sacks of rice, medicine, potable water, and other supplies to emergency evacuation centers.