A grim warning for a town besieged by Islamic State – There’s a lot of Ebola news.. South America gets its first case, Spain manages to find an experimental drug thought to be all gone, & an American Hospital turned away an Ebola patient with an extremely high fever – Malala Wins the Nobel Peace Prize – And much more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to children’s education activist Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, and to anti-child slavery activist Kailash Satyarthi of India.  Taliban gunmen shot Malala in the head in October 2012 for campaigning for girls' education.  Two years later, she took that campaign worldwide, and became the youngest recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize – and was notified as she attended her high school chemistry class in Birmingham, UK.  60-year-old founded Kailash Satyarthi the Save the Childhood Movement, which campaigns for child rights and an end to human trafficking.  He’s credited with rescuing more than 80,000 children from bonded labor through Gandhi’s non-violent methods.

Despite US-Led airstrikes, Islamic State has pushed deeper into Kobani in northern Syria, and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the jihadists now control up to 40 percent of the city.  The UN says there are at least 700 elderly and infirmed people trapped in the city, and as many as 12,000 who left the city center but haven’t made it across the border to Turkey.  Given Islamic State’s record of atrocities, there is growing concern these civilians could face a bloodbath not seen since the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre during the Balkans War.

Ebola’s death toll has topped 4,000.  The UN World Health Organization says 4,024 people died of the killer virus in the worst-affected West African nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, plus eight more in Nigeria and one in the US.  Watching the epidemic get worse, host country Morocco is asking to postpone the 2015 African Cup of Nations Soccer tournament scheduled for February.  The Morocco health ministry made the plea in the wake of their decision “to avoid events which involve those countries affected by the Ebola virus.” 

Brazil is dealing with its first “possible” case of Ebola.  A man who arrived from Guinea on Thursday came down with fever and went to a public health center in the town of Cascavel, in the southern state of Parana.  He was promptly flown to the National Institute of Infectology in Rio de Janeiro.  He’s under quarantine and tests are due back on Saturday.

Compare that quick response with the daily drip of revelations of heartless foul-ups committed by a hospital in Texas, USA.  It’s now known that Thomas Eric Duncan had a 103-degree fever (39.5 C) when he first turned up at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, and was quickly turned away with some prescription antibiotics and Tylenol.  He wasn’t admitted for a few days – not until after his family called the US Centers for Disease Control for help.  Duncan died in hospital this week.

Spain’s conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was jeered and nurses threw rubber gloves at his convoy as he showed up for a visit to Carlos III hospital in Madrid, where a nursing assistant with Ebola is being treated.  Her husband and several others are under quarantine there as well.  Spain managed to locate some of the experimental drug ZMapp, after it was believed there were no more doses left in the world.  It will be administrated to Teresa Romero Ramos in hopes of saving her life.  There’s no proof Zmapp works – it ‘seemed’ to help in the case of two American aid workers who recovered from Ebola, but not in the case of a Spanish priest who died.

North and South Korea traded fire over the border, the most serious such incident in four years.  It started with South Korean right-wing activists released a series of balloons with propaganda leaflets condemning Kim Jong-un.  Troops from the North opened fire with the bullets landing over the border, the South responded, and a good time was had by all.  There are no reports of casualties or injuries from the clash. 

Bolivian President Evo Morales appeared to be on track for an easy pass to his third term in this weekend’s presidential elections.  Evo promises to expand his “Indigenous Socialism” programs, which have expanded the role of the state while slashing poverty levels.  Bolivia is still one of the poorest countries in the Americas, but around the capital there are construction sites like never before, crowded restaurants, imported cars, and campaign signs reading “With Evo We’re Doing Well”.

Everyone loves Tiger Cubs!!  Well, except for that chicken.