Hello Australia!! - A dark cloud forms over the world - US Republicans attack ethics chiefs - Zoo animals scampering in the freshly fallen snow, because the rest of the world is so crappy - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The rise of US and European strongman politics is endangering the world; hatred and intolerance were the major factors in Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and European right-wing populists are using immigrants as scapegoats for societal and economic ills:  This is the warning in the "World Rights 2017" report from the campaigner Human Rights Watch (HRW).  "Claiming to speak for the people, they treat rights as an impediment to the 'public will'," said HRW's Kenneth Roth, who says Trump's "election" has given a "green light" to autocrats from Turkey to Cambodia to Hungary to step up repression of internal dissenters.  Truth is the frequent casualty as demagogues stoke nativism, xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia, and misogyny.  But there is an antidote:  Demagogues "thrive in a vacuum of opposition.  A strong popular reaction, using every means available," said Roth, "is the best defense."

Turkey's Parliament voted to give more powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who turned around and said that full withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus is "out of the question".  This would appear to dash hopes of reunifying the Mediterranean island, whose Greek and Turkish communities have been divided since 1974.

The African Union will no longer recognize Gambian strongman Yahya Jammeh when his presidential term ends next Thursday.  Jammeh, who took power in a 1990s coup, lost last month's presidential election.  Initially conceding defeat, Jammeh reneged and refuses to step down, claiming the poll was tainted with vote fraud.  African leaders went to The Gambia to try to talk Jammeh into leaving on his own; those talks apparently failed.

US House Republicans are attacking the head of a federal ethics office after he criticized pretender-elect Donald Trump's supposed ethics plan, in which he hands off control of his business to his sons.  "The plan the President-elect has announced doesn't meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting and that every President in the past four decades has met," said Walter Shaub, director of the US Office of Government Ethics, earlier this week.  But now, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is demanding Mr. Schaub be hauled in for a "transcribed interview" in which Schaub will be interrogated about who he perceives his agency's role.

The GOP-led House also passed a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.  Despite promises to "repeal and replace" it, the majority Republicans OF COURSE offered nothing to help the tens of millions of people who will lose their health care coverage.

US Congressional Democrats reportedly were furious and yelling as they emerged from a confidential meeting with FBI Director James Comey, another signal of something pretty troubling happening with American democracy.  "My confidence has been shook," said Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota - "I'm very angry," echoed Rep. Mark Takano of California.  The meeting apparently involved briefing elected officials on what the FBI knew about Russian hacking into the election, and what action it took.  Last year, Comey was roundly criticized for making public comments about a non-existent investigation into Hillary Clinton while hiding details of Russian hacking to help fascist demagogue Donald Trump.

The cold spell in Europe has killed several people (including refugees), but the world media is more concerned with this Fox found frozen in the upper Danube River outside Fridingen, Germany.

Scamper scamper, frolic frolic.