Hello Australia!! - Hillary points fingers and names the names - Obama says Russia will pay - China steals a US drone - And a lot more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

In his last news conference of the year - and likely, his presidency - US President Barack Obama vowed that Russia will pay a price for hacking disrupting the 2016 elections by hacking the computer systems.  "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin," Mr. Obama said.  "This happened at the highest levels of the Russian government."  He added that some of America's revenge will be public, but some of it will happen in the shadows - and that only the Kremlin will realize when it happens.  The president also spoke of the extreme polarization in US politics that allowed the Russians to influence elections, and a recent poll showing that a third of US Republicans have a positive view of Putin, Obama said: "Ronald Reagan would be rolling over in his grave."

Mr. Obama refused to confirm a Washington Post report saying that the FBI is now to agreeing with the assessment of the CIA and other US intelligence agencies - that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails with the intention of tipping the election in favor of pretender-elect Donald Trump.  Before this, the FBI claimed it couldn't determine Russia's motive. 

Hillary Clinton was more direct than the outgoing president:  She told a group of campaign donors that her election loss was partly due to Russian hacking, and partially to FBI director James Comey's election-eve letter to Congress related to her use of a private email server.  Comey waited until just before voting started to clear Mrs. Clinton.  As for Putin, Hillary said he held a grudge for her standing up to him during Russia's tumultuous 2011 election.

A Chinese warship scooped up and stole a US underwater drone in full view of a US oceanographic vessel in the South China Sea.  This happened about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay off the Philippines.  "It is ours, and it is clearly marked as ours and we would like it back," said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis, "And we would like this not to happen again."  This coincided with sabre-rattling related to US pretender-elect Donald Trump's statements casting doubt on whether his administration would stick to its nearly four-decades-old policy of recognizing that Taiwan is part of "one China".

There is growing concern with Trump's choice for US Ambassador to Israel:  Long Island, New York bankruptcy attorney David M. Friedman helped counsel Trump while he was running casinos into the ground, but has absolutely no diplomatic experience.  He has, however, made alarming statements about Liberal and moderate Jews being "smug" and "worse" than the Kapos, Jews who cooperated with the nazis inside concentration camps in the 1930s and '40s.  Friedman also has rejected the two-state solution to Israeli and Palestinian fighting, and supports unlimited Israeli settlement in Palestinians lands - something illegal under international law.

The cease-fire that allowed the evacuation of civilians from the besieged northern Syrian city of Aleppo has collapsed.  "The carnage in Syria remains a gaping hole in the global conscience," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, "Aleppo is now a synonym for hell."  Thousands have yet to get out of the city, which was held by various rebel factions for the past four years until Syrian troops backed by Russian air power completed retaking the city this month.

Saying that it is receiving reports of rapes, murders, and other abuse on a daily basis, the UN's Human Rights Office is condemning the government of Myanmar over its treatment of the minority Rohingya Muslim population.  The Myanmar government claims it is conducting "anti-terrorism" operations in Rohingya areas, but will not elaborate.  Myanmar's de facto leader Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized for dismissing complaints about the treatment of the Muslim minority, which UN Human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein says is "highly insulting to the victims and an abdication of the government's obligations under international human rights law".

Prosecutors in Northern Ireland fired murder charges against two retired British soldiers who fatally shot unarmed Irish Republican Army activist Joe McCann outside his Belfast home in 1972.  Although the initial UK investigation cleared the soldiers - now in their 60s - a 2012 investigation determined they used unjustified lethal force.  The killing of 25-year old Joe McCann provoked days of rioting in Irish nationalist areas of Belfast and Derry. 

Opposition MPs in Poland staged a demonstration in the legislature against the right-wing government's assault on press freedom, the first such insurrection in a decade.  The protest forced the cancellation of an important budget vote.  The ruling and ironically-named Law and Justice party (PiS) wants to limit the number of reporters allowed to cover parliament to a handful.