Good Morning Australia!! - Breaking News, the Saudis admit a dissident journalist was killed - Trump praises violence against journalists as his followers cheer - US prosecutors charge a Russian for election meddling - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Saudi Arabia is confirming the death of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and has detained 18 Saudi nationals in the affair.  This is coming out at 1:00 AM in Saudi Arabia, so the details are still being worked out.  Officially, they're saying that Jamal Khashoggi died as a result of a fist fight at the consulate in Istanbul, where he entered 18 days ago to sign some papers.  None of this explains why there was a hit team of 15 Saudis with close links to Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) was waiting for him there, or why they began dismembering him before he was dead, or what happened to the remains.  CNN reports that none of this was told to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who visited Riyadh this week to give a very stern warning to explain what happened.

Meanwhile, Turkish police have been searching wooded areas outside Istanbul for Khashoggi's severed remains.  A Turkish pro-government newspaper reported that several cars associated with the Saudi consulate drove to the Belgrade Forest, 20 kilometers outside Istanbul, on 2 October - the day that Khashoggi disappeared into the diplomatic compound.  No evidence has surfaced to prove that he ever left, as the Saudis had previously claimed claimed before this morning's bombshell from Riyadh.

A former head of the British spy agency MI6 says all of the evidence points to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman having ordered the gruesome murder of Khashoggi.  Sir John Sawers told the BBC that the prince would not have done this had he not felt like he was given a license to kill by Donald Trump.  He predicts that if the link to Muhammad is proven, "the UK, the EU and the US are going to have to respond".  The idea that "rogue elements" were responsible "simply doesn't hold water" and it "further undermines respect for America when it panders to such a blatant fiction".

Donald Trump's conservative allies have been posthumously smearing the late Mr. Khashoggi, heightening concerns that the White House is working with Saudi Arabia to sweep the US connection to the matter under the rug.  This is mostly going on among evangelical Christians leaders and in the far-right lunatic fringe, but has been picked up by a few minor league Republican congressmen:  They're repeating unfounded conspiracy theories about Khashoggi's association with the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth, or even falsely trying to link him to 9/11 attacks ringleader Osama bin Laden - implying that for whatever reason, Saudi Arabia was right to kidnap, dismember, and murder Khashoggi.  Of course, all of this belies the fact that Khashoggi was quite openly a reformer and critic of the autocratic Saudi regime who called for more transparency and democracy in the Arab world.

Trump - perhaps predictably - provoked outrage at a campaign rally when he praised a Republican congressman for body-slamming a reporter in May 2017.  For this crime that Trump praised, Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, paid a US$385 fine, completed 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger management training, wrote an apology letter, and donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists.  Commentators were even more horrified by the reaction from the loyal crowd in Montana, roaring its approval to the idea of assaulting journalists for doing their jobs even while the Khashoggi affair eats up the headlines and newspaper front pages from coast to coast.

Heavier sigh..

Scores of people are dead in a horror crash in India:  A train plowed into a crowd of people watching a fireworks display for the Hindu festival of Dusshera in Amritsar, in India's Punjab state.  People apparently didn't hear the train coming because of the noise from the explosives as they burned an effigy of a demon; the train hit the crowd at speed, causing 50 deaths and horrific, limb severing injuries among many of the 200 injured.  There are fears the death toll will rise.

US Federal Prosecutors charged a Russian national in an alleged conspiracy to sow discord among US voters and to interfere in the 2018 midterm election.  Elena Khusyaynova works for a company owned by a pal of Russian President Vladimir Putin who has already been indicted in another plot.    The midterm scheme reportedly had a budget of $35 Million.The plotters allegedly sought to inflame passions online using hundreds of fake social media and email accounts:  "The strategic goal of this alleged conspiracy, which continues to this day, is to sow discord in the US political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions," said G. Zachary Terwilliger, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.  No one, especially prosecutors, expects Russia to extradite Khusyaynova to the US.

The European Court of Justice is ordering Poland to immediately end its attempt to gut the courts by lowering the mandatory retirement age for judges.  Critics accuse the far-right ruling PiS party of trying to get rid of independent voices and stack the courts with party loyalists.  This deeply offended Europe, which has been increasingly frustrated with EU members on the eastern frontier for perceived anti-Democratic moves.  The head of Poland's ruling party said it would comply with the ECJ's decision.

Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court has struck down a law that prohibits demonstrations without authorisation from the police.  "For far too long, this repressive piece of legislation has been used to systematically harass, arbitrarily detain and torture people seen as opposition supporters or those trying to expose human rights violations," said Amnesty International Zimbabwe's Jessica Pwiti.  A coalition of civic groups brought the lawsuit against the law on the grounds that it had been used unfairly to thwart freedom of assembly as guaranteed by the constitution.

A joint European-Japanese missions to Mercury is lifting off on Saturday morning, Australian time.  Each contributed a probe to be sent up on an Ariane rocket from French Guiana in South America.  They want to know why the planet next to the Sun seems to have its own rules: "Mercury doesn't really fit with our theories for how the Solar System formed, and we can't understand our planet fully unless we're able to explain Mercury as well," said Professor Dave Rothery of the UK's Open University.

Hey!  Wentworth!  What are you doing, sitting around?  Go and vote!