Hello Australia!! - Iran plots its revenge on the US - Young Americans surprise response to the new tension with Iran - Tracing Ghosn's escape from Japan - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

New South Wales and Victoria are expected to experience particularly bad conditions for Bushfires today.  For more information about bushfires in your state, please click through to these sites:  For Victoria - VicEmergency; South Australia - SA CFS; New South Wales - NSW RFS; Western Australia - EmergencyWA; and Tasmania - TasFire.

Iran's supreme leader is vowing "Severe Revenge" against the US after the airstrike that killed one of the country's most powerful military and political figures, the leader of the elite Quds force Major General Qassem Soleimani.  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said a "harsh retaliation is waiting for the criminals whose filthy hands spilled his blood."  Tens of thousands of Iranians marched in the capital, chanting "death to American" and "death to Israel".  In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the only world leader to directly address the attack and back the Trump administration.  Practically every other nation had their spokespeople issue pleas for de-escalation, calm, and restraint while leaders laid low.

France's deputy minister for foreign affairs, Amelie de Montchalin, said the US airstrike meant "we are waking up in a more dangerous world", which drew a terse rebuke US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on CNN: "The French are just wrong about that."  But the Trump administration's actions belied their claims of making the world "safer", as the US State Department ordered all non-essential US citizens out of Iraq.  The Trump administration also ordered 3,500 additional troops to deploy to the Middle East (because everything is safer?).

The US Selective Service's website crashed several times on Friday, but not because young Americans were falling over themselves to sign up for military duty in case the US actually has to fight a war against Iran.  Rather, so many Americans Googled "draft requirements" and "military exemptions" that the server for that part of the US government that would handle a military draft just couldn't handle the traffic.  The US hasn't had a draft since 1973, and starting one up would require an act of Congress, and those people can't agree on anything these days.

French police shot and killed a man who went on a stabbing spree south of Paris, killing one person and wounding two more people.  Investigators say that so far, there's no connection to terrorism; the suspect was mentally ill and already known to police.  

A Turkish airline company says its jets were used illegally in former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn's escape from Japan, where he faced corruption charges.  Istanbul-based MNG Jet said an employee falsified records and that Ghosn's name did not appear on any documentation related to the flights from Tokyo to Istanbul, and then to Beirut, Lebanon.  Meanwhile, Ghosn has a meeting with Lebanon's public prosecutor next week, when he will probably be handed a copy of the Interpol Red Notice against him.  Lebanon's government has already said that Ghosn entered the country legally and the country has no extradition treaty with Japan.

Christmas Trees with yummy treats for the animals at Berlin's Tierpark Zoo.