Hello Australia!! - Obama calls out Trumpism - Putin passes on peace - Australia's Navy will be getting new orders - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Former US president Barack Obama reentered politics, calling out Donald Trump by name for the first time since the November 2016 presidential election.  At an appearance at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Mr. Obama called for "a restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government", describing Trump as "a symptom, not the cause" of the toxic racial animus that was infested politics in the US.  "We are supposed to stand up to bullies, not follow them," Mr Obama said.  "We are supposed to stand up to discrimination and we sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathisers," he said, referring to the time Trump said there were "very good people" on "both sides" when murderous far right miscreants rampaged in Charlottesville, Virginia last year.  "How hard can that be?  Saying Nazis are bad?"

Mr. Obama also spoke of the New York Times editorial written by an anonymous member of the Trump administration who claimed a group of officials were protecting the country by blocking Trump's worst policies and military plans.  "The claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren't following the president's orders, that is not a check," Obama said, "That's not how our democracy is supposed to work.  These people aren't elected.  They're not accountable."  He added, "They are not doing us a service by actively promoting 90 percent of the crazy stuff that is coming out of this White House and then saying, 'Don't worry.  We are preventing the other 10 percent.'"

Former Trump campaigner advisor George Papadopoulos was sentenced to twelve days plus a year of supervised release in jail for lying to the FBI.  He was the first Trump aide arrested in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and misled authorities about his role as a go-between for the Trump campaign and the Russians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is rejecting calls for a ceasefire to stop the fighting in Idlib, Syria, that last stronghold of the rebels fighting against Moscow's ally Bashar al-Assad.  At a trilateral meeting with Iran and Turkey - seen as the last chance for peace before Syria and Russia finally crush whats's left of the opposition - Putin referred to the rebels as "terrorists". 

A Russian spy satellite got close to a Franco-Italian satellite last year and tried to intercept its transmissions, alleges French Defence Minister Florence Parly who called it "an act of espionage".  She identified the satellite as a "Luch-Olymp" type.  The US said a similar bird had come close to two of its  Intelsat satellites in 2015.

China's assertiveness in the Pacific could rewrite Aussie navy priorities.  Navy chief Vice-Admiral Mike Noonan is previewing a greater Australian naval presence in the southwest Pacific:  "We will continue to evolve where we operate and expand where we operate based on where Australia's national interests are best served," he said.  That would likely mean shifting Australian Naval power from the Mideast, supporting US operations for 30 years:  "The lessons we have learned from operating in waters far from home are being applied equally as we help our own very close neighbours and we provide capacity within our own navy to do more within the region," said Adm. Noonan.

Brazil far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, lost 40 percent of his blood after he was stabbed in the gut at a campaign rally on Thursday.  Doctors say he suffered a deep and life-threatening stab wound in his liver and intestines.  Bolsonaro inflamed many with his homophobic comments, racism against Afro-Brazilians, and praise for the torture chambers run by the fascist dictatorship of the 1970s.