Hello Australia!! - A big reward awaits the person who turns in the creep putting needles in strawberries - The super typhoon kills more than a dozen people - Helper or provocateur, choose or lose - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

New South Wales Police are confirming that a punnet of strawberries purchased in Sydney was contaminated with needles.  The customer had purchased it from Coles in Engadine in Sydney's south, and turned it over to police upon finding the needle.  Strawberries fouled with needles have been discovered at supermarkets in Queensland, NSW, and Victoria.  Six brands are involved: Donnybrook Berries, Love Berry, Delightful Strawberries, Oasis brands, Berry Obsession, and Berry Licious.  The Queensland Government has put out a $100,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the culprit behind the contamination of the strawberries.

Typhoon Mangkhut is heading towards northern Vietnam and southern China, after causing death and destruction in the Philippines.  At least 14 people are dead after the super-typhoon grazed northern Luzon with 185 kilometer-per-hour winds, tearing off roofs, knocking down trees, and causing flooding and landslides.  People in Hong Kong and Macau are boarding up homes and businesses as the storm draws near.

In the Carolinas, high tide plus the storm surge from Storm Florence pushed the water at least 10-1/2 feet higher than it was supposed to be, meaning that there is catastrophic flooding over a widespread area.  The White House declared a disaster for eight North Carolina counties, meaning that Federal funds will be freed up for the recovery in the form of grants and low-cost loans for home repairs.  The death toll is five lives lost, and thousands of homes are flooded.

The US Coast Guard removed a service member from duty after he flashed the "white power" hand signal on live TV.  The man was in the background as the US cable TV news network MSNBC interviewed a commander about the fifth branch of the military's response to Storm Florence, when outraged viewers watched him glance at the camera and make the hand gesture.  Bottom line, the guy was supposed to be there to help Americans through a natural disaster, not provoke or inflame:  "Whatever that symbol means, it doesn't reflect the Coast Guard and our core values," Coast Guard Lieutenant J.B. Zorn later told NBC News, "It won't be tolerated." 

Turkey has sentenced an ex-British soldier to 7-1/2 years in prison over links to the Kurdish YPG, which is fighting the terrorists of the so-called Islamic State in Syria.  Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist group in league with Kurdish insurgents in the southeast.  25-year old Joe Robinson of Leeds was arrested last year as a tourist in Turkey after he posted online photos of himself in camouflage posing next to fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria.  Mr. Robinson is free while appealing the case, but cannot leave Turkey.

NASA launched a satellite into orbit which will measure the earth's dwindling ice layers.  ICESat-2 will provide more precise information on how glaciers and ice caps are being affected by global warming. 

Gunmen dressed as traditional mariachi musicians opened fire at a road crosing in Mexico City, killing at least three people.  And yes, that is the basic plot device in the "El Mariachi" trilogy of films by Robert Rodriguez.  This happened at the Plaza Garibaldi, a major tourist attraction in the capital packed with mariachi bars, that borders on the gang-infested Tepito district.  Organized crime accounts for three-quarters of Mexico's murders.

Pope Francis warned members of Italy's mafia gangs that they could not "believe in God and be Mafiosi" simultaneously, attacking the Sicilian mob's guise as church-going men as a sham.  Francis spoke at an open air mass in Palermo's Piazza Europa for Father Giuseppe Puglisi, an anti-mafia campaigner who was who was shot dead by in Sicily 25 years ago.  

Fancy a beer, even if it's past its shelf date?  Researchers in Israel found evidence of a brewery in a cave near Haifa.  But the prehistoric find is apparently is 13,000 years old, and that's turning history on its cold, frothy head - before this, they thought that brewing beer began 5,000 years ago.  What's more the ancient brewery appears to be purpose-built, rather than just taking advantage of a surplus from making bread.