Hello Australia!! - Scores are killed in Philippine flooding - Russia blasts the US for upgrading arms sales to Ukraine - Fire strikes the world's oldest zoo in London - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

A drenching tropical storm caused flooding and landslides across the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, killing at least 180 people and causing all sorts of damage.  Officials say at least one remote village - Dalama - was wiped out by flooding.  As for other villages, "We've sent rescuers but they're making little progress due to the rocks" washed onto the roadways, said one local emergency official. 

A terrible fire at London Zoo killed an Aardvark and possibly four Meerkats, while eight Zoo workers were injured - one badly enough to be sent to hospital.  "All other animals in the vicinity are being monitored closely by our vets, but early signs suggest they have not been affected," read a statement from the London Zoo, "We will continue to monitor them over the coming days."  The cause of the fire is unknown.  The zoo in Regent Park was closed on Saturday, but will reopen to the public on Sunday.

At least 33 people were killed when a bus plunged off of a bridge in northern India.  It was carrying passengers in Rajasthan to the Ramdevji Hindu temple in Sawai Madhopur district. 

Poland's top judge accuses the far right government of a "coup d'etat against the structure of one of the most important state institutions" with its "reforms" that place a weakened judiciary at the whim of the ruling party.  Malgorzata Gersdorf said the government was walking "along the abyss" into which the whole nation might fall.  The reforms, passed last week, allow ruling PiS party lawmakers to appoint and dismiss judges, who will then have new powers to reopen closed cases and rewrite settled law to the far right's satisfaction and grudges.  The European Union has taken the unprecedented step of lambasting Poland in a process that could take away Warsaw's voting rights in the continental economic bloc.

Kiev is grateful - while Moscow is angry - now that Donald Trump has decided to sell powerful weapons to Ukraine to assist in its fight against Russian-backed separatists in the east.  Ukraine has long sought the Javelin anti-tank missiles, which President Petro Poroshenko says will be used in self-defense for a "stronger rebuff of the aggressor, protection of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians" and "it is also a trans-Atlantic vaccination against the Russian virus of aggression."  But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the US had cast aside its role as a "mediator" in the Ukraine Crisis, and that "the American weapons can lead to more victims in the neighboring country, and we couldn't stay indifferent to that".

Authorities charged Melbourne Rampage driver Saeed Noori with 18 counts of attempted murder.  Three of his victims from last week's attack outside Flinders Street Station are still in a critical condition.  The 32-year old former Afghan migrant has a history of drug abuse and mental health issues, and the court ordered a psychological report.

The US Ambassador to The Netherlands is apologizing for his embarrassingly stupid exchange with a Dutch reporter, in which he was caught on camera lying about a lie and then lying about lying about the lie.  Pete Hoekstra tweeted, "I made certain remarks in 2015, and regret teh exchange" with the reporter, and, "Please accept my apology."  Hoekstra in 2015 claimed radical Muslims created "no go" zones in the Netherlands (a lie); when confronted by a reporter last week, he claimed he never said it and labelled as "fake news" the reporter's claim; when the reporter played a video of Hoekstra's initial lie (also caught on camera), Hoekstra then claimed he didn't deny it and didn't use the words "fake news," 30 seconds earlier.. on camera.  The reporter looked back at the camera operator, just to make sure he was still on Earth and not Bizarroland.

A rights group says that detentions of Palestinian children by Israeli forces has spiked since Trump's Jerusalem declaration.  The report from Defense of Children International (DCI) says at least seven Palestinian minors to have suffered serious injuries by Israeli forces since protests broke out across the occupied Palestinian territories, and the number of minors held in one Ramallah-based detention centre more than doubled compared with the previous month.  DCI's Ayed Abu Eqtaish is particularly worried about Israel's increasingly indiscriminate use "of so-called less lethal crowd-control weapons" - rubber bullets, sponge bullets, tear gas, and other weapons.

The US FBI says it broke up an ex-Marine's plot to attack a tourist attraction in San Francisco on Christmas.  Investigators claim 25-year old Muslim convert Everitt Aaron Jameson of Modesto expressed radical jihadist beliefs on social media and was angered by Donald Trump's decision to designate Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  A search of his one allegedly recovered weapons and bomb-making instructions.  But there's one hitch:  On 18 December, the suspect reportedly got cold feet and told an undercover agent, "I don't think I can do this after all. I've reconsidered."  So, is the US prosecuting a man for deciding not to commit a crime?  Big issue that defense attorneys will no doubt use.   

Zimbabwe's retired army chief Constantino Chiwenga is getting his reward for leading the military action that forced dictator Robert Mugabe to resign:  New President Emmerson Mnangagwa has appointed Chiwenga as one of his top deputies in the ruling Zanu-PF party, a step widely seen as being the precursor to being named vice president.  Wait, was there an election..?  No..?  

Venezuela's government says the right-wing "should compensate victims" of the violence and civil disturbances it churned up over the past few years.  A report from the Commission for Truth, Peace and Public Tranquility published on Saturday recommends that the people responsible for such acts of violence should be sentenced to community work.  More than 160 were killed in rioting and chaos in 2017 alone, in addition to the 45 killed in the three previous years.  The government accuses the country's moneyed right-wing elite that hasn't won an election since 2001 of financing mob violence to change the political equation.

The contrail from a Space-X rocket launch from Vandenburn Air Force Base in California left a neato cloud over the southland from Los Angeles to Arizona.  Which some people mistook for UFOs.  SMDH.