Australian Air Force planes are getting more deeply involved in the war on Islamic State – The EU puts its foot down over Russian involvement in Ukraine – Health care workers are sick of watching comrades die of Ebola and go on strike – And much, much more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Australian military planes will transport arms and munitions to Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State militants in northern Iraq.  The US asked Australia to assist in the effort.  Independent MP Andrew Wilkie and the Greens are furious for Abbott over the decision, saying he didn’t consult parliament before committing Aussie resources and personnel. 

Australian planes were already part of the effort to airdrop aid to the besieged town of Amerli in northern Iraq, according to Pentagon officials.  US Military planes also conducted air strikes against Islamic State positions.  The people of Amerli are mainly ethnic Turkmen Shiites, just the sort of people that Islamic State has targeted for beheadings, crucifixions, forced amputations, and other atrocities in the group’s rampage across northern Iraq and Syria.

More than 70 Philippine peacekeepers slipped through tightening circle of al-Nusra Front terrorists in the Golan Heights and made it to safety.  The terrorists had earlier captured some 44 Fijian peacekeepers while surrounding the Filipinos in their camp.  The UN peacekeeping force has been stationed there since 1974 to monitor a ceasefire between Israel and Syria.

The European Union is giving Russia one week to reverse course in Ukraine or face another round of economic sanctions.  Moscow denies allegations from NATO and Kiev that Russian troops and hardware have flowed into Ukraine’s south near Mariupol, bolstering the Russian-backed rebels and putting them back on the offense against government troops.  There’s not a lot of hope that Moscow will change its course – some believe full scale war between Ukraine and Russia is inevitable, some believe Russia is figuratively at war with the EU.  Almost 2,900 people have been killed in the shooting in eastern Ukraine since April – including the 298 people killed in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, almost certainly the work of Russian-backed rebels firing weapons they weren’t qualified to use.

With more than 20 doctors and nurses getting sick and dying in the West African Ebola Outbreak, health care workers at Sierra Leone’s Kenema Ebola treatment center have gone on strike over working conditions and low pay.  Protective clothing is inadequate, and there is only one broken stretcher that is used to carry both patients and corpses.  More than 1,550 people have died in the outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal, which claimed its first case yesterday.

This is kind of like a Russian version of Rob Reiner’s “Stand By Me” (1986), but they’ll probably wind up in Ukraine..

Japan and North Korea recently held a secret meeting to discuss the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by the Hermit Kingdom, according to a source quoted by Japan’s Kyodo News.  The meeting likely took place in China in mid-August.  It precedes the release of a report by Pyongyang, due possibly by the third week of September.  Tokyo says as many as 17 Japanese nationals were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and ‘80s to teach spies about local language and customs.

Hey, did you see that volcano in PNG?

It’s believed that an Australian is among eight foreigners and two locals killed in a bus crash in Bolivia.  The tourist bus ran off the highway 290 kilometers south of La Paz, where it was returning from the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.  Surviving tourists were from all over the world, Europe, South American and Asia.  The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Some 15 or so counter-demonstrators were arrested in a demonstration against nazi scum in Stockholm, Sweden.  As usual, a handful of smelly, ignorance jackasses had their little rally and yelled white-power-this and racial-purity-that (no one listened, as usual) while surrounded by cops keeping back thousands of disgusted people.  A few of the Antifa took the fight to the boneheads and a good time was had by all.

Five miners are still trapped in a collapsed gold mine near Bonanza, Nicaragua.  The walls tumbled in on Thursday, and after some round-the-clock digging, some 20 miners were pulled to safety.  The effort continues.