Hello Australia!! - The US looks for allies, doesn't find a lot - The US Vice President is caught in a false claim - Spain's year-long political stand-off could end within days - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Authorities say the death toll from bushfires since September is now 23 lives lost, with six people still missing.  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.

While an uneasy world waits to learn what form Iran will respond to the US assassination of its top military leader Major General Qassem Soleimani, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo somewhat audaciously complained that the Trump isn't getting the type of support it expected from its European allies.  Mind you, this comes after three years of Trump insulting his allies and acting impetuously at international functions, and failing to inform them prior to last week's deadly missile strike on the perimeters of the Baghdad Airport. 

"Frankly, the Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be," Pompeo said on Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, "The Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did, what the Americans did, saved lives in Europe as well."  Pompeo and the Trump administration have so far declined to release any evidence backing up its assertion that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks on US (and now international) targets.  Most of America's allies (except Israel) have reacted coolly to the air strike and called for calm and de-escalation.

US Vice President Mike Pence linked Soleimani to the 9/11 attacks in 2001 - a false assertion at best and at worst a flat-out lie.  In a since-deleted tweet, Pence claimed Soleimani "assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States".  Pence got the number of terrorists wrong - there were 19, not twelve.  The 9/11 Commission Report clearly concluded that there was no evidence to suggest "Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack".   And several scholars jumped in to note it was highly unlikely that the Sunni extremists of al Qaeda were in business with Iran's Shi'ite government that it considers to be apostates to Islam.  

US Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will push for legislation that "blocks Pentagon funding for any unilateral actions" taken by Trump "to wage war against Iran without congressional authorization".  The legislation will be co-sponsored by California Democratic Party Rep. Ro Khanna.  Sanders 'could' get help in the Republican-controlled upper house after GOP Senator Rand Paul criticized Trump's airstrike which was done without consulting Congress, and the sending of more US troops to the Middle East:  "If you don't want perpetual war, you don't keep sending more targets over there," said Sen. Paul, who is usually a reliable Trump ally.

Anyway...

Spain could finally get a government this week.  The acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) has struck a deal with fellow Lefties Podemos, and Catalonia's pro-independence Republicans (ERC) said they will vote to approve it - which would end a year-long political stalemate.  That's probably not enough votes to win the first parliamentary ballot in which an absolute majority is required, but is expected to get over the line on the second vote when only a simple majority is required.  If it happens on Tuesday as expected, Spain will have its first exclusively Left-wing coalition government since the end of the fascist Franco government in the 1970s.  

French counter-terror prosecutors have taken control of the investigation into last week's knife attack south of Paris.  This comes after an examination of the writings of the suspect, identified only as Nathan C., revealed apparent anti-Semitic passages.  Nathan C stabbed one man to death and injured two people, before being shot dead by police.  Officials said he had a history of severe mental illness.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Hyderabad, India to oppose the Hindu nationalist government's Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which clears a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens from neighboring countries as long as they are not Muslims - critics say it's a sinister step towards officially relegating Muslim citizens to second-class status.  About 40 percent of Hyderbad's population of seven million are Muslim.  The protesters carried signs reading, "Withdraw CAA immediately", and "India's only religion is secularism".