Hello, Australia! – New Zealand grounds air traffic – You might not recognize the name, but you know the music of the man suspected to have been killed in California – The Kurds deal another blow to IS – Cats get into the darndest places – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

All domestic and international commercial flights in New Zealand were grounded for more than 90 minutes today because of what’s being described as “a radar fault”.  Eight international and nine domestic flights were forced to land for the duration.  Airways New Zealand says it detected an internal network failure at 2:41 PM local time, and suspended all flights during the investigation.  “At no point was safety of airport (operations) compromised,” the agency tweeted.

Award-winning film composer James Horner is feared dead in the crash of his plane in a remote spot about 135 kilometers northwest of Hollywood, California – where he wrote the score for dozens of films such as “Titanic”, “Avatar”, “A Beautiful Mind”, and many other major releases going all the way back to “Star Trek II”.  Horner loved flying and owned five airplanes, one of which crashed in the arid California hills, sparking a small bushfire.  Once rescuers got to the scene they found one body in the wreckage, which they are attempting to identify.

The government is attempting to confirm reports that two Australian terrorists, Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar, were killed while fighting for Islamic State (IS).  They were in the fighting near Mosul, where a body that might be that of Elomar was discovered.  The corpse of Sharrouf – the rat who distinguished himself by posing his seven-year old son with the severed head of a Syrian soldier – hasn’t been found.

A US airstrike in Iraq has killed a militant believed to have taken part in the 11 September 2012 attack on the US Embassy compound in Benghazi, Libya.  That episode left US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three security personnel dead.  Ali Awni al-Harzi reportedly coordinated relations between Islamic State and affiliated jihadist groups across the Middle East and North Africa, before the US nailed him in Mosul.

Kurdish YPG Popular Protection Units dealt another blow to Islamic State, taking over a key base north of Raqqa, the Islamists’ de facto capital.  Last week, the YPG drove IS out of Tal Abyar, the border village that the terrorists used to smuggle oil into Turkey and the black market. 

Any hope for a peace accord in Colombia is fading after the latest deadly attack by FARC militants.  The government isn’t releasing a lot of detail, but blames the FARC for the deaths of four soldiers who were in a helicopter that landed in a minefield.  The rebels last month called off their unilateral ceasefire after government troops killed 26 militants in a surprise attack.  Since then, the 50-year old FARC has been proving that it still has substantial capabilities with a series of counterattacks on police stations, oil tankers and valuable energy infrastructure.

Pope Francis visits South America next month, but he’s staying away from his home country Argentina.  The pontiff he doesn't want to become an issue in elections this October – and he’s also reportedly feeling “used” by Argentine politicians who come to Rome to get the photo taken with him.

We started with airplanes, let’s end with airplanes.  Pilot Romain Jantot was taking a tourist for a flight in his ultralight in French Guiana.  About a minute into the flight, he looked up and saw a stowaway cat, desperately clinging to the wing where it had apparently tried to take a nap earlier.  Mr. Jantot was pretty cool about it; he immediately circled and landed back at Kourou Airport.  Jantot says the cat was not hurt, and actually has become his flight school mascot.