Good Morning Australia! - The US challenges China's artificial islands by air - The Kurds are on the verge of a major victory against Islamic State - But the terrorists claim a shocking body count in a bombing in Beirut - And much more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Brazil is issuing preliminary fines against Australian mining giant BHP-Billton and its South American partner Vale for last week's destructive dam collapse.  Two dams collapsed on 5 November, burying the town of Bento Rodrigues under red mud and sludge authorities fear contains toxic mining waste.  They've confirmed that eight people died and 19 people are still missing.  In leveling the fine of around A$93 Million, President Dilma Rousseff said the country was "committed in the first place to blame those who are responsible."

The US pretty much ignored Chinese ground controllers as it flew a B-52 bomber over China's man-made islands in the South China Sea.  Last month, the USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Chinese military facilities built on artificial islands in the Spratley chain, which was previously a bunch of uninhabitable reefs that disappear at high tide.  The area, which lies hundreds of kilometers beyond China's internationally-recognized territorial limits, is rich in petroleum, gas, and fishing resources.  About a quarter of all global shipping traffic goes through that region.

Islamic State is claiming responsibility for a deadly bombing in Beirut, Lebanon that killed at least 41 people and injured more than 180.  This happened at rush hour, in Hezbollah-controlled, predominantly Shiite territory near a Palestinian refugee camp.  If it was IS, this is likely blowback from the group's involvement in the Syrian Civil War on behalf of Hezbollah's ally Bashar al-Assad. 

Kurdish forces say they are making progress taking the Iraqi city of Sinjar back from Islamic State.  The Peshmerga, backed up by air support from the US-led coalition, have cut off the main road linking Sinjar to the IS strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa.  When the terrorists took Sinjar last year, they killed or enslaved thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority; other Yazidis escaped into the mountains north of the city where they were stranded without food and water until rescued by the Peshmerga and US helicopters.

Undercover Israeli agents - dressed in false beards and including at least one masquerading as a pregnant woman - infiltrated a hospital in the West Bank, killing one Palestinian and making off with another who is a suspect in a stabbing.  It's believed around 30 Israelis were involved in this rather large operation to capture one person.  The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Azzam Shalaldeh, is suspected of stabbing an Israeli last month before the injured victim pulled a gun and shot him, hence sending him to the Hebron hospital.

The US filed drug trafficking charges against two distant in-laws of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.  The two men in their 20s - nephews of Maduro's wife - were arrested in Haiti for allegedly trying to arrange the transfer of cocaine from Honduras to the US - where they were extradited earlier this week.  Probably not coincidentally, this comes as Washington is trying to cajole Caracas to allow monitors from the US-dominated Organization of American States to observe its legislative elections in December.  Venezuela already asked the regional UNASUR group to send monitors.

Anti-racism protests are spreading to other US college campuses, and the hashtag #blackoncampus is lighting up social media.  This follows protests at the University of Missouri at Columbia that forced the president and chancellor to step down over their perceived indifference to campus racism.  On Thursday, the University of Missouri Board of Curators appointed a new interim head for the entire statewide system - 68-year old retired civil rights lawyer and law professor Michael Middleton, who was one of the system's first black law school graduates.

Meanwhile, two dirtbag Missouri boys had the "white privilege" cards revoked for making terrorist threats against the anti-racist protesters.  Cops picked up 19-year-old Connor Stottlemyre, a student at another state school, for allegedly posting the message "I'm gonna shoot any black people tomorrow so be ready" on the social media app YikYak.  That company is closely cooperating with authorities to investigate these sort of threats.  A day earlier, cops arrested another racist punkass for making similar threats on the same app.