Howdy Australia!! - Turkish foces shell Americans - A former ambassador unleashing more damaging evidence against Trump - The first person to walk in space is dead - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

"This is a war against the Kurdish people," said one man as he showed the bodies of civilians including children killed in Turkey's invasion of Kurdish territories in northern Syria, which began earlier this week after Donald Trump apparently gave permission to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who considers the Kurds a threat to his country.  Already, the Turkish offensive has gone haywire - Newsweek reports that the Turks shelled US special forces in the Kurdish city of Kobani.  Disgusted Pentagon officials said Turkish forces should have been aware of US positions "down to the grid".  Elsewhere, at least five so-called Islamic State militants escaped from a prison in Qamishli city, while IS families - women and children - attacked Kurdish offices with sticks and rocks.  Reports of the death toll range from about a dozen, to several dozen, to more than a hundred lives lost - the situation is too chaotic now.

The former US Ambassador to Ukraine slammed Donald Trump in testimony to US lawmakers.  Marie Yovanovitch told US House of Representatives impeachment investigators that Donald Trump had pressured the State Department to remove her, even though a top department official confirmed to her that she had "done nothing wrong".  She said that Trump recalled her from her post after  "a concerted campaign" against her by Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and his contacts in Ukraine, one based on "unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives".  Two of Giuliani's contacts were arrested at Dulles National Airport yesterday, attempting to flee the United States with one-way plane tickets. 

Giuliani is reportedly under investigation by the Manhattan US attorney's office - the office he used to run in the 1980s when he was known as an anti-mob prosecutor.  It appears to be linked to his seeking of damaging gossip on Trump's rival Joe Biden from the Ukrainian government.  Donald Trump appeared ready to throw Rudy under the bus, like he has done with practically every associate he has ever had.  In a video obtained by CNN prior to a political rally in Louisiana, Trump actually refused to say if Rudy Giuliani is still his attorney.  "Well, I don’t know," Trump said, "I haven't spoken to Rudy.  I spoke to him yesterday briefly.  He's a very good attorney and he has been my attorney, yeah, sure."  

This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who made peace last year with bitter foe Eritrea, ending a two decade long military stalemate following their 1998-2000 border war.

Amazonian indigenous groups in traditional face paint have come to Quito, Ecuador to join raucous anti-government protests, joining with highland tribes in their bowler hats as the demonstrations conclude ninth day with no sign of slowing.  The chaos was sparked by President Lenin Moreno's austerity program that slashed social spending including decades-old fuel subsidies on which poor people depend, all in keeping with a loan deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  Four people have died, and the United Nations says the government must investigate tribal leaders' accusations of police brutality against the indigenous protesters.

The NSW Rural Fire Service says at least 45 homes were lost in this week's bushfires which swept across northern NSW.  The Busbys Flat fire which ripped through Rappville and the surrounding area on Tuesday destroyed 37 homes, while the Drake fire burned another eight homes.  

Thirty-seven homes were destroyed in the Busbys Flat fire which ripped through Rappville and the surrounding area on Tuesday afternoon, while eight houses were razed in the Drake fire, which killed two people identified as 77-year old Bob Lindsay and his wife 68-year old Gwen Hyde.  

A wildfire in California's hills has reached the San Fernando Valley, the northern limits of Los Angeles.  The Saddleridge fire has grown to more than 7,500 acres and has shewed through at least 25 homes.

The first person to walk in space is dead at age 85.  Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov performed the spacewalk amid the height of the US-Soviet space-race in 1965.  "You just can't comprehend it," Leonov said in an interview in 2014, "Only out there can you feel the greatness - the huge size of all that surrounds us."  He joined the Cosmonaut program in 1960, training with his friend Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.  Later, he commanded the Soyuz-Apollo, the first ever joint US-Soviet mission in 1975.