Hello Australia!! - The Coronavirus surpasses the SARS outbreak - The Greens and the Nationals begin new eras - One school's battle of the burka - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The death toll from the 2019-nCoV Wuhan Coronavirus is 425 deaths (updated!) in China and one in the Philippines - during the SARS outbreak in 2002-03, 349 people died in mainland China.  Health officials are encouraged, however, because SARS had a mortality rate of 9.6 percent, while the current coronavirus outbreak is closer to two percent.  At least 475 patients have recovered, and dozens are leaving hospitals even as new hospitals are built to handle new infections.  In Beijing, the politburo acknowledged "shortcomings and deficiencies that were exposed responding to this epidemic", and vowed to tighten China's game in battle the outbreak.  Specifically, there will be a crackdown in trade in illegal wildlife, which will be "resolutely banned".  

The first Australians to be evacuated from Wuhan, China because of the coronavirus outbreak have arrived on Christmas Island for their two weeks of quarantine.  The group of more than 200 people included 89 children under 16 years of age.  A second evacuation of Australians in Wuhan was planned to take place this week.  Meanwhile, some Australian businesses are getting hurt by the coronavirus outbreak, losing their export links to the Chinese market.  At least one company told the ABC they've laid off workers, while another is worried about being shutdown without Chinese consumers.

Far-right US radio host Rush Limbaugh says he has advanced lung cancer and will miss several upcoming days of his broadcast for treatment.  The 69-year old has played a key, king-making role in Republican politics, leveraging his audience of loyal but angry middle-aged men to rally votes for candidates he deemed "conservative" enough.  Critics also note he has encouraged division and propagated vile racism and sexism, mostly at Democratic Party luminaries like Barack Obama and the Clintons, doing incalculable damage to the US.

The Greens have elected Adam Bandt as their new leader, following the resignation yesterday of Richard Di Natale.  The party's co-deputy leaders are Larissa Waters and Nick McKim.  Meanwhile in the Nats' party room, Michael McCormack has fended off a challenge from Barnaby Joyce to remain National Party leader.  David Littleproud will be deputy leader.

Colombia's conservative government claims it is committed to implementing the peace deal that ended the five-decade long civil war with the Marxist FARC group.  But FARC leader Rodrigo "Timochenko" Londono has written to the government complaining about the murders of 175 former guerrillas who signed onto the peace plan to put down their weapons and join the political process.  The Institute for Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ) says 627 Left-wing and indigenous social leaders have been killed since the Signing of the peace agreement in November 2016.  Timochenko warns the country is facing a "precipice".  

The Hamburg Administrative Court in Germany ruled against a school's attempt to bar a 16-year-old girl from wearing a burka, or niqab, during classtime.  Justices said the state has no power to enact the ban, and the girl has the "right to unconditional protection of her freedom of religion".  The cover-up garment, seen mostly in Islamic countries, would include a facial covering that the state's Social Democratic education minister opposes:  "No matter what culture or religion prescribes, everyone shows their faces openly at school," said Senator Ties Rabe, who new seeks to change state law to ban facial coverings in school.