Hello Australia!! - Hillary walks tall from a attempted smear job - An up and coming gang is apparently challenging a fugitive drug lord - What could convince heavily tattooed, gun-toting gangsters to call off Halloween? - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The plan flopped, big time.  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton withstood an eleven hour grilling by the committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack.  Not only did she keep her cool and appear presidential the entire time, but critics noticed that the republicans at no point asked anything about the actual attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three security agents.  Instead, the republicans came off as angry, asking glib and often nonsensical questions about her emails and reactions to media reports.  At a media availability afterward, committee chairman Trey Gowdy was dumbfounded when a reporter asked if anything new was learned - he had to admit, no, nothing was learned. 

US President Barack Obama vetoed the republican congress' US$612 Billion defense budget, saying the good programs were outweighed by republican gimmicks for unwanted defense spending.  Worse yet, it would have prevented him from a last chance at fulfilling a 2008 campaign promise:  "This legislation specifically impedes our ability to close" the Guantanamo Bay prison where the US holds terrorists without trial.  Mr. Obama added, "Guantanamo is one of the premier mechanisms for jihadists to recruit, it is time for us to close it.  It's outdated, it's expensive."

There are more details on that US-Peshmerga raid on an Islamic State site in northern Iraq in which many prisoners were freed but one US soldier was killed.  Originally, the Americans weren't supposed to fight, but were mainly there to support the Kurdish forces - that changed when the Peshmerga got pinned down by a fierce IS resistance.  They thought they were going to free 20 Kurdish captives - instead, they freed around 70, although none were Kurdish.  And US officials say the raid was prompted by intelligence showing that Islamic state was digging several graves, which was interpreted as planning another mass execution.

Police in Mexico confiscated 10 tons of marijuana from a newly discovered smuggling tunnel that led from Tijuana to San Diego in California.  More than 20 members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel were arrested.  But cops suspect the operation once belonged to fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who escaped from the country's most-secure prison through a 1.5 kilometer tunnel dug from the outside to his cell.  The Tijuana tunnel ran 800 meters, was lit, ventilated, and was reinforced with steel beams.

The UN is warning that 30,000 people face starvation in South Sudan because of the civil war.  "People are on the edge of a catastrophe that can be prevented," said World Food Program chief Joyce Luma.  Both the government and rebel forces accuse each other of breaching the August peace agreement; the fighting has made aid deliveries impossible.

Japan's largest Yakuza organized crime syndicate has cancelled its annual Halloween trick or treat event for kids, for "various reasons".  Yakuza experts believe it's really about fears of a gang war.  The Yamaguchi-gumi recently had a schism, with several senior leaders breaking off to form their own 'family'.  Police have been busy trying to prevent a 1980s-style Yazuka war with a series of preemptive raids and arrests.

Scientists have identified a previously undiscovered species of giant tortoise hiding in plain sight on Ecuador's Galapagos Islands.  About 250 of the big-and-slow are living in an arid inland area of Santa Cruz island.  Tests show they are genetically distinct from other populations.  With the new discovery, the Galapagos is home to 12 known giant tortoise species.