Hello, Australia! – Tony goes ballistic over Zaky Mallah – Obama clears way for US families to pay ransoms to foreign kidnappers – Islamic State strikes back against Kurdish forces – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

PM Tony Abbott has declared that “heads should roll” at the ABC after Monday night’s Q&A program.  The ABC has come under a lot of criticism for allowing into the audience former terrorism suspect Zaky Mallah, who eventually pleaded guilty to threatening to kill ASIO officials.  ABC officials already admitted it was a bad idea to allow Mallah to ask questions.  “They compounded the mistake by re-broadcasting the program,” Abbott said, ordering a government inquiry into the episode.

At least eight people were killed by a car bomb in Kobani (sometimes spelled Kobane), Syria, as Islamic State tries to reverse gains made by Kurdish fighters there.  Kurdish forces captured the border city earlier this year, and in recent days reported capturing another border city important to IS’s oil smuggling operation.  But IS militants are attacking the city from three sides – and Kurdish activists are accusing Turkey of allowing IS to attack from its side of the border. 

US President Barack Obama announced changed to the way the US resolves situations in which Americans are held hostage overseas.  Families will no longer have to fear prosecution if they arrange to pay ransoms outside official channels.  The long-standing US policy is to make no concessions to terrorists.  But the families of US hostages have been frustrated as European captives were freed – because their governments paid ransoms – while several American hostages were killed over the past year. 

President Obama urged visiting Chinese officials to take “concrete steps” to stop hacking incidents into US computers and to ease tensions over its island building campaign in the South China Sea.  Vice Premier Liu Yandong and Vice Premier Wang Yang made no such assurances.  Still, the two sides emphasized areas in which they could still cooperate, such as nuclear non-proliferation efforts with Iran and North Korea.

There are conflicting death tolls reported in Pakistan’s heatwave.  Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper says more than 1,000 people have succumbed, while The News puts it at 950 – most of them in Karachi.  Hospitals are stressed as thousands of heatstroke patients are battling for their lives.

A South African court is threatening criminal charges against anyone in the government who allowed South Sudan President Omar al-Bashir to leave the country, before he could be arrested and sent to The Hague to face war crimes charges.  He had gone to South Africa last week for an African Union summit, and a South African court acted on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant and barred him from leaving.  But no one stopped Bashir at the airport, and he quickly returned to South Sudan.

An 18-year old mother and her one-year-old son miraculously survived a small plane crashed in the rainforest of western Colombia that killed the pilot.  Maria Nelly Murillo and baby Yudier Moreno were found near the crashed Cessna, suffering minor burns and injuries.  Colonel Hector Carrascal called it a “miracle” noting, “It is a very wild area and it was a catastrophic accident.”  The two were flown to hospital in Qibdo for treatment.

Israel revoked 500 permits that would have allowed Gaza residents to travel to Jerusalem and pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque for Ramadan.  This, after militants fired a rocket from Gaza into Israel, causing no damage or casualties.  SIrael blames Hamas.

The UN is calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demonstrate his commitment to a two-state solution to solve the tensions with the Palestinians.  UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman said Israel should stop allowing Jewish settlers to build illegal settlements on captured Palestinian land.  Netanyahu had been accused of lukewarm support to the goal.  But before elections earlier this year, he repeatedly promised hardliners that he would not allow a Palestinian state on his watch.  After the election, Netanyahu went back to his earlier lukewarm support.