Good Morning, Australia! – A human catastrophe is forming south of Italy – Cops are charged with a massacre – A diplomatic standoff between Catholic France and the Vatican – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

As Europe – and especially Italy – braces for another massive wave of immigrants, the UN refugee agency not enough is being done to save the lives of people drowning in the Mediterranean Sea.  More than 400 are feared drowned after a refugee boat capsized a day after setting out from Libya.  The Italian coast guard rescued around 140 from the craft but found only nine bodies.  It’s been largely left up to Italy to patrol the sea, and now the UN High Commission on Refugees is calling on the European Union to get involved and assist rescue efforts on its southern frontier.  Thousands of immigrants have been rescued since last Friday, and what passes for a Libyan coast guard these days warns that conditions will be right for smugglers to send another wave later this week.

Indian prosecutors filed preliminary charges against police in the killings of 20 suspected rare wood smugglers.  The cops with the Anti-Smuggling Task Force say they were attacked by illegal loggers with axes and sharp tools near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh state, and opened fire in self-defense.  But witnesses claimed men were pulled off buses and killed.  It set off a week of violent protests.  The Task Force was set-up to counter violent wood smugglers, who have attacked police in the past.

Brazilian federal police arrested the treasurer of the ruling Workers Party in connection with corruption at the state-run oil company Petrobras.  Cops approached Joao Vaccari Neto as he stepped out for his morning jog in Sao Paulo, detaining him, his wife, and his sister-in-law.  Vaccari has maintained his innocence throughout the very public and messy investigation.

Amnesty International says the US and Europe are ignoring “pervasive” torture and other “appalling abuses” in Uzbekistan to keep security and business arrangements aloft.  The group’s report details the use of beatings, near asphyxiation, sexual assault, and electric shocks.  Western powers say the policy of active “engagement” has actually resulted in some improvements in Uzbekistan’s nasty human rights situation. 

France is standing by its nomination of an openly Gay ambassador to the Vatican, which has been delaying its response in approving or rejecting the choice.  Described by the foreign ministry as “one of our best diplomats”, the French government proposed senior diplomat Laurent Stefanini for the post in January.  But the Vatican usually approves foreign diplomats within six weeks – a delay is seen as a silent rejection.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi’s news conference was interrupted when he was glitter-bombed by a by a woman screaming about tyranny and such.  Well.  Alrighty then.

American football star Aaron Hernandez has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of an acquaintance in June 2013.  He was immediately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  The former rising star with a US$41 Million contract with the New England Patriots faces a second murder trial in the deaths of two Cape Verdean nationals who angered him by spilling a drink.

Two people were killed and several are injured after tourists at a flower show in eastern China climbed up on a net, which collapsed under their weight.