Good Morning Australia!! - An earthquake and hurricane cause death and destruction across Mexico and the Caribbean - Iran hits back at Trump - Did you ever get the impression that the airline was just screwing with you and your luggage? - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Mexico is engaged in the grim task of digging through rubble as the death toll from yesterday's earthquake reached 225 and was likely to climb.  Rescuers have been digging through what used to be a school in Mexico City where more than 20 students and teachers were trapped, and one child has been rescued.  But overall, the laborious process there and more than 30 other sites in the capital has yielded bodies.  Most of the deaths were in the capital, but rural regions close to the epicenter were also hard-hit - 71 fatalities are reported in Morelos state, 43 in Puebla.

The entire island of Puerto Rico is without power after Hurricane Maria made landfall on Wednesday morning local time as a Category Four Cyclone, and tropical storm-force winds still battered the US territory in the late afternoon.  Telecommunications throughout the island have "collapsed" according to the islands emergency management executive director Abner Gomez Cortes.  Two hospitals have been damaged and there is widespread flooding a damage reported.

Puerto Rico already sustained a billion dollars worth of damage during Hurricane Irma earlier this month, and there are fears that Maria will turn out to be a full-fledged calamity.  Likewise in the US Virgin Islands, the scant few buildings that weren't devastated by Irma have reportedly been torn asunder by Maria.  Seven deaths are reported in Dominica, a low-key Caribbean isle known for eco-tourism and two medical schools:  "The country is in a daze - no electricity, no running water - as a result of uprooted pipes in most communities and definitely no landline or cellphone services on island, and that will be for quite a while," said government official Hartley Henry.

At the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani defended the landmark 2015 international agreement in which his nation gave up its nuclear program in exchange for economic relief, and blasted the "ignorant, absurd and hateful rhetoric" delivered a day early from Donald Trump:  "It would be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics," Rouhani said.  The deal - negotiated by The US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the European Union with Iran - "belongs to the international community in its entirety, and not only to one or two" governments, he added.  And he insisted that Iran will not be the first party to break the deal.

The orange clown tried to bring his television reality show huckster routine to the world stage, vaguely threatening to trash the 2015 accord which successfully took Iran out of the nuclear weapons race.  Desperate to call attention to himself, the insecure toddler said, "I have decided," and, "I'll let you know," repeatedly when asked about the whether the US would honor its commitment to the agreement.  France's Emmanuel Macron has been working to preserve the agreement, although with additional restrictions on Iran which even US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has admitted is in "technical compliance".

Australia refused to sign on to "The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons" that was passed by two-thirds of the UN in July, instead joining the boycott by nuclear powers America, Britain, France, and others.  "There remain some fifteen thousand nuclear weapons in existence.  We cannot allow these doomsday weapons to endanger our world and our children's future," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.  For many nations, the urgent need for this treaty couldn't have been more clear because of the nuclear dick-waving by orange clown Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un.

A Rohingya Muslim, speaking to the SBS on condition of anonymity, said he was pressured into taking $25,000 to leave the Manus Island detention camp and return to Myanmar.  "They said 'think about it, Manus is no good'," the man recalled, "What choice do I have?  The government offered me $25,000 or I sit in the transit center at Manus Island."  The story appears to bolster a report in The Guardian in which Australian officials offered that kind of cash to refugees to clear the Manus Island camp, which was declared illegal by the Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court.

Spanish police detained 14 Catalan officials and raided local government offices in a heavy-handed show of force to try and stop the 1 October independence referendum, which Madrid has declared illegal.  "We condemn and reject the anti-democratic and totalitarian actions of the Spanish state," said Catalan President Carles Puigdemont in a televised address, urging increasingly angry Catalans to defy Madrid and vote anyway.  Polls suggest that if right-wing authoritarian PM Marino Rajoy were to just let the vote go through, it would end up like Scotland:  A majority in Catalonia want the vote to proceed, but a smaller minority actually wants to secede from Spain.  Instead, he's angering the region and protests in favor of secession are growing.

A baggage handler at Singapore Changhi International Airport has been charged with 286 counts of criminal mischief for switching tags on the luggage of travelers, sending bags to the wrong destinations.  Authorities say Tay Boon Keh did this everyday on the job for three months.  His motive is not clear, but he faces a year in prison if convicted.