Good Morning Australia!! - Syrian Peace Talks fail, for now - Nigeria uses new technology to decimate a Boko Haram camp - What is endangering Cuba's most famous export? - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The United Nations special envoy on Syria has already called a pause to the peace talks in Geneva, just two days after they officially started.  Staffan de Mistura insisted, "This is not the end, and it is not the failure of the talks."  But the opposition umbrella group accuses the Syrian government of negotiating in bad faith, because troops are still on the march backed by Russian air strikes.  De Mistura will try to get the process started again on 25 February - but once again will not include Islamic State and Al Nusra Front.  The Syrian civil war has been going on almost five years, killing more than 250,000 people and displacing 11 million.

A Russian news group released video footage showing the absolute destruction of Homs, Syria.  This is what war does.

Iraq announced it is building a ten meter concrete wall around the capital to protect against the near daily suicide bombings.  The perimeter will also include a moat.  The wall will reduce the number of checkpoints to get in and out of the city, freeing thousands of troops for combat duty.  One would imagine would also create worse bottlenecks - but officials insist it would improve Baghdad's traffic congestion as well.

Nigeria released video purporting to show a drone strike destroying a Boko Haram logistics base and ammo dump.  Drone operators were performing a standard surveillance mission when the drone controllers came across a Boko Haram gathering north of its usual hideout in the Sambisa Forest.  "This strike is thus a major setback for the Boko Haram Sect, and a major plus for the fight against insurgency by own troops," said a Nigerian Air Force spokesman.

At his first visit to a mosque as President of the United states of America, Barack Obama condemned "inexcusable political rhetoric" about Islam that has "no place in our country".  This was a clear reference to the Islamophobic garbage coming out of the mouth of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has called for deportations and barring entry to US to the world's 1.5 Billion Muslims.  The advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has tracked a spike in anti-Muslim violence since Trump made his remarks.

You know who might be looking for a Federal, State, or Local Government job on CareerSpot?  US Senator Rand Paul.  He dropped out of the race for the Republican Party presidential nomination, following Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.  On the Democratic side, former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley ended his campaign, leaving it to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to fight it out.  All three men pulled up stakes after showing poorly in the Iowa Caucuses.

Cuba is rushing to save its tobacco crop, which is stressed to the breaking point because of the weird weather created by El Nino.  Cuba was struck by drought in most of 2015.  But when the rain finally came, it was too much.  Some plantations were wiped out, and are struggling in the mud to replant.  Cuba's famous cigars account for more than US$200 Million of the country's GDP, but that is bound to rise now that the US is doing away with economic sanctions.

The condition of Italian actor Raphael Schumacher is deteriorating in hospital after he was injured in a stage hanging stunt gone very wrong.  The 27-year old was appearing in a production of Mirages at the Teatro Lux in Pisa, when it happened.  The noose should have been fake and a harness should have caught him.  Both safeguards failed and an medical student in the audience realized the stunt went wrong by the way Schumacher twitched on the rope. 

India's Tata Motors plans to rename its Zica car, because the name is similar to the mosquito Zika Virus which is causing a mini-panic in the Western Hemisphere because of its links to birth defects.  The new name hasn't been determined.  But if Tata comes out with an electric vehicle, they could call it the E-coli?