Good Morning Australia!! - Cricket Australia deals with three players - Putin blames "criminal negligence" in the killer mall fire - NATO slashes Russia's diplomatic mission over the Chemical Weapon attack in the UK - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Cricket Australia has sent team captain Steve Smith, vice captain David Warner, and operner Cameron Bancroft home from South Africa over the ball tampering scandal.  But Darren Lehmann has not resigned as Australian men's cricket head coach.  Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland said, "I want to stress we are contemplating significant sanctions in each case."  But he insisted neither Lehmann not the other players or support staff had prior knowledge of incident. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin went to the scene of the deadly mall fire in Kemerovo, Siberia, and placed a bouquet down on the growing, improvised monument of flowers, balloons, and teddy bears.  "People, children came to relax," Putin said of the tragedy.  "We are talking about demography and are losing so many people because of what?  Because of criminal negligence, sloppiness," he alleged.  At least 64 people including 41 children died in the Winter Cherry Mall after fire broke out on the fourth floor and swept through the cinema and other parts of the mall.  The place was rife with safety violations including locked emergency exits and non-operational alarms; the security team appears to have been the first to bail out of the burning building, and several of them are under arrest.  Investigators are bagging evidence from inside the mall for further examination.

Putin avoided angry protests around Kemerovo by people who don't accept what happened or what they're being told.  Many believe the death toll is too low, given the number of missing children, and the government is covering it up.  Mayor Ilya Seredyuk was drowned out by demands for his resignation when he tried to address a rally in the city center; Kemerovo Oblast Deputy Governor Sergei Tsivilev had better luck by actually getting down on his knees outside the regional government building to beg forgiveness.

NATO has expelled seven Russian diplomats in retaliation for the military-grade chemical weapon attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in southern England earlier this month.  The Western military alliance joins at least 26 countries including Australia and the US in supporting the UK.  NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg will also deny pending accreditation for three Russian staff, and slash the size of Russia's mission from 30 to 20.  Russia denies involvement of the attack, and the victims - 66-year old Sergei Skripal and his 33-year old daughter Yulia Skripal - are still in a critical condition.  The designers of the exclusively-Russian chemical agent called Novichok say the Skripals are unlikely to recover, such is the toxicity of the weapon.

A Brazilian court rejected former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's latest appeal of his prison sentence on corruption charges, which he and his supporters insist were trumped up and politically motivated.  So does most of Brazil, as Lula leads the polls before the October election to replace the unelected right-wing junta that assumed power in South America's largest economy.  Lula has already appealed this lower court decision to the Supreme Federal Tribunal.  He cannot be jailed and barred from running for office until justices rule on it, which they are scheduled to do on 4 April.

US authorities arrested the former boss of disgraced and imprisoned US gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.  70-year old former Michigan State University dean William Strampel is accused of criminal sexual conduct and hoarding nude photos of students.  Nassar was sentenced to up to 300 years in prison for sexually abusing girls in the US Olympic Gymnastics program.

A New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled banned a psychiatrist from practicing for two years for inappropriate sexual conduct with at least three patients.  Dr. Ian Morris de Saxe had been suspended from practicing since September; he allegedly told one patient that sexual conduct between adults and children is somehow okay, and that he disagreed with laws protecting children from disgusting pedophiles.  The tribunal hinted that the two year ban might be just the beginning, ruling that Ian Morris de Saxe was not currently fit to practice "and that he may remain so for some time".

Zimbabwe's Parks and Wildlife Management Authority is investigating former first lady Grace Mugabe for allegedly profiting from a multi-million dollar Ivory smuggling scheme.  The wife of recently deposed dictator Robert Mugabe allegedly used her position to smuggle the tusks of murdered elephants under the pretext of giving "diplomatic gifts", which would then be routed to black markets once the items left Africa.  Shortly after her husband's ouster in December, authorities intercepted 200 kilograms worth of Ivory at the national airport, suspecting it belonged to the former first lady.