Good Morning Australia!! - Suspicions fall on Russia after a Spy and his daughter are poisoned - Can "dumb bombs" hide responsibility for civilian casualties in war? - France takes steps to protect girls from predators - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

First responders were exposed to whatever toxic substance was used on former spy Sergei Skripal and his 33-year old daughter in England, and had to be treated in emergency rooms themselves after falling ill.  66-year old Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious and near death on a high street in Salisbury; both are in a critical condition.  Skripal was living in exile in the UK, sent there in a spy swap after being jailed in Russia for spying on behalf of the West; many Russians still consider him a traitor.  Speculation on the poison ranges from Dioxon to extremely toxic heavy metals. 

Russia is complaining that it is being maligned in news reports about the Skripal Hit.  UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson is promising to respond "appropriately and robustly" if Russia is found to have poisoned the two:  "I say to governments around the world that no attempt to take innocent life on UK soil will go unsanctioned or unpunished," and suggested he would boycott going to Russia for the World Cup (which the Kremlin probably thinks is adorable).  Buzzfeed News has reported that Russia is already suspected in as many as 14 murders of ex-pat business people, whistle-blowers, and others who ran afoul of Moscow on British soil.

The Russian air force is using so-called "dumb bombs" instead of sophisticated guided types in Syria in order to shift the blame off of itself and onto its local allies as civilian casualties mount in places like East Ghouta.  "Since the Syrian air force is using older planes with pilots untrained in smart weapons capabilities, they would use less smart weapons capabilities," said a UN source to The Guardian.  "I suspect they want to use those weapons because it makes attribution more difficult."  The United Nations International Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria accused Russia of the same tactic during the bloody siege of Aleppo, earlier in the Syrian Civil War.  Elsewhere in that bloodbath, a Russian An-26 transport plane crashed, killing all 39 people on board and raising Russia's growing 2018 death toll.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reportedly told an envoy from the South that he is willing to give up his nuclear program if the security of his nation and his regime are guaranteed.  The US greeted the news with cautious optimism.  The South Korean officials visited Pyongyang on Monday and Tuesday, and agreed to hold a summit meeting between Kim and the South's President Moon Jae-in at the Panmunjom Peace Village on the countries' border in late April.

"The ethnic cleansing of Rohingya from Myanmar continues," said Andrew Gilmour, the UN's assistant secretary-general for human rights.  He accused Myanmar of continuing a "campaign of terror and forced starvation" six months after the military and nationalist mobs killed Rohingyas, burned their vilalges, and forced a mass exodus of more than 700,000 survivors across the border in squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh.  Myanmar claims it is fighting Rohingya insurgents.

Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency after Sinhalese mobs attacked Muslims and Muslim-owned shops in a central town.  The violence followed the funeral of a Buddhist who was killed in a clash with Muslims.  Hardline, nationalist Buddhist groups accuse Muslims of forcing religious conversations and vandalizing Buddhist archaeological sites.  The government appeared to aimed its comments at these groups in issuing a broad warning against inflaming religious hatred. 

France is setting the legal age of sexual consent as 15; it means that sex with someone younger than that would be considered rape.  Prior to this, prosecutors had to prove that relations were non-consensual.  The new laws come after two cases involving dirtbags aged 28 and 30 who avoided punishment for having sex with underage girls because the court found it wasn't forced or coerced. 

The number of child marriages around the world has declined, according to UNICEF.  The UN childrens' agency says that better education and information has prevented 25 million child marriages  in the past decade; a decade ago, one-in-four girls married before age 18, now it's one-in-five.  "When a girl is forced to marry as a child she faces immediate and lifelong consequences," said UNICEF's Anju Malhotra.  "Her odds of finishing school decrease while her odds of being abused by her husband and suffering complications during pregnancy increase."  The most progress is being made in South Asia; Africa now has the most child marriages, but countries like Ethiopia had cut rates by a third.