Japan wants to challenge China – Thailand bans all anti-coup protests – Kids find a 7,000 mummy – Cane Toads are about to mess up another island paradise – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The number of migrants trying to get to Europe has skyrocketed in recent months, especially those choosing the dangerous sea crossing from North Africa to Italy.  The EU border agency Frontex says 42,000 migrants were detected on these routes, with 25,650 of these crossing from the smuggler-infested coast of Libya.  Italy says it’s spending more than US$00,000 a day just to patrol its patch of the Mediterranean.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his country ought to take a larger role in global and regional security to counterweight China’s growing influence.  Abe is delivering the keynote at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, a gathering of defense and security leaders from Australia, Asia, and the United States.  Japan is likely to get support from other Asian nations who are also involved in territorial disputes with China.

Tokyo says it will ease economic sanctions on North Korea if Pyongyang delivers on a promise to reinvestigate the cases of the Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korean agents.  The North admits it abducted 13 Japanese to train its spies in language and customs – five were returned but the secretive state claims the other eight died, without offering any evidence.

Thailand’s military junta has banned all anti-coup protests.  And the military chief says there will be no democratic elections until the “right conditions” are established.  Army top goon General Prayuth Chan-ocha claims Thailand’s divisions must be healed before there could be a return to civilian rule.  Chan-ocha overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on 22 May after months of protests from royalists who insisted democracy be replaced with an appointed council of “good people”.

Argentina clinched a deal with the “Paris Club” of creditor nations to pay back more than A$10.4 Billion of arrears over the next five years.  The country has been shut out of capital markets ever since defaulting on more than $100 Billion in debt in 2001 and 2002.  This deal reopens up much-needed sources of international financing.

A group of middle school students in northern Chile made a discovery that most archeologists dream about – they found a 7,000-year-old mummy.  The kids were excavating a site in El Laucho beach at the foothills of Morro de Arica, where a magnitude 8.2 earthquake had caused a landslide, unearthing a previously hidden area.  The dead guy is from the Chinchorro culture of fishermen who lived at the coast of the Atacama Desert thousands of years ago.

Brazilian guy writes and records a Bossa Nova song in which he laments that he can’t cheer on the national team, because the US$10 Billion spent on stadiums and World Cup bling has left high schools and hospitals crumbling.  Puts it on YouTube, gets more the 800,000 hits.  It’s a direct retort to the hip-hop pro-World Cup tune from MC Guime and Brazilian national team striker Neymar which, let’s face it, is a lot more popular.

To no one’s surprise, Egypt’s former military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been elected president with more than 95 percent of the vote.  The only other candidate in the race, Hamdeen Sabahy – also known as “I dunno, some bloke” – conceded the election with 4.7 percent.  The voter turnout was pathetically low at 48 percent, since Islamists and Left Wingers effectively boycotted a process that gave them no choices.

Cane toads have been sighted on Madagascar, leading to fears the little invaders will do to that island’s right and unique biodiversity what they did to Australia.  “They can handle a long ride on the ocean in a container,” says Jonathan Kolby, of James Cook University in Queensland, “And then hop out wherever they end up.  And this is most likely how they got there.”  The toads produce toxins that are deadly to the local birds, mammals and reptiles that prey on them and they have had a dramatic impact on the country’s wildlife.

Everyone loves Elephants playing with old tyres at Elephant Nature Park in Thailand, but everyone really loves Baby Jaguar cubs.