Authorities step up security to stop trouble before it gets to the World Cup – A Hollywood star picks a paycheck over charity – Thousands of displaced Syrians will find out they have no homes to return to after the Civil War – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs.

Brazil is teaming with Interpol and two of its neighbors to block hooligans from entering the country for the World Cup later this year.  They’ll work together at seven border crossings from Argentina and Uruguay to identify the Barra Bravas, violent fans who’ve caused trouble at past international matches.  In 2010’s World Cup in South Africa, several Argentine Bars had to be deported back to Buenos Aires.

The actor Scarlett Johansson has resigned her role as Ambassador for the international anti-poverty NGO Oxfam because of her commercial for a product made in the occupied West Bank.  Oxfam says the Israeli-owned SodaStream Company perpetuates “the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities” and that is incompatible with her role as Oxfam Global Ambassador.  Labor activists say SodaStream’s Palestinian workforce is underpaid but simply doesn’t have another place to go. 

Thousands of homes were destroyed as Syria deliberately razed entire neighborhoods in opposition strongholds.  Human Rights Watch compared satellite imagery, photographs, and witness statements to document the Bashar al-Assad regime’s illegal destruction of homes to punish civilians.  HRW says requiring Damascus to pledge to stop this practice needs to be part of the Syrian Civil War peace talks.

Police in the tiny African nation of Togo have discovered another major Ivory stash – the second such bust in a week.  More than two tons of ivory were found in a container destined for Vietnam.  Some 1,680 kilograms of ivory were hidden in the back of another container at the port in Lome earlier this week.  Two Togolese men and a suspect from Vietnam are under arrest.  The port is a major transit point for West African smugglers.

25 percent of Russian men die before the age of 55 and researchers think they know why:  Vodka.  Research published in the British medical journal The Lancet says the high number of early deaths in Russia is mainly due to people drinking too much alcohol, particularly vodka.  It’s not like this was a secret in Russia – In 1985, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev drastically cut Vodka production and banned its sale before lunch.  And then Borin Yeltsin became Russian president and we all saw how that went…

The US says Russia violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with a series of rockets tests that began in 2008.  The INF treaty is viewed as the bedrock of the agreements that ended the cold war between the US and Moscow.  But the Russians have long been dissatisfied with the treaty, which they see as a product of a very different world.  It covers only US and Soviet/Russian weapons, and since then other countries have developed their own intermediate missiles.

Whoops.  Days after essentially legalizing vigilantes fighting a drug cartel in western Mexico, the country’s Attorney General says he has proof the so-called “self defense” groups are getting their weapons from a rival drug gang.  Jesus Murillo Karam says two members of the vigilantes have been detained, and a leader of that rival drug gang has been arrested.

Panama authorities are ordering the release of most of the crew of a North Korean freighter that tried to smuggle illegal weapons through the Panama Canal.  The owners agreed to pay a A$763,000 fine to release the ship.  The ship was heading from Havana to Pyong Yang with a load of Cold War-era weapons hidden under a false floor beneath a sugar shipment.  Cuba admitted the weapons were being sent to Asia to be repaired and returned, but that still violated international sanctions against North Korea.