The Paris Massacre suspects were on a US no-fly list – Fears of the breadth of Boko Haram’s latest rampage – Late word from Hollywood, Aussie Actor Rod Taylor has died – Why you should not be caught sucking your partner’s toes in Russia – These are your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

France has 88,000 police officers searching the northern Picardy region of the country for the two brothers suspected of Wednesday’s murders of twelve people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that frequently poked fun at Islam fundamentalists.  Cherif and Said Kouachi allegedly robbed a petrol station near the town of Villers-Cotterets overnight, still using the Kalashnikov rifles and grenade launchers caught on video during the massacre more than a hundred kilometers away in Paris. 

The US says terrorism suspect Said Kouachi traveled to Yemen in 2011 and received terrorist training from Al Qaeda’s affiliate there.  He spent a few months in the war torn country, and was trained in handling small weapons and other military skills that appear to have been caught on video during Wednesday’s massacre in Paris.  Both brothers were in the United States database of known or suspected terrorists, and were on an American no-fly list for years.

Boko Haram militants have apparently committed an incredible atrocity.  Bodies are said to be strewn all over the streets of Baga – population 10,000 – and at least 15 more towns in the north of the country.  Witnesses say the town is now “virtually non-existent” after the attack on Wednesday, with survivors fleeing as fast as they could.  Boko Haram’s modus operandi in past village massacres has been to destroy everything – in Baga’s case, a local lawmaker told foreign reporters the town “has been burnt down.”  Baga is near the military base that Boko Haram overran last weekend, when the defending Nigerian troops turned around and ran away, according to witnesses.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is running for reelection.  Because he’s done such a great job defending the country from Boko Haram.  SMDH.

The US and Cuba have set the date for their first high level talks since last month’s announcement of the plan to normalize relations and end the friggin’ Cold War.  US Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson will lead a delegation traveling to the Cuban capital, Havana, on 21 and 22 January.  The talks will focus on migration.  Many Cubans fear the US will end its “wet foot, dry foot” policy, a relic of the Cold War.  It works like this:  Cuban immigrants who are stopped at sea get sent back, those who make it to US soil get to stay.  The policy was largely written to appease the old, conservative Cuban-American voting bloc in southern Florida.

Peru’s former right-wing president Alberto Fujimori has been sentenced to another eight years in prison and fined US$1 Million for corruption.  The court ruled Fujimori funneled more than $40 million in public funds to tabloid newspapers that smeared his political opponents as crazy, gay, or Communists during the 2000 campaign.  Fujimori won’t serve an extra day in the slam, however:  The sentence will run concurrent with the 25 years he’s already doing for ordering the paramilitary death squad murders of 25 political opponents. 

Can we just say the Vladimir Putin is a loony homophobe now?  Under the laughable guise of somehow increasing traffic safety, Russia will no longer allow transsexual and transgender people to qualify for drivers’ licenses.  Fetishism, exhibitionism and voyeurism are also included as “mental disorders” now barring people from driving.  So, I guess if you get caught sucking Cool-Whip off of your partner’s toes or enjoying cos-play night.. you’re out of luck, Boris.  Oh, and compulsive gamblers made it on the list, too.  Russian psychiatrists and human rights lawyers are condemning this farce.  But the way things are going with Vlad’s insane lurch to the furthest reaches of fascism, they’re going to be in trouble, too.

A German man admitted to a psychiatrist that he killed 30 patients in the hospital where he worked as a nurse.  Police are investigating more than 100 suspicious deaths at the Delmenhorst clinic, near Bremen in north Germany.  The 38-year old identified by authorities only as “Neils H.” injected the patients with overdoses of a heart medication with the intention of reviving them and appearing to be a hero.  The defendant has been on trial since September, and is already serving a seven-and-a-half year sentence for attempted murder.

Meteor lights up the sky over Bucharest, Romania.  Neato.

Researchers may be on the verge of creating a new generation of antibiotic drugs after a decades-long drought.  Researchers at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts came up with a new method of growing bacteria, expanding the process to create 25 new antibiotics. One is deemed “very promising”, and has been used to clear test mice of a deadly dose of MRSA – a staph bacteria that is frequently fatal to those infected.  They says human tests are now needed.

Myanmar opposition legend Aung San Suu Kyi is acknowledging that she will not be able to run for the Presidency last this year.  She’s barred because of rules that forbid any candidate with a close family member who is a citizen of another country – a ridiculous restriction that most believe was written with Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi in mind.

Sydney-born actor Rod Taylor is dead at age 84, after a heart attack in his home in Los Angeles.  He's best known for starring in the 1960 film version of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”, and in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.  After those classics, Taylor worked pretty steadily in Hollywood through the 1960s through the 1990s, mostly on television.  In 2009, career rehabilitation special Quentin Tarantino gave Taylor the role of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the World War II flick “Inglourious Basterds”, for which Taylor shared in a Screen Actors' Guild award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.  In his youth, Taylor attended East Sydney Technical and Fine Arts College, did some commercial illustration for newspapers and a bit of boxing before seeing Sir Lawrence Olivier in a touring version of "Richard III", when he was bitten by the acting bug.  He is survived by his daughter former CNN Anchor Felicia Taylor and by his third wife Carol Kikumura, to whom he was married since 1980.