Hello Australia!! - Guns fall silent in Syria, for now - FIFA gets a replacement for Sepp Blatter - Trump gets a surprise endorsement - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The Syrian Cease Fire negotiated by the US and Russia and agree to by Bashar al-Assad and so-called "moderate" rebel groups that oppose him has come into force.  It does not the two biggest jihadist threats in Syria, Islamic State and al Nusra Front.  Reporters say guns did fall silent at the appointed hour, in the Damascus suburbs and the devastated northern city of Aleppo - both locations where government troops were operating against rebels.  If the "cessation of hostilities" holds it would be the first time a pause in Syria's five-year civil war has been negotiated by world powers.

The people who get to vote for the president of FIFA, whoever they are, chose European football secretary general Gianni Infantino to replace the decrepit and allegedly corrupt-to-the-gills Sepp Blatter.  The 45-year-old Swiss lawyer will be tasked with repairing FIFA's damaged image after years of allegations, arrests, charges, and bannings with Blatter. "Fifa has gone through sad times, moments of crisis, but those times are over.  We need to implement the reform and implement good governance and transparency.  We also need to have respect," said Mr. Infantino.  "We're going to win back this respect through hard work, commitment and we're going to make sure we can finally focus on this wonderful game," he added.

In US politics, former republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie threw his weight behind underachieving developer Donald Trump - although it's not the first time a blowhard endorsed a blackguard in US politics.  Christie reasoned (ha ha ha ha) that Trump has the best chance of defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the November.  It leaves the Republican party divided between the faction that hates Donald Trump versus the faction that hates Senator Ted Cruz, a self-serving ideologue and religious zealot who has no friends in Washington.  Trump and Christie's joint announcement took on the air of a WWE pre-match show, the two taking swipes at Senator Marco Rubio who represents the establishment's last best hope to beat the weirdos.  Christie's endorsement follows that of former ku klux klan leader David Duke.  Such is the outhouse that is the race for the republican nomination.

Despite tangible economic progress, Jamaican voters tired of IMF-mandated austerity and returned the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) back to a majority.  Led by Andrew Holness - who will likely become the new Prime Minister - the JLP won won 33 of the 63 seats in Parliament, while outgoing Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller's party took 30 seats.  Mr. Holness caused concern with some of his campaign promises, such as eliminating taxes for most wage earners and somehow creating 250,000 new jobs in a country with 13 percent unemployment by turning Jamaica into the "Silicon Valley" of the Caribbean. 

Japan's latest census shows the population shrunk by 1,000,000 people in the past five years.  It's Japan's first such population decline since 1920.  As of October last year the country has 127.1 million people, 0.7 percent fewer than in the last census.  This had long been expected, because of Japan's low birth rate and aging population.