World News Briefs For Sunday, 16 April 2017

Hello Australia!! - Everyone would just love to get through the weekend without World War Three breaking out - Deadly bombs target fleeing civilians in Syria - The bittersweet tale of the world's oldest woman - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

North Korea held a big ol' military parade to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of founder Kim Il-sung, grandfather of the current dictator Kim Jong-un.  Pyongyang still hasn't exploded a sixth nuclear device, as had been expected by North Korea watchers, but it did have unfamiliar weapons in the parade.  Two giant missile canisters might contain new types of missiles - possibly inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of delivering a nuclear warhead - or they might contain Jong-un's comic book collection.  Meanwhile, Japan's National Security Council (NSC) is formulating plans for evacuating its nearly 60,000 citizens in South Korea should there be a crisis on the Korean peninsula.  The US has an aircraft carrier battle group off the Korean Peninsula as Washington and Pyongyang rattle their sabers.

A bomb blast killed at least 45 people in a bus convoy in Syria.  The victims were trying to evacuate from their besieged villages under a deal struck between government forces and rebel groups.  Although 45 body bags were distributed at the scene, civilian volunteers known as White Helmets say the death toll might be closer to 100.  The evacuees targeted were from pro-regime Shiite villages in the north and were bound for regime-held parts of Aleppo.

A garbage dump in Colombo, Sri Lanka collapsed, killing at least 20 people.  "We heard a massive sound. It was like thunder.  Tiles in our house got cracked.  Black water started coming in," said a neighbor of the dump.  "We tried to get out but we were trapped inside.  We shouted for help and were rescued later."  At least 20 houses were buried.

Turks will vote on Sunday on a referendum to give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even more autocratic powers, essentially replacing the parliamentary system with an executive presidency.  Opponents rightly fear that it would bring authoritarian rule and allow Erdogan to stay in office until 2029. 

Ecuador has ordered a partial recount of votes from the Presidential election.  This comes after whinging conservative loser and former banker Guillermo Lasso refused to accept the election results that saw citizens giving Socialist Vice President Lenin Moreno a promotion to President.  The recount of the equivalent of 1.2 million votes, which would account for 12 percent of the total votes cast, will take place on Tuesday in public in the capital Quito.

The world's oldest person died at age 117 in northern Italy.  Emma Morano defied her doctor's advice and ate three brown eggs daily pretty much since World War I, although she recently cut down to two eggs (one raw, one cooked).  "She didn't suffer.  I'm happy she didn't suffer but passed away that way, tranquilly," said her doctor Carlo Bava.  Ms. Morano lived in the alpine town of Verbania, near Lake Maggiore.  Her amazing longevity is tempered somewhat by the fact that her life wasn't terribly happy:  The man she loved was killed in World War I and she was forced to marry an abuser whom she would kick out of her home a couple of decades later, when that sort of thing just wasn't done; Her one son died in infancy; She worked in a factory until she was 65 and then had to work past retirement age in other menial jobs.  Emma Morano was born on 29 November 1899, and was believed to be the world's last person born in that century.  The world's oldest person is now Jamaican Violet Brown, who was born on 10 March 1900.

April the Giraffe finally gave birth to a healthy baby boy.  "We have a baby!    Everything went absolutely perfect. This is great!" said Jordan Patch, owner of the Animal Adventure Park in upstate New York.  April's maternity had become something of an internet sensation, and 1.25 million individual users had watched April give birth.