Fire sweeps through a home killing seven children, was it avoidable? – Australia’s Nauru’s policy is termed a “disgrace” – The trouble in Yemen prompts the US to bug out – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Seven children are dead in a horrific house fire in New York City’s Brooklyn Borough, the deadliest fire in seven years.  The dead boys were aged five, six, seven, and eleven – the girls were aged eight, twelve, and 15 years old.  Some were declared dead at the scene, others at hospital.  The mother and eldest daughter were injured smashing through windows to get out, and the mother was so badly burned trying to save her kids that she was put into a hyperbaric chamber.  This fire started in a one-eyed stove that had been left on so that the family wouldn’t have to light a flame on the Sabbath, a common practice in Orthodox Jewish communities.  Firefighters say they did not find any trace of smoke detectors in the home. 

Labor is blasting PM Tony Abbott’s reaction to the independent review into allegations of sexual abuse by asylum seekers on Nauru as a “disgrace”.  Abbott was asked about the damning Moss Report on Macquarie Radio, and said that “things happen” and the institutions “aren’t perfect”.  Labor’s Immigration spokesman Richard Marles replied, “This is a Government more concerned about the potential for protest than it is about the sexual assault of minors.  This is a Government which has lost its moral compass.”  Labor alleges Abbott’s government attempted to bury the Moss report by releasing it on the same day as the death of the former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.

The 86-page report released by former integrity commissioner Phillip Moss not only detailed allegations of sexual abuse against women and children asylum seekers, and backs up the earlier findings from Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs titled “Forgotten Children”.  The Moss Report also specifically clears ten workers from the charity “Save The Children” from suggestions that they somehow coached children to make up allegations – suggestions made by then-Immigration Minister Scott Morrison. 

The Immigration Department is denying a visa to the daughter of a Christian Missionary couple who want to work at a remote crisis center in WA – because the eight-year old girl has Down Syndrome.  Apparently, an Immigration official claims Eliza Fonseka might cause “significant cost to the Australian community in the areas of health care”.  Dad Angelo Fonseka says that’s false – they’re not relying on benefits in Sri Lanka and wouldn’t in Oz.  The Fonseka’s sponsor is 77-year old Pastor Tim Hargreaves who runs the Shark Bay Crisis Center by himself, and needs their help.  “I’m appalled.  It’s heartless and I’m ashamed for my own Australian Government to be a party and identify with such a decision,” says Hargreaves.

US Special Forces are pulling out of Yemen, after al Qaeda seized a town near their Al Anad Air Base, and rising violence between Shiites from the Houthi tribe and Sunni Muslims, which include al Qaeda and Islamic State.  About a hundred US troops and Special Forces are stationed there, the last Americans in disintegrating Yemen.  IS claimed responsibility for killing more than 130 people in bombings at Shiite Mosques on Friday.

IS is blamed for bombings that killed 45 people including five people as Kurd celebrated their New Year in northern Syria.  This and other IS attacks happened in towns outside Hasakeh City, which is controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

A new case of Ebola is resetting Liberia’s clock on the dream of being declared Ebola-free.  The UN World Health Organization say a country must go 42 days from the last known case to be declared free of the killer virus, and Liberia went for 20-days.  More than 10,000 people died in the West African Ebola Epidemic from January of 2014.  Sierra Leone and Guinea also have had an uptick of infections, but it’s still a far cry from last year when hundreds of people were dying every week.

Foreign Ministers from bickering neighbors China, Japan, and South Korea met for the first time in three years in Seoul.  They discussed ways to ease regional tensions over territorial and diplomatic disputes, and agreed on the need for a leadership summit sometime soon.

Mont-Saint-Michel at high tide, pulled higher by the “supermoon” effect.