South Korea’s ferry disaster claims its first political casualty – The US wants Russia to pressure its alleged surrogates in Ukraine to release European captives – Did the past catch up with a military junta torturer? – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won is resigning over the government’s handling of the ferry disaster off the southern coast.  It likely ends the political career of a former prosecutor who pursued high-level corruption cases against major companies and relatives of former military dictators.  Jung came under criticism by the families of the 476 passengers and crew on the Sewol ferry for the slow pace of the rescue and recovery effort.

Only two more bodies were recovered from the sunken Sewol ferry since Saturday bringing the death toll to 187, with 115 people, mostly teenagers, still missing.  The search will intensify later today during low tide.  The strong currents have been a persistent problem for the recovery effort.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is urging Russia to do all it can to help release a group of European military observers abducted by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.  The eight military observers from Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic are being held along with several Ukrainian army personnel in the city of Sloviansk, where a self-appointed pro-Moscow “Mayor” has taken command.  Russia denies accusations it is stoking a secessionist revolt in Ukraine’s east, much like the action that led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea last month.  The G7 nations have agreed to start slapping a new round of economic sanctions on Russia as early as Monday because the Ukraine crisis.

Five British troops died in a NATO helicopter crash in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan, according to the UK Ministry of Defense.  The crash is one of the worst involving British forces in the conflict, and brings the total number of UK troops killed to 453.  NATO combat operations are due to end in the troubled central Asian nation.

Afghanistan’s Presidential Election will go to a run-off after no candidate got the 50 percent of the vote required to instantly succeed Hamid Karzai.  Pro-western former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah came in first.  Unless a power sharing agreement is reached, he’ll face off with former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani next month.  There are bitter accusations of election-fixing, as the vote took place last month and the count was released on Saturday, two days late.

Three victims of an American pedophile school are now known to have committed suicide after being abused.  These boys were students at a Saudi Arabian school, where William James Vahey taught for more than a decade.  Vahey killed himself last month after being confronted with scores of child pornography images on his computer, each of a child he molested during his 40-year career of teaching at schools around the world.  The FBI is seeking information about Vahey, as he stayed off of law enforcement’s radar during that time, despite a criminal conviction in California in 1969.

A former army colonel who tortured and killed opponents of Brazil’s military dictatorship of the 1970s and ‘80s has been found dead.  Police say three men went into the home of 76-year old Paulo Malhaes in Buenos Aires, where he lived in exile, and suffocated him.  As recently as three weeks ago, Malhaes refused to apologize for his crimes.  Officials say he might have been killed for files he kept containing secret details of Brazil’s darkest days.  At least 500 were either killed or “disappeared” during the military dictatorship.  Thousands more were falsely imprisoned and tortured, including the current president Dilma Rousseff.

An explosion leveled a big, giant “McMansion” in a posh suburb northwest of Chicago, America’s midwestern metropolis.  The blast was heard and felt more than 16 kilometers away by normal people and by world news correspondents sitting around drinking Mexican beer and trying to watch TV in a not-so-posh suburb.  As many as 50 neighboring mansions were damaged.  The occupant smelled gas in the house and cleared out just before it went boom.

Thousands of people in Berlin refused to allow a march by a band of fascist and neo-nazi scum.  The racist and anti-immigrant “National Democratic Party” (NPD) planned to march through Berlin's Kreuzberg district, which has a large immigrant population.  After taking only a few steps, clashes broke out and the racists tried to hide behind police to no avail, the Antifa won. 

Don’t you wish your calculator had Roman Numerals?  Two Popes will declare two other Popes as Saints of the Roman Catholic Church.  John Paul II and John XXIII will be canonized in an open-air ceremony over which the current pontiff Pope Francis and his immediate predecessor Benedict XVI, the first time two popes were made saints at the same time.  By canonizing both John XXIII – the pope who set off the reform movement – and John Paul II – the pope who applied the brakes – Francis deflects any possible criticism that he could be taking sides.