Hello Australia!! - The Taliban uses a sick ruse to kill almost one hundred people - A Republican money man is forced to step aside amid sex harassment allegations - Paris is flooding - Hackers steal half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing that killed 95 people in the Afghan capital Kabul.  The terrorists packed an ambulance with explosives and drove it past security checkpoints to a shopping street known to locals as "Chicken Street", close to the Interior Ministry and offices belonging to the European Union and other foreign entities.  This is  the deadliest attack in months, and comes on the heels of other Taliban assaults including the raid on the Intercontinental Hotel that killed more than 20 people.

Hackers targeted a cryptocurrency exchange in Japan, stealing more than US$500 Million in the lesser-known currency called NEM.  Investigators are trying to determine if the attack came from inside Japan or from a foreign entity, and how many Coincheck customers got screwed.  "We know where the funds were sent," said Coincheck exchange chief operating officer Yusuke Otsuka.  "We are tracing them and if we're able to continue tracking, it may be possible to recover them," he added.  The assets were kept in "hot wallets" that were connected to the Internet, as opposed to "cold wallets" which are securely off-line.  NEM lost eleven percent of its value after the news broke; Bitcoin dropped 3.3 percent, and Ripple plunged 9.9 percent.

The share value of Wynn Resorts dropped about 10 percent after founder Steve Wynn was accused of sexual harassment of female employees in his casino empire in a pattern reaching back for decades, something he denies.  Wynn himself lost US$250 Million in the process.  The Las Vegas-based casino magnate stood down as the US Republican National Committee Finance Chair.  Wynn was a bitter competitor with Donald Trump who later became his ally as two incredibly over-privileged white men shared similar, heinous world views.

A New Zealand Air Force Orion search plane will resume looking for the MV Butiraoi, a Kiribati passenger ferry that vanished a week ago with more than 50 people on board.  The vessel was traveling between Nonouti and Betio, and was reportedly carrying a high frequency radio.

Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will campaign to end his country's draconian, Catholic Church-inspired restrictions on women's reproductive rights.  A referendum is schedueld for later this year on whether to repeal a constitutional amendment that effectively bans pregnancy terminations.  As a result, thousands of Irish women are forced to travel to the UK to seek abortions.  The tide turned towards loosening reproductive rights after the 2012 horrifying death of Savita Halappanavar, who died unnecessarily of septicaemia in a hospital because doctors wouldn't perform an abortion while she was miscarrying, telling her that Ireland was a "Catholic country".

Thousands of protesters surrounded the so-called "Academics Ball" at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, a far right soiree that draws demonstrations every year.  This years protesters were extra-intense because Austria is the only Western European nation with a far right party in government after the elections a few months ago. 

Demonstrators closed off roads leading to the stadium venue where Honduran "President" Juan Orlando Hernandez was sworn in for a second term.  Police managed to keep the massive crowd from the ceremony.  Hernandez was declared the winner weeks after the election in November amid accusations of flagrant vote fraud.

Gunmen in Brazil killed 14 people at nightclub in Fortaleza.  Local media describes the massacre as drug gang-related.

Czech President Milos Zeman won a second term in office, only slightly besting his politically inexperienced rival with 52 percent of the vote.  Zeman is one of those blowhard faux populists whose anti-immigration message resonates among less educated and rural voters.

The Seine River in Paris is expected to peak at six meters above normal on Sunday or Monday, just shy of the 2016 flood.  Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said increasing repetition of cycles of floods and heat waves were "clearly a question of the town adapting to climate change".  Riverside homes and apartments are on high alert, the Louvre closed off a lower exhibition floor, and many streets are closed off in the French capital.