Hello Australia!! - New warnings of fascism in Europe before a major election - Egypt sentences hundreds to prison, scores to death in a criticized mass trial - Boko Haram returns as a military force - Syria makes what could be the final push of the long civil war - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

A court in Egypt has sentenced 75 people to death and 46 to life in prison, while handing various prison terms to another 639 defendants in the trial stemming from the 2013 Muslim Brotherhood sit-in.  Senior Brotherhood leaders Essam el-Erian and Mohamed Beltagi were among those sentenced to death.  Amnesty International condemned the mass sentences as a "disgrace" and pointed out that "single police officer has been brought to account for the killing of at least 900 people".  Angry Muslim Brotherhood members in 2013 Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya square to protest the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, only to have the military crackdown hard.

Syria and its Russian allies have pounded rebel-held Idlib with the most intensive air raids in weeks; Syria hitting rebel strongholds with barrel bombs, Russians using more sophisticated weaponry.  The last province to resist government control in the seven-year civil war, no single rebel group exerts any dominance over the region.  The United Nations is warning of a potential human crisis, as Turkey says it cannot accommodate any more refugees that may pour over Syria's northern border.

Germany's domestic spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen has provoked outrage by denying the veracity of videos clearly showing far-right mobs harrassing and assaulting immigrants in Chemnitz, scene of far-right anti-immigration rioting last month.  Prosecutors in Dresden were shocked, and said there was "no indications that the video could be a fake".  Social Democratic parliamentary leader Andrea Nahles blasted Maassen: "It's his duty to expose enemies of the constitution.  His statements have the opposite effect if he does not prove them immediately."  Merkel's parliamentary allies are demanding that Maassen come before them this week and do just that - if he can.

Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven is warning about extremism and fascism before Sunday's election.  Polling indicates that the far-right, anti-immigrant, and misleadingly-named Sweden Democrats (SD) will come in with 20 percent of the vote, becoming the second-largest party in Sweden.  The SD has, like other European fascists, cloaked its neo-nazi roots - in this case by changing its logo from a burning torch to a Daisy in the colors of the national flag.  But its members and pols are still getting caught chanting white supremacy slogans and the like.  Lofven says voting for the SD to protest crime (which is actually falling) or immigration (which actually fell off dramatically after the migration crisis of a few years ago) is "dangerous" and "counterproductive".

"Just say no to abuse - of power, conscience or any type," said Pope Francis in a message to Roman Catholic bishops around the world, urging them to fight child abuse and the culture that leads to it.  The church has been rocked by yet more child molestation scandals, including the revelations of longstanding horrors going on in Pennsylvania and a dissident far-right Cardinal accusing the Pope himself of covering up for a US Cardinal accused of molesting kids. 

UN-Sponsored talks to end the Yemen Civil War ended before they started.  The Houthi rebels said they were unable to travel to Geneva because their security had not been guaranteed; the government noted no one would be sitting across the table and left.

Boko Haram has come roaring back, reportedly capturing a town in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state.  The terrorist group had been on the backheel for months as the Nigerian military advanced through its old stronghold, but the new action casts doubt on how effective teh government forces have actually been.  It's believed several civilians were killed in fighting and thousands have fled the battle in Gudumbali, in the Guzamala area of Borno state.

The death toll in the earthquake on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido has reached 35 lives lost (updated figure), as searchers comb through the wreckage of a small farming village that was buried by a landslide.  The magnitude 6.7 quake rocked the island of 5.4 million people after heavy rain before dawn on Thursday morning.  Power has been restored to around half of the households after what as a near island-wide blackout.

Greek police fired tear gas to break up a nationalist protest before Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras could speak at a trade fair in the northern city of Thessaloniki.  The demonstrators oppose the deal reached by Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to resolve a dispute over the latter country's name.  FYROM wants to become "North Macedonia"; the protesters believe that's too close to the Greek state of Macedonia, and the smaller country to the north might try to make cultural or territorial claims.  Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged FYROM to sign the deal in order to secure NATO membership and an EU trade deal.