New questions about what’s going on at Manus Island – From Sydney to Rome – People in India are seeing spots.. and fangs and claws, too – And a lot more in your CareersSpot World News Briefs.

Human rights groups are criticizing the appointment of a former Sri Lankan military officer as a manager at the Manus Island detention center, where 23-year-old Iranian man Reza Barati was killed and dozens were injured in a riot last week.  The Sri Lankan military has been accused of numerous human rights violations in their decades of fighting Tamil separatists, and it is believed there are 30 Tamils in the Manus Island center.  Former Immigration Minister Tony Burke said the Rudd Cabinet had nothing to do with Dinesh Perera’s hiring, that was handled by the security subcontractor G4S which operated the center until a few days ago.

Pope Francis has named Sydney’s Roman Catholic leader Cardinal George Pell as head of Vatican finances.  Pell will relocate to Rome by the end of the month.  This newly-created position is the first major move Pope Francis has taken to rehab the murky and clandestine world of the Vatican bank and a big step up for the Cardinal. 

Brazil and the European Union are planning a new trans-Atlantic cable to circumvent the US National Security Agency (NSA) which has been caught listening in on practically everyone in the world, but especially the Presidents of Brazil and Germany.  The cable would span the Atlantic Ocean, from the Portuguese capital Lisbon to Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil.  Until this cable is complete, Brazil’s Internet communications go through the US

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office is claiming that recordings of alleged wiretapped conversations between Erdogan and his son – recordings that suggest corruption – were faked.  The recordings detail a conversation in which the two allegedly discuss whisking large amounts of cash out of the Erdogan household, on the very day that that sons of three Cabinet ministers were detained as part of a vast corruption probe.  Erdogan claims the corruption probe is a partisan attempt to discredit his government, which is otherwise known for the thuggish crackdown on Gezi Park protesters last year.

Italy’s new Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has won a confidence vote in parliament’s upper house after pledging to cut labor taxes and pass broad institutional reforms to bring life back into a moribund economy.  If he wins a similar vote in the lower house on Tuesday, he gets to start tackling that task as well as reducing Italy’s 2-trillion-euro public debt.

A leopard is on the loose.  Schools and universities are closed in the northern Indian town of Meerut after the carnivorous cat for whatever reason wandered into a warehouse and injured a man.  It then got trapped in a hospital room and busted out a window to get away. Cops and wildlife rangers are out there with tranquilizer guns hoping to get it before it gets into more trouble or hurts someone. 

A mysterious polio-like illness may have afflicted up to 25 children in California.  Medical researchers say that since 2012, between 20 and 25 previously healthy children from across California have shown signs of the illness, possibly caused by an infectious virus.  Several of patients have suffered limb paralysis, and one remains in serious condition.  The United States eradicated polio several decades ago.

Harold Ramis is dead at age 69.  He revolutionized movie comedy as the writer of classics such as “Animal House”, “Caddyshack”, “Stripes”, “Ghostbusters”, “Analyze This”, and many others – some of which he also directed.  Most audiences know him as Egon Spengler from the “Ghostbusters” movies.  How about another look at “Stripes”..