Iran’s President veers from his predecessor’s path – Car bombs kills dozens of shoppers in Baghdad – A central African nation approves severe restrictions on the freedom to gather – DON’T TOUCH THE 600 YEAR OLD STATUE!!
And we’ll remember legendary keyboard master George Duke in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Iran’s new president is calling for “serious and substantive” negotiations over his country’s nuclear program.  Hassan Rouhani says the concerns of Iran and the international community could be settled in a short time through “talks, not threats”.

India is accusing Pakistan in the killings of five soldiers in the Indian administered area of Kashmir.  Pakistani soldiers were initially identified, though India new describes the 20 attackers as “terrorists” accompanied by individuals in Pakistani military uniforms.  Those uniforms were also used in an attack on the other side of Pakistan, when 14 people were killed by rebel separatists disguised as soldiers at a checkpoint near Quetta.

At least 41 people have been killed in a series of car bombings in and around Baghdad, and scores of people are wounded.  The bombers targeted shopping streets in Shi’a areas of the Iraqi capital.  More than 4,000 people have been killed in such attacks so far this year.

At least eight people are dead and more than 60 are injured in an explosion in an apartment block in Argentina.  It happened the central city of Rosario.  The investigation sees to be focusing on the gas system, which was scheduled to undergo repairs from earlier damage.

Uganda’s Parliament passed a bill to limit public protests, and Amnesty International is calling it “a serious blow to open political debate”.  If more than three people want to get together to discuss political issues, they must have police permission.  It also authorizes cops to use forearms in “self-defense” when enforcing the law.

Malaysian cops nabbed ten people dressed as “ninjas” and apparently trying to claim the country’s throne.  They weren’t armed, except for carrying flags and documents purportedly laying out the royal claim for their leader, a local Muslim figure who claims royal descent. 

You know how you’re not supposed to touch stuff in museums?  Yeah, one American tourist didn’t get the memo.  The 55-year Missourian old took it upon himself to measure the hand of a 14th Century statue of the Virgin Mary by Florentine sculptor Giovanni d'Ambrogio in Florence’s Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.. and the finger snapped off.  From a 600-year old statue carved by a master.  The unidentified tourist could face a hefty fine for damaging a priceless artwork.

Keyboard icon George Duke has died at age 67 after a struggle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.  In an amazing career that began in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s, he collaborated over a wide range of styles, with musicians such as Jean-Luc Ponty and Frank Zappa before pioneering much of what we now know as funk and R&B.