Someone is trying to undermine the peace talks to end a 50-year civil war – Another slashing attack at a Chinese Train Station – Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor flies to the US but then mysteriously flees – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Colombian police raided an office linked to a far right-wing presidential candidate, which was allegedly eavesdropping on both government and rebel communications coming from the peace talks.  Colombia and the Marxist FARC rebels have been in talks in Havana, Cuba since 2012 aimed at ending a five-decade insurgency.  Investigators say President Juan Manuel Santos’ own emails were intercepted, and a prosecutor said the goal was to “sabotage, interfere and affect the peace process in Havana”.  Santos is a center-right President, but the far-right has been up in arms since he announced his intention to reach a peace deal with the Marxists that would bring them in from the cold and into the political process.

Chinese police shot a man who had just slashed and hacked at passengers at a train station in Guangzhou.  Witnesses said four people were involved in the attack, but police said they arrested only one attacker.  At least six people are recovering from various injuries.  It comes just a week after a gun and knife attack at a station in China’s far west that left three dead and several injured.  And in March, 33 died in a similar attack at the crowded Kunming station.  Muslim separatists from the far northwest are blamed or suspected in each.

An amateur video purports to show a massive explosion set off in a tunnel beneath a government checkpoint in outside the town of Ma’arat al-Nu’man in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.  30 government troops were reportedly killed, according to rebel sources.  More than 150,000 people have been killed in the three-year-old rebellion, which started as a peaceful protest movement and turned into a civil war after a government crackdown.

Central African Republic’s interim president Catherine Samba Panza is pledging to overhaul her government and make it more inclusive.  She’s been criticized for drawing most of her ministers from her own eastern region.  The “Anti-Balaka” Christian militias – who’ve been battling the Muslim former rebels that briefly took power last year – are demanding representation in the transitional government.  There’s also international criticism that Samba Panza has not been able to stem the tide of religious violence.

South Africa’s first general election since the death of Nelson Mandela is today.  But even though some polls show the ruling African National Congress (ANC) ahead of the field, apathy and disillusionment might be the true leaders.  The so-called “born free” generation – born after the end of apartheid – isn’t terribly interested.  And even many ANC supporters see it as corrupt, out of touch, and poorly led.

Stars came out not to praise, but to boycott the Beverly Hills Hotel.  It’s owned by the Sultan of Brunei, which just instituted a Sharia law penal code in his petroleum-based city-state – and that means restricted women’s rights as well as the very real possibility that LGBT people will be executed via death by stoning.  Comedians Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres took part in the demonstration; Richard Branson of Virgin says his family will no longer stay in any Brunei-owned property “until the Sultan abides by basic human rights”.

Monica Lewinsky will recount what it was like being the “first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet” in an in an upcoming edition of Vanity Fair magazine.  As for her affair with then-President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, Lewinsky makes it clear:  “Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened.”  But the affair itself was not abusive, she says, it was the public humiliation that followed that caused the most problems.

Toronto’s crack-addict Mayor Rob Ford turned back after arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.  The Canadian Consulate says he “voluntarily withdrew” his request to enter the US after talks with border officials in Chicago, and boarded a plane back to Toronto.  He’s now said to be in rehab, although the Ford family will not say where.  Despite being caught on video smoking crack (as recently as last week) and bumbling about in addled stupors, Ford not only refuses to resign but is running for re-election in October.  Assuming he makes it to October.  SMDH.