Hello, Australia! – Sepp Blatter promises to clean up FIFA – The US ridicules China’s island building – New concerns Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine – A Horse does what any person would do at his birthday party – Two dozens little Aussies make their home in New York City – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

FIFA boss Sepp Blatter says he will “root out any wrongdoing” in the world soccer body that he has led since 1998.  This comes after US prosecutors indicted 14 high level present and past FIFA officials on corruption charges related to advertising, sponsorships, and awarding World Cup tournaments to cities.  The 47-count indictment lists alleged crimes going back to 1991.  Switzerland’s justice ministry says six of the seven FIFA officials arrested in Zurich yesterday are fighting extradition to the US.

The new head of the US Pacific Command is describing China’s claims to a vast swathe of islands in the South China Sea as “preposterous”.  This happened at the change of command ceremony at the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr. said China’s belligerence is “bringing countries in the region together in new ways”.  China is engaged in a unilateral land reclamation project, building islands on coral reefs far beyond its territorial waters.  Fairfax Media is reporting that China has moved weapons onto the artificial islands.

Russia is reportedly massing troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry at a makeshift base on the Kuzminsky firing range near the border with Ukraine.  This includes mobile rocket launchers, tanks, and artillery.  And a Reuters reporter who witnessed this says Russian troops have pulled their identifying insignias off of their uniforms.  NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg says that Russia’s threats to move nuclear forces in Crimea would “fundamentally change the balance of security in Europe”.

Glaciers on and around Mount Everest could shrink by 70 to 99 percent by the end of the century because of global warming, according to a new study published in the journal Cryosphere (.pdf link).  And when you consider what’s up there ready to thaw out and flow downhill, it’s a pretty disgusting future in store for that part of Nepal.  But more importantly, the loss of the glaciers will threaten the water supply for up to a billion people in the region who depend on the annual melt.  If it’s not replenished with snow every year, there’s going to be trouble.

In America, a Cook County judge has released a photo showing two Chicago Police Officers with weapons posing on top of an African-American suspect, apparently coerced into wearing deer antlers and playing dead.  One of the cops is already in prison for corruption, but the other one – Timothy McDermott – was canned last year because of the photo and is suing to get his job back.  He repudiates the photo taken before 2003, and says he only posed because he was a young officer trying to fit in at his station.  How come the black guy never pressed charges?  Possibly because the cops were about to send him up for allegedly possessing 20 bags of weed.  He was released without charges.

The son of the billionaire who owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team is the Governor of Nebraska, a conservative republican in a conservative state who ran on the usual “guns and death penalty, yes; taxes for education, no” platform.  And yet the state legislature on Wednesday banned capital punishment, overriding Gov. Pete Ricketts’ veto of their earlier ban.  Death Penalty states are having a hard time purchasing the drugs used for lethal injections, which are not manufactured in the US and can’t be legally imported.  Conservatives are also concerned about the expense of capital punishment, which involves years of legal appeals that cost more in lawyer work hours than just jailing an offender for life.

The death toll in India’s heat wave has breached 1,300 lives lost.  People are being urged to stay indoors.

Nigeria has accused around 200 soldiers of cowardice for refusing to fight against Boko Haram and kicked them out of the military.  And as many as 4,500 rank and file troops might wind up being dismissed.  Nigeria’s military came under much criticism for continually losing territory to the Islamist insurgency, a trend not reversed until Chad, Cameroon, and Niger got into the fight. 

JD the Horse blows out the candles on his birthday cake at the Ithilien Stables outside New York City.  And then he smiles about it.  Just horsin’ around.

Three Cheetah cubs were born at the Richmond Zoo in Virginia.  It’s the second litter of the endangered species recently born there.

A colony of Little Penguins has taken up residence at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.  Natives of Australia and New Zealand, the cute little fellers were hatched at Taronga Zoo in Sydney and flown to America.