Hello, Australia! – The parents of a US woman captured in Syria get their worst fears confirmed – Ukraine Peace talks commence soon – Hey Bob, Jamaica finally legalized it! – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The parents of US hostage Kayla Mueller have reportedly seen photos of her remains, images provided by Islamic State after a weekend of the family insisting that she could still be alive.  The photos reportedly show bruises and other injuries, although it’s not clear if they were caused by the collapse of a building during Jordan’s punitive air raids in IS last week.  The US says the targets of that raid were far from the building Kayla Mueller was purportedly hit.  Without proof of mortality, the parents spent the weekend holding out hope that Mueller might still have been alive.

With Yemen now under the control of Shiite militant Houthi gunmen, the US is closing up its embassy in the capital Sanaa.  The State Department says getting the remaining personnel out safely is the priority.

Talks aimed at stopping the violence in Ukraine get underway in Minsk later on Wednesday.  Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and call for a large demilitarized zone around a line of demarcation separating Kremlin-backed rebels and Ukrainian troops.  From Washington, US President Barack Obama warned Putin that Russia will face greater costs if it continues its “aggressive actions” in Ukraine.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is digging in his heels, saying that there is “no way back” for his Leftist government in its quest to rewrite the barely solvent country's bailout commitments.  Tsipras said this after his fledgling government won a confidence vote.  Later on Wednesday, Eurozone finance ministers will meet and ask Greece for details on its proposed new deal to replace the frozen bailout agreements.  Former Sydneysider and Greek FM Yanis Varoufakis will represent Team Athens in Brussels.

Malaysia is cranking up the oppression following the country’s top court upholding the sodomy conviction against Anwar Ibrahim, the country’s leading opposition figure.  Authorities detained a political cartoonist who drew a cartoon criticizing the court for what most of the world considers a BS politically-motivated verdict.  They’re also investigating two opposition lawmakers for alleged sedition. 

The American NBC network has suspended anchor Brian Williams for six months without pay, after being caught exaggerating about an experience covering the Iraq War.  For years, he claims he was in a chopper hit by an RPG.  Troops involved say he was in another copter a mile or so back.  Williams admitted to “misremembering” last week, by the sharks were circling by Friday, when it was announced after NBC Nightly News that he had “voluntarily” taken himself off the anchor desk for a few days.  Basically, each step to atone – for what is a pretty troubling transgression for a journalist – was too small and only encouraged the feeding frenzy of people calling for his job.  Even now, critics are already saying that six months is too easy.  US conservatives have a grudge against NBC because of its subsidiary MSNBC, a center-Left news and opinion channel.

Jamaica went ahead and decriminalized possession of small amounts of Marijuana.  From now on, anyone caught with less than two ounces – about 56 grams – of weed will get a ticket instead of a criminal charge.  And the best part is that the new law was passed last Friday, what would have been the 70th birthday of Reggae Music legend Bob Marley, who died of cancer in 1981.

Zookeepers and guards at the Tama Zoo in Tokyo’s west suburbs were on high alert for an escaped Snow Leopard roaming the grounds at will.  Except instead of a Snow Leopard, it was a guy in a costume – a totally non-threatening, big-eyed costume that looks like maybe the guy wears it at Furry Conventions – wandering around in a drill.  After pretending to chase the guy (I love the glance of the real leopard looking at him like, “WTF?  And I’M the one in the cage?”), they pretending to dart him, he pretended to be stunned, and they pretended to capture him.  And that, my friends, is how Japanese Zoos prepare for the possibility of escaped man-eating carnivores.  Anyway, here are the Tama Zoo’s real snow leopards.  I think they’re fighting or something.