Good Morning Australia! - Flooding in Japan causes destruction not seen since the tsunami - The UN Security Council empowers a new investigation into chemical weapons attacks - Tennis great James Blake gets his apology - Bring out your dead!  Variety gets a Monty Python obit all wrong - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Japan issued a third day of weather emergency warnings on Friday, as incredible flooding devastates areas north of the capital Tokyo.  At least nine people are missing and 22 are hurt after the Kinugawa River and several other waterways burst their banks and inundated cities, towns, and farmland.  Joso City is particular bad off, with the fast moving flood ripping homes from their foundations - things not seen since the March 2011 earthquake and Tsunami.  Military helicopters performed several rescue missions, and they're already off to conduct more today, as more than a hundred people are still awaiting rescue.

There's new evidence that chemical weapons are being used in the Syrian war, and the UN Security Council has approved an unprecedented investigation.  The weapons include Mustard gas and Chlorine, and the evidence points at government forces and Islamic State being the perpetrators.  Several civilians including small children have been killed and injured.  The Security Council has reportedly viewed video of doctors vainly trying to ease the suffering in the aftermath, and some UNSC delegates were moved to tears.

Before today, chemical weapons attacks were investigated by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which only able to conduct probes without laying blame on the government or rebels.  Thanks to US-Russian cooperation on the Syrian war, the Security Council is now allowing investigators to assign blame for the atrocities.  Russia agreed to this even though the Kremlin's allies in Syria are accused by The West of using chlorine in the barrel bombs it often drops on rebel-held areas. So far, the plethora of opposition groups do not have access to such aircraft.

Speaking of governments unleashing the dogs of war on its own people: Turkey is acknowledging that at least 30 people have died in recent aerial attacks in the restive southeast, where the government and Kurdish PKK cease-fire is most definitely off.  But the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) says 20 of those killed by government airstrikes were civilians.  Residents say the southeast is "under siege" and the military has imposed a curfew.  On Thursday police stopped a delegation of HDP leaders who were trying to reach the south-eastern city on foot.

Rival groups clashed in Caracas as the trial of conservative politician Leopoldo Lopez nears a conclusion.  Lopez denies accusations he called for violence in last year's chaotic and oft-deadly anti-government protests.  He faces more than a decade in prison if convicted.  But red-shirted government supporters showed up at the Lopez rally, and denounced him as a murderer and a terrorist, and stayed to mount their own demonstration as the conservatives went back home. 

New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has apologized to former tennis pro James Blake, saying he has "concerns" about the violent takedown white cops performed on the African American athlete.  It was a case of mistaken identity, cops investigating a cell phone fraud ring tackled and roughed up Blake while he waited for a car to take him to the US open.  During a time of increasing concern over police violence against black people in the US, Bratton says race was not an issue - the suspect the officers had originally sought and Blake shared a very similar appearance.

Northern Ireland's First Minister has stepped aside and several of his fellow Unionists will resign Stormont, creating the biggest political crisis of NI's power sharing agreement.  This, after police questioned three men in last month's murder of an ex-IRA man.  One of those questioned was NI Sinn Fein leader Bobby Storey.  The Unionists claim they won't sit at a table with someone questioned in a murder case; Bobby Storey plans to sue police for false arrest.  Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers says she would not suspend the Stormont assembly.

Filmmaker and Monty Python member Terry Gilliam is most certainly not dead, despite the fact that Hollywood's Variety magazine accidently publishing his obituary - without taking out the placeholder for his age.  Being a proper Python, Gilliam then went on to vehemently disagree with Variety's correction and insisted he is actually dead, posting a photo of his wake to social media.