Good Morning Australia!! - Oscar Pistorious loses his appeal - The Republicans are trying a last-ditch attempt at stoping Trump - Family and supporters dispute the cops version of an environmental activist's murder - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

South Africa's Constitutional Court rejected Oscar Pistorious' right to appeal his murder conviction, meaning that he now faces a possible minimum prison sentence of fifteen years for murder.  The former Olympic and Paralympic athlete was originally sentenced to a year for culpable homicide in the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day of 2013, and served less than that.  Prosecutors appealed and got a higher court to up the conviction to murder.  Resentencing is likely to occur in April.

Gunmen burst into the home of a prominent environmental activist in Honduras, shooting her dead and wounding her brother.  Flagrantly corrupt police claim it happened in the course of a robbery, but the family of 43-year old Berta Caceres say she was murdered barely a week after she was threatened for opposing a hydroelectric project.  "I have no doubt that she has been killed because of her struggle and that soldiers and people from the dam are responsible, I am sure of that.  I hold the government responsible," her 84-year-old mother said.  Caceres won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for her struggle to prevent the construction of a US$50 Million dam that threatened to displace hundreds of Indians.

There's a massive nationwide power outage in Syria - although it's hard to tell because most areas only get electricity for a couple of hours a day, anyway.  State media says the cause is unknown, but state media said service would resume by midnight, local time.  This is going on under the fragile truce covering the government and so-called "moderate" rebel groups, which is holding despite incidents in the provinces of Homs, Hama, Latakia and Damascus.  "Success is not guaranteed but progress is visible," said the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

Egypt has extradited a French man to the Dominican Republic, suspected of having earlier helped two other French pilots flee the country before they could serve 20 years for drug smuggling.  Christophe Naudin, a criminologist and aviation security expert, is suspected of having planned their escape.  He was arrested in Egypt a month ago.  The pilots were arrested in 2013 for trying to smuggling 26 suitcases of cocaine in a private jet, were convicted, and fled the DR during the appeal.  The conviction was upheld, but France has said it will not return the men. 

The US Republican Party is in full panic mode, trying to stop fat-mouthed billionare Donald Trump from winning the party's presidential nomination.  Former GOP candidate - also a billionaire - Mitt Romney gave an address that listed Trump's many shortcomings (not just his short fingers if you know what I mean), Trump's many failed business ventures, and trashed his temperment as unsuitable for the White House.  "Prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished" if Mr Trump becomes the nominee, Said Romney.  Strange, Romney couldn't bring himself to attack Trump for his xenophobia and increasing links to racists and racist groups.  It could be that Romney's address isn't going to win over Trump's idiot voter bloc, which thinks that yelling "nuh uh!!!" is a valid debating point.

Don't come to Europe, says European Council President Donald Tusk to illegal economic migrants who might want to join the multitudes of war refugees who flooded into Europe in the past year.  "Do not believe the smugglers," said Mr. Tusk, referring to the thousands who've drowned in the Meditarranean and Aegean Seas because of flimsy smuggling ships.  "Do not risk your lives and your money.  It is all for nothing."