Good Morning Australia!! - So much for fears of French nationalism in the second round of elections - A Russian warship fires warning shots at a Turkish vessel - Saudi Arabia takes a teeny-tiny step forward - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Exit polls suggest the French National Front party has been routed in the second round of regional elections, beaten down into third place.  The mainstream conservative Republican party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy is leading with the ruling Socialists in second place.  Last weekend, the anti-immigration and Euro-skeptic FN was in first place in six of 13 regions, and there were fears the France was sinking into a malaise of fear and Islamophobia after two terrorist attacks in Paris this year - but in the second round, the FN failed to capture a single region.  FN party leader Marine Le Pen and her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen were both candidates.  The key difference was turnout, which soared in the second round as France woke the hell up to keep the haters out of office.

The mayor of Leipzig in eastern Germany is expressing shock after 69 police officers were hurt and 50 police vehicles were damaged in clashes between anti-racist and Antifa protesters, and fascist anti-immigration scum over the weekend.  This happened as a few hundred anti-immigration demonstrators and nazis tried to march through the city, but were stopped by the more than 1,000 Antifa and anti-racist forces who pushed barricades in their path.  Cops used water cannons and tear gas to break it up, but also attacked journalists, and a good time was had by all.  The nazi march did not pass.

Saudi Arabia for the first time has elected women to public office, as many as 17 of them from constituencies in Mecca, Jawf, Tabuk, Jeddah, and Qatif.  Saudi Councils have limited powers in the ultra-conservative oil kingdom, but the fact that any were elected in the land where they're not allowed to drive is hoped to be a landmark event.

Air strikes on a rebel-held portion of eastern Damascus killed at least 28 people, while mortars fired by the rebels into government-held parts of the Syrian capital killed three people and injured at least 30.  It's not clear of the war planes and missiles fired into the rebel areas were Syrian or Russian. More than 250,000 people have died in the Syrian Civil War.

Russia says it fired warning shots at a Turkish battleship that came too close to one of its frigates in the Aegean Sea.  The Kremlin says the crew of the Smetlivy tried radio, visuals signals, and flares as the Turkish ship came within 600 meters.  The Turks immediately changed courses after the Russian opened fire with light weapons.  Tensions between the two nations are tight after Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 along the Syrian border last month.

At least 23 patients died in a fire at a Russian psychiatric hospital in the village of Alfyorovka, in the southern Voronezh region.  It took more than 440 firefighters and emergency workers around three hours to bring the fire under control.  Critics within Russia say this tragedy has happened before at other facilities, and point out the cause is always the same:  Socially disadvantaged people, warehoused in dilapidated Soviet-era hospitals with lax fire safety standards, suffering staff shortages.

Two people died when a helicopter being used in an MTV reality show crashed in the reservoir behind the Potrerillos de Mendoza dam in western Argentina.  It's the second fatal crash of a helicopter involved in a reality TV show this year in Argentina: You may recall nine months ago, two choppers collided in mid-air and crashed in north-western Rioja province, killing ten people including three French Olympic athletes.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is vowing to push forward with her plan to provide free, quality university education to the country's poorest students - despite last week's court ruling that aspects of its education reform bill were unconstitutional.  The Constitutional Tribunal ruled that the bill was "discriminatory" because it only granted free tuition to students attending certain, mostly state-run, universities. 

Voters in the Central African Republic are casting ballots on a proposed new constitution.  It calls for the creation of a Senate, limiting future presidents to two five-year terms in office, and safeguards for religious freedoms - which is pretty much needed right now after the terrible clashes between the predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels and mostly Christian anti-Balaka militias.  The voting has been interrupted by small clashes and arms fire.