Good Morning Australia!! - Turkey worsens an already bad situation in Syria, according to France - Shock, at the deadly end of an up and coming band's dreams - The US mulls the legacy of a controversial dead judge - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

France is calling on Turkey to end its deadly shelling of Kurds in northern Syria, which Ankara claims is targeted at the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).  Paris released a statement saying Turkey is making an already awful and complex situation even worse.  Turkey meanwhile demanded that the Kurdish YPG - one of the most effective fighting forces against Islamic State - withdraw from the territory it recaptured from the terrorists.  The Syrian government is appealing to the United Nations to lean on Turkey to "put an end to the crimes of the Turkish regime" against "the Syrian people and Syria's territorial integrity".

"Mad Max: Fury Road" won an unexpected four awards at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) in London:  Makeup, production design, editing and costume design.  But Cate Blanchett was edged out for Best Actress by Brie Larson.  Leonardo DiCaprio got best actor for "The Revenant", which won Best Picture.

Lunar New Year in London.

More than 40 aftershocks have followed last night's magnitude 5.7 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand.  Moderately strong, it caused cliffs to collapse into the sea, cracked the drywall in a few homes, and sent jars and bottles to the floor.  No one was seriously hurt, but it did set nerves on edge because it happened a few days before the fifth anniversary of the 2011 quake that killed 185 people in Christchurch. 

The search and rescue effort has come to an end at the collapsed apartment block in Tainan City, Taiwan.  Officials say the death toll has reached 114 lives lost.  The Wei-guan Golden Dragon Building fell over during the 6 February earthquake that didn't too much damage elsewhere, leading to speculation that shoddy construction practices might be responsible.

All four members of the up-and-coming British Indie band Viola Beach and their manager were killed when their car plummeted almost 25 meters off of a tall bridge in Sweden, where they had gone to play their first international gig.  The bridge was closed and the lanes were up to allow marine traffic to pass underneath, and the band's car apparently approached it at full speed.  The bridge's signals were properly functioning, according to investigators.  Witnesses said they didn't see the car's brake lights go on.

This weekend's death of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia significantly ups the ante in the US Presidential race, by reminding voters that the President is the one who nominates justices to have America's final say.  President Barack Obama says he will fulfill his duties and nominate a replacement for Scalia, while republicans say he should wait and let the next president - who doesn't take office for eleven months - do it.  BTW, the US Constitution has no provision for putting off the duties of state just because it's an election year.  But the republicans have already signaled that they will obstruct the President's nominee in an election year.

Antonin Scalia was an arch-conservative and what supporters say was a "strict constructionist" when it came to the US Constitution.  Meaning that he accepted that the document should only be interpreted literally, from the perspective of 18th Century slave-owning white males.  Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, Scalia shoved the High Court - and therefore, the influence American had on its allies - to the right.  A virulent racist, sexist, and homophobe, Scalia:  Tried to strike down the Voting Rights Act that prevented racial discrimination at the ballot box, and recently suggested that black students shouldn't attend demanding universities; believed women had no right to protection from gender-based discrimination, and was shocked to learn that ladies know how to curse; angrily fumed at the decision to legalize Marriage Equality, and dreamed of criminalizing homosexuality.  

Not many of Scalia's opinions, legal or personal, became law.  But he enabled the worst instincts of those who would destroy progress, letting them know that they have a friend on the US Supreme Court if their case gets that far.  Scalia also believed:  Americans didn't have a right to privacy; Torture and the execution of the innocent aren't unconstitutional; Corporations were people.  That's the guy American conservatives are lionizing as a "brilliant jurist" today.