Happy Saint Patrick's Day, Australia! – Putin reemerges after more than a week – Netanyahu rejects peace and coexistence as a campaign pledge – Zuma wants to keep his posh, tax-payer funded digs – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The United Nations now says 24 people are dead in Vanuatu after Tropical Cyclone Pam swept through the archipelago on Friday and Saturday.  3,300 have been displaced.  However these numbers are early, and radio and telephone communication with outer islands had yet to be re-established.  “Climate change is contributing to the disaster in Vanuatu,” said President Baldwin Lonsdale.

Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin says there will be no Palestinian state on his watch, if he is reelected in today’s election.  This marks his definitive repudiation of the Two-State Solution, the policy pursued for decades by the United States and international community for bringing peace to the long-restive region.  He also admitted he authorized thousands of Israeli housing units in Palestinian areas to block what he derisively called “Hamas-stan”.  The most recent polls shows Netanyahu’s Likud trailing the Center-Left coalition by a few seats.

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad says he is waiting next to the phone after US Secretary of State John Kerry said negotiations to end the country’s conflict should include the Syrian President.  Assad says he would welcome any “sincere” changes in US policy “for the Syrian people”.  Kerry over the weekend said that ending the four-year old Syrian Civil War would eventually have to include negotiations for Assad’s departure.  The State Department later clarified that as requiring the participation of Assad’s government, not necessarily Assad himself.

The daughter of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been arrested for alleged sedition.  Nurul Izzah Anwar had given a speech in parliament condemning the judiciary for convicting her father on sodomy charges, a move human rights groups roundly condemned.  Critics say the sedition law, like the sodomy law before it, is being used to silence the opposition.

South Africa’s opposition is launching a court battle to force President Jacob Zuma to repay A$31.4 Million of public money lavished on his private residence.  A year ago, the public prosecutor said he should pay back the money, but last week in parliament Zuma announced he would not.  The upgrades to Zuma’s home include a swimming pool, a cattle enclosure, and his very own amphitheatre.

Russian President Vladimir Putin finally remerged after 11 days out of the public eye.  At a meeting in Saint Petersburg with his Kyrgyz counterpart Putin said, “It would be boring without gossip.”  But he didn’t explain where he was or what he was doing.  Conjecture about Putin has ranged from the flu, to romantic troubles, to a “soft coup” by Russian oligarchs.

Firefighters in Chile have finally contained that bushfire that threatened Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, causing thousands to temporarily evacuate their homes.  The cause was the dumping of molten metal in an illegal landfill; strong, dry winds pushed it from there.

Everyone’s Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day!  Even big, giant Art-Deco Jesus (Cristo Redentor) in Rio de Janeiro.