Good Morning, Australia! – Did Australia pay off human traffickers? – Investigators wonder if a massive cyber attack was a false-flag ruse – A 14-year old child bridge is cleared of killing her adult husband – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:
An Indonesian police office accuses Australia of paying human traffickers to betray the immigrants they were smuggling to Oz, and take them back to Indonesia. The police chief on the island of Rote says he personally saw the payoff – A$5,000 apiece for the captain and crewmembers – when his force arrested the traffickers. The immigrants from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar weren’t even going to Australia; Fairfax news reports the group was en route to New Zealand. The government denies the allegation.
One of the FIFA officials indicted in the United States has turned up in Italy. Alejandro Burzaco was the president of an Argentine sports marketing firm implicated in the money laundering and bribery investigation. Burzaco was a guest in a hotel in Zurich, Switzerland last month when police swept in to arrest the world football officials, but he was not in his room when police knocked. On Tuesday, Burzaco handed himself in to police in the northern Italian town of Borzano.
Five people are dead in an explosion at a fuel depot outside Kiev, Ukraine. Three were firefighters trying to get a handle on the original fire when the flames touched off explosions in massive oil tanks. The owner of the depot suspects sabotage and says several explosive devices were found in the compound since last August.
A Nigerian court has dropped charges against a 14-year old girl accused of using rat poison to kill her 35-year old husband. The girl admitted to concealing the poison in the food she served to the man she was forced to marry. The girl is from northern Nigeria, which is for some reason governed with a mixture of secular and Sharia law. Islamic police are reportedly trying to put an end to the practice of forced and child marriages.
French police are investigating if Russia-based hackers were responsible for the cyber attack on the French television network TV5 Monde’s website. In April, hackers claiming to represent Islamic State posted jihadist propaganda to the site. But L’Express reports that the probe is focusing on a group called APT28, which is also believed to be responsible for attempts to hack the White House, NATO members, Russian dissidents, and Ukrainian activists.
Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Dennis Hastert pleaded not guilty to charges of improperly concealing cash transactions from the taxman and lying to FBI investigators. The conservative Republican and former third-most powerful man in Washington, DC is believed to have been paying hush money to cover-up alleged sexual abuse of teenage buys back when he was a high school wrestling coach in rural Illinois.
Police in India arrested Delhi city’s law minister amid allegations he lied about having a law degree. Jitender Singh Tomar’s Aam Admi Party (AAP) apparently will have to prove that he earned a degree from Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University in Bihar state, as he claimed on documents submitted when he ran for office. The AAP is hinting that the conservative Indian government is taking revenge for its success in February’s election in Delhi.
Chile’s government has passed a law to crack down on football hooligans. It increases fines and jail sentences for racism and violence at matches, and extends sanctions to the teams themselves. From Thursday, Chile will host the Copa America 2015 tournament.