Good Morning, Australia! – Six young Irish on a summer adventure in California are killed in a balcony collapse – Russia and The West are now back to nuclear saber-rattling – A longstanding insurgency in the Philippines is ending – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Australia and China will sign a free trade deal today, which is hoped to open China’s marketplace to Australia agricultural products and other items.  Trade Minister Andrew Robb will join Chinese commerce minister Gao Hucheng will appear in Canberra.  Boosters claim it will create thousands of new Australian jobs every year.  We’ll see.

At least six people are dead and several are injured after a balcony collapsed on a fourth-storey apartment near the University of California at Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco.  The Irish Counsel-General confirms that most if not all of the victims were young Irish Citizens on work visas for the summer.  The balcony snapped off at the building’s edge and fell onto the balcony below, but the railing gave out, and the young people spilled down more than twelve meters to the concrete sidewalk and wrought iron fence.

NATO is blasting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he will put more than 40 new nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles into service this year.  “This nuclear saber-rattling of Russia is unjustified, it’s destabilizing and it’s dangerous,” said Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg who added, “This is something which we are addressing and it’s also one of the reasons why we now are increasing the readiness and the preparedness of our forces.”  Putin claims the new generation missiles would be able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems.

The US and Venezuela are signaling that low-key talks held in Haiti last weekend to decrease mutual tensions went well.  The US and Venezuela have not had ambassadors in each other’s capitals since 2010, and Caracas has repeatedly accused Washington of interfering in its internal politics by organizing and funding economic sabotage. 

Al Qaeda is confirming that its latest Number Two has been killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen.  Nasser al-Wuhayshi was the deputy of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and was in charge of the terrorist network’s most-violent chapter, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  However, an Islamist group in Libya is denying reports that another leading terrorist, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was killed in a separate attack.  Ansar al-Sharia released the names of the seven jihadists killed, excluding Belmohktar – the mastermind of the 2013 siege of an Algerian gas plant that saw 40 foreigners killed.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has commenced handing over its weapons to Philippine authorities, a major step in the peace process.  Perhaps embarrassed because its name forms the acronym MILF, 75 weapons are being deactivated as a gesture of the group’s commitment to the 2012 peace deal.  “We are not talking of just one or a couple or a dozen firearms,” said President Benigno Aquino, “These are high-powered firearms, modern and have not aged.  These arms can deal and have dealt extreme suffering.”

Nestle says it will destroy US$50 Million worth of Maggi noodles, while insisting that India’s food regulators are incorrect in labeling them “unsafe and hazardous”.  Lab tests conducted by an Indian state purportedly found lead levels way beyond the acceptable standard, leading the government to ban the sale of Maggi Noodles – by far, the most-popular brand in the sub-continent.