Good Morning Australia!! - "Staggering" violence against Iraqi civilians alarms the UN - Malcolm goes to the White House - Colombia and the FARC ask for a UN mission to conclude the peace process - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The level of violence against civilians in Iraq "remains staggering", according to a new assessment from the United Nations (.pdf link).  Nearly 19,000 civilians were killed in an 21-month period from January 2014 to October 2015.  The report details atrocities such as: holding 3,500 women and children as slaves, some of whom were "prizes" in a Koran memorization contest;  murdering women who refuse to have sex with IS soldiers;  killing prisoners by bulldozer, explosive decapitation, and by firing squad.  UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein said the report "starkly illustrates what Iraqi refugees are attempting to escape when they flee to Europe and other regions.  This is the horror they face in their homelands".

The report states that Kurdish forces and especially government troops are also implicated in the abuse of civilians.  These cases center around revenge attacks on people associated with Islamic State carried out by so-called "dirty brigades".  Videos emerged of men in Iraqi Security uniforms burning a man during the liberation of Tikrit, shouting sectarian slogans.  A similar video shows a Shiite youth burning a captured IS fighter who is hanging upside down from his heels.  The Iraqi government says it will investigate the allegations.

PM Malcolm Turnbull is visiting US President Barack Obama at the White House.  Mr. Obama praised Australia's contributions to the war on Islamic State, and Malcolm promised continued cooperation on counter-terrorism.

Nigerian villagers accuse troops from Cameroon of attacking civilians instead of the Boko Haram fighters they were supposed to have been pursuing.  A family of four died from a rocket-propelled grenade, and two others were shot to death.  Cameroon has denied several previous accusations of razing villages and killing civilians in an attempt to create a "no-go" zone along the border with Northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram is active.

Pakistan is offering to mediate the tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran.  Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says he considers it his country's "prime duty and sacred mission" to reconcile the two countries.  He has already met with Saudi King Salman and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the latter of whom is already considering appointing a point man for talks with the Saudis.  Acrid relations between the two got worse when Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric, and Shiite Iranians stormed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran in anger.

Colombia and the Marxist FARC guerrillas have agreed on a UN mission to oversee the last phases of the peace process and disarmament that would make the end of the five-decade civil war, the Western Hemisphere's longest-running conflict.  Negotiations have been going on in Havana.  Both sides agreed to ask the United Nations to send monitors on a 12-month mission to ensure the process is "genuine and permanent".  Both sides called it a "transcendental" moment in the peace talks.

German police say a botched attempted robbery of an armored car near Bremen last June was the work of three aging militants from the far-left Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang.  The old school Left-wing fighters killed some 30 people in attacks during the 1970s and '80s, targeting bankers, businessmen, judges, and even US servicemen.  The group was believed to be dormant since 1998, but cops say the three - now in their late 50s - are likely running out of money.

Israel busted up an alleged price-fixing scheme on tours to former nazi death camps.  Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says officers arrested nine people, and confiscated office equipment and receipts.  Preserving the memory of the Holocaust is central to the Israeli identity, and pilgrimages to the scenes of the crimes are considered a standard part of growing up.