Good Morning, Australia! – The mother in law of a terrorist wants help bringing her daughter and grandkids home – The US spied on an important and close ally, according to Wikileaks – US retail giants are looking away from Dixieland’s flag – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The mother of Tara Nettleton is asking for Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s help in bringing the woman and her children home to Australia.  The major issue will be Tara’s marriage to Islamic State terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who is believed to have been killed by a US drone near Mosul.  But not before the despicable incident of last year in which he photographed one of his sons with Nettleson holding the severed head of an Iraqi soldier.  Abbott is hinting that there will be no special treatment for Tara Nettleson if she chooses to leave jihad behind to return to Australia.

The northern French port of Calais has spun into chaos as Ferry and Channel Tunnel workers went on a 24 hour strike – complete with burning tyres blocking roads – and hundreds of immigrants camped out there took advantage of the situation to board trucks stacked up to enter the United Kingdom.  The UK foreign office warned truckies to make sure their trailers are locked up tight to prevent stowaways.  The job action was for one day; things will supposedly get back to normal on Wednesday morning.

The US wiretapped French President Francoise Hollande, as well as his predecessors Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.  Wikileaks says US National Security Agency (NSA) documents show surveillance through three French administrations from 1995 through the present, which included cabinet ministers and ambassadors.  Previous documents leaked by Edward Snowden showed the NSA spied on the leaders of Germany and Brazil.  The US is a member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing alliance with Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK.

Major US retailers are getting out of the confederate flag business, after the murders of nine African American church members in Charleston, South Carolina by a white supremacist.  On Monday, Target, Walmart and Sears announced they would no longer sell the flag that boosters claim symbolizes Southern “Heritage” (but usually finds its way into the hands of racists and losers).  Online marketplaces Ebay and Etsy soon followed, and then Amazon banned confederate items from its site.  South Carolina republicans finally moved legislation to remove the flag from the capital, and other southern states are now realizing that the game is over – 150 years after the south lost the US Civil War.

The death toll in Pakistan’s heatwave has grown incredibly worse – almost 700 people have been killed as temperatures reach 45C degrees. The military has been pressed into service to set up heat stroke treatment centers. 

Japanese police raided the corporate offices of Toyota Motor Corporation, as well as its Tokyo and Nagoya offices.  This is part of the investigation into Julie Hamp, the 55-year old Toyota exec arrested for allegedly violating Japan’s stringent drug laws by having some prescription painkillers shipped to her from the US.

Donald Featherstone, the guy who first came up with the plastic Pink Flamingo lawn ornament, is dad at age 79.  The epitome of American mid-century kitsch, Featherstone said he was inspired by the cover of an issue of National Geographic magazine, and produced millions of the creatures in the Union Products factory in Leominster, Massachusetts – once the “Plastics Capital of the World”.  After falling out of style from their 1950s and ‘60s peak, the Flamingos found favor on the lawns of hipsters and cultural renegades, especially in the raunchy 1972 John Waters movie “Pink Flamingos”.