Good Morning, Australia! – How to fail the optics test in Paris – Dozens of immigrants die in the Meditarranean – America has a big, giant blind spot when it comes to terrorism and guns – Cute Koala video! – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

An ill-conceived protocol row nearly cost Australia its Ambassador to France.  Ambassador Stephen Brady offered to resign after a junior aide in Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office ordered Brady’s same sex partner to wait in the car when Abbott arrived in Paris for Anzac Day.  That gave the appearance of homophobia on the part of the PM’s office.  Brady refused the order and his partner of 32-years Peter Stephens was there to greet Abbott’s plane.  A spokesman for Abbott did not deny the episode, but Abbott, Brady, and Stephens shared dinner together 24-hours later.  Brady is a career diplomat with an impressive resume that includes serving as official secretary to two governors-general.

An American trekker has finally gotten out of Nepal after being stranded for several days.  He brought with him his mobile video of the moment the 25 April killer earthquake hit a Langtang village, a popular hiking destinati0on that would later be buried under a massive ice and mudslide that killed at least 200 people.

At least 40 migrants drowned in the Mediterranean over the weekend, according to people rescued by a Maltese Merchant Ship and taken to Sicily.  The charity Save The Children says they were from Senegal and Ivory Coast, and just some of the thousands of immigrants who pay Libyan smugglers thousands of dollars to pack them onto boats and send them north to Europe.  The disaster shares a familiar pattern – the 137 immigrants on the dinghy rushed to one side when they saw the rescue vessel approaching, capsizing it.

Amnesty International says civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo are suffering “unthinkable atrocities”, and it’s coming from all directions.  The Syrian government has stepped up its use of crude “barrel bombs”, former oil barrels packed with explosives and shrapnel and dropped on civilian areas from helicopters.  One of the latest barrel bombs struck a nursery school.  Amnesty’s report also documented widespread abduction of civilians, detention, torture, and murder committed by both government security personnel and the various rebel groups in Aleppo.

For some reason, Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack on a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in the US state of Texas.  The terrorist group claims “two soldiers of the caliphate” with AK47s attacked the heavily-defended event sponsored by an anti-Islamic hate group – and were promptly shot and killed by a Texas cop with a handgun.  If anything, it makes Islamic State look pretty incompetent.  The two gunmen are known to have had Internet communications with extremists in the Middle East and reportedly, with some in Australia.  However, America being what it is, lots of people are freaking out about the alleged terrorist attack that killed two alleged terrorists.

Meanwhile, no one in Stupid America blinked when a crazed ex-military member grabbed his gun and randomly murdered three people including an 11-year old girl in the northern state of Wisconsin.  27-year-old military veteran Sergio Daniel Valencia del Toro got into a spat with his ex, grabbed his gun, and went-a-shooting in the town of Menasha.  11-year old Olivia Stoffel was out on a family bike ride when she and her dad were killed.  Her mom was shot three times but managed to tell Olivia’s five- and seven-year old siblings to get away.  Another man was killed and Del Toro turned the gun on himself.  Four dead, including a child, and it barely made the national news.

Former Irish Republican Army commander Gerard “Jock” Davison was shot several times and killed in north Belfast.  He’s believed by many to have ordered a notorious murder in 2005 – long after The Troubles had settled – that put the focus on IRA extracurricular violence.  The sisters of the victim of that earlier attack, Robert McCartney, blamed the IRA and gained international attention for their campaign to hold the killers responsible.  As for “Jock” Davison’s death, police do not believe dissident republicans were behind it and they do not believe it was sectarian. 

France’s fascist family feud boiled over as the founder of the extreme right-wing Front National party Jean-Marie Le Pen disowned his daughter, current party leader Marine Le Pen.  This comes after Marine suspended dear old dad for his anti-Semitic remarks calling nazi gas chambers a “mere detail” of World War II.  Mind you, Jean-Marie has been spouting crap like this for decades, but now it’s getting in Marine’s way as she tries to build a more respectable form of fascism more appealing to alienated members of France’s middle class.  She’s managed to turn Front National – once seen as the home of crackpots and malcontents – into the country’s third-largest political party.

In Hamilton, western VIC, a Koala wandered into a hospital and took a look around.  Nicknamed “Blinky Bill”, the little hairball triggered the automatic door on the emergency room triage entrance, waltzed right in, and explored for a few minutes before walking back out again.  “He was a koala that knew his own mind,” Western District Health Service chief executive Rohan Fitzgerald said.  “He walked around the waiting room for three minutes and then propped in front of the external doors and the eye of the doors picked him up again and he exited the waiting room.”