Good Morning, Australia! – Lights out in Washington – Germany insults Greece’s drive for World War II reparations – Malaysia brings back a regressive law that has human rights groups alarmed – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

A rather strangely scattered power outage hit Washington, DC around lunchtime on Tuesday;  the White House, the State Department, even Oprah Winfrey’s address to announce a new postage stamp depicting her late friend Poet Laureate Maya Angelou were all affected.  It wasn’t long before backup generators kicked in at most of the sensitive Federal buildings.  Officials traced the problem to a switching station north of the US Capitol in Maryland.

Germany’s economy minister has a word for Greece’s demand for reparations for the nazi occupation during World War II – “Stupid”.  Athens wants almost A$400 Billion from Germany, which just happens to be Greece’s biggest creditor and therefore the country most Greeks blame for the economic chaos caused by the idiotic and failed policies of “Austerity” forced upon the country when it signed on to a bailout. 

Warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition hit a Houthi rebel base in central Yemen.  But a website of the Houthi-run defense ministry said two students were killed at a neighboring school.  Meanwhile, the US will expedite arms supplies to the Saudi coalition to fight the Houthi, to send a “strong message to the Houthis and their allies that they cannot overrun Yemen by force,” said US Deputy Secretary of Defense Tony Blinken on a visit to Riyadh.

So far, the Saudi bombing might have slowed but definitely has not stopped the Houthi’s advance.  The Yemeni port city of Aden is practically a ghost town, with thousands of residents fleeing to get out of the way of the fighting on the ground and bombs from above.  International Red Cross plans to send two aircraft of medical supplies and workers to Yemen have been grounded by “logistical problems”.

Thousands of Kenyans marched in Garissa town to protest last week’s al Shabaab terrorist attack at the university there – some 150 people were killed.  Five Kenyans and a Tanzanian are being held for alleged links to al Shabaab.  But the protesters also faulted the police and military.  Both have bases in Garissa, and yet the response to the attack was slow and the terrorists weren’t stopped for almost 12 hours.

Rights groups are blasting Malaysia’s parliament for approving a law that allows for the detention of people without trial for up to two years.  Critics including Human Rights Watch say the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act will enable the government to crackdown on opposition politicians and government critics.  Prime Minister Najib Razak tossed out the previous version of this sort of legislation in 2012 in the name of reform.  But Malaysia’s government now says it needs the extra powers to counter terrorism.