Good Morning Australia!! - The orange clown milks an Australian tragedy and an all-American lie to feed his agenda of hate - New evidence of Syria's regime executing thousands of political prisoners - Romania's president tries to calm a bubbling cauldron - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

The mother of a young woman murdered in Queensland last year is blasting Donald Trump for using "fake news" to use the tragedy to stir up hatred for immigrants and to support his ban on Muslims from seven nations entering the US (now on hold).  You will recall 21-year old Mia Ayliffe-Chung was stabbed to death in a hostel by a French man who yelled "Alluhu Akbar" during the attack.  But even though QLD ruled out terrorism early on, the White House included the murder on a list of "terrorist attacks" it believes the media "covered up" - something that of course never happened. 

In a defiant open letter to Trump, Mia's mother Rosie Ayliffe wrote:  "My daughter's death will not be used to further this insane persecution of innocent people," and accused Trump of "trying to justify his actions in not allowing Muslims into the country from these seven countries.  He's trying to find examples of terror and this just isn't one of them".  Ms. Ayliffe, who wrote The Rough Guide to Turkey travel book, said: "Trump hasn’t just got Mia’s death wrong.  He's got everything wrong regarding Islam and immigration.  What he really needs to do is visit some of these countries and learn about their cultures."

So, why is the White House dredging up a killing that QLD Police Superintendent Ray Rohweder says is "not about race or religion, but individual criminal behavior"?  Well, it goes back to the "Bowling Green Massacre" and a lack of ethics and character in the White House.  Last week, Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway repeatedly lied about a non-existent terrorist attack in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and was soundly humiliated on the internet.  Instead of admitting a lie or claiming a mistake, Trump doubled down and claimed "the media" was covering up terrorist attacks, inspired by a fringe conspiracy theory website.  As proof, the White House later released a list of terrorist attacks which, it turned out, either were not terrorist attacks or were extensively covered in the media - even the humble news blog of an Aussie job-hunting website.

The US Senate confirmed billionaire right-wing political activist Betsy DeVos as the new US Secretary of Education, on a 51-50 vote with Vice President Mike Pence performing his only constitutional duty which is to break ties in the Senate.  Two moderate Republican senators broke away to vote with Democrats against DeVos, the wife of Amway founder Dick DeVos and sister of Blackwater mercenary founder Erik Prince.  Betsy never attended nor sent her own kids to the public schools, demonstrated a lack of awareness and concern with laws protecting disabled students, and suggested that guns be allowed in schools to protect against Grizzly Bears.  The orange clown's pick is in favor of defunding public schools in favor of giving education vouchers to families to use at private schools, which in the US are overwhelmingly religious.

Syria's regime executed as many as 13,000 people by gallows in a prison known as "the slaughterhouse", according to Amnesty International.  The rights group's report says military police working for Bashar al-Assad carried out as many as 50 extra-judicial executions per week at Saydnaya prison in what the organization called a "calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution".  This happened from the beginning of the uprising in 2011 through 2015.  The bodies were dumped in mass graves.  "The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population," said Amnesty's Lynn Maalouf.

Corruption allegations keep piling up for French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon.  The Le Canard Enchaine weekly newspaper reports that Fillon not only employed his wife for allegedly fake public jobs, but also twice gave her severance pay from public funds.  Fillon's woes are shaking up the French presidential election, the first and second rounds in April and May respectively.  Fillon's drop in support could help far-right candidate Marine le Pen of the xenophobic Front National; Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon is taking is party back to the Left; and this polarization is opening a window of opportunity for Emmanuel Macron of the brand-new center-Left "En Marche!" party.

Meanwhile, a French judge has ordered the one-time standard bearer for Fillon's party, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, to stand trial on charges his party falsified accounts in order to hide $AU25 Million of campaign spending in 2012.

Romania's president says the government needs to get its act together, as hundreds of thousands of people continue to come out nightly for anti-government protests.  It started when the new Social Democratic government tried to sneak through a law to reduce penalties for political corruption.  The government dropped that farce, but the protests continued.  President Klaus Iohannis stopped short of calling for new elections, but said, "Romania needs a government that is transparent, which governs predictably by the light of day, not sneakily at night," and warned the government to "govern and legislate, but not at any price".  The protesters would rather the Prime Minister and government just resign.

China's Foreign Minister says "there cannot be" a conflict between his country and the US over the South China Sea.  Appearing in Canberra along side FM Julie Bishop, Wang Yi said: "For any sober-minded politician, they clearly recognize that there cannot be conflict between China and the United States because both will lose - and both sides cannot afford that."  Both sides have gotten a little sabre-rattle-y over China's construction of military installations on artificial islands in the disputed waters that are hundreds of kilometers beyond China's internationally-recognized maritime borders.

After several delays and cancelled polls, Haiti finally has a new president.  Jovenel Moise took the oath of office in Port-au-Prince two years behind schedule, but he does get a full five-year term and a majority in parliament.  On the down side, Haiti is one of the world's poorest nations and is still reeling from the devastating January 2010 earthquake.  Haitian-born poly-sci professor Robert Fatton of the University of Virginia says that all President Moise has to do now is "revive domestic production, increase foreign and local investments, rebuild the moribund agricultural sector, create a sense of national solidarity, and generate a sorely lacking political stability," at a time of decreasing international assistance.