I trust everyone is having a great Australia Day! – A big change in Greece could threaten Europe’s “austerity” economic policies – A long-delayed investigation into a famous Putin critics’s death already faces a roadblock – Clint the Squint defends his new war film after an outbreak of Islamophobia – Protesters say Japan’s PM poked a hornet’s nest – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Greece is about to take a major swing to the Left, after voters gave the anti-austerity Syriza party a majority in Parliament.  The party’s tough-talking 40-year old leader Alexis Tsipras will be the next prime minister, as long as Syriza is able to form a coalition to get over the threshold of 150 seats to form a government.  In voting for Syriza, Greeks rejected the former ruling conservative New Democracy party’s policy of working with the harsh austerity measures imposed under the European Union, European Central Bank, and IMF’s bailout. 

Visiting India, US President Barack Obama announced an era of “new trust” with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a big ol’ bro-hug.  That means new security agreements, and finally advancing long-stalled talks on allowing American firms to invest in nuclear power plants in India.  Mr. Obama also became the first US President to attend an Indian Republic Day parade. 

On Tuesday, the UK is supposed to open a new inquiry into the death of Alexander Litivenko, the former KGB spy and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Litvinenko died of radiation poisoning after eating with some Putin associates in a London restaurant in 2006 – but not before famously sharing a last photo in hospital, after all of his hair fell out because of the Polonium-210 poisoning.  He accused Putin of arranging the hit.  Complicating things, Italy is balking at sending a key witness London for fear of prosecution.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is vowing to calm the fighting in the southeastern port city of Mariupol, where Russian-armed rebels have opened a new front.  At least 30 people were killed over the weekend when Russian-supplied missiles struck several civilian targets.  More than 5,000 people have been killed in fighting since the rebels seized a large swathe of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions last April.

Japan’s government says it is working to secure the release of 47-year old Kenji Goto from the terrorist group Islamic State.  Over the weekend, the militants uploaded a video purportedly showing the decapitated body of the other Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa.  The Japanese aren’t prone to criticizing authorities during a crisis situation, but a cadre of about 100 people protested at the Prime Minister’s official residence late night, suggesting the PM Shinzo Abe provoked the group by traveling to the Middle East to present aid checks to countries fighting Islamic State.

Boko Haram militants attacked killed dozens of people in its latest attack on Maiduguri, the largest city of Nigeria’s Borno state where the terrorist group has been attempting to create its own state based on its crazy interpretation of Sharia law.  Amnesty International warns that thousands of civilians are now “at grave risk”.  This came at the same time as US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in Lagos.  Kerry said US cooperation with the fight against Boko Haram will depend largely on the “credibility, accountability, transparency, and peacefulness” of the upcoming election, in which Jonathan is running for reelection against former military strongman ruler Muhammadu Buhari.  So, yeah, it is possible for Nigeria to get even more screwed up.

At least 18 people are dead in protests to mark the fourth anniversary of the uprising that toppled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.  More than 80 are recovering from various injuries, and cops arrested some 800 people.  And there is lingering anger after hundreds attended the funeral for 32-year old Shaima al-Sabbagh.  The young mother and activist with the Socialist Popular Alliance party was marching to place some flowers in Tahrir Square, the symbolic heart of anti-government protests, when cops fired birdshot at her head. 

Filmmaker Clint Eastwood claims his new movie “American Sniper” is anti-war, because it shows the difficulties soldiers have going back to civilian life.  American right-wingers aren’t getting the message, however.  Authorities and rights groups say threats against mosques and Arab-Americans have sharply risen since the film’s release.  The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) wrote letters to director Eastwood and actor Bradley Cooper, asking them to speak out against such conduct “in an effort to reduce the hateful rhetoric”.  They might want to ask Clint and Brad to speak out against the hootin’ and hollerin’ in the audience every time the main character kills someone.

And now for something completely different:

The reporter who broke the story of the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman in Buenos Aires has resurfaced – in Tel Aviv, Israel.  Damian Pachter wrote the account of his exodus from Buenos Aires for Israel’s Haraatz newspaper, including details of mysterious coded messages and an intimidating if not-too-subtle security agent tailing him at least part of the way.  He also says he may never return to Argentina because of the experience.  On the plus side, his Twitter subscribers went from 420 to 10,000 practically overnight.

The 51-year old Alberto Nisman was found dead of a gunshot wound in his locked, 13-storey apartment shortly after accusing the president of interfering with a terrorism investigation in order to protect an oil deal with Iran.  The evidence points to Nisman committing suicide, although everything else that’s happened before and since is feeding conspiracy theories – from the Left, the right, the fringe, and even from the President’s own desk.

Bunnies!  Yay!  Bunnies!