A three-day reprieve for peace in Ukraine – What’s up with the Pope’s health? – David Cameron’s very bad week – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko extended the ceasefire with pro-Russian separatists in the east for another three days.  It now expires at 10:00 PM local time on Monday.  Poroshenko did this after returning to Kiev from a ceremony with European Union officials in which he signed a trade pact with the EU.  Symbolically, he signed the agreement with the same pen that had been prepared for his predecessor Viktor Yanukovich last year, before Yanukovich famously balked, sparking the pro-EU Maidan Square protests that led to Yanukovich’s downfall.

Iraq’s top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Sistani is calling for a new prime minister to be appointed before Tuesday, and for the top governmental positioned to be filled to end Iraq’s political crisis.  Current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says he should continue in the job, what with him having won an ‘election’ and all.  But the country is on a the verge of dissolution partly because of al-Maliki’s refusal to share power with different factions, and Sunni militants with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are knocking on Baghdad’s door after taking control of most of the north and west.

The US is flying armed Predator Drones over Iraq, to back-up the American military advisors on the ground.  The drones are already being deployed on 30 to 40 missions a day.  The Predator Drone is equipped with Hellfire Missiles, and has been used to great effect (and controversy) in Afghanistan and the lawless Waziristan region of Pakistan.

EU leaders nominated former Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Junker to be the next president of the European Commission.  It deals a humiliating defeat to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who fought tooth and nail to prevent it.  Junker is seen as a Brussels insider who isn’t going to devolve powers back to member states – and Cameron’s Tories took a drubbing in recent elections from an insurgent anti-EU party.  Cameron is vowing to fight on.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has declined to comment on one of his closest aides being charged with making and possessing child abuse images.  Patrick Rock was one of the government’s advisers on policy for online pornography filters.  It’s the second scandal involving crime and Number 10 this week – Cameron’s former spokesman Andy Coulson was convicted for his role in the News Corporation phone hacking scandal.

The Vatican’s former ambassador to the Dominican Republic was found guilty of sexually abusing boys in Santo Domingo and defrocked in a canonical trial.  Jozef Wesolowski has two months to appeal the sentence.  But he might also face criminal charges because the Vatican isn’t just the headquarters for the Roman Catholic Church, it is also a city-state.  The Dominican Republic is investigating Wesolowski but hasn’t yet filed charges.

Pope Francis cancelled his third event this month, leading to questions about the Pontiff’s health.  The Pope was supposed to visit a hospital in Rome, but the Vatican issued a statement saying he was canceling the trip due to an “unexpected indisposition”.  The former Jorge Mario Bergoglio had part of a lung removed as a young man due to pneumonia, and also suffers a bad back.

A massive blow to hopes that the Arab Spring would result in Democracy across North Africa:  Attorney and pro-democracy activist Salwa Bugaighis was shot and killed in her home in Benghazi, along with her husband and sister.  Her funeral was Friday.  And the only witness to the assassination – a bodyguard who was shot in the leg during the attack – has been found dead in the hospital.  Salwa spent years standing up to Moammar Gadhafi’s regime and took part in the transitional panel after his death.  This story has flown under the radar in the world corporate media, however, one look at this official’s face announcing the assassination should inform as to how important Salwa was to the pro-democracy cause in Libya. 

Sierra Leone is warning that it is a crime to help hide Ebola patients.  The Health Ministry in Freetown says this, because apparently a number of Ebola patients have checked themselves out of the hospital and gone into hiding.  That is staggering, as Ebola is very easily spread through bodily fluids and kills up to 90 percent of patients.  Families who care for one member who has contracted the Ebola virus are easily wiped out.  The UN World Health Organization (WHO) says almost 400 people have died in the current outbreak in Western Africa.

The lights are coming back on in a huge swath of Venezuela, after a power plant that supplies electricity to Venezuela's central and western regions failed in early afternoon.  The capital Caracas is mostly back on, although with intermittent outages as the plant is repaired.  In the past, the government has blamed blackouts on saboteurs and animals that gnaw through power lines.  No word on what caused this one to fail.

A small airplane pulling an advertising banner for an insurance company (hah) had to make an emergency landing on a freeway ramp in Arlington, Texas.  And because it was Texas, the next thing that happened was that the plane collided with a pickup truck.