It’s a third day of devastating bushfires in SA – Human traffickers made a stunning profit from that crowded freighter rescued off of Italy – A 7-year old girl’s incredible tale of survival – How did a suspected terrorist die just days before his trial? – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

A dozen homes are destroyed and authorities fear another 20 to 30 are burned in South Australia’s worst bushfires since the 1983 Ash Wednesday fire.  Horribly, some 40 dogs and cats died when the fire went through the Tea Tree Gully Boarding Kennels and Cattery in the Adelaide foothills.  Some of the boarded dogs were rescued.  800 firefighters from three states are battling a wind-whipped fire that’s already blackened around 12,000 hectares.

The traffickers who packed hundreds of Syrian refugees onto a rustbucket freighter and abandoned it in the Mediterranean Sea made more than A$3.7 Million from the illegal venture.  Some 360 immigrants emerged from the Ezadeen, a former livestock carrier somehow acquired by the traffickers, thanking Italy for their rescue.  Children, pregnant women, men on crutches were part of this group that made it out of the civil war, paying the traffickers from A$5,000 to $10,000 for the trip.

Indonesia now says it has located four large objects on the Java Sea floor that investigators believe were part of AirAsia Flight QZ8501.  They haven’t retrieved any more bodies, meaning that the total stays at 30 out of the 162 passengers and crew aboard that have been recovered.

Israel’s government has decided to freeze its monthly transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority (PA).  This comes a day after the Palestinians formally submitted the paperwork to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.  Membership would allow the Palestinians to pursue war crimes charges against Israel, as well as civil cases against Israeli businesses that set up shop in confiscated Palestinian lands.  Israel collects taxes on behalf of the Palestinians, and transfers about A$156 Million per month – that’s two-thirds of the PA’s budget.  Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat condemned the Israeli move as a “new war crime”.

An alleged al Qaeda terrorist is dead just days before he was supposed to have gone on trial for the 1998 bombings at the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.  50-year old Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai – who went by the name Abu Anas al-Libi – died in detention of complications from surgery for liver cancer.  His family blames the US for his death.  The African embassy attacks killed more than 220 people.

Police in India arrested five men for kidnapping and repeatedly raping a Japanese woman over a period of more than a month.  The survivor had gone to India to see Bodh Gaya, the place where the Shakyamuni Buddha had achieved enlightenment.  Two of the suspects offered her a tour of the site, and one of them speaks fluent Japanese, leading police to believe the gang was experienced in targeting foreign tourists.

The mayor of a town south of Paris, France is fending off accusations of flagrant racism after denying a grave to Roma baby girl who died on Christmas Day.  The ironically-named, ultra-conservative mayor of Champlan, Mr. “Christian” Leclerc (yeah, right), claimed to Le Parisien that the town cemetery is running out of space and “priority is given to those who pay local taxes”.  Activists and others disgusted with the decision say it reeks of “racism, xenophobia and stigmatization”.  Mayor Richard Trinquier of nearby Wissous says LeClerc’s decision is “incomprehensible” and said he would offer a grave.

The Scottish nurse who was diagnosed with Ebola after returning home from Sierra Leone is in critical condition.  London’s Royal Free Hospital said it was “sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days”.  Pauline checked herself into hospital just six hours after arriving back in Glasgow, and was quickly transferred to the Royal Free Hospital’s more sophisticated isolation unit.  Earlier she flew from Freetown to Casablanca, and through Heathrow where health screeners gave her the okay to fly home to Scotland.

In the United States, a 7-year old girl who survived a plane crash that killed her parents and two other family members has been released from hospital.  The girl hiked through more than a kilometer of dense woods for help – at night – after the family’s small plane clipped some treetops in Kentucky and crashed. 

An airline first officer needed medical attention for his eye after being struck by a laser.  This happened while Allegiant Air Flight 558 from Los Angeles was landing at Medford, Oregon in America’s Pacific Northwest.  This is something that happens in stupid America, people actually point lasers at airplanes – 3,000 times in 2013 alone.  So far, there has not been a disaster. 

Greek authorities recaptured a fugitive militant after a more than a year on the run.  56-year old Christodoulos Xiros of the Marxist group November 17 escaped last January when authorities allowed him to visit his family.  He was serving life sentences for bombings and shootings.

Mexican authorities arrested ten more police officers in the disappearances and likely murders of 43 student teachers in southern Guerrero state.  That makes it 58 police officers among the 90 people arrested in the case.  Authorities believe the mayor of Iguala ordered police to hand the left-wing students over to the local drug gang, to stop the students’ planned protest of corruption in the town.