Pope Francis’ Vatican gets tough on a suspected child abuser – India goes to Mars – The US shocks the world with a previously unknown target in Syria – And much more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

India successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars, marking a major triumph for the subcontinent’s first interplanetary mission.  The orbiter will circle Mars, searching for signs of methane (a key component of life processes), observing weather patterns, and looking for data that could tell scientists whatever happened to the water that is believed to have once existed on Mars in large quantities.  Oh, and India did this at a budget of US$75 Million – about 30 percent of the budget of the next Fast and Furious movie due out in theaters next year.

The Vatican has arrested the former Papal Nuncio to the Dominican Republic for pedophilia, and placed him under house arrest.  Defrocked bishop Josef Wesolowski is suspected of frequenting child prostitutes in the DR, where he could be extradited to face a criminal trial.  Wesolowski was first ordained as a priest and promoted to bishop and various Vatican posts by the late Pope John Paul II, since canonized and called Saint John Paul the Great in the Catholic Church.

Thirty nations signed a pact to end rampant deforestation entirely by 2030.  But the effectiveness of the deal was thrown into doubt when Brazil refused to sign on, complaining that it was not consulted in the planning process and parts of the deal would be against Brazilian law.  The plans was to halve forest loss by 2020 and work towards a 2030 goal.

Liberia has a sponsor to preserve its rain forest.  Norway will pay the impoverished (and Ebola-ravaged) African nation US$150 Million to stop deforestation by 2020.  Liberia is a biodiversity hotspot, home to the last remaining viable populations of species including western chimpanzees, forest elephants and leopards.

Spain’s conservative government is giving up on its plans to limit women’s reproductive rights to cases of rape or when the mother’s health is at serious risk.  Hacking away at Abortion Rights was widely unpopular and proved to be a source of Dissent in Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s ruling Popular Party.  The idea was so unpopular, that the Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon was forced to resign and will retire from politics.  Abortion is legal in Spain until the 14th week of pregnancy, and up to the 22nd week in cases of serious fetal abnormalities.

The US struck again at Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria today, killing at least 120 Islamist militants from various groups over two days.  But President Barack Obama surprised much of the world by announcing that the strikes also targeted a group named Khorasan – widely unknown outside intelligence circles until Tuesday – that was planning imminent attacks on the west.  Mr. Obama also confirmed that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar had taken part in or supported the strikes.

A court in China sentenced a prominent Uighur scholar to life in prison for advocating independence for the northwestern province of Xinjiang, which some Uighurs want to be a separate nation called East Turkestan.  Australia and the US had urged Beijing to show leniency to Ilham Tohti, believing him to be a moderate critic.  Beijing disagrees, but might have shown some leniency – the maximum penalty could have been death.

A 19-year old man fell into a white tiger exhibit at the National Zoo in New Dehli, India, and it didn’t go well.  Witnesses say the Tigress stared at the frightened teen for 10 to 15 minutes – zookeepers were not seen to be intervening during this time – before attacking him and eventually killing him.  “The initial first-response team was one guard with a baton,” said one woman who described the events on camera.  “Even after the guard came, they were focusing more on clearing the crowds than saving the man.”  The animal may have been provoked by onlookers who pelted it with objects to distract it from the man, later described by his parents as “mentally ill”.