Saved from the death penalty, a young woman is rearrested in Sudan – Egypt’s president says he’s not going to pardon Peter Greste – Authorities assign blame for a deadly passenger plane crash that was caught on video – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

For the second time this week, Meriam Ibrahim has been freed from custody in Sudan.  The 27-year old and her family were detained for several hours when they tried to board a plane for the United States.  The US State Department says Ibrahim, her husband, and two young children have been released.  Ibrahim was freed from death row in Sudan, after an appeals court overturned a sharia law court ordering her to be hanged for renouncing Islam, a religion she never practiced to begin with.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has rebuffed Prime Minister Tony Abbott and US President Barack Obama, saying that he will not intervene in the case of Peter Greste, the Australian journalist sentenced to seven years in prison for broadcasting reports that al-Sisi’s government didn’t like.  Amnesty International, as well as anyone with two or more brain cells, note that prosecutors utterly failed “to produce a single shred of solid evidence” showing that Greste and his two Egyptian codefendants had in anyway aided the banned Muslim Brotherhood. 

Boko Haram is fouling up an anti-polio effort in Nigeria, where the Islamist group has been running amok and the authorities are either unable or unwilling to stop it.  The group has kidnapped or killed around 15 healthcare workers involved in an international effort to end Polio.  After being nearly eradicated, Polio is reappearing in the developing world – particularly in Muslim countries, where fundamentalist conspiracy theorists believe that vaccinations are a CIA plot to sterilize people.  Four such cases have appeared in areas where Boko Haram is active.

One passenger and two crewmembers were injured as gunmen opened fire on an arriving passenger jet in Peshawar, Pakistan.  Security forces had cordoned off the Bacha Khan airport in Peshawar and are hunting the gunmen.  Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK756 was carrying 178 passengers and crew from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The crew of the Asiana Airlines plane that crashed spectacularly at San Francisco International Airport last year was at fault – that’s the conclusion of the investigation by the US National Transportation safety Board (NTSB).  The cockpit crew of Flight 214 was confused about automated systems on the Boeing 777, and came in too low and too slow.  The plane clipped a seawall on San Francisco Bay, practically cartwheeled, and burst into flames.  Dozens of people were badly hurt, but amazingly only three people died – one of whom was run over by a fire truck.

Nine fishermen are dead and three are missing after two trawlers collied off the coast of Peru.  One, the Marisol II, capsized about 13 nautical miles from the port city of Pisco.  Three men who were rescued reportedly came close to drowning.

Mexico took another dig into the drug trade with the arrest of Sanchez Arrellano, leader of the Tijuana Cartel.  The Federales timed their raid with the Mexican soccer team’s victory over Croatia, accurately predicting that Arrellano’s guards would be preoccupied.  The Tijuana Cartel has been a top priority of authorities, which have systematically dismantled it since 2002.

3,800 prison inmates in Greece are on a hunger strike, protesting lousy conditions and government plans to build a new maximum-security facility.  Ironically, they’re protesting the thing being built to ease their other main concern – extreme overcrowding in cruddy, old facilities.


Japan unveils a new robot female newscasters.  Are you disturbed yet?  I am.