Hello Australia!! - Unmasking the new "Jihadi John" - Obama plans to rile America's gun nuts - One neighbor is urging calm as Saudi Arabia throws shade on Iran - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Important stuff first:  Baby Elephant!  Baby Elephant!  At Berlin's Tiergarten zoo.

Authorities quickly zoomed in on the identity of Islamic State's new "Jihadi John", the English-speaking terrorist appearing in the group's latest propaganda snuff film.  The masked man seen taunting British Prime Minister David Cameron before five prisoners are executed is believed to be British radical Abu Rumaysah.  He was named Siddhartha Dhar at birth to a British Hindu family before converting to radical Islam and changing his name.  His family is understandably upset over their brother's activities.  The original Jihadi John, British extremist Mohammed Emwazi, was killed by a US drone strike in November.. so, it's not a really great job to have.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday will mandate expanded use of background checks on people who try to purchase guns at gun shows.  All sellers who operate online or at gun shows will be forced to conduct background checks on potential buyers.  Until now, smaller-scale or private sellers could avoid the extra paperwork, potentially allowing criminals and terrorists to slip through the cracks.  Mr. Obama is doing this by a decree called an Executive Order that bypasses conservatives in the US Congress who maintain that requiring dealers to pay for these checks is akin to a new tax - and that does require congressional approval.  So, it'll go to the courts.

The US filed suit against Volkswagen over those diesel cars with the software that lies during governmetn emmissions tests.  For violating the Clean Air Act, VW could be fined as much as US$30,000 per offending vehicle, and there are likely 600,000 of them in America - meaning the the German automaker faces fines up to US$18 Billion.  Just to prove they're total scumbags, conservative republicans in the lower (and I mean lower) house of Congress plan to vote on a bill that will pre-nullify hundreds of thousands of consumer cases that were filed by Volkswagen owners who are angry that they were lied to - and that their cars have lost nearly all trade-in or re-sell value.  The bill probably won't make it through the Senate.

Saudi Arabia is now cutting off flights and trade to and from Iran, in the latest escalation of the trouble between the two Middle East powers that began when the Saudis beheaded a Shiite cleric who called for peaceful resistance to Saudi rule.  Earlier, Riyadh cut off diplomatic relations with Tehran after Iranian protesters, angry over the execution of fellow Shiite Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in a Sunni land, stormed the Saudi Embassy and set fired.  The White House on Monday admitted that it had counseled the Saudis not to execute al-Nimr, advice that was ignored.

Turkey is urgently asking Saudi Arabia and Iran to knock it off.  "The region is already a powder keg.  Enough is enough.  We need peace in the region," said Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus.  "Saudi Arabia and Iran are our friends and we don't want them fighting because that's the last thing this region needs," he added.  Earlier, other Saudi allies followed Riyadh's lead and cut off or downgraded relations with Iran.  Although almost three-quarters of Turkey's population is Sunni, the government is officially secular and takes no side in the Sunni-Shiite divide.

Right-wing terrorist and mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik will not get to leave prison to go to court for his lawsuit against Norway for placing him in solitary confinement.  A judge has ruled that future hearings should take place at Skien Prison.  Breivik claims that his frequent trips to solitary are a violation of his human rights, a subject he didn't seem too concerned with when he detonated a bomb in Oslo and attacked a Socialist party youth camp in 2011, killing 77 people - mostly children and teens.