NEED TO KNOW

To catch a spy. Step one: tackle him. Next, show off his “spy kit” of wigs and sunglasses. Release some embarrassing photos of the spy looking unhappy. And then kick him out of the country.

This has been the rough course of events since Russia announced it had caught an alleged CIA spy following a sting operation. It all seems torn from the Cold War era, with Russian state television broadcasting the moment Ryan Christopher Fogle, officially an American diplomat, was jumped by agents.

Russia has accused Fogle of trying to recruit an officer of the Russian secret service, while one report says the suspected agent was likely seeking information about the Boston bombing suspects.

The spy scandal comes as relations between Moscow and Washington appear to be warming, with plans to step up security cooperation. Maybe not any more — the US Ambassador to Russia has been summoned.

Elsewhere in the diplomatic world, Taiwan is recalling its envoy to the Philippines amid a row over the killing of a fisherman — and a lame apology.

The fisherman, Hung Shih-cheng, was shot by the Philippine coast guard last week in the disputed Bashi Strait. Taiwan slammed an apology from the Philippines as insincere and too informal. Say it like you mean it, Manila!

WANT TO KNOW

Cyclone Mahasen is coming. Bangladesh has ordered the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from low-lying areas, while neighboring Myanmar says it will moveroughly 166,000 people before the cyclonic storm hits early Thursday.

So far, Mahasen is classified as the lowest-level category one on a one-to-five scale, with winds up to 55 miles per hour. But even as a category one storm it could unleash a storm surge of up to seven feet high, and affect millions of people living in low-lying coastal and river areas.

France slips into recession. Hit by sluggish growth, record unemployment and low consumer confidence, France has returned to recession. The country’s gross domestic product contracted 0.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, official figures show. 

This is France’s second recession in four years, with a recession defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Times are tough across the eurozone, with nine EU members now in recession, according to separate figures. Germany’s economy grew by just 0.1 percent in the quarter.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Death and taxes. As the saying goes, these are the only two certainties in life. We at GlobalPost live by a third certainty: The world is a weird and wondrous place.

But who says taxes and weirdness can’t overlap? From extra charges on flavored vodka in the US to beards in Russia, check out the top six wackiest taxes we’ve found around the world.

US Attorney General Eric Holder described the leak which prompted the investigation into the Associated Press’ phone records as one of the most threatening he’d seen since he took up his post in 1976.

“That is not hyperbole,” Holder said. “It put the American people at risk.”

PARIS, France — It’s Paris under the spring sunshine. Couples stroll hand-in-hand, steal kisses while window shopping past chic boutiques, or whisper sweet-nothings over marble-topped tables at a sidewalk cafe.

These are familiar cliches of the romantic French capital, except that along the Rue des Archives, the couples in question are likely to be same-sex.

This is the Marais neighborhood, a favorite hangout of gay Parisians and a scene of celebration on April 23 when lawmakers in the Assemblee nationale, just down the Seine river, voted 331 to 225 to write same-sex marriage into law.

That celebration, however, was tinged with concern.

Gay Paris: not all it’s cracked up to be

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

What next for Bangladesh? As recovery efforts end, and mourners gather to pray for the dead, the death toll from the collapse of a garment factory building three weeks ago stands at 1,127 — the worst industrial accident in Bangladesh’s history. 

The collapse of the Rana Plaza followed several other horrifying incidents at Bangladesh garment factories, including a fire in November that killed 112 people.

In the aftermath, European retailers including two of the biggest fashion chains — Sweden’s H&M and Spain’s Inditex, which owns Zara — have agreed to a pact to improve Bangladesh building and fire safety. 

But major US retailers, including Gap, have declined to endorse the accord, leading to fears that the push for garment industry reform will be diluted.

Rohingya boat capsizes. A boat carrying up to 200 Rohingya Muslims has capsized off western Myanmar. The boat was evacuating people ahead of a cyclone expected to hit the area later this week, with coastal areas in Rakhine state and neighboring Bangladesh at risk of flooding or tidal surges.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims are living in temporary camps in Rakhine after violence last year. To understand more, read this dispatch from GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Patrick Winn, whose ongoing series Myanmar Emerges delves further into this rapidly changing country.

Heart stopping. Among the legions of disturbing videos and news from Syria, there’s this: footage which appears to show a Syrian rebel eating the heart of a dead soldier.

“I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog,” the man in the video says, as he stands over the soldier’s corpse.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has said the rebel is Abu Sakkar, an insurgent from the city of Homs, and describes his actions as a war crime.

WANT TO KNOW

Angelina’s choice. The actress has revealed she underwent a preventive double mastectomy to reduce her risk of contracting breast cancer. Jolie, 37, wrote in an opinion piece in The New York Times that she had the procedure because she carries a faulty gene that increases her risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Jolie said she kept the issue quiet while undergoing surgical procedures and continuing to work, but she was speaking out to encourage other women with a family history of cancer to seek out information from doctors and make informed choices about their bodies.

Back to Earth. It was a great ride, but after 146 days — and a whole lot of tweeting, photographing, and music video-making along the way — International Space Station commander Chris Hadfield is back on Planet Earth.

A Soyuz capsule carrying Hadfield and two flight engineers landed safely in southern Kazakhstan last night at 10:31 p.m. EDT. Hadfield, the first Canadian commander of the ISS, handed control over to the next team of astronauts under the command of Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov.

For posterity, GlobalPost has compiled 15 ways that Hadfield is really darn awesome.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Sorry, Swazi witches. Your high-flying fun is over.

Like airplanes and helicopters, witches on broomsticks must also obey the Swaziland’s aviation laws, according to Sabelo Dlamini, a Civil Aviation Authority official. “A witch on a broomstick should not fly above the [150-meter] limit,” Dlamini explained.

Dlamini’s statement was prompted by the arrest of a private detective who had operated an unregistered toy helicopter with a drone-like video camera attached. A statute in Swaziland also forbids toy helicopters and children’s kites from ascending too high into the country’s airspace.

But while witches are known to use their brooms for applying or flinging “potions” and other cursed substances across large areas, they are generally not used for transportation purposes. 

So while traditional healing is taken seriously in Swaziland, it can be assumed that Dlamini used the flying broomstick example only to illustrate his point. 

15 ways Chris Hadfield is awesome

Photo courtesy of CSA

NEED TO KNOW

And the winner is… Nawaz Sharif by a country mile, according to the unofficial results of Pakistan’s election. Sharif, a two-time ex-premier who was toppled in a military coup in 1999, and his Pakistan Muslim League-N party are on course to win a majority in parliament and form the country’s next government.

Sharif has pledged to overhaul Pakistan’s sluggish economy and end a decades-old feud with India. Karachi stocks hit an all-time high following the win.

Final results are still days away, but Sharif is already in talks on forming a government. He has been congratulated by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who said he hoped for a “new course” in relations between the two countries.

GlobalPost’s Mariya Karimjee writes from Karachi about Pakistan’s “44 percent” — the country’s women — and their potential role in turning the political tide.

It wasn’t us. Syria has denied any involvement in weekend car bombings in Turkey that killed at least 46 people and wounded 100 more. 

The bombings in downtown Reyhanli, a Turkish border town, have heightened fears that Syria’s ongoing civil war is spilling over into neighboring countries.

Turkey has accused a group with links to Syrian intelligence of carrying out the bombings. Damascus said it had nothing to do with it. So far, nine Turkish citizens have been detained in connection with the attack.

WANT TO KNOW

Hong Kong makes history. Sort of. In a surprise decision, Hong Kong’s top court has granted a transsexual woman the right to marry her boyfriend.

While it is a landmark ruling for this semi-autonomous Chinese territory, it falls short of allowing same-sex marriage. The decision only covers the right of a transgender person who was born male to marry a man, and for one who was born female to marry a woman.

A Mother’s Day tragedy. Some 19 people, including two children, were injured when multiple gunmen opened fire during a Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans.

The FBI believes the shooting, which took place during a second-line parade in the city’s 7th Ward, was an act of street violence. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has appealed for help from witnesses in catching the gunmen.

Second-line parades, a tradition in New Orleans, are loose, sometimes impromptu processions in which people march and dance in the streets, often following behind a brass band.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Ground control to… Major Chris? Social media-loving astronaut Chris Hadfield has released a gift to the internet: a video of him performing David Bowie’s beloved “Space Oddity” all the way from the International Space Station.

Hadfield, the first Canadian commander of the ISS, is leaving the station and decided to mark the moment with the iconic 1969 Bowie tune, which records the curious journey of the fictional Major Tom, who is “floating in the most peculiar way” (as is Hadfield in the video).

An active Twitter user, Hadfield’s geek cred was already solidified by his five-month stint on the ISS. With the professionally produced video, and what appears to be tacit approval from Bowie himself, he is likely to ascend to the ranks of nerdy royalty.

The World Bank collected the number of visits each country receives every year. This list is based on their latest data:

The 10 most visited countries in the world (PHOTOS)

Photos by AFP/Getty Images

GlobalPost’s UK correspondent @corinnepurtill takes us to the races in Surrey at #Lingfield Park Racetrack for this week’s @AFridayIn

KARACHI, Pakistan — The campaigning is over. Starting at 8 a.m. tomorrow, Pakistan’s citizens head to the polls to cast their ballots in landmark national elections. The results, say pollsters, are anyone’s guess, and will depend heavily on voter turnout.

So who will be the group that turns Pakistan’s political tide? For the first time, it could be women.

Mariya Karimjee’s blog: The 44 percent: Will women turn Pakistan’s political tide?

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

reuters:

Hope renews in Bangladesh: a woman named Reshma has been rescued from the garment factory building rubble that collapsed in Bangladesh on April 24. 

The Bangladesh garment factory collapse has killed more than 1,000 people. 

Where does the story continue? Will workers in unsafe buildings around the world be safer after this tragedy? Follow the story with us. 

REUTERS/Sanaul Huq

“I’m alive. Please rescue me,” she called out to rescuers.