NEED TO KNOW:

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but North Korea is engaged in provocative militaristic behavior. On Monday, the North fired its sixth short-range missile in three days into the sea off its east coast. While the North says what it’s doing is normal, the launches fly in the face of the international community, which has, several times, asked the Hermit Kingdom to stop.

The North had toned it down after the US and South Korea completed their military exercises in April — if you count intermittently threatening nuclear war toning it down. However, these most recent launches are probably in response to the arrival of the USS Nimitz, an American aircraft carrier, says GlobalPost’s Geoffrey Cain.

But don’t worry too much, at least not today. Cain says Seoul is quiet. “People are fatigued from the recent two-month round of war rhetoric. … I suspect these provocations won’t lead to another bout of threat-singing,” he said.

Also today, horrifying news in Iraq, where bombings across the country killed nearly 50 people, and Afghanistan, where a suicide bomber took out 14 including a prominent local politician.

And very important people hold extremely important meetings. China and India are putting their heads together over border tensions, and in a landmark visit the head of Myanmar pays Obama a visit.

WANT TO KNOW:

The world’s largest crack market in the world’s largest Catholic country. Welcome to Brazil. In February, the state introduced a mandatory treatment program for the country’s one million “crakudos,” as the addicts are called. But it’s the Evangelical Christians who are actually making headway. Watch video.

Air pollution in East Asia has become so pervasive that it has joined the list of diplomatic issues on the table between three fractious nations: China, which produces much of it, and Japan and South Korea, on its receiving end.

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

A Filipino student has enrolled with a rather lengthy name — a 41-word name, to be exact. Apparently, the boy’s father felt limited by how short the line was on the birth certificate where he was supposed to write his son’s name. He felt this represented a lack of imagination, and in response, decided to make his son’s life a pain in the ass. Forever. Click here to read the full name. 

NEED TO KNOW

Afghanistan blast. A suicide bomber blew up an explosives-laden Toyota Corolla next to a NATO-led convoy of armored vehicles in the southeast of Kabul this morning. It was the first major attack on the Afghan capital in two months.

At least six Afghan civilians were killed, including two children, and more than 30 people injured in the powerful blast that destroyed several mud-built houses in the area. There are unconfirmed reports that US nationals died in the attack.

An insurgent group linked to the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami, claimed responsibility for the attack and said the intended target was American advisers. 

Texas twisters. At least six people are dead after a tornado ripped through a town in Texas, local officials have said, destroying hundreds of houses including many built by the non-profit group Habitat for Humanity. 

The tornado that tore through Granbury, about 70 miles west of Dallas, was one of three to hit northern Texas late last night. Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds warned the death toll could rise as daybreak approaches and rescue teams search the area.

WANT TO KNOW

Malarial mosquitoes follow their noses. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have found that mosquitoes carrying malaria are more attracted to us smelly humans than non-malarial ones are.

Those carrying the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum visited a fabric covered with a person’s sweat three times as frequently, the researchers found. Plasmodium’s ability to manipulate its hosts could help explain its ability to infect so many people.

However, the researchers don’t know how the parasite manipulates mosquitoes’ sense of smell. Nor is it clear what it is about human odor that is so attractive to the infected mosquitoes.

The Benghazi files. Faced with criticism over its handling of the crisis, the White House has released nearly 100 pages of documents and emails regarding the response to the terror attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff last year.

The CIA drafted “talking points” for US politicians to use with media in the days following the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, last September, the newly released documents show.

Will this put an end to persistent accusations that the Obama administration fumbled the incident? Probably not. Even with the release, Republicans say they still have unanswered questions, including the handling of the investigation into the Benghazi attacks by the Accountability Review Board.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Cat sushi. Yes, cat sushi. A new ad campaign by a peanut company in Japan has people wondering what kind of hallucinatory drugs were needed to create this idea.

Nut company Tange & Nakimushi created a series of photos of cats transformed into sushi, and a video inventing a bizarre back story. Even the cats look surprised at what they’ve been asked (forced) to do.

Odd? Very, but not out of line for Japan, which is after all the home of Cat Prin — a “cat tailor” whose costumes include the “frog transformation set” and the “Anne of Green Gables is under cleaning” cat wig.

QALAT, Afghanistan — In nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan, US forces have brought in a tremendous amount of fighting equipment, built military facilities all over the country and overseen the training of hundreds of thousands of Afghan troops.

Afghan soldiers say they would love it if all this sophisticated equipment were left behind when the United States leaves next year, but the reality is that most of the American arsenal is too complex, delicate or expensive for the Afghan military to maintain.

Elite Afghan troops try hand at US arsenal

US troops in Afghanistan: Packing up and moving out

Photos by Ben Brody/GlobalPost

QALAT, Afghanistan — Beside the twisted remains of three Afghan police trucks destroyed by roadside bombs, a pomegranate tree too young to bear fruit grows through a tangle of razor wire.

The tree’s home is a small Afghan National Police base within sight of a former American combat outpost in Arghandab District, Zabul Province, where pitched battles raged against the Taliban just last year.

In years past, the police base would have had easy access to American military resources and firepower. Not anymore. The base was transferred recently to the Afghan National Army, and the American role reduced to an advisory one.

Afghan security forces face first fighting season alone

Photos by Ben Brody/GlobalPost

NEED TO KNOW

The surviving Boston bombing suspect has a lot of questions to answer. Reports suggest he’s already getting started: according to anonymous sources, 19-year-old Dzokhar Tsarnaev is awake in hospital and, unable to speak because of a throat wound, responding to questions in writing.

Tsarnaev – who, remember, does not have the right to remain silent – is expected to be charged as soon as federal prosecutors have decided exactly what they’ll pursue him for. We don’t know yet what those charges will be, but we do know that the lead prosecutor has a reputation for showing no mercy.

In Boston, meanwhile, a week has passed since two bombs killed three people and maimed many more at the marathon finish line. The city remembers the victims today with a moment of silence at 2.50 p.m., exactly seven days after everything changed.

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The strange case of the disappearing passengers. Some 10 civilians are feared kidnapped by Taliban after bad weather forced their helicopter to make an emergency landing in eastern Afghanistan. Seven Turkish engineers, two Russian pilots and one Afghan crew member were on their way to Kabul when the chopper went down, but authorities found the aircraft empty – the occupants seized, they believe, by some opportunistic insurgents.

NATO forces say they are helping to recover the helicopter; as for its passengers, we don’t yet know.

Is Myanmar “ethnic cleansing” its Muslim minority? A new report by Human Rights Watch claims that’s exactly what it’s doing, on the same day that the European Union is due to decide whether to lift its sanctions on Myanmar for good.

Rohingya Muslims in the western state of Rakhine have been terrorized, displaced and denied humanitarian aid, HRW says, all of it with the incitement of public officials, community leaders and Buddhist monks, and the backing of security forces. The group wants the EU to maintain its pressure on Myanmar’s government to end the alleged abuses, but Brussels is widely expected to drop everything but its arms embargo on the once pariah state.

Meet India’s new morality police. Young, Hindu and radical, they object to the party-going, alcohol-drinking, unsupervised-dating habits of their educated, upwardly mobile, westward-looking peers. And they’re not afraid to show it – violently.

GlobalPost goes to Mangalore, a city that has seen a growing number of vigilante interventions against so-called “immoral” behavior, to looks for clues to the simmering culture war beneath India’s booming surface.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Now that’s keeping your head. Respect, please, to Yoann Galeran, a French-born deckhand in Australia who managed to fight off a crocodile that had latched on to his noggin. Showing admirable French resistance, Galeran punched the 6.5-foot saltwater croc until it finally released his head, neck and shoulders from its jaws.

“I just think if it was a bigger crocodile, I maybe wouldn’t have any head,” he said, with what we like imagine was a Gallic shrug. As for the croc – he lived to bite another bonce.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Despite being about 90 and walking with a severe hunch, Ustad Amruddin will not let anyone else carry his dilruba — a classical stringed instrument that is rarely played in Afghanistan these days.

Over the decades, he has performed concerts for monarchs, communists and warlords, been threatened with arrest and forced into exile. He has no idea what will come next when America and its allies leave.

“All the people are worried and I am too. We were relaxed and comfortable, life in our homes and work was going very well. But when these [foreign troops] withdraw I am not sure if they will still support us,” he said.

The risky craft of being an artist in Afghanistan

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

pulitzercenter:

On Monday, a front-page New York Times article profiled a Afghan man who sold his daughter into child marriage to repay a debt (The man now says an anonymous donor repaid the debt was paid before the article ran). 

Every year, throughout the world, millions of young girls are forced into marriage. Child marriage is outlawed in many countries and international agreements forbid the practice yet this tradition still spans continents, language, religion and caste.

Over an eight-year period, photographer and Pulitzer Center grantee Stephanie Sinclair has investigated the phenomenon of child marriage in India, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nepal and Ethiopia. Her multimedia presentation, produced in association with National Geographic, synthesizes this body of work into a call to action.

How to help: National Geographic has compiled a list of organizations that encourage families to delay marriage and give girls an opportunity to reach their full potential. 

See more photos and read reporting from Cynthia Gorney and Stephanie Sinclair at the Pulitzer Center’s website.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Zafar Khan Amiri had cleared some of winter’s last snow from in front of his store and gone inside to serve a customer when the suicide bomber struck.

The explosion sent food falling from the shelves and for a few minutes Amiri stayed where he was, too scared or too confused to move. Only after the shouting and screaming reached him did he step back out into the cold morning air.

Suicide attacks, once uncommon, on the rise in Afghanistan

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

North Korea is ready. In a characteristically calm statement, the North Korean army has ordered all long-range artillery and rockets into “class-A combat readiness,” and guess where they’re pointed, just guess. One bonus missile defense shield if you said all US military bases in the Asia-Pacific region, including the mainland.

South Korea – which yesterday signed a new pact with the US on a joint response to any possible North Korean attacks – says it’s monitoring the situation and has not seen any massing of Pyongyang’s troops. So far.

Suicide gang strikes Afghanistan. A group of eight suicide bombers attacked a police station in the eastern city of Jalalabad this morning, killing at least five officers and wounding six more. The Taliban took responsibility, claiming they wanted to kill “foreigners and Israeli teachers” training Afghan police.

The attack came hours after US Secretary of State John Kerry, on a surprise visit to Kabul, told a press conference that the US and Afghanistan were “on the same page” when it came to peace talks with the Taliban.

WANT TO KNOW

Guilty. Not guilty. Guilty? Italy’s top appeals court has ordered that American student Amanda Knox and her Italian ex Raffaele Sollecito be retried for the murder of Briton Meredith Kercher, who was found with her throat slit at the house they shared in Perugia in 2007.

Knox and Sollecito, of course, have been convicted once already. But in 2011 they were freed on appeal, judges having decided that DNA evidence used against them was flawed. Now Knox is back home in the US – and likely to remain there unless she chooses otherwise, since American authorities are not expected to extradite her.

She calls today’s ruling “painful,” “completely unfounded and unfair,” and says she’ll face the consequences with head “held high.”

After Chavez, who? In a little under three weeks, Venezuela votes to decide who’ll step into the vacuum left by late president Hugo Chavez. The race pits acting President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s hand-picked successor, against Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate who many believe is doomed to fail.

But that won’t stop Capriles and his people giving it a darn good shot. GlobalPost goes inside the war room of Venezuela’s election underdog.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

This ain’t your grandma’s Easter egg. Unless your grandma happens to be a giant Argentine Easter Bunny. In a beach resort in Argentina, chefs are hard at work on what aims to be the largest chocolate egg in history. Once completed, hopefully by Sunday, the ovoid treat will stand some 10 feet tall.

As soon as the record book people have measured it, the town council says it will break up the egg and hand out the spoils. Because nothing says Easter like type-2 diabetes.

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Cyprus is bailed out. Hours before the European Central Bank was due to cut off its lifeline to struggling Cypriot lenders, the country’s leaders reached a deal with the EU to bail out their banking system and keep Cyprus in the euro zone.

The agreement means Cyprus can access loans of up to €10 billion from the EU, ECB and IMF. For that, it will break up its second-biggest bank and drastically restructure its biggest – and anyone with more than €100,000 in their account will have to swallow the losses. It’s no secret that many businesses will suffer. Cyprus may be in the euro zone, but it’ll also be in recession.

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Bye bye, Bagram. The US has formally handed over its infamous prison in northern Afghanistan to the Afghan authorities. The transfer, which began several months ago, was finally completed today, reportedly after Washington received Kabul’s assurances that suspected extremists would not be allowed to go free.

Afghanistan’s Guantanamo, as Bagram was not-so-affectionately known, has now become the Afghan National Detention Facility. It’s a symbolic step in the transfer of security from American to Afghan forces – an ongoing and often thorny process which US Secretary of State John Kerry is in Kabul, on an unannounced visit, to discuss with President Hamid Karzai.

The right to work, but not to live. The highest court in Hong Kong has ruled that foreign domestic workers cannot apply for permanent residency despite long years of service there.

The decision ends a two-year legal battle fought by two Filipino workers who, between them, have lived in Hong Kong for more than 45 years. Now, if they or any other of he territory’s 300,000 foreign domestics leave their employer, they have two weeks to find another job, or get out.

Bail for Beatrice. Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, detained for more than a week, has been granted bail.

Mtetwa faces charges of obstructing justice during a police raid on the office of four of her clients who work for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Her lawyer calls her arrest “not just an attack on her profession but on the people of Zimbabwe.”

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Could this be the worst ad ever? Ford has issued an apology after running a print campaign in India that featured three women bound and gagged in the back of one of its Figo cars, driven by a smirking Silvio Berlusconi. (It’s something to do with having extra trunk space, apparently.)

Ford has since pulled the ad, which it said was “contrary to its standards of professionalism and decency.” You think?