Eight ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters face charges today after tens of thousands demonstrated Thursday night in Jerusalem against the draft.

An estimated 30,000 men dressed in traditional black cloaks marched on the Israeli Defense Forces recruitment center, resulting in about a dozen injuries, Reuters reported.

“The government wants to uproot (our traditions) and secularize us,” Rabbi David Zycherman said, according to Reuters. “They call it a melting pot, but people cannot be melted. You cannot change our (way of life).”

Israelis must serve two or three years in the military when they turn 18; however, ultra-Orthodox Jews are often exempted on religious grounds.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest in Jerusalem against military draft

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, according to US media reports.

The New York Times quoted an unnamed military source saying that while Russia has previously supplied weapons to Syria, the latest round are more sophisticated in countering any potential future foreign military intervention in Syria.

Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations told GlobalPost via email that, “Russia stubbornly defends its right to support other sovereign states to defend themselves. For them, this is a matter of dollars and cents but also high principle.”

“The standard Russian response to criticism of such moves is that they’re simply fulfilling a contract that’s been in place for years. They’ll say that it doesn’t matter that Syria has become a war zone since the contract was signed,” Sestanovich said.

Russia sends advanced missiles to Syria

Meanwhile: Syria refugee count tops 1.5 million, UN says

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to push the United States to act on Syria when he meets President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday.

WATCH LIVE at 12 p.m.

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.

Lawmakers ready with “pointed” questions for US Attorney General Eric Holder on AP phone probe and IRS controversy.

WATCH LIVE

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.”

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. 

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.

Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend a death toll that approaches 1,000.

It becomes just a number, a statistic.

The scale is unimaginable.

But here are 18 heartrending pictures that capture the human suffering of what has been called the worst tragedy in the history of the garment manufacturing industry anywhere in the world.