NEED TO KNOW

He meant to do it. That’s what South African prosecutors plan to argue when they put Oscar Pistorius on trial for premeditated murder. We heard the outline of their case today, at a bail hearing in Pretoria: they allege that the amputee sprinter put on his protheses, got out of bed, walked seven meters across his bedroom, and shot at girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp four times through the bathroom door.

Pistorius, again, wept. His lawyers argue that he didn’t know who was behind the locked door when he fired and “it’s not even murder.” The magistrate didn’t agree: he upheld the charge of premeditated murder, an accusation so serious that Pistorius’s chances of getting bail are scant.

At the same time, in another city, Steenkamp was laid to rest. Her family, too wept.

Meet Unit 61398. You might not know it, but chances are it knows you: it’s a secretive branch of the Chinese army and, according to US security experts, one of the world’s “most prolific cyber espionage groups.”

After extensive investigation, cyber security firm Mandiant claims that professional hackers have stolen hundreds of terabytes of information from scores of companies outside China – all with Beijing’s backing. Beijing, meanwhile, calls the allegations “groundless” and points out that hack attacks are notoriously hard to trace. Luckily for those that wage them.

WANT TO KNOW

Diamonds! Planes! Thieves! Er, Belgium? Yes indeed. Brussels Airport was the unlikely setting last night for an audacious jewel heist that has police hunting for eight armed robbers and millions of dollars of diamonds. The gang cut through a security fence, drove onto the runway, held up a Swiss passenger plane as it prepared to take off, nabbed its cargo of precious stones from the hold and, minutes later and without a shot fired, made off in the same way they came. Police say their haul is worth up to $467 million.

Someone’s optioning the movie as we write.

Just who’s in charge in Tunisia? The country has been in political limbo since the assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaid provoked outcry from the public and hurried assurances of new elections from the Islamist-led government. Now Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali says his proposal to dissolve the government and form a caretaker cabinet is officially off the table, after his own Ennadha party stymied it.

Jebali says “another solution” is on its way, without giving details. Whatever it may be, he’s due to discuss it with the Tunisian president later today.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

That Kevin Bacon gets everywhere. First we hear that every actor in Hollywood is never further than six roles away from old Kev, and now he’s found his way into every page on the web. Allow us to explain: a Hungarian researcher has found that every website on the internet is connected by 19 clicks or fewer. Most aren’t directly linked, but are united by so-called “Kevin Bacons” – intersections that connect distant parts of the web.

Fascinating findings that, happily, have brought us all one step closer to Kevin Bacon.

NEED TO KNOW

Today, Tunisia mourns – and protests. Murdered opposition leader Chokri Belaid will be buried in Tunis after midday prayers, and it won’t be a quiet send-off. Tunisia’s largest trade union has called a nationwide strike and thousands are expected to turn out for a third day of rallies in the capital and elsewhere.

The unrest has already killed one police officer and thrown the government into turmoil. The crisis won’t end when Belaid is laid to rest.

The war in Mali just got even uglier. A bomber blew himself up today in the northern city of Gao, the first time since this latest conflict began that the rebels have resorted to suicide tactics. The target was a group of Malian soldiers, one of whom was injured.

One of Mali’s several Islamist rebel groups recently claimed it had opened “a new combat zone” by attacking military convoys and planting landmines. And with four civilians reported killed in a mine blast yesterday, it looks like the new combat zone isn’t limited to combatants.

The manhunt continues in California, where a former LA cop is suspected of going on a shooting spree as vengeance for being sacked. Christopher Dorner has allegedly shot dead three people and wounded two others since launching his revenge attack.

Thousands of police officers have been sent to search the Southern California area, where they hope to catch Dorner before he can continue the “war” he has threatened to unleash on them and their families.

WANT TO KNOW

Winter storm Nemo may sound cuddly, but it promises to be anything but. The US northeast is braced for “potentially historic” blizzards as weather-watchers issue warnings from New Jersey to Maine. Ten to 14 inches of snow is expected to fall in New York, while Boston could get 2 feet. Strong winds of up to 45 mph are also predicted, and have already forced the cancellation of 1,700 flights.

Wrap up warm, or even better, stay indoors.

Is this South Africa’s “Delhi moment”? Like India, South Africa has a rape problem. Like in India, activists have been trying to do something about it for years – but like in India, it has taken an exceptionally brutal gang rape for the political establishment to accept that the violence cannot be allowed to continue.

From Johannesburg, GlobalPost’s Erin Conway-Smith asks whether South Africa’s epidemic of sexual violence is finally headed for a cure.

We know we’re early, but: Happy New Year! Lunar New Year, that is, which will be celebrated this weekend all over China and beyond. The Spring Festival, as it’s also known, officially falls on February 10, but the party starts from the stroke of midnight tonight.

May the Year of the Snake bring you health, happiness, a living wage, fewer flames and not a single regional war.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Age equals experience. So it kind of makes sense that a pensioner would write thrilling romantic novels. Publishers see it differently, though: worried that grandpa romance might be a hard sell, one British company convinced 89-year-old author Bill Spence to sign his novels “Jessica Blair.” More than 20 books later, Spence, a former World War II pilot and grandfather of four, has unmasked himself.

Hopefully the revelation won’t affect sales of “Blair“‘s latest oeuvre: Silence of the Snow is due out this week.

NEED TO KNOW

Iran won’t talk nuclear to the US. Hopes were raised by recent flirtation between the respective governments, only to be dashed by the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pronounced today that he remains opposed to any one-on-one conversation while the US continues to impose sanctions on Iran – and what he says, goes.

It’s not clear whether his opposition also extends to the multi-nation nuclear talks that Iran is due to hold with six other countries, including the US, later this month.

Hold on to your hats: it’s EU budget time again. Europe’s most powerful are gathering in Brussels today for the start of a two-day budget summit, this one to decide how – and how much – the EU spends for the next seven years.

Sounds dry? Well, in these times of austerity, debt and Euroskepticism, such meetings can get famously rowdy. As rowdy as a room full of Eurocrats talking fiscal responsibility can get, anyhow.

WANT TO KNOW

Let’s talk drones. John Brennan, noted drone enthusiast and President Barack Obama’s nominee for the next head of the CIA, can’t avoid the topic at his Senate confirmation hearing today. And it’s not just him: after a leaked memo (now to be handed over to Congress) justifying the US government’s death strikes and the exposure of a secret CIA drone base in Saudi Arabia, unmanned aerial vehicles are on everyone’s mind.

It’s time to think about the ethical and legal implications. GlobalPost’s Jean MacKenzie analyzes what it means for the war on terror when the rules don’t apply.

How’d you say Texan in German? If you’d been to south-central Texas a hundred years ago, plenty of people could have told you. More than 100,000 people spoke Texas German, an Anglo-Deutsch dialect sown by German settlers in the Lone Star State.

Now only a few thousand Texans speak it, and all of those are over 60. Linguists are racing to record the dialect before it disappears forever – and with it, an entire culture. Listen to it here on GlobalPost, while you still can.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

There’s a fine line between art and obscenity – and Japan is usually cheerfully straddling it. But now, the country that gave us eel porn and genital cannibalism has turned prudish: residents in the small town of Okuizumo want a local replica of Michelangelo’s nude David to put on some darn underpants.

To be fair, the sculpture is 16-foot high and towers over the town’s playground. Okuizumans say the larger-than-life artwork is “frightening the children and worrying the adults with its nakedness.” Not like, say, this. Oh no.

NEED TO KNOW

What’s the only thing worse than a massive earthquake? The tsunami that follows. At least five people have been killed in the Solomon Islands after a 8.0-magnitude quake triggered waves up to 5-feet high. As many as 100 homes have been destroyed, though the full extent of the damage to these remote South Pacific islands is hard to determine.

Rescue workers warn the death toll could rise as they finally reach the affected areas.

Politics can be deadly. In Tunisia, the head of an opposition party was shot dead today outside his home. Chokri Belaid, secretary general of the secular, left-wing Democratic Patriotic party and a prominent critic of Tunisia’s Islamist-led government, was shot in the head and neck as he left for his office in Tunis.

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali has called the assassination an act of terrorism “against the whole of Tunisia.” The whole of Tunisia isn’t convinced, however. Hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets to accuse the government of involvement and demand a “second revolution.”

WANT TO KNOW

Surprise! The US has a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia. For the past two years, the CIA has been using it to launch kill strikes on Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, including American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

The New York Times and others have apparently known about the base for a while, but held off reporting on it at the administration’s request. It has come to light now in the wake of a leaked Justice Department memo that says the US can kill Americans thought to be Al Qaeda commanders, even if there’s no intelligence to suggest they’re planning an attack; and the day before John Brennan, an architect of the drone wars and President Barack Obama’s nominee for CIA chief, faces his Senate confirmation hearing. It should be a humdinger.

It’s OK to be gay in the UK. Same-sex couples are a big step closer to getting the right to marry after lawmakers voted overwhelming in favor of Prime Minister David Cameron’s bill reforming British marriage laws.

The support came mainly from Cameron’s opponents, however: more than half of his fellow Conservatives opposed the bill. And it still has to clear the notoriously traditional House of Lords before it becomes law.

Looking for a good time? Come to Splendid China Folk Culture Villages, China’s first – if not funnest – amusement park. Since 1989, thrill-seekers have enjoyed such attractions as as a minature Great Wall of China and “Trees Planted by the Most Famous People in the World.”

Now, though, after two decades of economic and social transformation, Splendid China is trying to adapt to a much different country. GlobalPost’s Benjamin Carlson visited before the relaunch, to find out what China’s first fun fair still says about the Chinese.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

World, breathe easy: Germany’s cookie crisis is over. As you’ll no doubt remember, this was the story so far: last month, a mystery thief stole the emblematic golden biscuitthat had hung outside the Bahlsen baker’s headquarters in Hanover for the past 100 years. Then, the company began receiving ransom notes from the “Cookie Monster,” offering the biscuit’s safe return in exchange for edible donations to a local children’s hospital.

Bahlsen said it wouldn’t be blackmailed, but offered to send thousands of cookies to 52 different charities. That was evidently good enough for the Cookie Monster: the golden biscuit was retrieved yesterday, having been hung around the neck of a horse statue outside the city’s university.

NEED TO KNOW

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has got a new stamp in his passport. The Iranian president landed in Cairo this morning, where he was welcomed by Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi. It’s something of a historic visit: no Iranian president has been to Egypt on business since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979 and Egypt’s peace accord with Israel shortly after.

It’s no coincidence, then, that Ahmadinejad’s desire to travel comes now that Egypt has a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for president. He and Morsi will attend a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and plan for closer relations. It’s not quite space, but for regional politics, it could be one giant leap.

Territorial tension between China and Japan is a chronic condition, and it just flared up again. Tokyo says it has lodged a formal complaint after a Chinese vessel locked its missile-guiding radar on a Japanese ship near the East China Sea islands that both countries claim as theirs. Nothing was fired, but according to Japan’s defense minister, the incident, which occurred last week, is “very abnormal.”

We’re still waiting to hear how China answers.

WANT TO KNOW

We know how the story ended – now we might find out how it began. In a Delhi courtroom, the first witnesses will testify today in the trial of five men accused of gang-raping and beating a 23-year-old woman brutally enough to kill her.

The prosecution’s key witness is the young man who boarded the bus with her that grim night, and who was himself so badly battered that he is still in a wheelchair. Behind closed doors, he will tell the fast-track court what he saw of his friend’s ordeal. It’s sure to make for difficult listening.

For 5-year-old Ethan, the worst is over. The little boy held hostage for six days in an Alabama bunker is free, rescued in a police raid after officers decided the risk of allowing the kidnapping to continue any longer was too great. He has since been reunited with his family and is said to be “doing fine.”

His captor, though, is dead. It’s not clear yet how Navy veteran and “survivalist” Jimmy Lee Dykes died – nor if we’ll ever know why he did it.

The latest vanguard in the fight for disability rights? Ecuador. In paraplegic Vice-President Lenin Moreno, the South American country has the world’s highest-ranking government official in a wheelchair – and a powerful new champion for people with mental and physical disabilities.

GlobalPost’s John Otis reports on Ecuador’s wheelchair revolution.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

We’ve had the movie, next we’ll get the amusement park. For where better to spend a family day out than Abbottabad, the city in Pakistan made (in)famous as Osama bin Laden’s hideout? Local authorities have set aside 50 acres on the outskirts of town for a $30-million fun fair, complete with a zoo, mini-golf course, rock climbing, heritage center and man-made waterfalls.

Tourism officials stress that the theme park has “nothing to do with Osama bin Laden.” We suspect it might take more than mini-golf to convince holiday-makers of that.

NEED TO KNOW

This old thing? Oh, that’s just our nuclear submarine. The US has begun a series of joint naval drills with South Korea off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, and it hopes that North Korea is watching.

The three-day exercises were planned even before North Korea started talking about a new nuclear test, which, to believe Kim Jong Un, is imminent. South Korean officials agree that the North has the technology ready to go – all that remains is for Kim to give the final order. While he makes up his mind, the joint show of force is intended to remind him what might happen if he does.

In Mali, it’s the same war – but a new battle. Having secured the rebels’ former strongholds, French warplanes are now directing their airstrikes over the remote northwhere the insurgents have retreated. The aim is to destroy bases and cut off supply routes, flushing the rebels out of their desert hideouts.

The operation is complicated, however, by the fact that militants are thought to be holding at least seven French civilians hostage.

Another suicide bomber strikes in Iraq. At least four people are dead and 21 wounded after an attacker blew himself up in the town of Taji, north of Baghdad. The targets were members of a Sunni militia paid by the Iraqi government to help the fight against Al Qaeda.

The blast comes the day after another suicide bombing on a police headquarters in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, one of a spate of recent attacks linked to Al Qaeda.

WANT TO KNOW

A skeleton, a skeleton, our kingdom for a skeleton. Bones found beneath a parking lot in central England have been confirmed as the long-lost remains of King Richard III, after researchers matched DNA samples with the medieval monarch’s living ancestors.

Now that it’s official, authorities will have to decide on a more appropriate final resting place for Richard. Five centuries after his death in battle, the much-maligned king might finally get a funeral.

In India, the truth might set you free. Or it might land you behind bars. Or even dead. Over the past five years, some 150 activists and reporters have allegedly been harassed or jailed for exposing corruption. As many as 20 have been killed.

From New Delhi, GlobalPost’s Jason Overdorf reports on India’s war on whistleblowers.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Enfin! It’s now OK for women to wear pants in Paris. Until last week, the covering of a lady’s leg was a matter not just for France’s fashion police but its actual police – should they have decided that they had nothing more pressing to do than enforce a 200-year-old law forbidding women to trouser up in public.

Now, France’s minister for women’s rights has repealed the decidedly démodé decree. Mesdames: to your Yves Saint-Laurent pant suits!

GlobalPost Morning Chatter: What we’re hearing — June 19, 2012

Need to know:
Tempers have been flaring at the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, as world leaders attempt to tackle the euro-zone crisis.

As the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Jose Angel Gurria, called the crisis “the single biggest risk for the world economy,” and World Bank chief Robert Zoellick announced that “we are waiting for Europe to tell us what it’s going to do,” EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso blamed “unorthodox” American financial practices for the economic chaos.

Whoever started it, no one seems any closer to finishing it. As Greece scrambles to form a coalition government and hints it may seek to renegotiate the terms of its bailout, German Chancellor Angela Merkel insists existing commitments must be kept. The final G20 communique, however, is expected to put the emphasis on growth and job creation rather than austerity.

Want to know:
The other big item on the G20’s agenda: Syria. Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement yesterday calling for an “immediate cessation of the violence” – but, crucially, not for President Bashar al-Assad to go.

Washington has made it clear it can’t envisage peace with Assad still in power, but yesterday’s statement indicated that it hasn’t persuaded Moscow of the same. So while Russia and the US are agreed that Syrians “should have the opportunity to independently and democratically choose their own future,” it seems there’s no consensus yet on how to ensure they do.

Meanwhile the UN monitoring mission – about the only thing everyone could agree on so far – remains suspended since the weekend. Mission chief Robert Mood is due to brief the Security Council later today.

Dull but important:
Pakistan’s Supreme Court has disqualified Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani from holding office.

Judges today declared Gilani ineligible to be prime minister or a member of parliament, due to his recent conviction for contempt of court. He was found guilty at the end of April for failing to pursue corruption charges against President Asif Ali Zardari. 

Zardari has called an emergency session of the ruling party to discuss the next move.

Just because:
When Al Shabaab took over towns and villages in Somalia, the hardline Islamist militants imposed puritanical rule. Arbitrary laws were imposed; brutal punishments introduced; foreign aid agencies expelled, and everyday things like jeans and soccer games outlawed.

In recent months, Somali and regional troops have managed to drive out Al Shabaab from some residential areas. GlobalPost reports from one such town, Hudur, where life is slowly returning to the way it was.

“We had made something here and Al Shabaab broke it,” says the education officer responsible for getting school children back on the curriculum after years of learning nothing but Arabic and Quranic studies. “Now we need to build their minds again.”

Strange but true:
Villagers on the outskirts of Xi’an in China were digging a new well when they discovered what appeared to be some sort of strange mushroom. 

Suffice it to say, it was no mushroom, but something altogether more man-made.

Here’s one Chinese TV reporter’s innocent description, pre-identification: “On this side, you can see what looks like a pair of lips. And on that side, there is a tiny hole which extends all the way back to this side. The object looks very shiny, and it feels really fleshy and meaty too.”

We’ll leave you to guess what it could be.

Need to know:
Greece spoke – and she said bailout. Not that loudly, but loudly enough to reassure the euro zone. 

Early results from yesterday’s repeat parliamentary election gave New Democracy conservatives a narrow lead over those who opposed the EU-IMF bailout that the party helped negotiate. For those who back the rescue, the fear was that radical-left coalition Syriza would top the polls and lead Greece out of austerity and into uncertainty; in the end, Syriza came in second, some three percent behind New Democracy.

New Democracy is expected to start sounding out coalition partners as soon as possible. Most likely it will form an alliance with Pasok, the socialist party with whom it drew up the bailout in the first place. 

“The Greek people voted today to stay on the European course and remain in the euro zone,” said New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras. “There will be no more adventures; Greece’s place in Europe will not be put in doubt.”

Want to know:
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is claiming victory in the country’s historic presidential election.

The party says its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, became Egypt’s first ever democratically elected president after a two-day run-off vote this weekend. According to the preliminary results they gave, Morsi won 52.5 percent of the ballot to opponent Ahmed Shafiq’s 47.5 percent. 

Official results have not yet been released. One thing’s certain already: whoever wins will find himself in a battle for power with Egypt’s military rulers, who, on the eve of the final day of voting, issued a declaration granting themselves more authority and the president’s office less.

Such developments are a reminder not that the revolution should continue, Egyptian activists told GlobalPost, but that the revolution should begin.

Dull but important:
China has become the third country ever to dock a manned craft in space.

China’s Shenzhou-9 capsule docked with the Tiangong-1 space lab, 213 miles above the earth, earlier today. Only Russia and the US have ever completed the delicate maneuver before. 

Perfecting the procedure is crucial if China is to achieve its goal of building its own space station by 2020. Chinese President Hu Jintao has hailed the current mission as a “major breakthrough in the country’s manned space program.”

Just because:
Rodney King, the black man whose beating by white police officers led to some of the most violent race riots the US has ever seen, is dead. He was 47.

He was found yesterday at the bottom of a swimming pool at his home in Rialto, California. Police say they don’t suspect foul play.

King’s death comes less than two months after the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles race riots, which broke out after the four LAPD officers captured on camera beating him were acquitted.

“I have forgiven,” King said earlier this year, “because America has forgiven me for so many things and given me so many chances.”

Strange but true:
There are those that spend their weekends shopping, reading the papers, barbecuing, maybe doing a little DIY. Then there are those who cross the Niagara Falls on a tightrope. 

Nik Wallenda falls into the latter category, having successfully walked from the US to Canada on a high wire suspended 200 feet about the Niagara River. He’s the first person to achieve the feat since 1896.

Naturally, there’s video. We’ll stick to gardening, thanks.

GlobalPost Morning Chatter: What we’re hearing — June 15, 2012

Need to know:
Egypt is still reeling from the ruling that its parliament was elected in illegitimate polls, and must be dissolved.

The Egyptian Supreme Court delivered its bombshell yesterday. The judges – appointed under deposed president Hosni Mubarak – said last year’s vote was unconstitutional and ordered a re-run. They also upheld the right of Mubarak’s prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, to run for president.

The ruling was met by angry protests, not least from the Muslim Brotherhood – which until yesterday held almost half of all seats in parliament. The party has warned that all the gains made in Egypt’s revolution could be wiped out, predicting that the country was headed for “very difficult days that might be more dangerous than the last days of Mubarak’s rule.”

Egypt holds the second round of its presidential election, which pits Shafiq against the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, this weekend.

Want to know:
Russia has denied sending attack helicopters to Syria, rebutting American accusations that Moscow was helping equip Bashar al-Assad’s government to kill its own people.

Russia has acknowledged carrying out scheduled repairs on helicopters it sold to Syria years ago, but says it’s not delivering new ones. The US State Department says the concern remains that the newly refurbished helicopters “will be used for the exact same purpose that the current helicopters in Syria are being used, and that is to kill civilians.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says there have nonetheless been “constructive” talks with Russian officials. France, meanwhile, has indicated that Russia is ready to consider a future without Assad, whom French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius claims Russia sees as “a tyrant and a murderer.”

Dull but important:
Greece is entering the final hours of campaigning ahead of its repeat parliamentary election on Sunday.

It will be the country’s second attempt in six weeks to elect a government; the first, on May 6, failed to produce either a majority or a working coalition. 

Voters are faced with a stark choice: back the establishment parties that put Greece in its current austerity straitjacket, or take a risk on one of the anti-bailout upstarts – and face the danger of an unprecedented and potentially disastrous exit from the euro zone.

The latest unofficial polls suggest support for bailout opponents is dropping; Europe will be watching closely to see if that’s the case. 

Just because:
China will send its first female astronaut into space this weekend, the country’s space agency has confirmed.

Two women were shortlisted to take part in the Shenzhou-9 mission, which is expected to launch tomorrow. Just one of them has been selected: Major Liu Yang, 33, who’s described as a “hero pilot” for making an emergency landing after a birdstrike on her plane. 

She’ll be accompanied by two other “taikonauts,” both men, as they manually dock the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft with China’s orbiting Tiangong-1 space lab.

Strange but true:
What do you get for the army that has everything? Why, a tank made of cupcakes, of course.

To celebrate the US Army’s 237th birthday, some genius had the idea of making it an enormous, heavy-weapon-themed dessert. It’s constructed of 5,000 cupcakes – camouflaged, natch – and weighs 2,500 pounds.

The best part: it even has an air cannon that fires cupcakes. Enemies of America, you have been warned.

Need to know:
Amnesty International says it has fresh evidence of crimes against humanity in Syria, including the widespread torture and execution of civilians. According to the rights group, the abuses are organized, systematic and part of state policy. 

The rights groups is calling on the UN Security Council to take “concrete action” to end the violence. France is pushing fellow council members to “enforce” a peace plan, while Russia and China continue to resist pressure to agree to anything other stronger than diplomacy.

With no resolution in sight, GlobalPost continues to report from Syria on the daily realities of the crisis. Today: what happens when a government mercenary is taken prisoner by rebels.

Want to know:
John Edwards will not face a new trial for campaign-finance corruption, prosecutors have confirmed.

The former US senator and presidential candidate was already breathing easier after a jury acquitted him on one count and couldn’t reach a verdict on five others. Now, federal prosecutors have officially dropped their case against him, saying they won’t seek to retry the outstanding charges. It marks the legal end, at least, to a very sordid affair. 

“I don’t think God’s through with me,” says a newly hopeful Edwards. “I really believe he thinks there’s still some good things I can do.” Probably not in the Oval Office, though.

Dull but important:
Aung San Suu Kyi addressed the UN’s International Labour Organization in Geneva today, her first appearance in Europe in more than 20 years.

The pro-democracy leader hasn’t been back to the continent since 1988 – not even when her husband was dying of cancer – for fear authorities in Myanmar wouldn’t let her back in afterwards. Twenty-four years and certain reforms later, she’s embarking on a five-country tour that will see her pick up her Nobel Peace prize in Norway, get serenaded by Bono in Ireland, and reunite with her family in the UK.

“Each country will be different,” Suu Kyi said. “I will know how backward [Myanmar] is when I reach the other countries.”

Just because:
A young gay man has been brutally murdered in South Africa, in what activists say is the latest in a spate of homophobic hate crimes.

Thapelo Makutle was 24. Openly gay and transgender, he volunteered for a gay and lesbian rights group working in rural communities, and was recently the winner of a local Miss Gay pageant.

He was killed last weekend in a violent attack, the details of which are only just emerging. His body was reportedly found severely mutilated, his throat so deeply slit he was almost decapitated. 

Activists have no doubt Makutle was killed because of his sexuality. They say hate crimes are common in South Africa, even though the country’s constitution outlaws discrimination.

No one has been arrested for the murder.

Strange but true:
A 15-year-old schoolgirl in Britain has possibly the world’s best excuse for missing her exams: she fell asleep in April, and she’s only just woken up.

Stacey Comerford suffers, she assures her teachers, from Kleine-Levin Syndrome, also known as Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. The rare disorder causes sufferers to sleep for up to 20 hours a day for weeks at a time.

“I’ve missed nine exams and my birthday in November,” says Comerford. Doctors say sufferers – usually adolescent boys – grow out of it.