NEED TO KNOW

And that bomb makes two. North Korea has moved a second mid-range missile to its eastern seaboard, according to South Korean officials, who say that both have been loaded onto mobile launchpads ready to be fired “without prior warning.” In response, South Korea has deployed missile-intercepting warships on either side of the peninsula.

We’ll be tracking the latest anxious-making developments here. In the meantime, read what the experts tell GlobalPost about the US’s role in all this and whether there’s reason to hope something good will come of it (short answer: not much). Or you could just relive the whole thing in memes – because memes make everything better, even potential war. Phew.

WANT TO KNOW

Avian angst in Shanghai. China’s biggest city has closed its sprawling poultry marketsdue to the outbreak of H7N9 bird flu. Authorities say the temporary measure is for the sake of “public safety.”

At least six people have now died after contracting the H7N9 virus, a strain never before seen in humans. Doctors aren’t yet sure how the infection is spreading, but as a precaution, the markets are closed, hospitals are on high alert, and birds are being culled by the thousand.

High-rise disaster in India. More than 30 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a seven-storey building that collapsed last night on the outskirts of Mumbai. Scores of people are still feared trapped after the high-rise toppled over them “like a pack of cards.”

The block, which was still under construction, was being built illegally, without authorities’ permission. Police say shoddy building materials probably caused the collapse, whose victims were mainly construction workers and their families living on site. The lead builders face charges of negligence.

A jibe too far? Egypt’s judiciary created an international firestorm this week when the top judge called the country’s foremost political satirist in for questioning. Bassem Youssef is accused of using his weekly satirical news show to “insult the president” and “insult Islam”; his supporters call it an unprecedented attack on freedom of speech.

Egypt is well known for taking a humorous approach to its ills, but Youssef has pioneered a new, blunt style that may have proved too much for the country’s fledgling rulers. GlobalPost asks: How funny is too funny in the new Egypt?

Farewell, Roger Ebert, who died yesterday aged 70. He had cancer.

Tributes to the veteran US movie critic have been paid from Hollywood and beyond. Steven Spielberg called it “the end of an era,” while President Barack Obama said Ebert “was the movies.” RIP to the man whose reviews were often better than the movies themselves.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Everybody must get stoned, even if you have to raid a pensioner’s lawn to do it. The gardens of Germany are being pillaged by teenagers in quest of the most fragant of natural highs: hydrangeas. The pastel blooms so beloved of front-yard horticulturalists can, it turns out, have an intoxicating effect when smoked – a property that’s led to them being pilfered by the bunch from homes across sleepy southern Germany.

Medical experts warn that the flowery joints, if smoked to excess, can lead to poisoning, brain damage and even death. You hear that, kids? Don’t get high-drangeaed.

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart satirized Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi Monday night, after Egyptian officials arrested fellow satirist Bassem Youssef for allegedly insulting the president and Islam.

After listing Egypt’s myriad post-revolution problems — attacks on women, high unemployment, and a precipitous drop in tourism — Stewart marked the country down as a “work in progress.”

But then why is Egypt’s chief prosecutor going after a comedian like Youssef?

Jon Stewart defends Egypt satirist Bassem Youssef, slams President Morsi (VIDEO)

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

CAIRO, Egypt — Egypt’s economy is edging closer to collapse, and now there is one less place the government here can turn to for much-needed financial aid.

After promising $5 billion in soft loans and grants to help curb the Egyptian pound’s recent slide against the dollar, the tiny but vastly wealthy Gulf nation of Qatar is now backing off pledges of any further funding for the cash-strapped nation.

Observers saw Qatar and its royal family as initial backers of the Muslim Brotherhood government and its president, Mohamed Morsi, providing substantial funds and deposits to Egypt’s Central Bank. But earlier this month, the Qatari finance minister said there were no plans to inject more cash into Egypt’s flagging economy — crippled by a massive budget deficit. The finance minister did not give a reason.

Is Qatar abandoning Egypt?

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

kyleykim:

Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009 vs. Israel remarks in one chart (via Chart of the day: Obama’s Cairo speech to the Muslim world compared to Israel)

LIVE BLOG: Obama tells Israel: ‘Peace is necessary’

CAIRO, Egypt — More than 30 police stations across Egypt closed their doors in protest on Friday, as security forces called for the dismissal of Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim.

Egypt’s policemen have been protesting the policies of the country’s Interior Ministry, saying they no longer wanted to be used as a political tool, according to security officials cited by Agence France Presse.

In Egypt, even the police are protesting

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

SAYEDA AISHA, Egypt — Um Salma’s tiny café is tucked in a maze of alleys in the Sayeda Aisha slum, home to the tomb of Aisha, the Prophet Mohamed’s youngest wife.

Pushing through the café’s saloon-style doors, a haze of acrid hash smoke assaults the senses. Inside, a dozen-odd workers sitting on wooden stools cluster around water pipes.

The water gurgles with each puff on the hookah’s long, slender hose. Traditional Egyptian music — the kind you can imagine a woman belly-dancing to, evoking the Sahara — rasps from an ageing cassette player.

Under the glare of neon bulbs, patrons banter about the slum’s latest news.

And they get utterly, convincingly high.

Hookahs, hash and the Muslim Brotherhood

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

When no one wins, no one wins. Italy’s nail-biter of a parliamentary election has ended in deadlock, with Pier Luigi Bersani’s center-left bloc just fractionally ahead of Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right alliance. A(nother) joker, comedian Beppe Grillo and his anti-austerity protest movement, isn’t far behind.

Bersani has enough votes for a majority in the lower house, but not so in the senate – and any coalition would have to be so disparate that the chances of its survival aren’t high. Stocks across Europe are tumbling before the prospect of yet more instability. Mamma mia, etc.

Tourist tragedy in Egypt, where a hot air balloon loaded with sightseers caught fire and crashed during an early-morning flight over the ancient temples of Luxor. At least 19 passengers were killed, including people from Hong Kong, Japan, France, Britain and Egypt.

The tour operator says a gas canister exploded onboard, causing the balloon to plummet almost 1,000 feet to the ground below.

Again with the rockets. A rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel this morning, the first such attack since the cease-fire in November that ended eight days of war.

Fatah’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, has claimed responsibility. The militants say the strike was revenge for the death, in an Israeli jail and under disputed circumstances, of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat. And if this rocket was, as the group claims, a “preliminary response,” there’s more where that came from.

WANT TO KNOW

Talk it out, Iran, talk it out. Tehran’s finest negotiators are gathered in Almaty, Kazakhstan, for their latest session with the six world powers attempting to rein in Iran’s nuclear program. Western diplomats have hinted that they’ll offer to ease sanctions if Iran agrees to halt its potentially troublesome enrichment of uranium.

Iran, however, is famously unmoved by either carrot or stick. And with Iranian politicians taking even harder lines than usual ahead of upcoming elections, only die-hard Pollyannas are expecting a breakthrough from this week’s talks.

What’s funny about Hugo Chavez’s cancer? We don’t know – but then, no one knows much about the Venezuelan president’s health. The government maintains a wall of silence on the not-so-strongman’s illness, allowing only the occasional photo or tweet to pass.

Faced with an information vacuum, some Venezuelans are using humor to fill it. GlobalPost rounds up some of the best gags about a reality that’s stranger than satire.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Ka-POW! Take that, Robin: DC Comics have revealed that Batman’s sidekick will die in a forthcoming issue. Writers say that the trusty Boy Wonder dies a hero’s death, having saved the world and done “his job as Robin.”

That job being, of course, to perish whenever a long-running series needs an adrenalin kick. The sidekick gets it. ‘Twas ever thus.

NEED TO KNOW

Cuba without Castro? That’s like… well, the point is we don’t now what that’s like, since one or other of the brothers Castro has been running the country since the revolution in 1959. Not for much longer, though: President Raul has promised to retire in 2018.

Cuba’s first leader outside the family more than half a century is expected to be Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, who was yesterday appointed Castro’s first ever vice president and who, at 52, has spent his entire life under a Castro government. Viva la post-revolucion.

Just call Park Geun-hye Madam President. South Korea’s first female head of statewas sworn into office today, two months after beating her liberal opponents in a hotly fought election.

Top of President Park’s agenda, unsurprisingly, is everyone’s least favorite nuclear power: North Korea. In her inauguration address, Park called North Korea’s recent nuclear test “a challenge to the survival and future of the Korean people” and promised zero tolerance for any further threats. Ms Park, welcome (back) to the Blue House.

Italians are still deciding. Today is the second and final day of voting in what could prove one of the most important general elections in years – not just for Italy, but the whole of the euro zone.

Silvio Berlusconi is on the ballot yet again, but the current favorite is an ex-Communist with the center-left Democratic Party, Pier Luigi Bersani. Voting ends late this afternoon; the first exit poll results are due shortly after.

WANT TO KNOW

And the Oscar goes to… a motley crew. Best Picture for a movie that didn’t have a Best Director? Best Director for someone who’s not Steven Spielberg? Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, again? Best Actress for an actress who wasn’t best? (Sorry Jennifer Lawrence, but Emmanuelle Riva rules.) These and other questionable bests, here.

And it wasn’t only us Riva fans who were left disgruntled: Iran has taken objection to the choice of ‘Argo’ for Best Picture, and not just because they thought ‘Lincoln’ was a shoo-in. Iranian state media is busy denouncing the movie as an “advertisement for the CIA” and a Zionist plot to misrepresent a memorable moment in the Islamic Revolution – and the fact that Michelle Obama presented the award live from the White House is only adding fuel to Tehran’s fire.

Nuclear disasters have a long half-life. Quarter of a century after the reactor meltdown at Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, the surrounding region remains an eerie wasteland, where wolves and wild horses roam the woods and Geiger counters beep off the hook. GlobalPost takes a tour.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

The Harlem Shake isn’t just annoying – in Egypt, it can get you arrested. That’s what happened to four people who made a video of themselves and their friends dancing the Harlem Shake in front of the Pyramids. Egyptian authorities said the pranksters – one of whom was featured riding a camel in nought but his underwear, a bow tie and a gold trilby hat – had violated indecency laws with their “pelvis-thrusting dance.”

Come back, Gangnam Style, all is forgiven.

CAIRO, Egypt — The governments that rose to power in Egypt and Tunisia in the wake of the Arab Spring are increasingly relying on the oppressive security apparatuses crafted by their predecessors.

Whole-scale reform of the security services in both countries, where police were viewed as predatory foot soldiers for the regime, was a central catalyst for the uprisings two years ago. 

But as the two North African nations now grapple with heightened and sometimes violent unrest — the result of stalled political and economic progress — the government of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt and Tunisia’s Ennahda leadership are embracing the unreformed police forces as necessary tools to quell opposition to their rule, activists say.

New leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, same security forces

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

CAIRO, Egypt ­— Egypt’s liberal activists say they are haunted by the recent assassination of a prominent opposition figure in nearby Tunisia — and are worried a similar slaying could happen here, too.

Police have increased security around the homes of liberal political figures, after hardline clerics publicly declared their murders justifiable under their interpretation of Islamic law last week.

Young secular activists say they also believe they are targeted by government security forces for detention, torture, and even assassination as weeks of violent protests have challenged the rule of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

In Morsi’s Egypt, violence and suspicion

Photo by AFP/Getty Images