NEED TO KNOW

Kidnap in Pakistan. Former Pakistani prime minister Yousef Raza Gilani says his son has been abducted. Ali Haider, a candidate representing the center-left party PPP in this weekend’s polls, was apparently seized by unknown gunmen during one of his final election rallies.

Gilani is in no doubt that his son’s political opponents are behind the attack, though the Pakistani Taliban have also threatened to do anything within their power to disrupt the campaign and vote. Sounds dangerous? Sounds confusing? Never fear, GlobalPost’s new blog is here to bring you Pakistan inside out.

Not again. At least eight people are dead after a fire broke out at a garment factory in Bangladesh. Thankfully for most of the workers employed at the multi-story building in an industrial district in the capital, Dhaka, they had already clocked off before the blaze began.

It could have been so much worse. It has been so much worse. This morning emergency services confirmed that the death toll from last month’s factory collapse has now risen above 900, making it by far the deadliest industrial disaster Bangladesh has ever known.How do we make sure it stops there?

WANT TO KNOW

Blowing the whistle on Benghazi. A veteran US diplomat stationed in Libya when the consulate in Benghazi was attacked last September gave his version of events yesterday at a packed-out hearing on Capitol Hill. It was the first time an American official who was on the ground at the time had testified publicly, and it may have had the White House wishing that he hadn’t.

Gregory Hicks, deputy chief of mission in Tripoli at the time, gave an account that suggested terrorist involvement was clear from the start, and claimed that he’d had since been punished for asking why some in the administration said otherwise. As lawmakers concluded yesterday: “The hearing is now closed, but the investigation is not over.”

What if missiles aren’t the most dangerous thing in North Korea? A medical NGO has warned that the country faces a potential epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis, a powerful new strain of the disease that has plagued impoverished North Koreans for years. And contagion knows no borders: if the outbreak continues to grow, South Korea and China could be at risk too.

North Korean patients’ access to drugs is limited to say the least, due in no small part to Western sanctions that cut off key pharmaceutical supplies. Aid groups are appealing to donors and governments to allow medical cooperation, before TB gains any more ground.

Knowledge can be dangerous. US officials investigating the Boston Marathon bombings reportedly found copies of the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire on a computer belonging to Katherine Russell, the widow of suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. If these reports are true, and if this case took place in the UK, no other evidence would be needed to arrest and prosecute her.

Under the UK’s 2000 terrorism act, simply having a copy of Inspire – or any other materials deemed “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” – is illegal. GlobalPost reports on what it means when information is a crime.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Volcanos, eh. You just about get the hang of pronouncing one of them when another one erupts. This time it’s the Paluweh volcano on one of Indonesia’s islands, which NASA has captured mid-spew from space.  

See the photo here. We like it ‘cos it looks awesome, there’s no one around, and it’s a lot easier to say than “Popocatépetl.”

SALTILLO, Mexico — Burly as a linebacker, Rogelio Elizondo remained dry-eyed as he described scouring websites devoted to Mexico’s gangland savagery, hoping to somehow recognize his long-missing son amid photos of fresh victims or decayed remains pulled from clandestine graves.

“You get accustomed to it,” he said.

It’s a task to which he’s turned after other options faded for finding the 23-year-old engineering student, also named Rogelio, who disappeared nearly two years ago on a trip near the South Texas border. “You start to assimilate it, little by little.”

Then, asked how the fruitless search has affected himself, his wife and two daughters, 49-year-old’s stoicism evaporated in a blink, sobs surging from deep in his chest, tears flowing down cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It changes your life completely.”

Mexico: Hope grows for the missing

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

Take a bow, Wen Jiabao. China’s premier has given the final major political address of his career, as he prepares to make way for a new generation of leaders. Wen opened the first session of the new Chinese parliament in Beijing with a promise to maintain economic growth at 7.5 percent this year and create more than nine million new jobs in China’s cities.

Responsibility for achieving those targets will fall to his successor, Li Keqiang, and incoming president Xi Jinping, who are due to replace Wen and Hu Jintao this year as part of China’s once-a-decade reshuffle.

Kenya counts. The millions of Kenyans who voted in their presidential election yesterday are waiting to learn the outcome. Partial results give Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta the edge over his main rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga – but more than half of polling stations have yet to report, and the game could yet change.

Full results aren’t due for another 24 hours at least. The country’s election commission has urged Kenyans to await the final tally patiently, and accept its consequences peacefully.

The rebels have Raqqa. Syrian activists say rebel forces have captured first the capital of northern Raqqa province and now its governor, who they are reportedly holding prisoner in his mansion. If confirmed, and if they can hold on to it, the victory may just be their biggest yet.

The regime won’t let them have it easily, though: tanks and warplanes have already attacked the city, and further reinforcements are said to be on the way.

WANT TO KNOW

Hugo Chavez goes from bad to worse. The Venezuelan goverment has announced that the president is suffering from a “new and severe” respiratory infection, even as he undergoes intensive chemotherapy for cancer. Information Minister Ernesto Villegas says Chavez is “clinging to Christ and to life.”

The government doesn’t care for its opponents’ increasingly vocal speculation that Chavez might be about to lose his grip on both. But each new complication it reveals hardly puts the rumors to rest.

New sanctions for North Korea? Diplomats say the US, Russia and even China have signed off on a draft UN Security Council resolution that will punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test. No one will comment on what the draft contains, but it’s expected to call for a tougher and more extensive version of the sanctions already in place.

The council is due to discuss the issue at a meeting today, and could vote on the resolution before the week’s out.

Mexicans are missing, by the thousands. More than 26,000 people have vanished in the six years of criminal hyper-violence that have battered much of the country. Victims’ advocacy groups blame security forces, often working with the gangsters, for many of the disappearances.

But now, under sustained pressure from those groups, President Enrique Peña Nieto’s new administration has promised to focus on tracking down those lost and prosecuting their tormentors. GlobalPost meets some of the families allowing themselves to hope that the missing might one day be found.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

The Dark Knight rises… in Bradford. Police in northern England were bewildered, if grateful, when someone looking a lot like Batman delivered a crime suspect to their door, then vanished. CCTV video of the incident quickly went viral – and led to wild speculation as to who the, ahem, chubby caped crusader could be.

It turns out it’s neither the reclusive billionaire nor even the mild-mannered reporter: the man behind the mask is one Stan Worby, a Chinese takeout delivery man, who accompanied a guilty friend to the police station still in the costume he’d donned to watch a soccer match. Bat-Stan, we salute you.

BADIRAGUATO, Mexico — Neat, freshly painted buildings and a renovated church line the central square. Shiny SUVs rest curbside. Some lack license plates, as if the law doesn’t apply. Mansions crown the surrounding hills.

Badiraguato, a town of 7,000 in Sinaloa state, shouldn’t have such wealth. It’s among the poorest municipalities in Mexico. But you’re better off not asking questions here.

This is a secretive place, hot and quiet in the Sierra Madre foothills. There’s an army barracks, but soldiers mostly stay inside.

It’s the heart of drug country, home to Mexico’s most powerful criminal syndicate: the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

How the Sinaloa cartel won Mexico’s drug war

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

You know what they say about friends in need. America’s new secretary of state, John Kerry, is about to make his allegiances clear at a meeting of the Friends of Syria group in Rome. Kerry is expected to announce a significant increase in what the US is prepared to give the Syrian rebels, which is now thought to extend to “non-lethal” aid.

Such aid would not include weapons, but might stretch to body armor, armored vehicles and other combat equipment that Washington had previously considered to look too much like military aid. Kerry says the priority is to “accelerate the prospects of a political solution” – even, it seems, if that means another kind of solution first.

An eye for an eye – even 40 years later? A war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh has sentenced a top Islamist leader to death for abuses committed during the country’s war of independence in 1971. Delwar Hossan Sayedee was found guilty of orchestrating the mass murder, torture, rape and religious persecution of separatists battling for autonomy from Pakistan.

Now the vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, Sayedee is the most senior figure to be convicted by the court so far. His supporters say the charges against him and other Islamist leaders are politically motivated; others say they deserve everything they get. The trials have already triggered weeks of sometimes deadly clashes, and they show no sign of dying down.

WANT TO KNOW

Not with a bang, but a whimper. After yesterday’s emotional goodbye speech to a packed-out St. Peter’s Square, Benedict XVI is spending his final day as pope in far quieter fashion. First, a farewell meeting with his cardinals, at which he vowed “unconditional obedience” to whoever succeeds him. Then, a helicopter ride to his temporary retreat, Castel Gandolfo; finally, one last blessing, waved from an upper-floor window.

At 8 p.m. local time, the Swiss Guards will return to the Vatican – signalling that the world has gained a pope emeritus, and lost a pope.

Who’s winning Mexico’s drug war? With an estimated 60,000 dead and narcotics still flowing across the border, many say it’s not the government: it’s the mighty Sinaloa cartel.

Mexico’s most powerful criminal syndicate, Sinaloa has made substantial territorial advances and amassed extravagant wealth even despite the onslaught from government forces. Here’s how the cartel prevailed.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

It’s a manta mystery in Gaza. Gazans have been left stumped by a sudden influx of dead manta rays to their city’s shores. More than 200 of the creatures have washed up on Gaza beach in recent days, most of them pretty bashed up.

If that sounds, well, gross, fret not: for the locals, it’s actually a boon. Anyone who fancied ray for supper used to have to smuggle it through underground tunnels from Egypt; now, the fish are almost literally landing in their laps. Like mantas from heaven, you might say.

NEED TO KNOW

Bombs over Damascus. At least three explosions hit the Syrian capital today, according to state media, all of them apparently aimed at regime targets. A powerful car bomb was detonated near the ruling Baath party’s offices and – coincidentally? – the Russian embassy.Two mortars also landed near the military headquarters. A “large number” of civilians are reported dead.

The blasts follow days of shelling in the capital. They also come as members of Syria’s official opposition coalition begins a summit in Egypt to thrash out a possible framework for peace; and they’ve already made it clear that Bashar al-Assad can’t be any part of the picture.

Good news, no, wait, bad news about the French nationals taken hostage in Cameroon. Reports were circulating this morning that the family of seven kidnapped two days ago had been found alive and abandoned by their captors in neighboring Nigeria. Both Cameroonian and Nigerian officials, however, have since denied the rumor.

That leaves us none the wiser as to where the hostages – four of whom are children – might be, in what state, or in whose hands.

WANT TO KNOW

It’s getting hard to keep up with the Oscar Pistorius case. In a bizarre twist, the detective in charge of investigating Reeva Steenkamp’s shooting has himself been accused of attempted murder. Det. Hilton Botha faces seven charges in connection with a shooting in 2009 – charges that were initially dropped, but were reinstated at the beginning of this month.

That was news to the prosecution, apparently, which said it wasn’t aware of the allegations until they appeared in the press this morning. Botha is back in court now as Pistorius’s bail hearing continues for a third day; but given the way the detective crumbled under cross-examination by the athlete’s lawyers yesterday, prosecutors must fear that his credibility is already – pardon the expression – shot.

Just who are the good guys in Mexico’s drug war? A new report by Human Rights Watch claims that Mexican security forces abducted and murdered dozens of people over the past six years in the name of the war on cartels, abuses that the group accuses Mexico’s government of failing to investigate.

Human Rights Watch calls it “the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades.” Could these latest allegations finally prompt the US to carry out its long-threatened cuts to the aid it pumps into Mexico’s security budget?

STRANGE BUT TRUE

What’s the Quebec French for “pizza”? One Italian restaurant had to come up with a hasty translation, after Canada’s language police complained that its menu contained too much, er, Italian. The Office Québécois de la Langue Française (that’s the Quebec Office of French Language, as they wouldn’t want us to call them) demanded that the trattoria revise make its menus more francophone-friendly.

The restaurant showed its meatballs, however, and the office has since admitted that it may have been a little “overzealous.” You think?

“Many families across South America also will likely welcome an easier path to US citizenship.

An estimated 500,000 Peruvians and a similar number of Brazilians live in the US without papers.

Brazil, which has the second-largest economy in the Americas, after the US, also has its own extensive experience of receiving immigrants, legal and illegal.”

Immigration reform: ‘Here we go again,’ Latin Americans say

YUCATAN, Mexico — GlobalPost visits Chichen Itza, in the heartland of the old Maya world in southeastern Mexico, where indigenous people and foreign New Age party-goers Mexican indigenous people and foreign New Age party-goers were converging — not to ring in the end, but to welcome what Maya priests believe will be a new era.

PHOTOS: End of the world? Maya and revelers ready for a new day

Jenni Rivera, the beloved Mexican-American singer, was honored by thousands of fans at a memorial in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

PHOTOS: Jenni Rivera honored at ‘Celestial Graduation’ memorial in L.A.

People around the world were freaking out about the end of the world (based on an ancient Mayan calendar), but for modern-day descendants of the Maya, it was just an average day.

See how they spent the day: Modern-day Mayans: What end of the world? (PHOTOS)