“I feel like you're going to stitch someone's skin to your face and kill everyone in the audience”
— New Zealand X Factor judge Willy Moon, giving a contestant some handy tips on what to avoid for their next performance
China | Burmese days
THE GIST. The Chinese media is urging the government to "deal with Myanmar" (formerly Burma), after a bomb dropped from a Myanmar aircraft into China killed five people.
THE SUSPECTS. The Myanmar government has denied responsibility, expressing "deep sorrow" over the deaths. They're blaming a rebel group, the 'Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army', for the attacks, suggesting that they're trying to create bad blood between Myanmar and China.
THE REBELS. The MNDAA is a rebel army made up of old members of the Burmese Communist Party and ethnic Han Chinese. They've tried to take the border region of Kokang by force twice - in 2009 and earlier this year, and have been accused of receiving Chinese weapons to help fight the Mynamar government.
THE REACTION. China has been talking tough since the bombing, threatening "decisive action" unless Myanmar get its house in order. Meanwhile, the Myanmar public is apparently happy that the army has stood up to China, who they think have secret ambitions to take over their territory.
Israel | Election time
THE GIST. Israel is holding its parliamentary election tomorrow, with 120 seats in the promised land's parliament, the 'Knesset', up for grabs.
THE GOVT. On the right, there is Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister who wants a fourth term. Bibi's campaign has centred on national security, controversially travelling to the United States to speak out against a nuclear deal with Iran (Obama wasn't happy), and promising that there won't be a Palestinian state if he's elected, because it would be "giving grounds to the radical Islam."
THE OPPOSITION. The biggest opposition party is the centre-left Zionist Union, lead by Isaac Herzog, who are campaigning on re-engaging the peace process with Palestine. Other major candidates include former government minister Tzipi Livni, television news anchor Yair Lapid, and leader of the far-right 'Jewish Home Party' Naftali Bennett.
THE PREDICTION. Netanyahu's Likud party and Herzog's Zionist Union are polling equally, but neither will have enough seats to win government outright. Experts think Netanyahu has a better chance of cobbling together a coalition of various nationalist, Jewish Orthdox and centrist parties.
Small-talk
In sickness but not stupidity. An Indian bride has walked out of her wedding, refusing to marry the groom-to-be, because he failed to correctly answer a basic maths problem. Dialling up the romance with some impromtu arithmetic, she asked him during the ceremony what the answer to "15 + 6" was. When he answered "17", she left straight away, accusing him of being illiterate.
Healthy reward. Stefan Lanka, a German biologist who offered 100,000 euros to anybody who could prove the existence of measles, has been ordered by a court to pay up. Lanka, who thinks measles is a "psychosomatic illness", was presented with the evidence by Doctor David Barden, who apparently was the only person who could be bothered doing a quick Google search. Lanka says he is going to appeal.
Burn unit. A seemingly repentant Justin Bieber has been 'roasted' by a cast of comedians and celebrities, who knocked the mild-mannered musician down and kicked him repeatedly. Bieber claimed that he is really a "kind-hearted person", to which the roasters replied "You are the King Joffrey of pop" and "you should change your name to Vanilla ISIS."
The word
Non sequitur. Noun. A conclusion that does not follow logically from the previous argument or statement: Irish Senator Fidelma Healy Eames's sent out a controversial tweet yesterday, containing a strange non sequitur. It started "Happy Mothers' Day all!", and then continued, "Hope we can all continue to celebrate it after #SSM (same sex marriage) [is] passed."
