Chatter: Mr Ahmadinejad goes to Cairo

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.