Chatter: What we're hearing

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Need to know: A South Korean navy ship sank today leaving scores of sailors missing and several reported dead, following an apparent explosion as it patrolled the disputed sea border with the North. Seoul sought to play down suggestions the damage may have resulted from an attack by its neighbor, after claims that the ship may have been sunk by a North Korean torpedo. "It is not clear whether North Korea was involved," said presidential spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye.

Want to know: Elections are on the horizon in Myanmar, and there's renewed focus on the country where owning a fax machine without a permit is illegal, where spontaneous gatherings of more than five people are technically banned and where critics of the government are regularly locked away for decades in tiny prison cells. Yet despite this repression, or perhaps partly because of it, Burmese young people are pushing the limits of what the military government considers acceptable art and entertainment.

Dull but important: A secular coalition led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi won the most seats in Iraq’s parliamentary elections, narrowly edging out Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who angrily denounced the results as fraudulent. Allawi won 91 seats in Iraq’s 325-seat Parliament, to Maliki’s 89 seats, according to Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission. “We won’t accept this result,” Maliki said on national television.

Just because: Russia bans Hitler's "Mein Kampf," in an attempt to curb the spread of far-Right politics. Despite including tracts that are both anti-Jewish and anti-Russian, the 1925 semi-autobiographical work has become increasingly popular among Russia's far-Right groups. At least 60 people were killed and 306 injured in hate attacks in Russia last year, according to Sova, a Moscow-based NGO.

Wacky: A book charting the frontier between handicrafts and geometry on Friday won Britain's quirkiest literary award, the Diagram Prize for year's oddest book title. "Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes," by mathematician Daina Taimina beat runners-up "What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?" and "Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich." The reason? Because the "public proclivity towards non-Euclidian needlework" proved too strong for the competition.

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