The Koreas reach a milestone in restoring the awkward balance on the troubled peninsula – A UK Parliamentarian is charged with raping a guy – And Russia doesn’t deal with sarcastic rock bands too well.

South and North Korea say the Kaesong Industrial Park will reopen next week.  The joint venture is the highest-profile point of cooperation between the two Koreas, still technically at war.  Kaesong is home to 123 South Korean factories that benefit from cheap labor, employing more than 50,000 North Koreans bringing 50,000 paychecks into the lousy Stalinist economy.

Nigel Evans has resigned as UK House of Commons speaker and is expected to be charged with sexual assault, indecent assault, and rape in cases involving seven men.  The Conservative MP from Lancashire denies all charges and will keep his Parliament seat while contesting the case.  The assaults occurred from January 2002 through April of this year.

“Coronation Street” actor Michael Le Vell has been cleared of 12 child sex offences following a trial in a Manchester Crown Court.  The accuser’s claims of being raped as she clutched her teddy bear were dismissed by the jury after being described in court as “inconsistent, incoherent and unbelievable.”  Le Vell has not appeared on the soap opera throughout the trial and expects to talk with producers about his return.

At least 44 people were killed when two buses collided and burst into flames north of Iran’s capital Tehran.  One of the buses lost a tire, sending it swerving into oncoming traffic, striking the other bus head-on.

Russia has opened a criminal case against the American rock band Bloodhound Gang, which I’ve never heard of but apparently has been around for a while.  A prosecutor is investigating charges of “inciting enmity and humiliating human dignity” for a 31 July concert in Odessa during which bass player “Evil” Jared Hasselhoff stuffed a Russian flag down his pants.  Yeah, I know, Odessa is in Ukraine.  But Apparently Russia thinks it gets to charge people for stuff that happens outside its borders.  Both Russia and Ukraine have banned the band for 5 years for this and other acts involving flags and their nether regions.  Which is just as well, because The Bloodhound Gang was beaten up by Cossacks as they left the country. 

Singer and social activist Bob Geldoff plans to be the first Irishman in space.  He purchased a US$100,000 ticket aboard the Lynx Mark 2 spacecraft, planned to be launched from Curacao in the Caribbean Sea sometime in 2014.  The former Boomtown Rats singer will begin space flight simulator training this weekend.

Did you see this map of the World's Happiest Countries?

Guardian newspaper reporter Glenn Greenwald is being invited to testify before a Brazil Parliament investigation into his story about the US National Security Agency (NSA) spying on the communications of the country’s president Dilma Rousseff.   Greenwald’s reports are based on documents leaked by the fugitive American former intelligence worker, Edward Snowden.  As of now, Rousseff is expected to go ahead with her scheduled visit to President Barack Obama in October, although she is reportedly quite cross over this and other reports of US spying on Brazilians.