OND Editors OND is a community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
OND Editors Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, rfall, Doctor RJ and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
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CNN
Europe terror threat: Greece aids Belgium with investigation
Brussels (CNN)First France, now Belgium and possibly Greece. Where next?
The recent spate of terror attacks and threats in Europe has many wondering what the next target might be and how the danger can be mitigated.
Here are the latest developments:
Belgium: More suspects arrested
Five Belgian nationals have been charged with participation in a terrorist organization after police raided a suspect terror cell in Verviers, the country's federal prosecutor said. Three are in custody, and two have been released "under strict conditions," Erik Van Der Sypt said.
Greece: Police join Belgian investigation
Greek authorities say they are cooperating with Belgian authorities on an investigation, and on Sunday Belgium requested the extradition of one of the suspects arrested in Greece.
Across Europe: Fear of 'sleeper cells'
European counterterrorism agencies are scrambling to assess the potential terrorism threat from people with suspected links to Islamic extremists.
As many as 20 sleeper cells of between 120 and 180 people could be ready to strike in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, a Western intelligence source told CNN.
France: DNA links two to market attacker
Two additional people whose DNA was found on the belongings of jihadist Amedy Coulibaly are being sought by authorities, according to a source in Paris with knowledge of the investigation into this month's attacks in the French capital. The DNA of one was found on a charger belonging to Coulibaly, the source told CNN.
Al Jazeera America
Boko Haram stages attacks in Cameroon, Nigeria
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Suspected Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria kidnapped around 80 people, most of them children, and killed three others on Sunday in a cross-border attack on villages in northern Cameroon, army and government officials said.
"According to our initial information, around 30 adults, most of them herders, and 50 young girls and boys aged between 10 and 15 years were abducted," a senior army officer deployed to northern Cameroon told Reuters.
In a separate attack in Nigeria, a suicide bomber killed four people and injured 35 others in the northeast town of Potiskum on Sunday, according to a Nigerian media outlet.
The Cameroon attack occurred in Mabass village, in the Far North region, Issa Tchiroma Bakary said. He said 80 houses were destroyed and "between 30 and 50" people were believed to have been abducted.
"We are dealing with barbaric people, lawless people," Bakary said. "Nothing can prevent them from assassinating."
The group, which has killed thousands and kidnapped hundreds in its bid to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has also targeted Cameroon and Niger over the past year as it seeks to expand its zone of operations.
Al Jazeera America
Americans concerned about jobs and finances — not 'terrorism,' poll shows
The threat of joblessness tops the list of concerns facing American households, according to a new Al Jazeera America/Monmouth University Poll. When asked to describe the biggest concern facing their family, 16 percent of poll respondents said either job security or unemployment. The second most-cited concern was health care costs, followed by everyday bills.
Just 1 percent of all respondents cited immigration or terrorism as their primary concerns.
Although the economy has improved since the 2008 Great Recession and unemployment has declined to 5.6 percent, wages for most workers remain as stagnant as they have been for decades. The results of the Al Jazeera America/Monmouth University Poll suggest that many Americans still feel deep anxiety over their job prospects and the state of their finances.
Among people earning less than $25,000 per year, everyday bills such as rent, utilities and phone bills were by far the biggest concern. Twenty-six percent of respondents in the lower income bracket cited bills as their foremost issue.
The Al Jazeera America/Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from Jan. 13 to 15, 2015 with 1,003 adults in the United States. This sample has a margin of error of + 3.1 percent.
Raw Story
Decline of American middle class looms over President Obama’s legacy
Barack Obama enters the final two years of his presidency with a blemish on his legacy that looks impossible to erase: the decline of the middle class he has promised to rescue.
The revival of middle-class jobs has been one of Obama’s mantras since he took office in 2009 fighting the worst economic crisis in generations. It was a major theme of his last State of the Union address and is expected to feature in the one scheduled for Tuesday.
Obama’s administration can take credit for stabilizing the U.S. economy, which is growing again and last year added jobs at the fastest clip since 1999.
But for the middle class the scars of the recession still run deep. Federal Reserve survey data show families in the middle fifth of the income scale now earn less and their net worth is lower than when Obama took office
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N Y Times
N.S.A. Tapped Into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say
WASHINGTON — The trail that led American officials to blame North Korea for the destructive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November winds back to 2010, when the National Security Agency scrambled to break into the computer systems of a country considered one of the most impenetrable targets on earth.
Spurred by growing concern about North Korea’s maturing capabilities, the American spy agency drilled into the Chinese networks that connect North Korea to the outside world, picked through connections in Malaysia favored by North Korean hackers and penetrated directly into the North with the help of South Korea and other American allies, according to former United States and foreign officials, computer experts later briefed on the operations and a newly disclosed N.S.A. document.
A classified security agency program expanded into an ambitious effort, officials said, to place malware that could track the internal workings of many of the computers and networks used by the North’s hackers, a force that South Korea’s military recently said numbers roughly 6,000 people. Most are commanded by the country’s main intelligence service, called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, and Bureau 121, its secretive hacking unit, with a large outpost in China.
The evidence gathered by the “early warning radar” of software painstakingly hidden to monitor North Korea’s activities proved critical in persuading President Obama to accuse the government of Kim Jong-un of ordering the Sony attack, according to the officials and experts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the classified N.S.A. operation.
Raw Story
Oil producers hoard millions of gallons of oil in Canada waiting for prices to rebound
A tiny farming town, two-and-a-half-hours' drive southeast of Edmonton on meandering country highways, is at the centre of multi-billion-dollar bets on the price of oil.
The bets are part of Hardisty, Alta's claim to fame. The town sits atop a crossroads of multiple pipeline networks, and is home to the largest number of crude oil storage tanks in the country. Those circular tanks sit atop a hill and are capable of storing millions of barrels of crude oil, much of it from the oilsands that begin some 250 kilometres to the north. The tanks have been slowly filling up with crude since October, when oil entered a bear market and producers started looking for ways to physically hedge their barrels against the price collapse.
That month, after a prolonged slide, West Texas Intermediate oil prices crashed below US$80 per barrel and have continued to fall, closing Friday afternoon at US$48.69.
Now, an opportunity – called contango – to take advantage of a contractual difference between an expected higher price of oil in the future and oil delivered at today's bargain-basement price is driving traders around the world to move huge quantities of crude into storage.
Reuters
Republican senator Graham 'testing the waters' on presidential run
OMG This is so funny:
(Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a leading congressional voice on foreign relations, said on Sunday he had formed a committee to look into the possibility of running for president in 2016.
Graham, who has represented South Carolina in Congress since 1995, was asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" program about reports that he was having polls conducted to determine his chances.
"We're not polling but we set up a testing-the-waters committee ... that will allow me to look beyond South Carolina to whether or not a guy like Lindsey Graham has a viable path," he said.
"I don't know where this will go but I'm definitely going to look at it. I think the world is falling apart and I've been right more than wrong when it comes to foreign policy, but we'll see."
Reuters
Ukrainian troops retake most of Donetsk airport from rebels
(Reuters) - Ukrainian troops recaptured almost all the territory of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine they had lost to separatists in recent weeks, as thousands gathered in Kiev for a state-sponsored peace march on Sunday.
The offensive brought fighting close to the industrial city of Donetsk, centre of a pro-Russian rebellion, while shelling intensified in other parts of the region known as "Donbass".
With attempts to restart peace talks stalled, pro-Russian rebels have stepped up attacks in the past week and casualties have mounted, including 13 civilians killed in an attack on a passenger bus, which Kiev blamed on the separatists.
Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said the army's operation had returned battle lines near the airport to the previous status quo and thus not violated the 12-point peace plan agreed with Russia and separatist leaders last September in Minsk.
Bloomberg
Oil Spills Into Yellowstone River After Montana Crude Pipe Leak
Oil pumped in the Bakken leaked from a pipeline into the Yellowstone River near Glendive in Montana on Saturday.
The 12-inch crude line is shut, according to Bill Salvin, an outside spokesman for True Companies, whose Bridger Pipeline LLC operates the Poplar pipe system. As much as 1,200 barrels of oil leaked from the pipeline, much of which went into the Yellowstone River, Dave Parker, spokesman for Montana Governor Steve Bullock, said by phone. A cause for the leak hasn’t been determined, according to Parker.
The pipeline runs from the Canadian border in Sheridan County to Baker Station in Fallon County, according to a map of the pipe sent by Salvin. The outside spokesman, who works for Signal Bridge Communications, Inc., said the line has a capacity of 42,000 barrels a day. The crude is mainly from the Bakken formation in North Dakota and Montana, he said.
There is no more danger of oil leaking, according to Parker. Local and federal agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have been notified and are responding, he said.
Fortunately this could never happen with the XL pipeline.
L A Times
Outcry after Indonesia executes 6 for drug trafficking
An Indonesian firing squad executed six convicted drug traffickers early Sunday, sparking condemnations from human rights groups and foreign leaders.
The Netherlands, Indonesia’s former colonial ruler, said it would withdraw its ambassador and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she was “outraged and dismayed” after Dutch and Brazilian nationals were among those put to death just after midnight local time in the center of Java, Indonesia’s most populous island.
Indonesia has a history of capital punishment for drug crimes, but the convicted traffickers were the first to be executed under new President Joko Widodo, who came to power last year on a reformist ticket.
European officials called the move “deeply regrettable” and the Dutch government issued a harsh statement after its pleas to commute the sentence of its citizen, Ang Kiem Soe, were ignored.
“The Netherlands condemns the execution of Mr. Ang in Indonesia,” Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Bert Koenders said. “It is tragic that he and five others have been executed. My sympathies go out to their families, for whom this brings a dramatic end to years of uncertainty.”
Science
L A Times
California drought could end with storms known as atmospheric rivers
California's drought crept in slowly, but it could end with a torrent of winter storms that stream across the Pacific, dumping much of the year's rain and snow in a few fast-moving and potentially catastrophic downpours.
Powerful storms known as atmospheric rivers, ribbons of water vapor that extend for thousands of miles, pulling moisture from the tropics and delivering it to the West Coast, have broken 40% of California droughts since 1950, recent research shows.
Atmospheric rivers are key to California's rainfall.
"These atmospheric rivers — their absence or their presence — really determine whether California is in drought or not and whether floods are going to occur," said F. Martin Ralph, a research meteorologist who directs the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
The storms, which flow like massive rivers in the sky, can carry 15 times as much water as the Mississippi and deliver up to half of the state's annual precipitation between December and February, scientists say. Though atmospheric rivers are unlikely to end California's drought this year, if they bring enough rain to erase the state's huge precipitation deficit, they could wreak havoc by unleashing floods and landslides.