Bonus Photo of Utah
Welcome to Sunday OND, tonight's edition of the daily feature. The Overnight News Digest crew consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir and ScottyUrb, guest editors maggiejean and annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent.
CONFLICT
80 per cent of Afghanistan free of violence: Nato commander
A senior Nato commander has said that 80 per cent of Afghanistan is free of violence but warned that an insurgency still rages in the south and east, “fuelled by fighters coming from Pakistan”.
“About 80 per cent of Afghan territory and the Afghan population are not affected by security problems or violence,” Lt-Gen Olivier de Bavinchove said in an interview.
“On the other hand, there is a huge contrast when it comes to security between the different regions and districts,” said Bavinchove, chief of staff of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).
‘I Am Nakoula’: Anti-Islam Moviemaker Now Cult Hero
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is many things: a huckster, a convenient scapegoat, a terrible filmmaker. But to the members of America’s Islamophobic fringe, the producer of “The Innocence of Muslims” is something altogether different. He’s a victim.
Nakoula is a man being punished by the Muslim extremists who have infiltrated the White House, and now want to criminalize any criticism of the Prophet, according to anti-Islam crusaders like Robert Spencer. “He is a political prisoner,” Spencer says.
Never mind the fact that Nakoula seems to have tricked his actors into making a viral video that depicted Muhammad as a child molester. Never mind Nakoula’s conviction for bank fraud, which earned him a 21-month sentence in federal custody and a ban on using assumed identities, after he used 14 different aliases. Never mind the fact that Nakoula not only appeared to violate that probation by using the identity “Sam Bacile” when producing his video, or the fact the he doesn’t even seem to have been convicted under his real name. (In court Friday, he said he was really Mark Basseley Youssef. He changed it back in 2002 because “Nakoula is a girl’s name and it cause me troubles,” he claimed.)
To his defenders, it may even be kind of appropriate for Nakoula to go by so many names. To them, he’s become less of a man and more of a symbol – a prism for projecting a thousand conspiracy theories about a Muslim president gone mad with power, ready to unleash his scimitared hordes.
Just in case you needed a reminder than the crazy is with the Republicans.
Bombings across Iraq kill 26
Coordinated bombings shattered Shia neighbourhoods and struck at Iraqi security forces on Sunday, killing at least 26 in attacks that one official described as a rallying call by al-Qaida just days after dozens of militants escaped from prison.
The blasts brought September's death toll from sectarian violence to nearly 200 people – a grim, above-average monthly total for the period since US troops left last year. The steady pace of attacks has worked to undermine confidence in the government.
"The people are fed up with the killings in Iraqi cities," said Ammar Abbas, 45, a Shia and government employee who lives in a Baghdad neighbourhood near one of the bombings. "The government officials should feel shame for letting their people die at the hands of terrorists."
AROUND THE WORLD
Facebook ignores police pleas to remove pages
Facebook is refusing to take down a page that is inciting hatred after a man was charged with raping and murdering ABC employee Jill Meagher, according to Victoria Police.
Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said that, while social media had been enormously helpful in the investigation into Ms Meagher's death, police had contacted Facebook over the weekend and asked the social media giant to remove a particular page.
Several pages have been created inciting hatred after Adrian Ernest Bayley, 41, was charged on Friday with raping and murdering Ms Meagher.
"Now they've [Facebook] refused to do that, so we're just working our way through that about what we can do now," Mr Lay told radio station 3AW today.
Apology ordered over Michael Laws interview
RadioLive has been ordered to apologise over a heated interview by controversial talkback host Michael laws in which he asked a woman "can you wear a muzzle".
The comment amounted to unacceptable personal abuse and Laws' over-aggressive approach breached the standard of fairness, the Broadcasting Standards Authority found.
It is not the first time Laws has breached broadcasting standards.
In July he was found to have breached good taste and decency standards over comments directed to the media, specifically the Herald on Sunday, about the Teapot Tape saga in which he said "If I had a gun I'd shoot them, put them out of their misery".
The BSA supported Laws' right to publicly criticise the media but did not endorse violent language directed at identifiable people,which "may normalise violent behaviour".
After their death, these Kerala villagers want others to live
All the adults of a village in Kerala have pledged to donate their organs, setting a large-hearted record immeasurable in terms of humanitarian gesture.
More than 2,000 adults from 600 families of Pootharakkal village in Thrissur district, 300 km northwest of capital
Thiruvananthapuram, signed consent papers on Saturday to gift their organs to NGO Kidney Federation of India after their death.
The villagers did not have to look far for inspiration to offer the “gift of life” because Catholic priest Father Davis Chiramel who floated the NGO has led by example.
Organ donation rocks.
Zimbabwe's constitution process a battleground
The contest to control Zimbabwe's drafting of a new constitution will heat up next week when the draft produced by the constitutional parliamentary committee (Copac) is taken to a second stakeholders conference.
The draft will be debated by more than 1000 delegates, including businesspeople and representatives from churches, non-governmental organisations and political parties in Harare from October 4 to 6.
The two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) parties have so far resisted efforts by President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party to include nearly 266 amendments to the draft.
This is ahead of Zimbabwe's elections. And their last elections had issues. I don't understand why "President" is used instead of "dictator" or "guy who refused to leave office."
The New Germans: Immigrant Children's Complicated Search for Identity
Starting in the late 1800s, mass migration became the norm in America, with Ellis Island serving as the point of entry to millions coming from Germany and other European countries to the United States. The wave of migrants transformed the United States into a nation of immigration. For decades now, that multicultural identity has become something that people take for granted -- and it is increasingly reflected in all strata of society.
Over the past 50 years, Germany has ceased to be a country of mass exodus. Instead, it has experienced the first influx of immigrants in its history. After the signing of a labor recruitment agreement between West Germany and Turkey in 1961, millions of Gastarbeiter, or guest workers, were invited to come to help rebuild the country after the war and fuel its economic miracle. The idea originally had been that workers from Turkey and Southern Europe would come to Germany, work, save money and then leave the country after a certain period. But many put down roots, with tens of thousands staying to raise families. Along with the guest workers, immigrants from other countries like Poland, Russia and Vietnam also came to Germany.
A half century later, these immigrants have changed the face of Germany. Today there are 16 million residents who are either immigrants or their children, representing almost 20 percent of Germany's population of 82 million. Among those living in the country under the age of 25, one-quarter have foreign roots. More than half hold German passports, and the only things that differentiate them from other Germans are, at times, their appearance and family background. The country of Grimm's Fairy Tales, lederhosen and Cuckoo clocks has also become home to the Turkish döner kebab and Vietnamese phó. Germany's new diversity can be found in the furthest reaches of the country.
Vaccines get past Taliban, finally
Over 30,000 children in the remote Tirah area of the Khyber Agency, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Northern Pakistan, have waited four years for protection from polio, a viral disease that is sometimes referred to as "infantile paralysis" due to its crippling effects on children.
A massive government and civil society effort through the month of September finally began to reverse the trend that had kept the children of Tirah, along with hundreds of thousands in the greater FATA area, under the shadow of polio.
Up until this year, children in all seven FATA agencies have been the worst victims of the Taliban's ban on the oral polio vaccination (OPV), which the organization claims was a ploy by the United States to render the recipients impotent and infertile, thus strangling the growth of the Muslim population.
Film to re-edit Shackleton’s odyssey and project to recover “Endurance”
Bob Chartoff is an industry veteran known for such iconic classics as “Raging Bull”, the “Rocky” series, and “The Right Stuff”. The company is currently co-producing the highly anticipated “Ender’s Game”. Based on the classic science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card, “Ender’s Game” is directed by Gavin Hood and stars Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, and Abigail Breslin. It will be released by Summit Entertainment in November, 2013.
“Ice” is planned for release in 2015 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Shackleton’s epic adventure. “Ice” author/producer Lori Nelson says of the Chartoff partnership, “I could not have found a better home for a passion project that has consumed me for more than 25 years, when I first sailed a 40-foot ketch to the Antarctic and encountered Shackleton’s remarkable story. Chartoff has a reputation for integrity, impeccable taste, and is a leader in the Hollywood film industry.”
I wonder if they will include the
whiskey.
Argentina, Iran say to talk until 1990’s bombings resolved
Argentina and Iran will keep talking until they resolve diplomatically sensitive issues stemming from two 1990s attacks on Jewish targets in Buenos Aires that were allegedly sponsored by Tehran, both countries said on Thursday.
Dialogue with Tehran is risky for Argentina, even if the focus is on Tehran's possible culpability in a pair of bombings. The opening of a diplomatic channel with Tehran could anger the United States and Israel, which are seeking to isolate Iran as it appears to pursue nuclear weapons.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez surprised the United Nations General Assembly this week by announcing the talk
OTHER
Autumn Harvest Moon Festival
Traditional Baked Mooncake Recipe
Homemade Red Bean Mooncake
Major League Sports In Our Society
"Eating the Dinosaur": Football
And this is football's interesting contradiction: It feels like a conservative game. It appeals to a conservative mind-set and a reactionary media and it promotes conservative values. But in tangible practicality, football is the most progressive game we have -- it constantly innovates, it immediately embraces every new technology2, and almost all the important thinking about the game is liberal. If football was a politician, it would be some kind of reverse libertarian: staunchly conservative on social issues, but freethinking on anything related to policy. So the current upsurge of the read option is symbolic of something unrelated to the practice of football; it's symbolic of the nature of football and how that idea is misinterpreted because of its iconography.
(On Pete Rozelle) He made football replace baseball in every meaningful, nationalistic way. And he did this while simultaneously convincing all the league's owners to adopt revenue sharing, arguably the most successful form of socialism in U.S. history. The reason the NFL is so dominant is because the NFL is basically Marxist. This was Rozelle's greatest coup, and everybody knows it. But you'd never guess that from watching the NFL Network. Marxism is not a talking point.
Whimsy of the Week
Knitted sandwiches shown at Whitby Captain Cook museum
Over 100 sandwiches have been knitted by members of the public in honour of John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich.
The earl is credited with inventing the snack as a way of eating while continuing to play cards.
Entrants follow a nautical theme and include a "fisherman's butty" and an octopus baguette.
Knitted Toast, Stacy S. : twitter friend