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 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 consist of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, BentLiberal and ScottyUrb, guest editor annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent. We invited our readers to comment & share other news.
BBC:Prison for Canadian navy officer turned Russian spy
Prison for Canadian navy officer turned Russian spy
A Canadian ex-navy intelligence officer has been jailed for 20 years after pleading guilty to selling classified Nato information to Russia.
Sub Lt Jeffrey Delisle, who was arrested in January last year, was also fined CA$111,000 (£70,000).
He admitted emailing secret files shared by Canada, the US and other Nato allies to Russia for four years.
Delisle is the first Canadian to be sentenced under the country's Security of Information Act.
BBC:Mali conflict: French ransom cash 'funded militants'
Mali conflict: French ransom cash 'funded militants'
A former US ambassador to Mali has told the BBC that France that paid ransom money to free hostages and the funds ended up bolstering Islamist groups it is now fighting.
Vicki Huddleston said France paid $17m (£10.75m) to free hostages seized from a uranium mine in Niger in 2010.
She said other European countries, including Germany, had also paid ransoms amounting to nearly $90m.
France has always denied that it pays ransoms for the release of hostages.
BBC:Nigeria polio vaccinators shot dead in Kano
Nigeria polio vaccinators shot dead in Kano
Nine female polio vaccinators have been killed in two shootings at health centres in northern Nigeria, police have told the BBC.
In the first attack in Kano the polio vaccinators were shot dead by gunmen who drove up on a motor tricycle.
Thirty minutes later gunmen targeted a clinic outside Kano city as the vaccinators prepared to start work.
Some Nigerian Muslim leaders have previously opposed polio vaccinations, claiming they could cause infertility.
BBC:Tunisia mourns murdered politician Chokri Belaid
Tunisia mourns murdered politician Chokri Belaid
Thousands of Tunisians have attended the funeral of opposition leader Chokri Belaid, who was killed on Wednesday by a gunman who fled on a motorcycle.
There were minor clashes as his coffin was carried through Tunis, but the event was largely peaceful.
Sporadic protests and clashes have been reported all around Tunisia, and many workers are observing a general strike.
Unions say the Islamist-led government is to blame for the killing, an accusation it denies.
BBC:UN report of Afghan child casualties false, says Isaf
UN report of Afghan child casualties false, says Isaf
The Nato-led force in Afghanistan has rejected a UN report accusing the US of killing hundreds of children in air strikes over the past four years.
The number of child casualties had doubled in 2010-2011 due to a "lack of precautionary measures and use of indiscriminate force", the study found.
The Nato force called the claims "categorically unfounded" and "false".
The issue of civilian deaths by Nato forces has caused tensions between the US and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
BBC:Chile judge orders exhumation of Pablo Neruda's remains
Chile judge orders exhumation of Pablo Neruda's remains
A judge in Chile has ordered the exhumation of the remains of the poet Pablo Neruda, as part of an inquest into his death in 1973.
The left-wing Nobel Prize winner died 12 days after a military coup replaced the socialist president Salvador Allende with General Augusto Pinochet.
The poet's family has always maintained that he died in a Santiago clinic of advanced prostate cancer, aged 69.
Chile started investigating allegations that he may have been poisoned in 2011.
Reuters:Google's Schmidt to sell roughly 42 percent of stake
Google's Schmidt to sell roughly 42 percent of stake
(Reuters) - Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 percent of his stake in the Internet search company over the coming year, Google announced on Friday.
Schmidt will sell 3.2 million shares of Class A common stock through a stock trading plan, Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The plan, which Google said would give Schmidt "individual asset diversification and liquidity," allows Schmidt to spread trades out over a period of one year to reduce the market impact.
Schmidt, who served as Google's Chief Executive until 2011, currently owns roughly 7.6 million shares of Class A and Class B common stock. The shares represent 2.3 percent of Google's outstanding stock and roughly 8.2 percent of the voting power of Google's stock.
Reuters:Support grows for U.S. "drone court" to review lethal strikes
Support grows for U.S. "drone court" to review lethal strikes
(Reuters) - During a fresh round of debate this week over President Barack Obama's claim that he can unilaterally order lethal strikes by unmanned aircraft against U.S. citizens, some lawmakers proposed a middle ground: a special federal "drone court" that would approve suspected militants for targeting.
While the idea of a judicial review of such operations may be gaining political currency, multiple U.S. officials said on Friday that imminent action by the U.S. Congress or the White House to create one is unlikely. The idea is being actively considered, however, according to a White House official.
At Thursday's confirmation hearing for CIA director nominee John Brennan, senators discussed establishing a secret court or tribunal to rule on the validity of cases that U.S. intelligence agencies draw up for killing suspected militants using drones.
The court could be modeled on an existing court which examines applications for electronic eavesdropping on suspected spies or terrorists.
Reuters:Assad's forces try to beat back rebels closing on Damascus
Assad's forces try to beat back rebels closing on Damascus
AMMAN, Feb 8, Reuters - Syrian government forces battled on Friday to recapture sections of the Damascus ring road from rebels pressing in on the capital, opposition activists said.
War planes fired rockets around Jobar, Qaboun and Barzeh neighborhoods, the sources said. Heavy fighting was taking place at the Hermalleh junction on the ring road just south of Jobar, which had been seized by the rebels.
Rebel fighters based in the eastern Ghouta region broke through government defensive lines on Wednesday, capturing parts of the road and entering Jobar, 2 km (one mile) from security bases in the heart of the city.
President Bashar al-Assad, struggling to contain a revolt in which 60,000 people have been killed since March 2011, has lost control of large parts of Syria but his forces, backed by air power, have so far kept rebels away from central Damascus.
Reuters:China, Japan engage in new invective over disputed isles
China, Japan engage in new invective over disputed isles
(Reuters) - China and Japan engaged on Friday in a fresh round of invective over military movements near a disputed group of uninhabited islands, fuelling tension that for months has bedeviled relations between the Asian powers.
An increasingly muscular China has been repeatedly at odds with others in the region over rival claims to small clusters of islands, most recently with fellow economic giant Japan which accused a Chinese navy vessel of locking radar normally used to aim weapons on a Japanese naval ship in the East China Sea.
China's Defence Ministry rejected Japan's complaint about the radar, its first comment on the January 30 incident. It said Japan's intrusive tracking of Chinese vessels was the "root cause" of the renewed tension.
A Japanese official dismissed the Chinese explanation for incident saying China's actions could be dangerous in the waters around the islets, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, believed to be rich in oil and gas.
Reuters:In beer antitrust case, U.S. puts successful theory to a new test
In beer antitrust case, U.S. puts successful theory to a new test
(Reuters) - In challenging beer company Anheuser-Busch InBev SA's (ABI.BR) proposed deal with Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo (GMODELOC.MX), the U.S. government is applying a powerful legal theory it has used to stop other mergers.
The government alleges in a lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., federal court that even though Modelo beers only account for 7 percent of the U.S. market, the company plays a critical, pro-competitive force in the market by not following the pricing of the two biggest players: AB InBev, which has 39 percent, and MillerCoors, a joint venture between SABMiller Plc (SAB.L) and Molson Coors Brewing Co (TAP.N), which has 26 percent. Without Modelo, the government argues, the beer market will be subject to price coordination among the top players.
"The proposed merger would likely increase the ability of ABI and the remaining beer firms to coordinate by eliminating an independent Modelo - which has increasingly inhibited ABI's price leadership - from the market," government lawyers wrote in the complaint.
The $20.1 billion deal would give AB InBev the half of Modelo it does not already own. AB InBev said the government's lawsuit is "inconsistent with the law, the facts and the reality of the market place."
Reuters:Angolan court rejects opposition complaint on sovereign fund
Angolan court rejects opposition complaint on sovereign fund
LISBON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Angola's constitutional court on Friday rejected a claim by an opposition party that President Jose Eduardo dos Santos had overstepped his powers to create the country's $5 billion sovereign wealth fund.
Angola launched the fund last October to invest in domestic and overseas assets by funnelling the country's vast oil wealth into infrastructure, hotels and other high-growth projects.
Dos Santos has been accused of avoiding public scrutiny during his 33 years in power. The announcement of the fund raised criticism from opposition groups about transparency as it did not give parliament any oversight and appointed one of the president's sons to the fund's management board.
Opposition party CASA-CE in December asked the constitutional court to overturn the creation of the fund, arguing that the constitution did not allow a president to create reserve funds by decree without the approval of parliament.
USA Today:Much of the Northeast under wintry spell of 'Nemo'
Much of the Northeast under wintry spell of 'Nemo'
Snow began dumping on the Northeast Friday as 40 million residents in the path of a monster storm braced for the worst by late evening and early Saturday.
New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and other parts of New England were hunkered down for blinding snowstorms, heavy winds, power outages and more than 2 feet of the white stuff in some regions.
The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for the New York City metro area, Connecticut and Rhode Island, eastern Massachusetts and coastal sections of New Hampshire and Maine. Some parts of New England should see the heaviest snow, while some coastal areas could be lashed by hurricane-force winds.
As part of a new effort to name winter storms, the Weather Channel dubbed the blizzard "Nemo." By mid-afternoon, finding Nemo wasn't an issue: Snow was accumulating in Boston; Providence; Hartford, Conn.; Worcester, Mass.; Concord, N.H.; and Portland, Maine, which had already gotten more than 6 inches. The snow caused a 19-car, four-hour pileup on I-295 near Cumberland, Maine. Several people had minor injuries, police said. In Vermont, which could get 4 to 16 inches of snow, the storm was being blamed for a series of crashes on I-89 in Bolton and South Burlington.