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 consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, jlms qkw, Interceptor7, and ScottyUrb, guest editor annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you.
BBC:Italian Senate panel recommends Berlusconi expulsion
Italian Senate panel recommends Berlusconi expulsion
A cross-party panel of the Italian Senate has recommended the expulsion from the chamber of Silvio Berlusconi over his conviction for tax fraud.
The call to expel the ex-premier who dominated politics for nearly two decades in Italy is expected to go before the Senate within three weeks.
Berlusconi threatened to topple the coalition government over the issue but backed down during a confidence vote.
He accused the Senate panel of bias and stayed away from its deliberations.
BBC:Vietnam's General Vo Nguyen Giap dies
Vietnam's General Vo Nguyen Giap dies
Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese general who masterminded victories against France and the US, has died aged 102.
His defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 effectively ended French colonial rule in the region.
He was North Vietnam's defence minister at the time of the Tet Offensive against American forces in 1968, often cited as a key campaign that led to the Americans' withdrawal.
Gen Giap also published a number of works on military strategy.
BBC:Mombasa riots after Kenyan cleric Ibrahim Omar killed
Mombasa riots after Kenyan cleric Ibrahim Omar killed
Four people have been killed in Kenya's port of Mombasa during clashes between police and those angered at the killing of a Muslim cleric, the Red Cross says.
Seven people have also been wounded during the disturbances, while a church was set alight.
The cleric Ibrahim "Rogo" Omar and three other people were shot dead in Mombasa as they drove home on Thursday night after preaching.
It comes two weeks after the deadly attack on a Nairobi shopping centre.
BBC:Italy sinking: Bad weather hampers search for migrants
Italy sinking: Bad weather hampers search for migrants
Rough seas forced divers to postpone their search for more than 200 migrants still unaccounted for after their boat sank off southern Italy.
Rescuers have so far found 111 bodies, and 155 people have been pulled alive from the seas 1km (half a mile) from the island of Lampedusa.
Video footage showed the boat lying upright on the seabed some 150ft (45m) below the surface.
Divers have described seeing horrific scenes inside the wreckage
BBC:Colombia peace talks: Farc points to 'modest progress'
Colombia peace talks: Farc points to 'modest progress'
Colombia's main rebel group, the Farc, says it has achieved "modest progress" in peace negotiations with the government.
As another round of talks resumed in Cuba, chief Farc negotiator Ivan Marquez said the agreements reached so far amount to a 25-page document.
They include deals on land reform, a key issue for the rebels, who began their armed struggle in the early 1960s in rural areas of Colombia.
The talks were launched in November.
BBC:Israel PM Netanyahu warns Iranians of 'immortal regime'
Israel PM Netanyahu warns Iranians of 'immortal regime'
Israel's prime minister says Iranians "deserve better" than their current government and that their lives could get worse if it gains nuclear weapons.
In an interview with BBC Persian, Benjamin Netanyahu warned: "If they get nuclear weapons this brutal regime will be immortal, like North Korea."
He also said the new President, Hassan Rouhani, could not "change the real decisions" made by the Supreme Leader.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mr Rouhani have said they reject nuclear weapons.
Reuters:Email, undisclosed in SAC trader's case, could help defense: sources
Email, undisclosed in SAC trader's case, could help defense: sources
(Reuters) - In the coming trial of a SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund portfolio manager, Michael Steinberg, prosecutors are likely to present emails purporting to show he was being tipped about inside information on Dell Inc before trading on the stock.
But two people familiar with the matter said there are some emails that prosecutors have not included in court filings that could be helpful to Steinberg's defense that he did not engage in insider trading in August 2008 at SAC, founded by Steven A. Cohen, one of Wall Street's most successful hedge fund managers.
The outcome of Steinberg's criminal trial in New York, scheduled to start on November 18, could affect negotiations between lawyers for SAC Capital and federal prosecutors over resolving an indictment against SAC Capital itself. In the indictment unsealed in July, Steinberg is listed as one of seven people either charged or convicted of insider trading while working for Cohen's 21-year-old hedge fund.
The two people familiar with the email said that in the Steinberg case, the previously undisclosed email could counter those prosecutors already have made public.
Reuters:Netanyahu struggles to set the terms in Iranian dispute
Netanyahu struggles to set the terms in Iranian dispute
(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that Iran's new president was a "wolf in sheep's clothing", but he himself looked increasingly like a lone wolf as his allies seek to bring Tehran into the fold.
After years of worrying about Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions, Netanyahu took to the stage at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday and made his most explicit threat yet to attack the Islamic republic unless it ends its atomic program.
However, his warning carried less weight than in previous years, with only a dwindling band of diplomats and experts convinced that Israel might unleash its warplanes, especially at a time of warming ties between Iran and the rest of the world.
One Western diplomat involved in Iranian nuclear diplomacy described Netanyahu as "out of step" with the mood of detente and a former senior U.S. official cautioned that Israel would be unlikely to secure all its demands in any negotiations.
Reuters:Netherlands takes legal action against Russia over Greenpeace activists
Netherlands takes legal action against Russia over Greenpeace activists
(Reuters) - The Netherlands launched legal proceedings against Russia on Friday, saying it had unlawfully detained Greenpeace activists on a Dutch-registered ship for protesting against oil drilling in the Arctic.
Two Dutch citizens were among 30 people on board the Arctic Sunrise, a Greenpeace ship, which was seized by Russian authorities last month after activists staged the protest at the Prirazlomnaya offshore oil platform.
Russian authorities have pressed piracy charges, which could result in prison sentences of 15 years, against the activists.
The Russian government declined immediate comment.
Reuters:In pursuit of American humility
In pursuit of American humility
(Reuters) - This week, as Washington navel-gazed its way into a shutdown, its actions didn't go unnoticed abroad. In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, took the opportunity to gloat about the U.S.'s refusal to pay its federal workers, many of whom are on furlough because of the shutdown. "We are now witnessing the crisis in the U.S. We have never been a government that could not pay its personnel," Erdogan said.
This is how America's dysfunction at home is undermining its credibility abroad. The latest development: Obama's desire to maintain laser focus on the Republicans for political gain has prompted him to cancel a pivotal trip to Asia to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. But it's not just the shutdown: it is a series of issues over the past decade, chief among them the financial crisis. For decades the U.S. had been espousing the virtues of free market capitalism, urging other countries to adopt the model. America's exceptional economic success, the thinking went, allowed it to give advice about how other countries should build their own economies.
And then the bottom fell out. The crisis, spurred by lax regulations that were manipulated by the big banks, started in the United States, before its impact spread globally. An unemployment and debt crisis soon followed. So did a rush to rethink the way countries handle their economies. With the free-market system no longer sacrosanct, countries with other approaches were happy to second-guess the system. China's state capitalist model became a viable alternative as it navigated the financial crisis much better than most. I'll never forget my meeting with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei in 2009, when he asked me outright, "Now that the free market has failed, what do you think is the proper role for the state in the economy?" The financial crisis was an opportunity to reopen the debate surrounding perceived global values - and to kick the U.S. system while it was down.
That's a case study that points to America's larger problem. All too often, America has been leading by rhetoric rather than example. In a G-Zero world - what President Obama described as a "vacuum of leadership" in his U.N. General Assembly speech - strong words do not qualify as leadership. It's only credible when you call for reforms or actions that you actually stand behind - and reflect them in your domestic policy.
Reuters:U.N. nuclear agency sends new Fukushima expert mission
U.N. nuclear agency sends new Fukushima expert mission
(Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear agency said on Friday it would send an international team of experts to Japan later this month to look into efforts to clean up affected areas around the crippled Fukushima atomic power plant.
Japan's nuclear regulator earlier ordered the operator of Fukushima to draft in additional workers if needed to plug leaks of radioactive water from its tanks and report within a week on steps taken to fight the crisis.
The warning was the second in as many months issued to Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco, after the company found a second escape of contaminated liquids that probably entered the Pacific Ocean.
In Vienna, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the October 14-21 mission would "review the implementation of remediation activities in areas affected by the accident ... and provide advice to address associated challenges".
Reuters:Bank of Japan warns of severe global impact from U.S. fiscal standoff
Bank of Japan warns of severe global impact from U.S. fiscal standoff
(Reuters) - A prolonged U.S. budget standoff would hit global markets very hard, the Bank of Japan warned on Friday as it said it was ready to top up its existing massive stimulus if the recovery underway in the world's third-largest economy was threatened.
But for now, BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda saw no need to ease policy further as Japan was on the path to escape deflation and, if international risks receded as hoped, government fiscal stimulus would further boost growth next year.
The U.S. budget deadlock and fears of an unprecedented U.S. default dragged Tokyo shares to a four-week low and boosted the yen, casting a cloud on an otherwise upbeat outlook for Japan's export-driven economy.
"If this continues for a long time, this could destabilize financial markets and worsen sentiment," Kuroda told reporters after a two-day policy review meeting, adding that the BOJ was ready to respond to any sudden shocks.
LA Times:Secret NSA documents show campaign against Tor encrypted network
Secret NSA documents show campaign against Tor encrypted network
On Nov. 1, 2007, the National Security Agency hosted a talk by Roger Dingledine, principal designer of one of the world’s leading Internet privacy tools. It was a wary encounter, akin to mutual intelligence gathering, between a spy agency and a man who built tools to ward off electronic surveillance.
According to a top-secret NSA summary of the meeting, Dingledine told the assembled NSA staff that his service, called Tor, offered anonymity to people who needed it badly — to keep business secrets, protect their identities from oppressive political regimes or conduct research without revealing themselves. In the minds of NSA officials, Tor was offering protection to terrorists and other intelligence targets.
As he spoke to the NSA, Dingledine said in an interview Friday, he suspected the agency was attempting to break into Tor, which is used by millions of people around the world to shield their identities. Documents provided to The Washington Post by former agency contractor Edward Snowden show that he was right.
Beginning at least a year before Dingledine’s visit, the NSA has mounted increasingly successful attacks to unmask the identities and locations of users of Tor. In some cases, the agency has succeeded in blocking access to the anonymous network, diverting Tor users to insecure channels. In others, it has been able to “stain” anonymous traffic as it enters the Tor network, enabling the NSA to identify users as it exits.