Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, jck, and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular 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 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
We begin with news from Africa, from the Associated Press (I have been on this train; the site of the crash is across the river Nile from where I worked on an archaeological site):
By NOHA ELHENNAWY and MOHAMED WAGDY
TAHTA, Egypt (AP) — Two trains crashed Friday in southern Egypt, killing at least 32 people and injuring 165, authorities said in the latest of a series of deadly accidents on the country’s troubled railways.
Someone apparently activated the emergency brakes on the passenger train, and it was rear-ended by another train, causing two cars to derail and flip on their side, Egypt’s Railway Authorities said, although Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly later added that no cause has been determined. The passenger train was headed to the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, north of Cairo, rail officials said.
From CNN:
By Bethlehem Feleke and Eliza Mackintosh, CNN
(CNN)Eritrea will withdraw its troops from Ethiopia, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Friday, days after acknowledging for the first time that Eritrean forces had entered Ethiopia's northern Tigray region during the country's five-month-old conflict.
"The government of Eritrea has agreed to withdraw its forces out of the Ethiopian border. The Ethiopian National Defense Force will take over guarding the border areas effective immediately," Abiy said in a
statement on Twitter after meeting with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki in the Eritrean capital of Asmara.
From the BBC:
France bears "heavy and overwhelming responsibilities" over the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report by French historians says, but they found no evidence of French complicity.
The expert commission presented the report to French President Emmanuel Macron. The report said France had been "blind" to genocide preparations.
From the BBC:
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has banned all inland travel in and out of five counties, including the capital Nairobi, to stop a surge of Covid-19 cases.
No road, rail or air transport will be allowed until further notice, Mr Kenyatta said.
From The Guardian:
Concerns for animals’ welfare if Ever Given blockage crisis is protracted
At least 20 of the boats delayed due to a stricken container ship in the Suez canal are carrying livestock, according to marine tracking data, raising concerns about the welfare of the animals if the logjam becomes protracted.
The 220,000-ton Ever Given is causing the longest closure of the Suez canal in decades with more than 200 ships estimated to be unable to pass, and incoming vessels diverting around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
Also from The Guardian:
Death of Samah el-Hadi, allegedly shot by her father, has led to outpouring of women sharing own stories of domestic violence
Thousands of people have signed a petition urging the Sudanese government to take action against a man released without charge by police after his 13-year-old daughter was shot dead.
Samah el-Hadi was shot three times and run over by a car, reports said. Neighbours have taken to social media to blame her father, who was briefly questioned by the authorities but released after telling them Samah had taken her own life. No postmortem was carried out on the girl’s body.
From the Associated Press:
By ZEN SOO and JOE McDONALD
HONG KONG (AP) — H&M disappeared from the internet in China as the government raised pressure on shoe and clothing brands and announced sanctions Friday against British officials in a spiraling fight over complaints of abuses in the Xinjiang region.
H&M products were missing from major e-commerce platforms including Alibaba and JD.com following calls by state media for a boycott over the Swedish retailer’s decision to stop buying cotton from Xinjiang. That hurts H&M’s ability to reach customers in a country where more than a fifth of shopping is online.
Also from the Associated Press:
By JILL LAWLESS and PAN PYLAS
LONDON (AP) — China slapped sanctions on several British politicians and organizations Friday after the U.K. joined the European Union and others in sanctioning Chinese officials accused of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. The U.K. responded by accusing China of violating human rights on an “industrial scale.”
In the latest salvo in its full-bore response to Western criticism, China sanctioned four British institutions and nine individuals, including prominent lawmakers who have criticized the treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang. It said they would be barred from visiting Chinese territory and banned from having financial transactions with Chinese citizens and institutions.
From CNN Business:
The duties, which range from 116% to 218%, were announced Friday and come after an investigation by Chinese authorities found instances of "dumping and [market] damage." They take effect on Sunday.
From New York Magazine:
Israel is often touted as the only democracy in the Middle East. On the face of it, this is largely true — Lebanon, for instance, is also a democracy, but its system is complicated and deeply dysfunctional. Israel has certainly been the most functional democracy in the region throughout its history. But now, after four national elections in two years, none of which has produced a workable government, Israel is looking a lot less functional and a lot more like its neighbors.
From the New York Times:
Israel and Iran have fought a clandestine war across the Middle East for years, mainly by land and air. Now ships are under attack in the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
JERUSALEM — The sun was rising on the Mediterranean one recent morning when the crew of an Iranian cargo ship heard an explosion. The ship, the Shahr e Kord, was about 50 miles off the coast of Israel, and from the bridge the sailors saw a plume of smoke rising from one of the hundreds of containers stacked on deck.
From Yahoo News:
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three Russian nuclear ballistic missile submarines have surfaced simultaneously breaking the Arctic ice during drills, reported the commander-in-chief of the Russian fleet at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin via videolink on Friday.
The commander, Nikolai Yevmenov, said the sophisticated manoeuvre was carried out by submarines "for the first time in the history of the Russian Navy". The submarines surfaced within a 300 meters radius and the ice they broke was 1.5 meter deep, the admiral added.
From the BBC:
By Esra Yalcinalp
It has been a tumultuous and anxious week for women in Turkey.
When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree at midnight last Friday, annulling Turkey's ratification of the Istanbul Convention on violence against women, women poured on to the streets of Turkish cities to protest. Further demonstrations are planned.
From the New York Times:
The Vatican has been hit hard by the economic impact of the pandemic, prompting Francis to impose pay cuts on cardinals and others so lower-ranking employees can keep their jobs.
Published March 25, 2021Updated March 26, 2021, 4:03 a.m. ET
ROME — In an effort to contain costs and save jobs amid a slump in tourist dollars and donations as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis has ordered across-the-board pay cuts for the cardinals and other higher-ranking clerics working in the Vatican.
From the BBC:
Germany could see 100,000 infections a day if the third wave of coronavirus spreads unchecked, the head of the RKI public health institute has warned.
Fears that the third Covid wave could be the worst so far have prompted a clampdown on borders.
From the BBC:
France has accused the UK of "blackmail" over its handling of coronavirus vaccine exports, amid continuing tensions over supply chains.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was asked whether the EU had been "scammed" by sending millions of doses to the UK while its own rollout stuttered.
From the Guardian:
Newly accused of data manipulation by the US, AstraZeneca has faced unprecedented scrutiny over the past six months
It was billed as the vaccine to deliver the world from Covid. But over the last six months, AstraZeneca – whose jab was designed to save thousands of lives for no profit – has found itself stumbling along an extraordinarily rocky road, facing accusations over the efficacy, supply and side-effects of its vaccine from all quarters, and being kicked about like a political football.
News from the Arts World:
We begin with this from the Guardian:
Aberdeen says it will repatriate a bust while Cambridge museum has ‘expectation’ its collection could be returned
Regional UK museums could lead a wave of repatriations of disputed Benin bronzes – most of them looted by British forces in 1897 – in defiance of the British government’s stance that institutions should “retain and explain” contested artefacts.
On Thursday, the University of Aberdeen confirmed it would repatriate a bust of an Oba, or king of Benin, which it has had since the 1950s, “within weeks”, a landmark move for a British institution.
From the New York Times:
Pro-Beijing lawmakers have called for work by the dissident artist Ai Weiwei to be removed from a new museum, and accused local arts groups of undermining national security.
HONG KONG — With its multibillion-dollar price tag and big-name artists, M+, the museum rising on Victoria Harbor, was meant to embody Hong Kong’s ambitions of becoming a global cultural hub. It was to be the city’s first world-class art museum, proof that Hong Kong could do high culture just as well as finance.
It may instead become the symbol of how the Chinese Communist Party is muzzling Hong Kong’s art world.
From KSNB:
BOSTON (AP) — The Museum of Science in Boston is paying tribute to city native Leonard Nimoy with a 20-foot sculpture shaped like Mr. Spock’s split-fingered “live long and prosper” hand gesture, the museum and the late “Star Trek” actor’s family announced Friday.
The stainless steel monument, designed by artist David Phillips, will be placed in front of the museum. The announcement was made on the same day former Mayor Marty Walsh proclaimed Leonard Nimoy Day in the city.
From the New York Times:
The Gwangju Biennale, on tap for April 1, is the most closely watched art event in Asia.
GWANGJU, South Korea — One warm February morning, the curator Defne Ayas bounded up a steep, sylvan path toward a cemetery in this city of 1.5 million as she discussed shamanic practices, resistance movements and other aspects of the area’s history that are themes in the art exhibition she was finalizing nearby.
From Yale News:
By Mike Cummings
“Eryngium foetidum (Prue)” a hand-colored lithograph by visual artist Joscelyn Gardner, tells a poignant story of a woman confronting oppression.
Prue, an enslaved woman, is depicted from the back. Her intricately braided hair entwines with an iron collar clasped around her neck. Spikes project from the torture device like a monster’s claws. A medicinal herb, E. foetidum, sprouts below it. Enslaved women ingested the plant to end pregnancies, intent on preventing the use of their bodies to perpetuate slavery.
From the Berkshire Eagle:
'This is a Robbery' debuts April 7 on Netflix
PITTSFIELD — “!SOMEONE IS IN THE DUTCH ROOM. INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY!!.”
A dot matrix printer spit out the silent alarm over and over again in the early morning hours of March 18, 1990. The alarm went unanswered. The greatest art heist in U.S. history was taking place; the security guards were handcuffed and bound with duct tape in the basement of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
The robbery would last 81 minutes; 13 art works worth $500 million dollars were taken. Among the stolen items were “Christ In The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee,” the only known seascape painted by Rembrandt, and “The Concert,” one of only 36 paintings by Johannes Vermeer.
From the Art Newspaper:
The decision on whether to return the painting, which hangs in Dusseldorf’s Kunstpalast, will be made by the city assembly in April
CATHERINE HICKLEY
Germany’s advisory panel on Nazi-looted art urged the city of Dusseldorf to return the painting Foxes (1913) by Franz Marc to the heirs of a Jewish banker who sold it to fund his escape to Chile after he was imprisoned in a concentration camp.
The painting, estimated to be worth between €15m-€30m, has until now hung in the Dusseldorf Kunstpalast. Markus Stoetzel, the lawyer representing the heirs of Kurt Grawi, said his clients are “happy that the advisory commission has recognised his suffering under the Nazis and the context of pressure and necessity in which he sold this work”.