Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, 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.
Before we examine what is going on around the world, let’s take a moment to honour what happened at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.
In a change from my normal practice, there are war stories above the fold, but I hope they are approaches and topics you might not have heard. Other news below, including happier news. But we begin with a relatively happy ending for a war story, from the CBC:
After a harrowing birth and evacuation, a Palestinian family is reunited in Toronto
Lane Harrison
Over the past few weeks, Ahmad Abualjedian has been in Brantford, Ont., bracing for news that his wife and daughter, who was born in the waiting room of an overflowing hospital in Gaza, had died.
After communications in the besieged territory were cut off, he couldn't get in touch with them for days at a time. His wife, Yara, gave birth in the city of Jabalia on Oct. 23, in a hospital with no electricity and without anesthetic. Now, he said, both she and the whole family are finally getting some relief.
From CBS News:
BY LI COHEN
Tatyana Tapalova's home nation of Ukraine has now been at war with Russia for nearly two years. But as a longtime resident of Gaza with her husband and their five children, Tapalova has been left with a heartwrenching choice – stay in the territory to keep her family together, or flee to an entirely new place to take care of her children as a single parent from two war-torn lands.
Tapalova and her children, including a 9-month-old baby, have been granted access to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. Her husband, however, was not.
From NPR:
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 killed some 1,400 people, according to Israeli authorities. Palestinian authorities maintain that the Israeli response has killed more than 10,000.
So it's reasonable to ask why the death of a single olive farmer has captured such attention. Numerous news outlets, including NPR, covered the killing of Bilal Saleh outside his village last month. Human rights groups and think tanks have highlighted the case.
From the Washington Post:
TALLINN, Estonia — Ukrainian and Russian officials on Friday reported reaching an agreement to bring a Ukrainian teenager taken to Russia amid the war last year back to his home country, in accordance with his wishes.
Bohdan Yermokhin, a 17-year-old whose parents passed away years ago, will be reunited with a cousin “in a third country” on his 18th birthday later this month, with a view to then return to Ukraine, Russian children’s rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova said in an online statement Friday. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets also confirmed on Friday that Yermokhin “will soon be in Ukraine.”
And from a conflict that has faded pretty completely from international news, courtesy of africanews:
Bodies of people in military uniforms litter the streets of Omdourman, on the outskirts of the Sudanese capital, witnesses reported on Thursday, as the UN warned of intensifying fighting in the Darfur region in the seventh month of the war between the army and paramilitaries.
Clashes continue in Khartoum and its suburbs as well as in Darfur, in the west of the country, while a new round of negotiations sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the United States ended this week without reaching an agreement on a ceasefire.
From Agence France Presse, via The Guardian:
UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan says war between army and paramilitaries is ‘horrific’
Violence against civilians in Sudan is “verging on pure evil,” a senior UNofficial has warned, as fighting escalates seven months into the war between the army and paramilitaries.
“We keep saying that the situation is horrific and grim. But, frankly, we are running out of words to describe the horror of what is happening in Sudan,” said Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan.
The BBC brings us pictures of the week.
From the Daily Mail (UK):
By REBEKAH ABSALOM
Prince Andrew cut a solemn figure as he rode his horse around the grounds of Windsor Castle today.
The Duke of York, 63, opted for an all-black outfit featuring a long raincoat as he took to the saddle in Windsor Great Park on the eve of Armistice Day.
He also gave a subtle nod to his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, by placing a cluster of red poppies on his horse for the second time.
From The Quint:
The four years of the World War 1 saw the service of 1.3 million Indians, of whom 74,000 never made it back home.
The First World War, or the Great War as it is also called, raged across Europe and several war arenas scattered across the world from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. These four years saw the service of 1.3 million Indians, of whom 74,000 never made it back home. For their families, the war was something they couldn’t quite understand.
Given the large-scale Indian involvement in a war that the majority of Indians could not fully comprehend, we shall once again look into the mirror of Urdu to see how the poet viewed the momentous years of the Jang-e Azeem as the Great War came to be called in Urdu.
From NBC:
An expedition through a perilous mountain range in Indonesia captured the first-ever photographic evidence of the species, which has a unique and fragile evolutionary history.
An expedition through an unpredictable, perilous mountain range in Indonesia’s province of Papua led to the rediscovery of a critically endangered egg-laying mammal that hasn’t been seen for more than 60 years.
For the researchers of Expedition Cyclops, Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna — a bizarre-looking, quill-covered creature with powerful digging feet — is a symbol of the biodiversity that can be rediscovered in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains.
From NBC (AP):
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a plan that will initially allow up to 280 Tuvaluans to come to Australia each year.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Australia on Friday offered the island nation of Tuvalu a lifeline to help residents escape the rising seas and increased storms brought by climate change.
At a meeting of Pacific leaders in the Cook Islands, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a plan that will initially allow up to 280 Tuvaluans to come to Australia each year. Tuvalu has a population of 11,000, and its low-lying atolls make it particularly vulnerable to global warming.
From Eurasianet:
Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, hosted routine talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Astana on November 9. At the customary, post-meeting press conference, Tokayev said little that was new, yet his delivery marked a notable departure from the past. He opened his remarks in Kazakh, not Russian.
Tokayev’s rhetoric included the usual platitudes concerning the strength of bilateral relations, which he said were underpinned by “unshakable values of mutual respect and trust.” He went on to “confirm Kazakhstan is committed to the strategic direction of further strengthening comprehensive cooperation with Russia.” But in making top Russian officials in attendance, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, reach from their translation devices, Tokayev sent a clear signal to the Kremlin: the dynamics of the relationship are shifting as the Ukraine war plays out. Russia needs to actually respect Kazakhstan’s sovereignty, in deeds not just words, and adjust its imperial mindset.
From the Hindustan Times:
Central Pollution Control Board reported a marked reduction in Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi.
Delhi and its adjoining areas experienced a much-needed reprieve from its deteriorating air quality as rain showers graced the national capital region on Friday. The intermittent rainfall throughout the day significantly improved the air quality in the city. The drizzles have helped settle the suspended particulate matter, particularly PM 2.5 and PM 10, providing relief to the residents who have been grappling with hazardous air quality levels in recent days.
From the BBC:
A British couple died in Egypt from carbon monoxide poisoning after the next-door hotel room was sprayed with pesticide to kill bedbugs, an inquest has ruled.
John Cooper and Susan Cooper, from Lancashire, fell ill while on a family holiday in Hurghada on 21 August 2018.
An inquest heard the next-door room had been fumigated following a report of a bedbug infestation.
James Adeley, senior coroner said the couple were poisoned overnight.
From the BBC:
More than 1.6 million people in Somalia could be affected by the recent unusually heavy seasonal rains, the United Nations has warned.
The UN has released $25m (£20.5m) in aid, describing the floods as a "once-in-a-century event."
Authorities say at least 29 people have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced, with more rain to come.
From the BBC:
Translators who work for German peacekeepers in Mali have told the BBC they fear for their lives as the UN mission winds up its mission in the West African country.
The 19 interpreters wrote to the German government on 7 August asking for protection as the jihadist groups that operate in northern Mali regard those who work with the UN as traitors.
"The terrorists have been openly saying that any person working for international forces is considered an enemy," a translator for the UN's German military contingent, whose name has been withheld for safety reasons, told the BBC.
And our last Africa story is also from the BBC:
At the start of Sierra Leone's dry season in November, 26-year-old Adama Sesay sells fruits and vegetables at a busy market in the centre of the country's capital, Freetown. It's hard work, and one of the greatest challenges in her day is extreme heat.
"We suffer from extreme heat, suffocation and noise pollution," says Sesay, sitting on a cylinder brick in the overcrowded Bombay Street market, bustling with customers, traders, motorists and travelers.
From The Guardian:
'Never again is now': hundreds march in Berlin as 1938 Nazi pogrom marked
Several hundred people marched in Berlin on Thursday evening to mark the 85th anniversary of the 1938 November pogroms, while the landmark Brandenburg Gate was illuminated with the words: 'Never again is now!' Incidents of antisemitism have increased globally since the outbreak of the Israeli-Hamas war, causing particular soul-searching in Germany, which has prided itself on its culture of remembering its dark past and drawing from it a historic duty to fight anti-Jewish hate.
From the BBC:
By Robert Plummer
Anti-terrorism police in Belgium have detained two suspected members of a far-right group accused of plotting bomb attacks and inciting violence.
The pair, a man and a woman in their early 20s, were picked up after a series of raids on houses in Diepenbeek and Ostend, prosecutors said.
One house contained large quantities of Nazi memorabilia and flags, they added.
From the Associated Press:
LONDON (AP) — A British judge on Friday expressed profound concerns about the tactics of the parents of a terminally ill infant as he refused to allow them to take her home from the hospital to die.
The decision by Court of Appeal Justice Peter Jackson came after the parents of 8-month-old Indi Gregory and the Italian government had sought permission for her to be treated at Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital in Rome.
From the Washington Post:
A barrage of hundreds of earthquakes, including two exceeding a magnitude of 5.0 and at least seven topping 4.5, rattled Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula on Friday. The seismic swarm suggests the eruption of an area volcano in the hours or day ahead and has prompted the Icelandic Meteorological Office to declare a Civil Protection Emergency Level.
The Fagradalsfjall volcano is in Iceland’s southern peninsula region, about 25 miles southwest of Reykjavik, the country’s capital. A number of tremors have shaken the city, and the famed Blue Lagoon geothermal spa in Grindavik has been closed. It was initially unclear whether Fagradalsfjall was responsible for the increased seismic activity or whether an eruption was brewing elsewhere within the Reykjanes volcanic system.
And finally, back where we began, from the CBC:
Marketplace investigation also found public transit issues for people with disabilities
Jenny Cowley, Jeremy McDonald, Travis Dhanraj
Michelle Weger relies on her service dog, Quinn, to get her through the day.
The Ottawa resident has narcolepsy, and the Great Dane can sense when Weger is tired, bracing against her or warning her when she's about to experience cataplexy, a temporary muscle paralysis that can cause her to fall. That early warning gives Weger the time to get to a safe space.
For Weger, Quinn is an absolute necessity, but can become an issue when she tries to get an Uber, Lyft or taxi. She says there's been "friction" with drivers and cancelled rides with rideshares.