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.
I will try to post several stories about women tonight (and next Friday is International Women’s Day, celebrated more broadly around the world than it is in the U.S.). But first a few collections of photos.
Deutsche Welle has pictures of ten interesting mailboxes from around the world.
And The Guardian has twenty pictures of the week and the week in wildlife.
From The Guardian:
Miriam Margolyes, Kate Winslet and Gillian Anderson among those giving voice to objects including a femur, a thumbscrew and a glass dildo
‘I think it’s terribly funny that men have these weird dangles between their legs – I wouldn’t like that at all.” The actor Miriam Margolyes is talking about male genitalia and dildos – subjects she assumes must have been causing amusement for millennia. “I think from the very beginning, women have been just hooting with laughter.”
And yet – how would we know? So often, women’s voices have been squeezed to the margins of history, their thoughts on all kinds of subjects disregarded by those who got to narrate the past. As Margolyes puts it: “Women have had to fight for space from the beginning.”
(with the reading of the chapter on a glass dildo by Miriam Margolyes included)
Also from The Guardian:
People at public meeting raise concerns that sculpture in cathedral grounds will attract tourists taking selfies
The idea was to celebrate one of the greatest British authors with a beautiful statue set up in a cathedral for the 250th anniversary of their birth.
But at a public meeting to discuss the erection of a Jane Austen sculpture close to her final resting place at Winchester Cathedral, concerns were raised that it would lead to the “Disneyfication” of the place of worship and become a magnet for tourists keen to get a selfie.
And from Al Jazeera:
Multiple costs to qualify for work leads, forced product purchases, and a high rate of blockings have stripped their earnings.
We’ll start with the Americas (other than the U.S.) in our trip around the world. From CBS News:
Port-au-Prince — Gun battles across the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince Thursday left four police officers dead as a prominent gang leader said a coordinated attack by armed groups was underway to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Shots were heard across the city as authorities battled assailants who had targeted police stations, including two that were set on fire, as well as a police academy and the Toussaint-Louverture International Airport.
"Today, we announce that all armed groups are going to act to get Prime Minister Ariel Henry to step down," gang leader Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherisier said in a video posted on social media before the attacks began.
From the Associated Press:
BY TOM ODULANAIROBI
Kenya and Haiti signed agreements Friday to try to salvage a plan for the African country to deploy 1,000 police officers to the troubled Caribbean nation to help combat gang violence that has surged to unprecedented levels.
From The Guardian:
Nineteen dead, hundreds homeless and 700,000 taking legal action. Eco true-crime podcast Dead River delves into a Brazilian dam’s collapse – and how it’s led to the UK’s biggest ever class-action lawsuit
I listen to Dead River while running home from a quick dip, surrounded by fag butts and Lucozade bottles, in the brown stretch of what Thames Water describes as “our most important water source”. But as I listen to the descriptions of 43.7mn cubic metres of toxic, brown mud – the “tailings” of just one Brazilian iron ore mine near Mariana – filling more than 645km (400 miles) of watercourses, from the collapsed Fundão dam all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, I realise that, really, I know nothing about dead rivers.
A few from Africa, beginning with news about Ghana from NBC News (AP):
If signed by the president, the bill would criminalize relationships, sexual activity and public displays of affection between members of the LGBTQ community.
By The Associated Press
ACCRA, Ghana — A bill which criminalizes LGBTQ people in Ghana and their supporters drew international condemnation Thursday after it was passed by parliament, with the United Nations calling it “profoundly disturbing” and urging for it not to become law.
In a statement, Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner, said the bill broadens the scope of criminal sanctions against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people simply for being who they are, and threatens criminal penalties against those perceived as their allies.
From Reuters:
ACCRA, March 1 (Reuters) - Ghanaian trans woman and activist Angel Maxine fled to Berlin before parliament passed an
anti-LGBTQ bill. She fears for the safety of the friends she has had to leave behind.
Lawmakers on Wednesday unanimously passed the legislation that will intensify a crackdown on the rights of LGBTQ people and those accused of promoting lesbian, gay or other minority sexual or gender identities in the West African country.
From Al Jazeera:
UN human rights chief says humanitarian aid is being blocked and sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war.
From Deutsche Welle:
Kate Hairsine
"In 1994, I was 51 years old, and I voted for the first time," said John Kani, a prominent South African actor, as he told DW about his experience voting in the country's first post-apartheid election. "I was angry because it had taken so long to do something so simple as to put an X against the name of the party that I thought would deliver my freedom."
Thirty years later, ahead of elections scheduled for May 29, the South African theater pioneer is angry again. While he applauds certain things that have been achieved by the ruling African National Congress (ANC), he's "sad about the corruption and political violence."
From The Guardian:
Attack on juvenile is thought to be first known time a lone orca has hunted down a great white
It is a smash and grab that has stunned scientists: in less than two minutes, a killer whale attacked and consumed a great white shark before swimming off with the victim’s liver in its mouth.
Experts say the event off the coast of Mossel Bay in South Africa offers new insights into the predatory behaviour of orcas.
Now to the north, where we start from the UK in the west, and The Guardian:
Person on moped fired weapon in Clapham Common area and suspects remain at large, police say
Daniel Lavelle
Three people have been taken to hospital after shots were fired by a moped rider in south London, the Metropolitan police said.
Police were seen chasing the bike through Clapham after the incident on Friday afternoon. The firearm, believed to be a shotgun, was discharged from the vehicle in the Clapham Common area.
Another from The Guardian:
With details scant about the Princess of Wales’s health, diehard royalists are losing their minds. Into the vacuum steps Andy
Say what you will about King Charles’s previously fanfared vision for a “slimmed-down monarchy”, its injury woes suggest it could do with buying another striker. If that isn’t how it works, then it’s clear that despite thinking they are the greatest fans in the world, many diehard royalists are simply not happy with what they’re seeing out there on the pitch, and are voicing their increasingly hysterical discontent. The king’s cancer treatment and the Princess of Wales’s convalescence from abdominal surgery have come at the same time, and social media is awash with the type of bizarre and brutal conspiracy theories in which so many of the #BeKind contingent specialise. Traditional media is trying to lose its mind with dignity, and – as so often before – tragically failing.
And from (where else) The Guardian:
PM spends 10 minutes sharing his innermost fears with the nation without offering any solutions
Nothing shouts “Don’t panic! Don’t panic” more than a hastily arranged speech from the prime minister outside No 10 at 5.45pm on a Friday. Still, on the plus side, those who chose to carry on watching Pointless on BBC One won’t have missed a thing. It would have been hard to tell the two apart.
Rishi Sunak is the politician’s anti-politician. If he ever came close to a real politician, he might dissolve on contact. Just as well there are so few of them in his cabinet. You could almost call it a talent – the unerring ability to do the wrong thing. To strike the wrong tone. To misjudge the situation. Every time you think things couldn’t get any worse, Rish! appears to say: “Hold my Coke.”
From The Guardian:
Governments said to be ‘dragging their feet’ in handing over evidence relating to death of Dag Hammarskjöld
The US and UK have been accused by university researchers of obstructing a United Nations inquiry into the 1961 plane crash that killed the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld.
A conference in London heard an update from the UN assistant secretary general for legal affairs, Stephen Mathias, on progress in the inquiry, which is seeking archive documentation from member states.
From Deutsche Welle:
Aditi Rajagopal 17 hours ago
Copenhagen is just one city among many around the world taking a novel approach to prevent repeated flooding. It is becoming a sponge.
Though it is one of the busiest roundabouts in the east of Copenhagen, the air at Sankt Kjelds Plads isn't heavy with the smell and texture of exhaust fumes. And rather than the roar of engines, the soundscape is characterized by the sputtering notes of long-tailed tits.
The traffic circle, which is covered with shrubs and trees, is part of a large-scale experiment to transform public spaces in the Danish capital. The idea is to make Copenhagen more "livable" by creating places for citizens to meet and habitat for biodiversity, while simultaneously creating cogs in a flood-control machine.
From The Hill:
BY DOV S. ZAKHEIM, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
Sweden is at last entering NATO, thanks to Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán lifting their holds on Stockholm’s application. The decision by these leaders to finally support Swedish entry means that the Baltic Sea has effectively become a NATO lake, thereby heightening the threat not only to the Russian exclave Kaliningrad, but to Vladimir Putin’s native St. Petersburg as well.
A number of factors led to the long-awaited decisions by the two leaders. Turkey objected to Sweden’s refusal to crack down on its large Kurdish population, many of whom Ankara considered to be members or supporters of the Kurdish terrorist PKK organization. But over the past year, Sweden introduced a new anti-terrorism bill that renders membership in a terrorist enterprise illegal. Stockholm also increased its surveillance of the Kurdish community, toughened its treatment of Kurdish asylum seekers and shut down bank accounts of Kurdish charities suspected of supporting the PKK. Swedish public radio also announced the termination of its Kurdish language broadcasts, though it insists that is just a cost-cutting measure. When the Turkish parliament ratified Sweden’s application, members of the Erdogan’s AK Party pointed to Sweden’s new policies as a major factor in their voting to support Swedish entry to NATO.
From the Hindustan Times:
Days after Russian President issued a nuclear warning, Moscow conducted a missile test. Russian Defence Ministry said it successfully conducted a test firing of Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles. The ministry said that all set tasks were fulfilled during the missile test. Russia had first deployed the Yars ICBM system, also known as RS-24, in 2009.
From the New York Times:
Ordinary Iranians, fed up with a faltering economy and the government’s oppressive rules and violent crackdowns on peaceful protests, heeded calls to stay home.
Iran held parliamentary elections on Friday, but despite officials’ last-minute attempts to increase voter turnout with pleas on social media and roses at polling stations, many people stayed away from the ballot in an act of protest against the government, according to witnesses, interviews and news reports.
In the capital, Tehran, the turnout was estimated at 11 percent, the hard-line parliamentary candidate Ali Akbar Raefipour said in a post on social media, and across the country, turnout was around 40 percent, according to IRNA, the official Iranian news agency — even with polls extending their opening hours to 10 p.m. from 8 p.m.
From NPR:
NEW DELHI, India – India's butter chicken lives among that rarefied pantheon of dishes that is well-loved at home and well-traveled: a smoky, cooked chicken smothered in a bright sauce of tomato, cream, butter and spices. It's been eaten by truck drivers at road-side stalls in rural India and by international glamourati like Jackie Kennedy.
Now butter chicken is at the center of a lawsuit over a burning question: Who gets to say they concocted this dish? The fight is between the grandsons of the two men who founded Moti Mahal, the restaurant where butter chicken was likely first served in India. "The suit has been filed to protect my family legacy," says Monish Gujral, the grandson of one of the founders. He wants the other grandson to stop claiming that his grandfather invented the dish. It's a weighty suit, with the family filing a 2,752-page long document to back their claims.
From CNN:
Tour operators and a company which owns the New Zealand island where a volcanic eruption killed 22 people and wounded many others have been fined $1.6 million (NZ$2.6 million), and ordered to pay victims and surviving families $6.2 million (NZ$10.2 million) in compensation.
The District Court in Auckland handed down its sentence on Friday, ending a criminal prosecution brought by WorkSafe, New Zealand’s health and safety regulators, to seek justice for 47 tourists who were on Whakaari or White Island on December 9, 2019.
And finally, something I have been worried aboutI don’t want all of us to be offered up for the Darwin Awards), this from The Verge:
Countries tried and failed to establish tougher ground rules for solar geoengineering.
By Justine Calma, a senior science reporter covering climate change, clean energy, and environmental justice with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home, a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals.
A de facto moratorium on solar geoengineering will stay in place after heated talks at the United Nations Environment Assembly ended in a stalemate. The debate is over whether to let people launch particles into the sky that would reflect sunlight back into space, ostensibly cooling down the planet.
It’s a hotly contested tactic for tackling climate change. Geoengineering does nothing to stop what’s actually causing the problem: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. And tinkering with the makeup of our planet and its atmosphere in order to reflect solar radiation could lead to unforeseen consequences that scientists are still trying to understand. After all, the climate change we’re already experiencing — in the form of rising seas, extreme weather, and other disasters — can be thought of as the result of unintended geoengineering through greenhouse gas pollution.