Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, May 12, 2015.
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 near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Abducted by Cults
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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The business model of NSA apologists
By Cory Doctorow
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Those talking heads you see on TV defending the NSA and calling for Snowden's ass in a sling? They make bank off NSA surveillance contracts.
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What's more, the press outlets who quote the hysterical TERRISTSGONNAKILLUSALL party-line these profiteers spout never ask them if their views are in any way related to the bathtubs full of money they get from the NSA's mass surveillance programs.
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The men are, and were at the time, advisors to Paladin Capital Group, an investment advisor and private equity firm whose Homeland Security Fund was set up about three months after the September 11 attacks to focus on defense and intelligence-related startups. Woolsey confirmed he is paid by Paladin Capital; Clark did not respond to a request for comment. In 2014, Paladin’s portfolio was valued at more than $587 million. At the time of Woolsey and Clark’s anti-Snowden statements, it included a stake in Endgame Systems, a computer network security company that had worked with the NSA, having reportedly counted the agency among its largest customers. Paladin was also invested in CyberCore, which had provided technological work to the NSA. Later, in 2014, Paladin invested in Shadow Networks, formerly known as ZanttzZ, which also provided tech work to the NSA.
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Up to 90% of world's electronic waste is illegally dumped, says UN
By Will Nichols
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. . .
Computers and smart phones are among the ditched items contributing to this 41m tonne e-waste mountain, which could top 50m tonnes by 2017, Unep says in a new report launched today in Geneva.
It follows last month’s UN University report, which outlined how 42m tonnes of electronic waste were thrown out in 2014 at a cost of $52bn to the global economy.
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Countries are also losing out on significant amounts of resources, such as rare earth metals, copper and gold, while the conditions in which the products are dumped can be extremely hazardous to health.
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“Through enhanced international cooperation and legislative coherence, stronger national regulations and enforcement, as well as greater awareness and robust prevention measures we can ensure that the illegal trade and dumping of e-waste is brought to an end. This will create a win-win situation, whereby rare and expensive elements are safely recycled and reused, boosting the formal economy, depriving criminals of income and reducing health risks to the public.”
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Why Do We Give Medical Treatment That Increases Patients' Chances of Dying?
By Aaron E. Carroll
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We know that in many people, high blood pressure is bad. We therefore try and do things to lower it. But then we go ahead and decide that if lowering blood pressure in some people is good, it must be good for everyone. In frail, elderly people, however, there's no evidence for this—and there may be evidence that lowering blood pressure is a bad idea. But that runs counter to what we've always been told, so many ignore it.
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What the study found, to no one's real surprise, is that the people on two or more blood pressure medications who had a systolic blood pressure of less than 130 mm Hg had a significantly higher all-cause mortality. This held true even after additionally adjusting for propensity score–matched subsets, other cardiovascular issues, and the exclusion of patients without a history of hypertension who were receiving BP-lowering agents.
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And then when things get really bad, we act as if we weren't to blame. From an editorial in JAMA:
It is surprising that among frail elderly patients with a systolic blood pressure less than 130 mm Hg (20 percent of the studied group), the use of multiple antihypertensive drugs was continued, because few evidence-based data support this approach.
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International |
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Goodbye Ebola: Liberia holds party after 'beating' the disease
By (BBC)
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The government and the World Health Organisation made the announcement on Saturday after 42 days without a new case.
During Liberia's year-long epidemic 4,700 people died - more than any other country.
A public holiday was declared so pupils and workers could celebrate the virus being brought under control on Monday.
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The latest outbreak has killed five times more people than all the other known outbreaks put together.
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In December, the World Health Organisation found dozens of bodies in a remote part of Sierra Leone, raising fears that the full scale of the Ebola outbreak may have been underreported.
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The Facebook smugglers selling the dream of Europe
By Daniel Adamson and Mamdouh Akbiek
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Across the Mediterranean, people smugglers are advertising their services on Facebook, promising safe passage to migrants desperate to reach Europe. Their pages offer a glimpse into a smuggling network that spans three continents, generates hundreds of millions of dollars, and has become, in effect, an alternative asylum service for the EU.
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But behind the glib promises and the slick online communications is a ruthless real-world web of smugglers and con men who thrive on the vulnerability of the migrants.
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New EU proposals to distribute migrants across member states and break up clandestine networks might help to reduce people smuggling within Europe. But Musumeci says it will do nothing to stop the boats coming across the Mediterranean. Dealing with that, he argues, will require a whole new level of engagement with the political turmoil in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
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A spokesperson for Europol confirmed that their agents will look at the online presence of the smugglers: "JOT Mare is focussing on all modi operandi used by facilitators of irregular migration in the Mediterranean Sea, including the use of social media."
He conceded, though, that "Europol has no operational cooperation agreement with Libya" - the point of departure for the vast majority of migrants.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Why Switchblades Are Banned
By Wes Siler
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Second Amendment enthusiasts are adding a new front to their right-to-bear-arms battle: Knives. In particular, the infamous switchblade, which has been banned by federal law since 1958. Why all the fuss? Well, it all dates back to racism, xenophobia, class warfare, and political theater. Sound familiar? It’s no coincidence this was the knife Freddie Gray was arrested for carrying.
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Urban street violence was the 1950’s version of The War On Christmas. Look over here while we develop the military-industrial complex! And the switchblade was sexy. What began with “The Toy That Kills” led to a raft of newspaper and tabloid stories, all vilifying the switchblade, then Hollywood got in on the act with Rebel Without A Cause, Crime In The Streets, 12 Angry Men, The Delinquents, High School Confidential, etc, of course culminating with the smash hit broadway musical, West Side Story. That debuted in 1957. It’s no coincidence that the federal Switchblade Knife Act was passed the next year.
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I was once tackled by two plainclothes cops in Brooklyn. One had seen the pocket clip of my knife as I walked past his car and put two and two together — nerdy white guy in Williamsburg with a knife? Must be a criminal. My knife — a SOG Access Card 2.0 — was legal and the cops actually couldn’t figure out how to open it, so they got bored and went off to harass someone else.
It’s a situation that leads to much confusion and, potentially a willful misinterpretation of the law. Most of the burden for legality sits on the shoulders of knife makers and retailers, who have no incentive to make or sell illegal knives. Knives that are totally legal actually work better, faster and more reliably than switchblades. It’d take real effort to source and purchase a switchblade and you’d sacrifice utility and weaponyness in doing so. Anecdotally, no one does that. It just wouldn’t make sense. Yet these laws are still used every day. Witness Freddie Gray.
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Ronald Reagan shooting: John Hinckley back in court
By Tara McKelvey
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John Hinckley Jr leaves a psychiatric hospital to see his mum for regular visits. Now he wants to leave the place entirely, raising questions about how society should re-integrate those who've been deemed insane.
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Mr Hinckley visits his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia, spending 17 days a month there. He goes to see his friends and hangs out at bookstores.
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"It seems like this is a political issue more than a psychological issue," he says. "Because of the nature of his offence, people don't feel like he should ever be released."
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In these cases, says Mr Ewing, judges must consider individual circumstances and philosophical questions: "Basically it comes down to a question of which do we value more - an individual's freedom or our safety."
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
"With the last record, everything was challenging for us because we were such amateurs," Brian Oblivion, one half of the New York band Cults, tells us. "These songs are a lot more fun to play because they're so much more musically challenging," he continues. "If you're just getting on stage and are just going through the motions and not challenging yourself, it becomes obvious to everyone there that you're a humdrum act."
Static, the second album from the indie-pop wunderkinds, is an album for Cults fans. Although more melancholy in tone, Static is filled with the same captivating, sunnily-sung choruses that pushed the band's 2010 debut to the top of critic's end-of-year lists. . .
BROWN: People often tie pop music to a specific season—do you feel like music is seasonal?
FOLLIN: I think it can be, but I just remember people with a song like "Go Outside," every season somebody would be like, "Oh, this is a summer song!" "This is a perfect song for the winter!" I think it is what you make it.
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BROWN: Do you remember your first concert together?
OBLIVION: Yes, absolutely. It was the most surreal thing. We had never played a show before and we had a show coming up at the Mercury Lounge that was sold out and was going to be full of music industry people. We were tripping out really hard: "We've never played—we're going to tank." Madeline's stepdad, who's this old punk guy, called up one of his friends who runs a community center in Massachusetts. We drove up there and played between a guy with an acoustic guitar and a screamo band. There were 15 kids at this community center and at that time, we had seven members in the band, I think. It was a totally overblown, ridiculous setup, but it was really fun. It is still one of my favorite shows that we've ever played. It went really well. We played a couple other weird, off- the-track shows before we ended up with our big New York debut, and I think that was a smart move looking back.
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BROWN: Does being surrounded by musicians make it easy to ask for help? Or is it harder because you feel more protective of your songs?
OBLIVION: Definitely the latter. We're really unnecessarily and bizarrely paranoid about playing anything for any of our friends. We haven't even given our record out to our friends now. Not because we aren't afraid of people ripping us off—it's a little bit that—but also, you don't want other musicians' opinions. You're better off getting your mom's opinion. It's a more relevant. Musicians, number one, aren't really honest with each other because they're so competitive, but their perspective is the smallest percentage of people who are going to listen to it. If you want to be that kind of band, a musicians' band, may God help you because that's a tough road to walk. I think when we look for criticism, we look for it in more mundane places than with our super talented friends.
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Drought ended the Maya empire. Is California next?
By Amelia Urry
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The tricky work of recreating past climates falls to paleoclimatologists, whose job basically combines high-tech chemical analysis and Indiana Jones bushwacking. In one recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month, lead authors Mark Pagani and Peter Douglas looked for clues to the Maya’s changing climate in the sediment from two lakes in two regions where the ancient Americans lived: one in the historically arid north of the empire, and one in the wetter and more heavily populated south.
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This is what happened to the Maya: When the drought descended on the region, the areas that had started out drier fared better than the southern population centers, where the drought and the collapse were both more extreme. Douglas compared the two regions of the Maya empire to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Traditionally, the northern Maya settlements (like Los Angeles) saw less precipitation — they were wiped out by the drought, but a few of their cities rebounded afterward. Meanwhile, the more heavily populated south (like San Francisco) had historically worried less about water — so when the drought hit, it knocked most cities out for good.
Which brings us back to today. Even if California’s drought doesn’t last another few hundred years, as some doom-sayers predict, it will leave a mark. “Two hundred years from now, if I took a sediment core from Tahoe, and if I was able to resolve these last 10 years, it would be a stark change,” said Pagani. Water levels have dropped off steeply, farmers are starting to pump groundwater out of aquifers that will take decades if not centuries to replenish.
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All of this research into ancient and modern drought highlights another fact Pagani notes we’d be wise to pay attention to: When we say that the climate is changing, really we are telling a story about water. He points out that one of the primary differences between a forested state like New Jersey and a desert one like New Mexico is the amount of precipitation both places get. And when temperature increases or decreases, that changes how much water is available, and where.
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Sorry to harsh your mellow, but that pot isn’t pesticide-free
By Madeleine Thomas
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Colorado legalized pot in 2014 and OK’d a handful of state-approved pesticides to grow marijuana. Because the feds still classify pot as a Schedule I drug, hashing out pesticide regulations is still essentially left up to individual states. And that’s where things get complicated. USA Today has the story:
The court fight is over whether Denver health officials and state agriculture inspectors have the right to quarantine and test marijuana they believe has been improperly contaminated with certain pesticides.
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Just to give you an idea of how challenging it can be to determine appropriate pesticide regs, take Washington state, one of the four states with legalized recreational pot (Colorado, Oregon, and Alaska make up the other three). When it comes to spraying its weed with pesticides, the Evergreen State models the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s studies on hops and tobacco.
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Science and Health |
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Republicans Attempt to Use Mockery to Cut Sound Science
By Gayathri Vaidyanathan and ClimateWire
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A biologist who allegedly spent $3 million of taxpayer money exercising shrimp on a treadmill has advertised his apparatus on Amazon.com for a cool $1 million.
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The posting is more than an exercise in snark; it is Scholnick’s way of defusing politicians who have for years disparaged his research. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Scholnick in 2008 to study how marine organisms, like shrimp, cope with diseases caused by bacteria that proliferate due to global warming. His students designed innovate experiments, such as an underwater treadmill, to stress-test their subjects.
. . . Republican-led committees have targeted NASA’s earth science program, which tracks planetary changes from space. Political science, a field that can get policy moving on climate change, is also being targeted. Very few political scientists today study climate change in part because of the lack of funds, said David Victor, professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego.
“Here we have one of the world’s most pressing problems, and the entire field of political science has basically ignored it,” Victor said.
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Humor has helped Scholnick cope with fallout that has been at times intrusive and vicious—he has even been threatened by animal rights groups. The shrimp on a treadmill never seems to die down. As late as March this year, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) wrote an email to his constituents saying that the feds should avoid funding wasteful studies about shrimp on a treadmill.
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Scientists discover major protein that controls brain cells
By Stephen Feller
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Much like road signs give drivers information about how and where to go, microtubules tagged by a specific family of chemicals influence the way that cells act. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke have now seen tubulin tyrosine ligase-7, one of the most common of these molecules used by cells in the brain, attach to the microtubules and will be able to study how the "tubulin code" affects cells.
"This was a very surprising result, as no one had been able to visualize these tails on the microtubule before," Dr. Antonina Roll-Mecak said in a press release. "The microtubule markers are constantly being added and removed, depending on the local needs of the cell. Think about a highway system where street signs are constantly changing and roads are quickly built or torn apart."
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Roll-Mecak said the lab will now start working to decipher the tubulin code in the hope that they can find new ways to help patients with neurodegenerative disorders, because they'll be starting with a protein already known to be key in how microtubules react to blunt trauma or cancer.
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Removing antibiotics from food makes a difference, removing GMOs doesn’t
By Nathanael Johnson
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A lot of food companies are jumping on the transparency bandwagon. Panera, Chipotle, and Pepsi are labeling foods and removing controversial ingredients. Then there’s the commendable push by Perdue, McDonald’s, and Tyson to reduce antibiotic use.
. . . Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the advocacy group the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who has been asking food companies to ditch certain ingredients for years. He had a nuanced response to the news that Panera was cutting hard-to-pronounce ingredients. He applauded Panera for cutting out food colorings, but scoffed at the removal of “totally innocuous” preservatives like calcium propionate and sodium lactate, writing, “those moves are more about public relations than public health.”
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And this, I think, is ultimately why mainstream media panned Chipotle’s decision to go GMO-free. It’s a journalist’s mandate to figure out what’s real and what’s not. The movement toward food transparency is maturing; superficial changes are no longer passing muster. If companies want approval from the press, they have to prove their reforms mean actual improvements to public and environmental health.
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Technology |
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Apple, Facebook, and Google are the greenest tech giants — but they still need to do a lot more
By Ben Adler
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. . . the good news is that some tech companies are making respectable efforts to power their operations through clean energy sources. Google has invested heavily in solar energy, and Apple announced just yesterday that it’s expanding its renewable programs to manufacturing facilities in China. But in many cases, the issue is not whether companies have good intentions but whether clean energy is available to them.
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In many markets, companies’ ability to power with renewable energy will remain severely limited without policy changes. Even in more liberalized markets, it behooves companies to advocate for policies that will green the broader grid, narrowing the ground that they need to cover to power with 100% renewable energy. Companies can and must become advocates with the regulators and policymakers who ultimately have the power to change markets in ways that will allow companies to achieve their renewable energy goals. State policymakers covet data center investments, offering significant tax incentives to companies to lure them into their borders. Companies could compel a similar race to the top on renewable energy.
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Greenpeace argues that tech companies particularly need to get engaged in state and local politics, forming an effective counterweight to the fossil fuel and right-wing interest group money that has swayed state legislative races and outcomes in recent years. Last year, Facebook and Microsoft submitted comments to the Iowa Utilities Board in favor of distributed electricity generation, but that was a relatively isolated event. That sort of activism needs to become routine.
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You can be sure that the utilities, the Koch brothers, Art Pope, and Americans for Prosperity will be involved in these fights. If clean energy supporters are not, they will be over before they have begun. To really be green, tech companies need to put their muscle into this fight.
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What is the role of memory in a digital age?
By Branwen Jeffreys
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For the 11-year-olds sitting their national curriculum tests, often known as Sats, in England this week, the emphasis is on mental arithmetic.
Calculators are no longer permitted.
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Researchers at University College, London, in 2006 studied the brains of 79 trainee taxi drivers and 31 non-taxi drivers, recording who had passed or failed The Knowledge and who had never studied.
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But after four years, they found the taxi drivers' brain structure had altered, showing more grey matter in part of the hippocampus.
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Examiners would need to find ways of distinguishing between those students regurgitating information and those who could show how much they truly understood.
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Cultural |
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Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death
By (BBC)
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A secular blogger has been hacked to death in north-eastern Bangladesh in the country's third such deadly attack since the start of the year.
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Death threats to secular bloggers are on the rise in Bangladesh. A few years back, hardline Islamists demanded a blasphemy law to stop bloggers they perceive to be anti-Islamic from writing about Islam.
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Bangladesh is officially secular. But critics say the government is indifferent to the problem of blogger killing - pointing out that no-one has yet been punished for any of the attacks.
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Mr Roy, a Bangladeshi-born US writer, had criticised religious intolerance before his murder in Dhaka.
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Estonia: Volunteers guide 20,000 frogs across roads
By (BBC)
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Volunteers in Estonia have helped to protect nearly 20,000 frogs from the dangers of busy roads during their annual spring migration, it's reported.
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The Nature Fund says it has saved 63,000 frogs in the past four years using volunteer escorts. Without human intervention, thousands of the amphibians would be killed crossing busy roads. Now the organisation is hoping to build tunnels to help the creatures avoid traffic altogether, and to encourage drivers to look out for their fellow road users. Frogs' migration routes have become less predictable in recent years, as bodies of water have been drained or have become uninhabitable, the Nature Fund says.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |