Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, February 23, 2016
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 - respect is due.
This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Climbing the Worlds Tallest Residential Building by James Kingston
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Top News |
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France, US and the phantom of the two-state solution (Opinion)
By Daoud Kuttab
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Distancing Washington from its traditional role as an honest broker in the conflict was a clear signal to Europe to take a leading position on the Palestinian issue. Europe responded rather quickly by labelling all settlement-made products as separate from Israeli products.
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The talks planned for next July have a caveat that caused shock waves among Israeli officials. The French have made it clear that they intend to recognise the Palestinian state if they feel that Israel is not taking the talks seriously.
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Malley outlined two ways that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict feeds ISIL. He said that extremists "refer constantly" to the situation of Palestinians, and, therefore, solving this conflict would lose the extremists' recruiting tool.
Malley also believes that the failure to resolve the conflict makes it "very difficult" to get "the kind of open cooperation that the US needs to get changes on the ground", because Saudi Arabia and other states can't work openly with Israel as matters stand.
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The resident of the White House - who still has 11 months in office - holds a more sinister and potentially powerful card. The one single decision over which the president has sole control is the recognition of countries. Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no say in presidential decisions with regards to state recognition.
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After appointed city manager illegally jacked up prices, Flint paid the highest water rates in America
By Cory Doctorow
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The tainted water that poisoned an entire generation of children in Flint, MI, was the most expensive water in America.
At $864/year/household, Flint's water rates were nearly double the national average. The price rose to its heights when Flint's corporate manager -- appointed by Republican governor Rick Snyder, who gave the CEO the power to override elected officials -- illegally imposed a new tariff on the city's water bills whose surplus was used to fund the city's other operations.
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"They've been using that money improperly for years to fund the general operations of the city," said Valdemar L. Washington, who has been battling the rate increases in court since 2012. The city's sewer fund had a balance of $36 million in 2006 but was running a $23-million deficit by 2012, Washington said.
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Chinese Wind Turbine Maker Is Now World's Largest
By Daniel Cusick
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General Electric Co. has ceded its position as the world’s No. 1 wind turbine manufacturer to a Chinese competitor, according to 2015 market data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
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While Goldwind maintains a North American headquarters in Chicago and has provided turbines to several U.S. wind farms, BNEF said that almost all of the company’s recent growth was in the Chinese market, where wind power developers are riding an unprecedented boom. About 29 GW of new capacity came online in China last year alone (ClimateWire, Feb. 2).
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“China has just as many complex barriers to renewable power integration as we do, but it also has a strong national commitment to scaling up renewable energy,” said Kate Gordon, vice chairwoman of climate and urban sustainability at the Paulson Institute, which has worked closely with government and private-sector partners to promote clean energy in China.
“Contrast that with the U.S., where our wind energy subsidies are on-again, off-again, and where states ratchet up and down renewable portfolio standards depending on the political winds,” she said.
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International |
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Seven charged over Samarco dam disaster
By Daniel Gallas
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Brazilian authorities have charged the president of mining company Samarco and six others with homicide for the mining disaster that killed 19 people last November.
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Samarco is owned by Brazil's Vale and mining giant BHP Billiton.
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The report concluded that the accident was caused by excess water in the dam, lack of proper monitoring, faulty equipment and failure in the drainage system.
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The police report also said that Samarco's emergency plan to warn nearby villagers was insufficient.
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India caste unrest: Water supply 'partially restored' in Delhi
By (BBC)
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Water supply has been partially restored in the Indian capital, Delhi, where up to 10 million were affected after protesters sabotaged a key canal.
The army took control of the Munak canal in neighbouring Haryana state on Monday after Jat community members, angry at caste job quotas, damaged it.
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The city's schools, which were closed because of the crisis, have reopened.
Sixteen million people live in Delhi, and around three-fifths of the city's water is supplied by the Munak canal, which runs through Haryana.
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The Jats are currently listed as upper caste but the demonstrators have been demanding inclusion in caste quotas for jobs and education opportunities that have been available to lower castes since 1991.
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USA |
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Black Lives Matter Students Just Walked Out of a San Francisco School
By Kristina Rizga
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San Francisco's Lowell High School is the city's most coveted public, elite school that posts some of the highest test scores in the country. But when it comes to the treatment of its black students, young activists argue that the school is flunking—and needs to change. That's the main message about 25 members of Lowell High's Black Student Union delivered to the City Hall and San Francisco Unified School District today. The students walked out of classes in the morning and then marched toward the Civic Center area of the city, where they were greeted—unexpectedly—by several San Francisco school board members and San Francisco school chief Richard Carranza.
The protests were sparked by a number of incidents, but the most recent was a sign that was posted on a public billboard on campus earlier this month that read, "Black History Month" and included a Twitter hashtag below that read "#gang." Chy'na Davis, a sophomore at Lowell High, told Mother Jones that while it was clear the message was meant to offend black people, it took several days for the school administration to remove it. Davis said she appreciated that the school held an assembly to discuss the issue, but said that most of her friends who are not black left the meeting without an understanding of why the incident was offensive to black students.
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According to several students at the walkout today, some teachers intervene when they hear offensive remarks toward black students, but most don't. There isn't enough black history being taught at Lowell or discussions of police brutality or the Black Lives Matter movement, Davis and other members of the Black Student Union told Mother Jones. "We just feel like our individual complaints are not taken seriously by the school. So, we decided to take action together," said Davis. She added that today's walkouts were inspired by the national Black Lives Matter movement.
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Nevada's solar workers and customers reel as new rules 'shut down' industry
By Suzanne Goldenberg
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The decision to replace economic incentives with new higher fees pulled the carpet out from under an industry that provided 8,700 jobs in the state last year, according to the Solar Foundation, and stranded some 17,000 homeowners who have already gone solar with a financial liability on their rooftops.
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The company could barely keep up with demand – until 22 December, when the new rules were announced. “We literally stopped business within that hour, pulled installs off the roof, finished up the jobs we had within that hour and we were done,” Holden said. “It pretty much shut down the industry.”
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For Mike Stitely, the new rules destroyed the tiny thrill he got each day when he checked the iPad to see how much electricity was being produced from the 16 panels on his roof.
Stitley’s wife is still working, at Walmart, but he is retired. He is very worried about higher bills, and selling the house when the stairs become too much. “People are going to be scared off,” he said. . . .
Patricia Farley, a Republican state senator who drafted a bill last year to revise the state’s solar policies, claimed solar was only for rich people, and that the new rules were fairer for all Nevadans.
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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:
James Kingston makes POV videos as he climbs tall structures around the world. In this video, he climbed the world's tallest residential building, which us in Dubai. It's still under construction. Once he got to the top, Kingston asked a man sitting in the cockpit of a crane if he could climb to the top of the crane, and the man told him to go for it.
It took me about an hour and a half to get to the roof of the building using the crane to get up the first 50 meters or so. It was then about an hour of stairs while trying not to die of dehydration. It was the warmest/driest building I've ever come across and I only had a small bottle of water with me.
I came across a few workers on the way up who wished me a good day and shook my hand. The workers in Dubai seem to mostly be from India and are some of the nicest people I've ever met. When I reached the rooftop the sun still hadn't risen so I had a bit of time to explore the place and take some pictures. The crane that runs up the side of the building must be somewhere over the 450 meter mark as the building itself is officially set at 426 meters and the crane arm sits above it by quite a distance. Put it this way... you'd be dead if you fell off the top of the crane and landed on top of the building. . .
Back to what's happening:
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Environmental |
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Millennia of sea-level change
By stefan
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How has global sea level changed in the past millennia? And how will it change in this century and in the coming millennia? What part do humans play? Several new papers provide new insights.
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The fact that the rise in the 20th century is so large is a logical physical consequence of man-made global warming. This is melting continental ice and thus adds extra water to the oceans. In addition, as the sea water warms up it expands. (A new study has also just been published about the size of individual contributions derived from satellite data: Rietbroek et al 2016).
The paleoclimatic data reaching back for millennia can be used to better separate the natural variations in sea level and the human impact. With near-certainty at least half of the rise in the 20th century is caused by humans; possibly all of it. From natural causes alone sea level might also have fallen in the 20th century, instead of the observed rise by close to 15 centimeters.
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This expected large sea-level rise does of course not surprise us paleoclimatologists, given that in earlier warm periods of Earth’s history sea level has been many meters higher than now due to the diminished continental ice cover (see the recent review by Dutton et al. 2015 in Science).
I have often emphasized the inexorable long-term effects of sea level rise in my lectures and articles over the years. Often I was told that people don’t care about what will happen in thousands of years – they are at best interested in the lifetime of their children and grandchildren. Would you agree with that? I would hope that we do care how future generations will see the legacy that we leave them.
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Science and Health |
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Dogs and Certain Primates May Be Able To See Magnetic Fields
By George Dvorsky
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Now, in the first study of its kind, researchers from the Max Planck Institute and several other institutions have investigated the presence of the mammalian version of this molecule, called cryptochrome 1, in the retinas of 90 animal species. Researchers found this molecule in the blue-sensitive cones of dog-like carnivores, such as dogs, wolves, bears, foxes, and badgers, but not in the eyes of cat-like carnivores, such as cats, lions, and tigers (felines have their own unique way of looking at the world). Among primates, researchers discovered the presence of cryptochrome 1 in orangutans, the rhesus macaque, the crab-eating macaque, and others. The details can now be found in Nature Scientific Reports
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Though it’s considered a “sixth sense,” magnetoreception is tied to an animal’s visual system. Magnetic fields activate cryptochrome 1 in the retina, which the animal “sees” as the inclination of magnetic field lines relative to the Earth’s surface. Because the active cryptochrome 1 is located in the light-sensitive outer segments of the cone cells of the mammals, the researchers suspect that it’s assisting with magnetoreception, and not circadian rhythm management or some other visual capacity.
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Technology |
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FBI seeking access to a dozen iPhones, Apple claims
By Sam Thielman
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Apple's encryption battle with the FBI has implications well past the iPhone
The 227-year-old All Writs Act compels third parties to assist authorities in their investigation and is usually a measure of last resort. Apple contends the FBI is misusing the legislation.
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Robert Capers, US attorney for the eastern district of New York, said Apple had been inconsistent in its opposition to the All Writs Act. Capers called Apple’s insistence on search warrants rather than ex parte applications hypocritical: “In one case (in the southern district of California), Apple indicated that it would assist the government in accessing a passcode-locked device once the government provided it with a new copy of the order’s language in a different format (embedded within the warrant rather than alongside it).” Capers also identified a 12th All Writs case.
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Orenstein ruled in favor of Apple last year. “[Apple] is a private-sector company that is free to choose to promote its customers’ interest in privacy over the competing interest of law enforcement,” he wrote on 8 October.
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The case before Orenstein last year asked Apple to assist in decrypting an iPhone running iOS 7, which the company said it would not do. Orenstein supported their decision: “There is nothing in the record to suggest that Apple has or wants the ability to defeat customer-installed security codes to access the encrypted data that its customers store on Apple devices after purchasing them.”
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Cultural |
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Eddie Izzard completes first of 27 marathons for Sport Relief
By (BBC)
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The comedian is running a marathon a day for the next 27 days - one for each year Nelson Mandela spent in prison.
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Izzard previously attempted a similar feat in South Africa in 2012, but had to pull out for health reasons.
"What I'm doing is not particularly special here, other people have done more crazy things," he said.
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He joked that he "doesn't actually like running", adding that he's trying to find things to keep him entertained along the way.
"I like stopping and talking to donkeys, goats, cows, dogs - I've just been to Mvezo which is the birthplace of Nelson Mandela."
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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.