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, 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 am visiting ColoTim, and I am being inspired by mountains (the view above is pretty inspiring, I think you’d agree). So tonight it is news from countries that have their main topographical features above sea level.
From Asia Times:
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recently concluded two-day state visit (August 17-18) to Bhutan sought to address some of the key issues in the bilateral relationship. First, it was directed at diversifying the areas of engagement between the two countries by seeking to extend cooperation in space research and technology and collaboration in the areas of education and health services. Cooperation in the sphere of education would include areas such as information and technology and cultural study such as Buddhism.
From Conde Nast Traveler:
Starting in 2020, a whole slew of regulations will be rolling out for hikers.
A summit to Mount Everest is the crown jewel of hikes for any serious climber, but making the journey to the top of the world's highest mountain just got even more complicated. Over the past few years, a variety of issues on Everest—including overcrowding, a rising death toll, and excessive waste left on the mountain—have prompted the Nepalese government to consider tighter regulations surrounding who can climb the mountain and how.
Earlier this month, the government announced their first set of plans: to tighten permit rules by next year's season, which would increase the average cost of climbing the mountain from $11,000 to $35,000 per person, and would require any hiker attempting the climb to have previously summited another Nepalese peak of at least 6,500 meters (21,325 feet). Now, the government says it will also ban single-use plastics on and around the mountain starting in 2020.
From Mongabay:
- Researchers conducted a large-scale survey of potential snow leopard habitat in Nepal to re-estimate the species’ population density using the non-invasive technique of collecting environmental DNA from scat samples combined with standard genetic analyses.
- This method enabled the researchers to sample a larger, more representative, area than many previous studies, often conducted in prime leopard habitats; they also found that they could obtain reliable DNA from scat samples.
- Previous studies on which conservation policies have been based may have over-estimated the big cat’s population. The researchers say similar studies are needed to more accurately estimate the population of snow leopards in Nepal and 11 other range countries.
In September 2014, Nepali zoologist Madhu Chetri asked his professor Morten Odden a strange question during their fieldwork. “Are you tired?” he asked Odden as the duo from the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences trekked the Annapurna region of Nepal, collecting scats of the elusive snow leopard for a DNA study. “Prof Odden asked me why I’d asked him such as question,” said Chetri, who recently completed his PhD. “I told him that there’s a rock in front of us, if you look behind it, you’ll find snow leopard scat.”
From St. Louis Public Radio:
Earlier this week, members of the Missouri Botanical Garden horticulture staff returned from a research trip in the Central Asia country of Kyrgyzstan. There, the team’s project involved conserving crop wild relatives of popular fruits like apples, apricots and plums found in Kyrgyzstan’s highly threatened walnut fruit forest.
The goal is to preserve genetic diversity that is often lost in modern agriculture, which is based on a single-crop system. On Friday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Sarah Fenske talked to Megan Engelhardt, manager of the Botanical Garden's seed bank, and horticulturist Dave Gunn about how the staff went about bringing seeds back to add to the Botanical Garden’s seed bank to propagate.
From Trend News Agency:
By Elchin Mehdiyev – Trend:
The Baku International Center for Interfaith and Inter-Civilizational Cooperation under the Caucasus Muslims Office issued a statement, Trend reports on Aug. 23.
"The United Nations declared August 22 a memory day for victims of acts of violence based on religion and faith,” the statement said. “While condemning acts of violence on any basis, we support people who have been subjected to violence because of religious belief and express solidarity with them."
From Deutsche Welle:
The Antonov 2 aircraft was produced for more than fifty years and is still used for sightseeing flights. There were no reports of injuries at the scene.
An Antonov 2 (An-2) aircraft crash landed in the Gmunden-Laakirchen airfield in Upper Austria, Austrian media reported on Friday. No major injuries were reported.
Developed by the Soviet Union after World War II, the An-2 is said to be the largest single-engine biplane in the world with a wingspan of more than 18 meters (59 feet). It was produced up until 2001, and is still used for small sight-seeing flights.
The Guiness Book of World Records listed this for some time as the longest-ever production time for a single type of aircraft before it was beaten by the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, which was first produced in 1954 and is still being made today.
From Xinhua:
VIENNA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Austria has seen a 23.5 percent decrease in the number of people entering or staying in the country illegally including via smuggling during 2018, the Criminal Police Office (BK) said in a new report on Friday.
A total of 21,236 such persons were confirmed to have been intercepted by authorities, of whom 18,170 were found to have either attempted to enter the country illegally or were staying without the legal right to do so. This was down from 18,527 people in 2017.
From Swissinfo.ch:
Return of the native
Camera-traps set up to monitor wolves have identified a previously unknown pack of the predators comprising three adults and seven pups.
A wildlife guard reported the presence of the wolves in the Chablais region on August 21 to the Valais Hunting, Fishing and Wildlife Service. Signs of the presence of the predators in the region were first identified in January. Monitoring was stepped up with more camera traps and acoustic sensors to obtain irrefutable proof that a pack had settled in the area.
Analysis of the images confirmed the presence of two males and a breeding female, along with the seven pups.
From Le News:
Work-related stress is affecting more and more people in Switzerland, according to a study published by the Federal Statistical Office.
In 2012, 18% said they felt stressed at work most of the time. By 2017, the same figure had risen to 21%.
Nine potential drivers of on-the-job stress were looked at. Only 11% said they faced none of them, while 50% reported being exposed to at least three, up from 46% in 2012. Those between 15 and 29 (58%) and those working in the transport (60%) and restaurant (66%) sectors were some of the worst affected.
From Science Alert:
CLAIRE F.R. WORDLEY, THE CONVERSATION
Up to 800,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned to the ground in Bolivia between August 18 and August 23. That's more forest than is usually destroyed across the country in two years.
Experts say that it will take at least two centuries to repair the ecological damage done by the fires, while at least 500 species are said to be at risk from the flames.
The Chiquitano dry forest in Bolivia was the largest healthy tropical dry forest in the world. It's now unclear whether it will retain that status. The forest is home to Indigenous peoples as well as iconic wildlife such as jaguars, giant armadillos, and tapirs. Some species in the Chiquitano are found nowhere else on Earth.
From Inside Edition (giggle):
Amid the destruction of widespread wildfires, firefighters in Bolivia were able to save a small life.
A bird, singed and thirsty, was plucked from the smoking debris and given water by attentive firemen.
Santa Cruz officials said the blazes have scoured more than 1 million acres, and they are calling on neighboring countries to help extinguish the flames.