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 (RIP), 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.
From USA Today:
Jayme Deerwester
The Civil Aviation Administration of China has issued some unusual advice for flight attendants looking for ways to avoid contracting coronavirus while working: It suggested they wear diapers to reduce their need to use airplane lavatories.
The agency, which is China's counterpart to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, offered that suggestion in a new document called "Technical Guidelines for Epidemic Prevention and Control for Airlines" that was published in late November, according to reports from CNN and Fox News.
From CNN:
Saskya Vandoorne and Melissa Bell
(CNN) — France's recent decision to shut down ski lifts due to Covid fears will have been a disappointment for many winter sports enthusiasts. For Catherine Jullien-Breches, it was devastating enough to make her cry.
"I had tears in my eyes, I felt so powerless," Jullien-Breches, the mayor of the upscale Alpine resort town of Megeve, told CNN.
From Deutsche Welle:
Coronavirus vaccines are now being administered in Europe, while Africa hopes to start by mid-2021. Until then, the continent of 54 countries will need to put the necessary logistics, such as refrigeration, in place.
On December 8, 2020, the United Kingdom became the first country to begin vaccinating its citizens with the new BioNTech-Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Canada and Bahrain have also greenlighted it.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will meet on December 29 and is expected to approve the vaccine. But European Union countries are already putting modalities in place to receive and distribute the vaccine.
Africa's hopes of receiving the vaccine are pinned on the global COVAX initiative, which aims to buy and deliver vaccines for the world's poorest people.
From Al Jazeera:
Fatou Bensouda says she had enough evidence to open a full probe into continuing violence in Nigeria by Boko Haram fighters and security forces.
From ABC:
It's part of its last-minute scramble to secure Sudan's deal with Israel.
In a last-minute pitch to save President Donald Trump's deal with Sudan, the Trump administration offered to pay victims of the Sept. 11 attacks $700 million of U.S. funds to drop their pursuit of claims against the African country, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations.
In response, lawyers for the 9/11 claimants said they wanted as much as $4 billion, a steep price the administration and Senate Republicans rejected, sources said.
From Deutsche Welle:
Black people were among the victims of the Nazis. The documented case of Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed also offers insight into Germany's colonial past.
While doing research at Germany's Federal Archives, Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst came across a document that shows there was a Swahili teacher named Mohammed Husen who was taken to the Nazis' Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin.
"I was really surprised by that document, because despite my studies as an Africanist historian, I did not know anything about the experiences of Africans during the Nazi era. Even when I researched the topic in academic works, I did not find any studies about it," says Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, a professor of African Studies at the University of Cologne.
From Al Jazeera:
Comments by the UK PM and the EC chief dampen the prospect of a free-trade agreement to be reached by December 31.
From Deutsche Welle:
No one knows what the UK will look like as the transitional period nears its end. What is certain is that Brexit is no longer at the heart of the public discourse.
The New Street of Birmingham, the UK's second-largest city, seemed busy last week. The UK's second lockdown has been lifted, and, although Birmingham still has strict COVID-19 rules in place, retail shops are open.
As people queued up outside shops, a large group of protesters appeared. The timing is crucial: The UK's transitional period will be over in three weeks and its relationship with the EU will be determined in a few days. In a different time, this would have been on everyone's minds. But not in 2020. The protest was against COVID-19 vaccinations.
From the BBC:
The UK and European Union have warned that talks on their relationship after Brexit could end without a deal.
Here are some of your questions about how that could affect the way we live and work.
How will travel abroad with pets be affected? - Bob Stenson, West Worcestershire
Pet passports issued in the UK will not be valid for travel to the EU from 1 January 2021. Instead, you will need to follow a different process.
From Deutsche Welle:
Young ravens showed social and physical skills "on a par" with Great Apes, say German scientists. Their study also suggests that ravens' brains, while different from mammals, are cognitively advanced.
News of the arts:
From the New York Times:
The dancer with the Staatsballett Berlin says being directed to use white makeup to perform in “Swan Lake” was one of the racially insensitive incidents she has faced.
Chloé Lopes Gomes had done her hair and makeup and fixed the feathered swan headdress in place before the rehearsal in February. Then, she later recounted, she repeatedly dipped a wet sponge into a pot of white pancake makeup, applying it carefully to her face, neck and upper body.
From NPR:
Editor's note: This essay includes discussion of a rape and its aftermath.
Two years ago, I was raped. I remember shaking uncontrollably on that warm summer day. It felt like a void consumed me from the inside out — I was left with nothing, I became nothing. I was in a place so dark, I could only imagine getting out by cutting and purging.
I learned that this was the cost of suffering in silence. So I decided I wouldn't be silent anymore.
From The Guardian:
New sections of the tower at the capital’s Templo Mayor Aztec site include 119 skulls of men, women and children
Archaeologists have unearthed new sections of an Aztec tower of human skulls dating back to the 1400s beneath the center of Mexico City.
The team has uncovered the facade and eastern side of the tower, as well as 119 human skulls of men, women and children, adding to hundreds previously found, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (Inah) announced on Friday.
From Deutsche Welle:
Here's how the traditional nutcracker, created in Germany 150 years ago, became an iconic wooden Christmas decoration that's popular around the world.
Ever heard of a Räuchermann — or in its diminutive form, the Räuchermännchen? The "smoking man" is a wooden figurine that serves as an incense burner. It's just one of the many traditional Christmas decorations from the Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains, a Saxony border region renowned for folk art in the form of wooden angels, Christmas pyramids and candle arches known as Schwibbogen.
But the fact that no one ever came up with a proper English translation for the little smoking man suggests it isn't yet one of the region's famous international exports — unlike its direct cousin, another wooden figure traditionally made in the Ore Mountains: the nutcracker.
From CNN:
New quarantine hobbies have unearthed new passions, some bringing with them a literal silver lining.
This year, backyard archaeologists in the United Kingdom have recorded discoveries of more than 47,000 objects, the British Museum
announced this week.
From Deutsche Welle:
A painting by French surrealist Yves Tanguy was nearly destroyed after a businessman misplaced it at Düsseldorf Airport. "This was definitely one of our happiest stories this year," a police spokesman said.
German police managed to rescue a surrealist painting from certain destruction after they found the missing artwork at the bottom of a recycling bin.
A businessman accidentally left the painting at a check-in counter at Düsseldorf Airport at the end of November, police said in a statement on Thursday.