Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbook (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.
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BBC
Australia storms: Wild weather lashes vast stretch of east coast
Wild weather is battering a 1,000km (621 miles) stretch of Australia's east coast, bringing torrential rain and "abnormally high" tides to cities including Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
More than 2,000 homes in the cities were out of power on Monday after strong winds tampered with power lines.
Tides up to 8m (26 feet) high were recorded, eroding the shoreline in some areas.
Emergency services said they had had over 700 calls for help since Sunday.
About half a dozen people stranded in floodwaters had been rescued, they added.
Meteorologists have warned that this Australian summer will see the impacts of a La Niña weather pattern, which typically brings more rainfall and tropical cyclones.
BBC
Coronavirus: Germany to go into lockdown over Christmas
Germany is to go into a hard lockdown over the Christmas period as the number of deaths and infections from the coronavirus reaches record levels.
Non-essential shops will close across the country from Wednesday, as will schools, with children to be cared for at home wherever possible.
Chancellor Angela Merkel blamed Christmas shopping for a "considerable" rise in social contacts.
The latest figures showed 20,200 more infections and a further 321 deaths.
The new lockdown will run from 16 December to 10 January. Announcing the move after meeting leaders of the country's 16 states, Mrs Merkel said there was "an urgent need to take action".
Restaurants, bars and leisure centres have already been closed since November, and some areas of the country had imposed their own lockdowns.
Under the national lockdown, essential shops, such as those selling food, will stay open, as can banks. Outlets selling Christmas trees can also continue trading. Hair salons are among the businesses which must close.
The Guardian
Bolsonaro branded 'homicidally negligent' over Brazil's vaccine planning
Jair Bolsonaro is facing a furious backlash over what critics are calling his “homicidally negligent” failure to prepare a coherent coronavirus vaccination programme as Brazil’s death toll again soars.
More than 181,000 Brazilians have died from the disease the president calls “a little flu”, with Latin America’s biggest economy now careering into a painful second wave.
But Bolsonaro’s far-right administration has been sluggish to explain plans to vaccinate Brazil’s 212 million citizens, betting nearly all of its chips on the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
Despite having the world’s sixth largest population, Brazil has yet to sign a contract with Pfizer and has eschewed the experimental Chinese vaccine CoronaVac for what many suspect are political motives. The CoronaVac has been championed by São Paulo’s rightwing governor, João Doria, a likely challenger to Bolsonaro in the next presidential election. Observers believe Bolsonaro’s hostility to the Sinovac vaccine is designed to stop Doria posing as Brazil’s saviour when that vote comes around in 2022.
Al Jazeera
More Brazilians sceptical of COVID-19 vaccine: Poll
Scepticism towards a COVID-19 vaccine has increased in Brazil during the past months, a new poll showed on Saturday, as the country continues to grapple with high infection and death rates linked to the virus.
The Datafolha polling institute’s survey found that 22 percent of Brazilians said they would be unwilling to take any COVID-19 vaccine, up from 9 percent in August.
The survey also found that 73 percent of respondents planned to take a shot and 5 percent said they did not know if they would. Those figures were at 89 percent and 3 percent in August, respectively.
President Jair Bolsonaro has expressed doubt and opposition to using an inoculant to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control.
Brazil has the third-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, with more than 6.8 million infections since the pandemic began.
New York Times
Fears of a ‘Twindemic’ Recede as Flu Lies Low
Despite the horrifying surge of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the United States right now, one bit of good news is emerging this winter: It looks unlikely that the country will endure a “twindemic” of both flu and the coronavirus at the same time.
That comes as a profound relief to public health officials who predicted as far back as April that thousands of flu victims with pneumonia could pour into hospitals this winter, competing with equally desperate Covid-19 pneumonia victims for scarce ventilators.
“Overall flu activity is low, and lower than we usually see at this time of year,” said Dr. Daniel B. Jernigan, director of the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I don’t think we can definitively say there will be no twindemic; I’ve been working with flu for a long time, and I’ve been burned. But flu is atypically low.”
Reuters
As pandemic spurs a tidying-up frenzy, Japan's market for second-hand goods booms
TOKYO (Reuters) - When Japan announced a state of emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic this year, people were urged to declutter their homes to pass the time, with Tokyo’s governor even roping in household-organising celebrity Marie Kondo in promotional videos.
Many have taken that message to heart and the market for second-hand luxury goods is booming as a result.
Mitsuko Iwama, a 71-year-old housewife, is a case in point. Pre-pandemic, she would have been spending a lot of time at the gym but after being stuck at home and cleaning her closets more often, she decided to part ways with kimonos that her parents bought her decades ago.
“I thought it was a waste to leave the kimonos just hanging up, and if someone from a younger generation would wear them, that would make me happy,” said Iwama, who sold 22 kimonos for 4,000 yen ($38).
Deutsche Welle
UK prepares navy ships in case of no-deal Brexit
The UK readied armed Royal Navy ships on Saturday to patrol its fishing waters in case the Brexit transition period ends without a free-trade deal on future relations with the European Union.
Four, 80-meter (260-foot) naval ships have been placed on standby to safeguard British waters from foreign vessels in the event that both UK and the EU decide to abandon efforts to secure an agreement on Sunday.
The ships will be allowed to stop, check and seize all EU fishing boats caught within the UK's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which can extend 320 kilometers (200 miles) from shore.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) announced that the vessels will be ready on January 1, to prevent possible clashes between EU and British fishing boats.
"The MOD has conducted extensive planning and preparation to ensure that defense is ready for a range of scenarios at the end of the transition period," a ministry spokesman said.
Existing transitional Brexit rules stipulate that EU vessels will have access to British waters until the end of the year.
Christian Science Monitor
In Nepal, Kung Fu nuns climb Himalayas to aid needy
Trekking for hours in the thin air of the Himalayas, hundreds of maroon-robed Buddhist nuns are carrying vital aid – and health advice – to villagers left destitute and sick by COVID-19.
Nicknamed the “Kung Fu nuns” because they train in martial arts, the women come from the Drukpa lineage – the only female order in the Buddhist monastic system where nuns have equal status to monks.
Besides hauling sacks of staples from rice and lentils to toiletries and face masks on their backs in the harsh mountain conditions, the nuns have been urging villagers to heed the threat posed by COVID-19.
“The biggest challenge has been explaining to people how dangerous this virus is,” Jigme Konchok Lhamo said about COVID-19, which has killed about 1.57 million people worldwide.
“People do not take it seriously nor the precautions seriously,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, via video call.