Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, 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.
Lighter/happier/weird news above the fold, and the more serious items below.
We begin with pictures of the week from Africa, courtesy of the BBC.
From The Guardian:
In northern Ontario, a dozen First Nations have been left struggling. A court’s attempt at compensation could see them getting up to C$126bn
Only 25 miles of road lie between the northern Ontario town of Terrace Bay and Pays Plat First Nation. But when Raymond Goodchild was growing up, that distance spanned entire worlds.
Terrace Bay in the 1960s was often smothered by a thick smoke billowing from pulp mills. As in much of postwar Canada, industry thrived and jobs were plentiful. Roads and sidewalks were paved, and homes glowed at night with electric lighting.
One more above the fold, this from Al Jazeera:
We begin with a few stories from Africa:
From Al Jazeera:
As Egyptians worry about the economy, a rural family torn apart by tragedy faces a crisis without their main earners.
Over the last year, inflation has spiked 72 percent on food products while the Egyptian pound has devalued three times. The latter has lost 50 percent of its value and is responsible for pushing many Egyptians into poverty.
In 2019, the World Bank classified 60 percent of Egyptians as either “poor or vulnerable”.
From Deutsche Welle (Link is to a video):
Felix MaringaDecember 15, 2023
Kenya's Ogiek people have lived in the Mau Forest for generations. But now they're finding themselves on the wrong side of forest restoration efforts. They say forest rangers are destroying their homes, leaving them displaced and destitute.
From The Guardian:
Activists see the killing as a setback in the efforts to eliminate the practice, despite it being illegal in the east African country
Peter Muiruri in Nairobi
Efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation in Kenya have suffered a setback after a police officer was killed in a confrontation with a gang of youths.
Activists and local leaders condemned the murder, calling it a backward step in the fight to eradicate the practice in the country. Police in Elgeyo Marakwet county, in the Rift Valley region, had taken a group of girls who had been forced to undergo the illegal procedure to hospital when a mob of young men stormed a police station and stoned Cpl Mushote Boma to death.
From Reuters:
A Spanish navy ship is sailing at full speed towards a Maltese-flagged commercial vessel that may have been hijacked by pirates off Somalia, the European Union's Somali counter piracy force said on Friday.
If confirmed, it would be the first successful hijacking involving Somali pirates since 2017 when a crackdown by international navies stopped a rash of seizures in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
From Deutsche Welle:
Germany's last troops serving in Mali have returned home after the Russian-backed military government there ordered peacekeepers out. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told them their mission was not a failure.
From the BBC:
It was a love story that sparked a racial scandal and made headlines across the globe.
A white British missionary, Ruth Holloway, fell in love with a black Kenyan man, John Kimuyu.
John was in a "blind institute" where Ruth worked and when she announced they were getting married, she lost her job.
From the BBC:
Thirty-five years ago this week the deadliest terrorist attack in British history took place when Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
In a prison cell in the United States, 72-year-old Abu Agila Masud is waiting to stand trial, accused of making the bomb that destroyed the US airliner.
The prospect of the Libyan's trial has been accompanied by a renewed surge of interest in the events of 21 December 1988.
From the BBC:
By James W Kelly & PA Media
A man who planned a gun attack at central London's Hyde Park has been jailed for at least 16 years.
Edward Little, 22, had intended to kill Christian preacher Hatun Tash after travelling from Brighton to the capital on 23 September last year.
He travelled by taxi with £5,000 to buy a firearm and bullets in south London when he was stopped by police and arrested.
In May, Muslim convert Little admitted preparing to commit acts of terrorism.
Another from the BBC:
British teen Alex Batty, found after six years missing, decided to leave his mother because she wanted to move to Finland, French officials said.
The 17-year-old said he was constantly on the move with his grandfather and mother after they disappeared in 2017, and wanted to get his UK life back.
Alex was found by a motorist in southern France on Thursday.
From Reuters:
A two-and-a-half year corruption trial that exposed infighting and intrigue in the highest echelons of the Vatican closes on Saturday with the key defendant, an Italian cardinal, praying that the court will believe his innocent plea.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, a one-time Vatican power broker, is charged with embezzlement, abuse of office and trying to induce a witness to give false testimony.
From Deutsche Welle:
Jamila Achakzai 15 hours ago
Skilled Afghan workers are in short supply in Pakistan as the country continues its clampdown on illegal migrants. Farmers and mine owners are now paying the price.
From the Times of India:
Raj Shekhar
Lalit Mohan Jha, the alleged key conspirator in the security breach incident in Parliament, has told his interrogators that he and other members of the group had originally planned to immolate themselves inside and outside Parliament but after applying a 'fire retardant gel' to limit their injuries, but had to drop the incendiary idea after failing to source the gel.
From Reuters:
Generals from Myanmar's junta held peace talks in June near the border with China with representatives of three powerful ethnic armies. They sat across a wide table covered with blue cloth and decorated with elaborate bouquets.
But the rebels were playing a double-game.
Secretly, the ethnic armies - collectively called the Three Brotherhood Alliance - had already laid the groundwork for Operation 1027, a major offensive launched in October that has become the most significant threat to the regime since it seized power in a 2021 coup.
From ABC News:
China has defended controversial cash bounties offered for Hong Kong dissidents who have fled abroad
BEIJING -- China on Friday defended controversial bounties offered for the capture of Hong Kong dissidents who have fled abroad that have been heavily criticized by foreign governments and human rights groups.
Rewards of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) have been offered for information leading to the capture of 13 opposition figures accused of violating the semi-autonomous Chinese city’s sweeping National Security Law.
From Newsweek:
By Aadil Brar
A Philippines envoy to the United States has warned that the present phase of tensions in the South China Sea could turn into a flashpoint.
Jose Manuel Romualdez, Philippine ambassador to the United States, warned that ongoing skirmishes between Philippine and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea could trigger a significant conflict at any moment instead of the Taiwan Strait, which some have described as the hotbed of potential conflict in Asia.
One final cheery story (not), from Al Jazeera:
One of the last international groups providing healthcare in capital says it can’t work if ‘threatened by violence’.
The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) is indefinitely suspending work at an emergency medical centre in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, after an armed group pulled a critically ill patient from an ambulance and shot him dead in the street.
“We need a minimum of safety to carry out our medical mission. We can’t work if our medical mission is threatened by violence,” Benoit Vasseur, MSF’s head of mission in Haiti, said in a statement on Friday.