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, JeremyBloom, and doomandgloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man (RIP), 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 since 2007, 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 DW (link is to a video):
Patronella Diedricks
In the remote highlands of Lesotho Katiso Joachim Tshoho is using a data-driven strategy, to transform Lesotho's textile heritage. That's a very modern turn on cultural pride.
Another video from DW:
Julie Nasuju is a Kenyan model that is using her vitiligo condition to redefine beauty and inspire confidence through her Royal Patches Foundation.
From France 24:
Oysters are a Christmas staple in France, but thousands of empty shells are bound for trash bins once the festivities are over. One French company is rescuing waste shells and using them to make porcelain and paving stones. Our Down to Earth team reports.
From DW:
Jochen Lohmann
A new AI project aims to reveal how wildlife in Germany’s national parks are reacting to climate change with data from cameras, microphones and climate logs.
From DW:
Young Indians are not often excited by their country's history, but heritage walks are a way to make learning about the past more interactive while helping conserve historical sites.
India's capital, Delhi, sits at the crossroads of history, shaped by centuries of empires, cultures, and political change.
From the Delhi sultanate and the Mughal empire to British colonial rule — Delhi bears the imprints of each era, making it one of the most historically rich cities in the Indian subcontinent, and one that attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.
From The Guardian:
Canadian backpacker, 19, was found dead on K’gari island earlier this week surrounded by pack of wild dingoes
The autopsy of Piper James, whose body was found on K’gari surrounded by a pack of dingoes, has found “physical evidence consistent with drowning and injuries consistent with dingo bites”.
The Canadian backpacker’s trip to Australia ended in tragedy when the 19-year-old was found dead on a beach on Monday on the world heritage-listed island formerly known as Fraser Island off the Queensland coast.
From DW:
Dozens of suspected online scammers have been returned aboard a chartered flight to face investigation. The cases include deepfake scams, with public anger growing over fraud rings operating out of Southeast Asia.
It is the largest-ever group return of South Korean criminal suspects, with public outrage over foreign scam compounds having intensified after a South Korean college student was found dead in Cambodia.
From The Guardian:
Conservationists hail the ‘desperately needed’ measures and urge greater protection after up to 11% of endangered Tapanuli orangutans wiped out
The floods and landslides that tore through Indonesia’s fragile Batang Toru ecosystem in November 2024 – killing up to 11% of the world’s Tapanuli orangutan population – prompted widespread scrutiny of the extractive companies operating in the area at the time of the ecological catastrophe.
For weeks, investigators searched for evidence that the companies may have damaged the Batang Toru and Garoga watersheds before the disaster, which washed torrents of mud and logs into villages, claiming the lives of more than 1,100 people.
From the NY Times:
To Lam, the head of Vietnam’s Communist Party, will also become president of the nation. His new stature comes with new risks.
Vietnam’s Communist Party bolstered the power of the country’s top leader, To Lam, on Friday, making him both party chief and president at its party congress.
While Vietnam’s political process to formally announce the move has not yet taken place, the twice-a-decade congress ended two days ahead of schedule with a new list of Politburo members that indicates Mr. Lam’s dual role has been approved — evidence of what officials described as his forcefulness and consolidation of support.
From France 24:
In 2024, 40 of the 50 cities ranked as the most polluted in the world were located in India. Delhi topped the list. Over the past decade, air pollution has become the Indian capital's number one scourge. The situation is getting worse every year, but the authorities seem to be ignoring it, much to the dismay of residents. Our correspondents Alban Alvarez and Lisa Gamonet report.
Breathing clean air is a fundamental right, yet it is one that Delhi's 30 million residents seem to have lost.
From DW:
Rescuers have retrieved remains of many more victims from a gutted mall in Pakistan's Karachi, with dozens still missing. The cause of the disaster is still not known.
The number of deaths from a
fire in a mall in
Pakistan's Karachi has risen to at least 50 as firefighters recovered more bodies from the debris of the charred building.
"We have found 20 to 25 dead bodies, or you call them remains," Deputy Commissioner Javed Nabi Khoso told the media on Wednesday.
Another from DW:
After identifying a suspected agent, Germany has expelled a Russian embassy employee and summoned the Russian ambassador.
The incident is emblematic of the threats that the West, Germany and other EU countries see coming from
Russia. Above all, it highlights how close potential Russian agents can get to politicians in Germany.
In a press photo released by the Ukrainian government, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is sitting next to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz during an economic event in Berlin in December. Just two rows behind Zelenskyy and Merz sits the woman who has now been exposed as a possible spy for Russia.
One other from DW:
German judges have nixed an appeal by a Ukrainian national suspected of helping blow up an underwater gas pipeline to be freed from prosecution. Neighboring Poland is refusing to extradite his alleged co-conspirator.
Germany's highest criminal court, the BGH, last week rejected a claim by Serhii K.* that he should enjoy "combatant privilege" in the case against him. K. is accused of being part of a conspiracy to charter a private yacht, dive down to the depths of the
Baltic Sea and blow up a section of gas pipeline in September 2022. He then made his way to Italy, where he was caught and
extradited to Germany late last year.
K.'s lawyer had argued that under international law, his Ukrainian client was acting as a soldier attacking enemy infrastructure. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were controversial from the outset. Delivering natural gas from Russia to Europe via Germany, they were heavily criticized for increasing European reliance on Moscow for its energy. They came under even more scrutiny after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
