Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but are not limited to) palantir, wader, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke 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 (or if it is Friday night and the editor is me, a bit later).
We start tonight with news from Asia, from the South China Morning Post:
WHY CHINA, INDIA AND THE DALAI LAMA ARE PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES IN TAWANG
A small Himalayan district is the focus of intense diplomatic heat stemming from long-standing, unresolved border issues reignited by a planned visit from the Tibetan spiritual leader
BY DEBASISH ROY CHOWDHURY
Last month, the Australian cricket team dropped by the Dalai Lama’s McLeod Ganj monastery in northern India seeking “peace of mind”. Ahead of a Test match in a fractious series with India marked by sniping between the two sides, Aussie skipper Steve Smith asked the Tibetan spiritual leader for help with his sleep. The monk rubbed his nose against his, and Smith went back to his hotel hoping for better sleep during the five-day Dharamsala Test.
The Dalai Lama’s other recent engagements have been far less reassuring for some, rubbing them up the wrong way. Beijing, for one, is losing sleep over his planned trip this week to Tawang, a small district on the western flank of what India calls its Arunachal Pradesh state in its northeast and China claims as its own South Tibet territory. This sleepy 2,000 sq km Himalayan district with less than 50,000 people has become the newest flashpoint between China and India, sparking a fresh round of jousting over their disputed border and the Dalai Lama.
More from India, via CNN:
The photographer giving Africans in India a voice
By Yemisi Adegoke, CNN
After a violent attack on a 21 year old student in Bangalore last year, photographer Mahesh Shantaram felt compelled to do something.
(CNN) In February 2016, a Tanzanian student was 'beaten and stripped' by a violent mob in Bangalore.
The incident quickly became national and international news, sparking a fierce debate about the number of racist attacks against Africans in India.
Photographer
Mahesh Shantaram who lives in Bangalore, says the event sparked a moral compulsion to do something.
From the Hindustan Times:
Indian student survives brutal attack in Poland, Sushma Swaraj seeks report
An Indian student, who was allegedly brutally assaulted in Poland and was reported to have died, has survived the attack, according to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.
Swaraj spoke to the Indian ambassador to Poland Ajay Bisaria on Friday regarding the assault on an Indian student in Poznan city whose name was not disclosed.
She asked Indian ambassador in Poland Ajay Bisaria for a report after an Indian, Amit Agnihotri, tagged her and the ministry to a media report that said an Indian student was “beaten to death” in Poznan city of Poland.
“There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident,” she tweeted.
Bisaria had earlier tweeted, “Prelim enquiry suggests student attacked in Poznan tram on Wed. Thank God, he survived. Getting details.”
Agnihotri later posted: “Racist issue similar to USA, the person shouted at him and then start hitting.”
Uzbek secret services monitoring phone calls, emails and texts of Uzbek refugees in Europe - new report
‘The Uzbek authorities have designed a system where surveillance and the expectation of surveillance is not the exception, but the norm’ - Joshua Franco
The Uzbekistani government is conducting unlawful surveillance of its citizens and fostering a climate of fear and uncertainty for Uzbek people in Europe, said Amnesty International in a new report today.
The 25-page report - ‘We Will Find You, Anywhere’ - shows the impact of unlawful Uzbek government surveillance on the lives of seven Uzbek people, living inside and outside the country. The cases include a refugee living in Sweden whose correspondence with family members back home was monitored, and a journalist forced to flee to France after being watched by secret service officials.
One case is that of Dilshod (not his real name) a refugee living in Sweden and an activist in the Uzbek political opposition. Members of Dilshod’s family are no longer willing to be in contact with him after receiving visits from the police shortly after speaking to him on the telephone. His dying aunt even received a visit from secret service officials following a telephone conversation with her nephew.
From The Express Tribune:
On March 10, 2017, Noorena Shams, a 19-year-old sportsperson from Lower Dir, addressed a youth event at the United Nations headquarters on women’s rights and education.
The Commission on the Status of Women, a UN body working for gender equality and women empowerment, organises a two-week session every year on women’s rights and is attended by representatives of UN member states, civil society organisations and UN entities. Shams was invited by Malala Fund to address this year’s session which was themed around the issue of women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work.
Currently residing in Peshawar, Shams has been playing quite a few sports professionally. At the age of 15, she disguised herself as a boy to play cricket because there was no accessible academy for girls in the city. As a squash player, she joined the world ranking in just three years. She was also among the top 40 junior players of Asia in 2015. She has participated in several national and international sports competitions and has won 63 gold, 24 silver and five bronze medals so far. In 2008, she became the youngest South Asian to win a silver medal in Junior Olympics for cycling.
“Growing up, I felt intense energy inside me and I knew I had to channel it somewhere positive. So I started playing different sports,” she explains.
Happy news (/snark) from India and Pakistan, courtesy of the New York Times:
India, Long at Odds With Pakistan, May Be Rethinking Nuclear First Strikes
The Interpreter by Max Fisher
India may be reinterpreting its nuclear weapons doctrine, circumstantial evidence suggests, with potentially significant ramifications for the already tenuous nuclear balance in South Asia.
New assessments suggest that India is considering allowing for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Pakistan’s arsenal in the event of a war. This would not formally change India’s nuclear doctrine, which bars it from launching a first strike, but would loosen its interpretation to deem pre-emptive strikes as defensive.
It would also change India’s likely targets, in the event of a war, to make a nuclear exchange more winnable and, therefore, more thinkable.
Analysts’ assessments, based on recent statements by senior Indian officials, are necessarily speculative. States with nuclear weapons often leave ambiguity in their doctrines to prevent adversaries from exploiting gaps in their proscriptions and to preserve flexibility. But signs of a strategic adjustment in India are mounting.
From Agence France Presse, via Arab News:
Iranian women players snookered for ‘un-Islamic’ acts
TEHRAN: Iran has banned some of its women players from billiard sports competitions for a year for violating the Islamic codes of conduct at a tournament in China, sporting authorities announced.
The Disciplinary Committee of Bowling, Billiard and Boxing Federation did not reveal the nature of the alleged offenses, saying it would name the transgressors later.
“Women sent to China Open (billiard) competitions will be banned from all domestic and foreign competitions for one year for violating the Islamic code,” it said late Thursday, according to the ISNA and Tasnim news agencies.
The category of billiard sports includes billiards, pool and snooker. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has required women to wear the Islamic headscarf in public. The Islamic code also forbids women touching, dancing or singing with men outside their families.
From The Huffington Post:
Research in Iran in the Time of Trump
Shervin Malekzadeh, Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Middle East Center
Days after America had inaugurated its first African American president, I found myself back in Iran and in an electronics shop near Aryashahr Square in western Tehran, sent there by my grandmother to buy light bulbs for our apartment. With Barack Obama’s Cairo speech still weeks away, and the Green Movement many months more, I listened to the owner of the small family-run store explain to one his regulars just how bad the coming years were going to be.
“Things are awful enough around here,” he intoned. “Now that the Americans have elected a Muslim to the presidency, all of us, the whole world, we’re all screwed.” Ever the native informant, it fell to me to correct this bit of unexpected fake news. Barack Obama was not a Muslim, I told them. I left the rest of it, the question of whether or not Muslims were up to the task of running a government, alone.
Iran can be this way, full of surprises that double up as revelations. Obama’s popularity with ordinary Iranians had done little to diminish their pessimism about their own prospects or the ability of their government to change (some, as we just saw, were already finding ways to make the new president complicit). His election would have even less effect on my ability to carry out fieldwork, my reason for being in Iran.
And our art news for the evening, beginning with this from the Baltimore Sun:
City police save Light City art installation from a watery grave
Chris Kaltenbach
An umbrella-festooned sailboat, part of an art installation for
Light City 2017, was saved from sinking Friday morning by the quick action of the city police department's marine unit.
Around 10 a.m. Friday, the marine unit was on patrol in the Inner Harbor when officers saw the boat, from an installation by artist Stephanie Imbeau titled "Drift," taking on water, police spokesman Det. Jeremy Silbert said.
"Our officers were able to assist with pumping the water out of the sinking boat," Silbert said. There were no injuries, he said.
From the BBC:
Gallery celebrates the art of comics
Work by one of the world's top comic book artists has been put on display at Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery.
Glasgow-born Frank Quitely, who still works in the city, has worked on titles such as DC's Superman, Batman and Marvel Comics' X-Men.
Books he created in collaboration with Scottish writers Alan Grant, Mark Millar and Grant Morrison have sold millions of copies.
Items on display include an original Batman comic strip.
Frank Quitely said: "When I was growing up I thought everything exciting that was happening was happening somewhere else, usually America.
From MyFox8:
Greensboro police to use sidewalk art to make pedestrians safer in downtown
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Pedestrian deaths are up across the country and are rising faster than deaths of drivers. Last year there were 6,000 pedestrians killed in the US.
North Carolina is not immune to that. Pedestrian deaths are up 24.7 percent when you compare the first six months of 2016 to same period of 2015.
Greensboro police are hoping to draw attention to the serious problem with a new grant the department received in conjunction with the Greensboro Police Foundation.
From Stuff (New Zealand):
Two valuable Gottfried Lindauer paintings stolen in Auckland ram raid burglary
There was "no evidence of political motivation" in the theft of two valuable Gottfried Lindauer paintings from an Auckland auction house, police say.
Thieves smashed into the International Art Centre in Parnell and took the paintings about 4am on Saturday.
The two portraits, Chieftainess Ngatai – Raure and Chief Ngatai-Raure, date from 1884.
International Art Centre spokesman Ian Stuart said the paintings, which were due to be auctioned on April 4, were worth between $350,000 and $450,000 each.
From the CBC:
Hamilton art exhibit weaves the immigrant stories behind the sewing of men's suits
The work is on view until May 14, and a walking tour scheduled for Saturday, Apr. 1
By Kelly Bennett
Inside a monolithic white stone building on York Boulevard in downtown Hamilton, Coppley Apparel has been making men's suits for more than 130 years.
Wave after wave of new immigrants to Hamilton have worked there, their stories woven into the fabric of the city and the company.
For decades, the work of their hands has gone, anonymously, into crafting high-end suits, the ultimate image of Western masculinity.
Now the hands and labour and stories of those workers, in that monumental building, are at the heart of an art installation, "Piece Work," on view at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.
From Seven Days (Vermont):
Young Writers Project Wins Grant to Promote Islamic Art and Culture
POSTED BY KYMELYA SARI
For the first time, the
Young Writers Project will receive a grant from the New York City-based
Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. YWP is one of 11 organizations nationwide receiving the grants, which are funded by
DDFIA's Building Bridges Program and designed to foster understanding of and reduce bias against Muslims across the U.S.
The grant — $90,000, over two years — is intended to support a youth-led project that will "engage Muslim and non-Muslim youth in Vermont with storytelling, performances and publication of work that expand their understanding of Muslim cultures and related social justice issues," according to a statement from the foundation.
Alluding to the current "intolerance and incivility in our political climate and society," YWP director Geoffrey Gevalt noted that the project is particularly well timed.