Overnight News Digest: The News from "Over There"

Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Doctor RJ, rfall, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man with guest editor Chitown Kev and Magnifico. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, 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).

Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.

I want to begin by thanking Chitown Kev, who has taken care of this weekly visit to the rest of the news while I have been galavanting.  I appreciate him taking over the responsibility for the past two months.  For the first time in seven months I do not own a plane ticket and have no immediate plans to crawl down an aisle and shove a carry-on into the already-full overhead compartment.

I thought we could begin this evening with a story that shows us that there is a bit of insanity elsewhere in the world (from The Guardian):

North Korea accuses Seoul of 'cunning plot' to release snakes over border

Soldiers sceptical after unseasonably high numbers of reptiles lead Pyongyang to suspect South Korean infiltration

North Korean border patrol guards have been ordered to capture snakes apparently released by South Korea to wreak havoc in its northern neighbour, sources have claimed.

Pyongyang is said to have told the military that Seoul’s spy agency is behind the unseasonably high number of snakes in Ryanggang province, which borders China.

“Earlier this month, border patrol units received orders to capture snakes before they crawl over the banks of the Yalu River,” said a source in the province.

More news from East Asia, this analytical piece from the Christian Science Monitor:

What's behind Indonesia's executions of drug traffickers?

Indonesia's government says the country is experiencing a 'drugs emergency.' Others say domestic political questions are at work.

By David Iaconangelo, Staff 

Indonesia executed four people, including three foreigners, by firing squad on Friday in the latest round of executions for drug offenses carried out by the government.

The executions came just past midnight in a prison on the island of Nusakambangan, off the coast of Java Island. Two of the men were Nigerian citizens and a third was Senegalese, reported CNN.

The Daily Beast has an article about MH370:

MH370 Pilot’s Flight to Nowhere Proves Nothing Once more dubious Malaysian sources are used to damn the crew who, instead of being villains, were likely fighting to save the airplane.

The vilification of Zaharie Ahmad Shah began early. Within a week of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014, it was Shah, the captain flying the Boeing 777, who was being portrayed as the prime suspect.

Malaysian authorities staged a very public raid on Captain Shah’s home. Police were filmed carrying away his personal computer. Shortly thereafter they said he had a flight simulator program in his computer. (Many professional pilots use simulators to keep themselves sharp in an age when most of a flight is on autopilot.) They suggested that he had used the simulator to rehearse his plan to, in effect, hijack his own airplane.

And from the BBC:

Family of Dhaka cafe siege survivor fears for his safety By Anbarasan Ethirajan Sharmina Parvin could not have imagined that a birthday meal for her 13-year-old daughter in an upmarket Dhaka restaurant would turn into a nightmare that still hasn't ended.

On 1 July Ms Parvin and her husband Hasnat Karim dined out at the Holey Artisan Cafe with their daughter and eight-year-old son.

What followed was a 12-hour hostage drama as Islamist militants stormed the cafe, killing 20 people.

Ms Parvin's husband ended up in custody after security forces ended the siege and has not been released.

Answering questions submitted by the BBC in writing, Ms Parvin recounted the night's events and appealed to the Bangladeshi authorities to release Mr Karim, saying "he has not done anything wrong".

The last Asian story comes from CNN:

Indian couple hacked to death by grocer they owed 22 cents, police say

By Sugam Pokharel and James Masters, CNN

A grocer hacked to death a Dalit couple in northern India, police say

A spokesman says the couple owed the shopkeeper 15 rupees (22 cents)

New Delhi (CNN) A man was beheaded and his wife hacked to death after a disagreement with a grocer, according to authorities in India.

The killings took place in the Mainpuri district of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh Thursday, following an argument earlier that day. The couple, who belonged to the lowest rung of India's caste hierarchy, had owed upper-caste shopkeeper Ashok Mishra 15 rupees (22 U.S. cents) but said they were unable to pay back the money, authorities said.

News from the Middle East, the first story from The Guardian:

Turkey president Erdoğan to drop cases of insult in coup aftermath

President makes gesture in fiery speech, telling west to ‘mind your own business’ in wake of concerns about crackdown after failed coup

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he is dropping all lawsuits against those charged with insulting him, and warned western countries to “mind your own business” following concerns about retribution against suspected coup plotters.

Speaking at an event in Ankara on Friday, commemorating those killed and wounded during the failed military coup on 15 July, Erdoğan said he was withdrawing all the lawsuits for insults against his person.

“For one time only, I will be forgiving and withdrawing all cases against the many disrespects and insults that have been levelled against me,” he said.

An interesting discussion of history and the present from The Times, reprinted in the Australian:

Britain’s Middle East carve-up is no cause for shame BEN MACINTYRE The Times

Boris Johnson is more a historian than a diplomat. Indeed, there are few politicians less diplomatic, and few more inclined to reach for a historical reference. The new British foreign secretary has written books on Churchill and London, and presented television programs on the history of Rome and early Islam. He is undoubtedly comfortable in the past.

This is just as well because one of the first challenges will be to negotiate his way through exceptionally controversial anniver­saries of events in Britain’s history that have a continuing impact on the present: the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, which promised a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, falls in ­November next year; 100 years ago this year, British and French diplomats signed the Sykes-Picot agreement that secretly divided up the Middle East between them; October sees the 60th anniversary of the Suez Crisis, the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in collusion with Israel.

And from The Times Higher Education:

Open, SESAME: the science project crossing Middle East divides

Sophie Cohen reports on a groundbreaking cross-border science project that aims to emulate Cern in bringing nations together despite their history 

In Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, “sesame” is the magic password that opens a cave full of gold. In the Middle East today that same word unlocks treasures of an altogether different kind: world-class science, as well as tolerance and engagement, two words that practically shed gold dust over the region.

SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) is the name of the region’s first synchrotron light source, one scheduled to be fully operational by the end of the year. 

Synchrotrons, in which bunches of electrons are circulated near the speed of light until they emit radiation, have gradually proven indispensable to the study of matter from atoms to biological cells, in everything from archaeology to medicine. Four Nobel Prizes in Chemistry have been awarded to research employing them. 

But perhaps the most groundbreaking experiment to take place within SESAME’s walls, located about 20 miles from Jordan's capital Amman, will be the interaction of the scientists themselves: Iranians, Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Turks, Cypriots, Pakistanis and Bahrainis – all nationalities of SESAME’s team.

From Middle East Eye:

Ethiopian mega-dam project leaves Egypt high and dry

#Energy

Kieran Cooke

With the project to dam the Blue Nile nearly finished, Egypt's government appears to have switched on too late to potential problems downstream

It’s like negotiating the rules of engagement long after the contest has been held and the winner declared.

Egypt is deeply worried about the impact on its water supply of a dam being built by Ethiopia far to the south, on the Blue Nile.

At a meeting with his Ethiopian and Sudanese counterparts last year, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi reiterated his country’s concerns while, at the same time, signing what was termed a “declaration of principles” about how the multi-billion dollar scheme – one of the world’s biggest infrastructure projects - should be implemented.

This seems a good time to switch to the news from AfricaBBC:

Why young Africans are swapping the office for the farm Farming has an unglamorous image across Africa. But this might be changing - the BBC's Sophie Ikenye met some young professionals who packed in their office jobs and moved back to the family farm.

Six years ago Emmanuel Koranteng, 33, gave up his job as an accountant in the US and bought a one-way ticket to Ghana.

He now has a successful business growing pineapples in a village one-and-a-half hours away from the capital, Accra.

He says that even when he was far away from the farm, it was always in his thoughts.

From the biomedcentral.com bugbitten blog:

Yellow Fever cases on the rise in West Africa

Urbanization and shortage of vaccines are leading to the largest yellow fever outbreaks in 30 years.

Christina Faust 

Yellow Fever outbreaks are ongoing in Angola, with exported cases to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and China. According to a recent situation report released by the World Health Organization, over 4,000 suspected cases and hundreds of deaths have been reported, mostly from Angola. The epidemic started in December 2015 and despite extensive vaccination efforts, there is ongoing transmission in the Angolan capital of Luanda- a foci of the current outbreak.

Yellow fever virus (YFV) is a species of flavivirus, meaning it is related to Zika virus, dengue virus, West Nile virus and several other viruses that are known to cause human outbreaks. These viruses are transmitted through the bite of an infected arthropod (usually a mosquito or tick species) and can infect not only humans, but an array of mammal and other animal species. Yellow fever’s name comes from the jaundiced (yellow) appearance that infected humans get– this is accompanied by fever, shivers, and headache. If the infection advances to a second, more serious, stage there is a 50% chance of death without treatment. There is no cure for yellow fever, but treatments that address the symptoms, such as rehydration, can improve patient outcomes.

Yellow fever virus is not a new public health threat. For centuries, yellow fever caused massive mortality in port cities when the vector and infected humans migrated to suitable regions. The virus originated in Africa, but was brought to the Americas 300-400 years ago along with the slave trade.

From the Associated Press, via VOA:

Africa Tribunal Orders Chad Ex-ruler to Pay Millions to Victims​ Associated Press

DAKAR, SENEGAL—

A tribunal ordered Chad's ex-dictator Hissene Habre on Friday to pay more than 4,700 victims at least $17,000 each for abuses suffered during his time in power.

The Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal found Habre guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment on May 30 for crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and sex crimes committed during his presidency from 1982-1990.

In European news, we begin with this, from the BBC:

Rio Olympics 2016: Russian athletes are arriving, but how many will compete?

How many Russians will compete at the Rio Olympics next month?

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) had recommended they all be banned.

That was after its independently commissioned report found evidence of a four-year, state-run "doping programme" across the "vast majority" of Olympic sports.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said individual sporting federations must rule on whether Russians can compete.

Other sporting news from Europe, this from The Telegraph:

Pigeon cheating scandal: champion bird in race from south of France never left its Oxfordshire loft  Cristina Criddle 

One of the UK’s leading pigeon fanciers has admitted cheating so that he would win his sport's "Grand National" - and £11,500 in prizes.

Eamon Kelly, 52, faces a possible life ban from pigeon racing after trying to rig the Tarbes National last weekend.

Considered the fowl equivalent of the Grand National, Mr Kelly was rumbled when it emerged his winning pigeon had never left his loft in Didcot, Oxfordshire, The Sun reported.

In other news, from the BBC:

Dusseldorf residents told to pay for Nazi-era road By News from Elsewhere......as found by BBC Monitoring Homeowners on a street in Germany have been told they must foot the bill for their road's construction - even though it's been there for nearly 80 years. Residents on Auf'm Rott, in suburban Dusseldorf, went to court after city authorities told them pay an average of 10,000 euros ($11,000; £8,400) per household for what looked like a long-established road, Die Welt reports.

The bills included a conversion from the Nazi-era Reichsmark currency into euros for the original road surface, first laid in 1937, which is being dubbed "Hitler asphalt" by the German media. The figures were also adjusted for inflation.

The Guardian has this about one of the main thing on people’s minds this summer:

Summer of fear: the anxious mood in Germany and France

Fear has gripped Germany after a series of attacks, and in France many feel they are in the midst of a summer unlike any other

Kate Connolly in Berlin and Kim Willsher in Paris

When the gunman struck in Munich, I thought to myself: well, at least we don’t live in a big city, we’re safe here,” said Hanno, an engineering student in Ansbach. But two days after a German-Iranian teenager killed nine people in a shooting rampage in the Bavarian capital, horror struck Hanno’s town of 40,000 when a 27-year-old Syrian refugee blew himself up in front of a music festival on Sunday night.

Hanno, 23, who declined to give his surname, was with a group of friends listening to a performance by the singer Gregor Meyle at the time. “It was a really lovely warm summer’s evening, the atmosphere was great. Then suddenly there was a big bang.” Fifteen people were injured in the blast.

“I will certainly be wary of people with rucksacks for some time to come,” Hanno said. “And I’m a bit scared, I’m ashamed to say, as to what my reaction might be if someone approaches me who does not look obviously German.”

And on a happier note, this news video from the BBC:

Missing London cat found in Paris after eight years

A cat that went missing eight years ago in London has been found - in Paris.

One story from earlier in the week about a place in North America (but still Danish, sorta), from the BBC:

Living where the sea turns to ice

A five-year-old from Greenland’s Uummannaq Children's Home shares his life in this remote and frozen corner of the globe.

By Andrew Evans

Dharma wanted to go out on the ice.

The black-haired boy was already climbing into his snowsuit, zipping up the front before yanking soft mittens over his hands. Stine, the social worker from Denmark, helped him with his boots and then pulled a woollen cap over his head. I wondered: was she there to chaperone the child, or me?

Dharma beckoned me to follow him outside into the frigid blank whiteness. The snow had been falling since yesterday and now he was knee deep in the stuff, kicking at it with gusto before climbing onto his wooden sled.

He commanded me in Greenlandic, an Inuit language that is older than most European cities. Even from a child’s mouth, the words sounded guttural and ancient.

“He wants you to push him down the hill,” guessed Stine, who knew no more Greenlandic than I. We were clueless adults, trailing behind our five-year-old guide, grown-up guests in his world.

Let’s finish up with some stories about art.  We begin with political art news from the Huffington Post:

Now You Can Protest Donald Trump’s Wealth In This Luxury Art Hut

Orange you glad you can now live inside a life-size replica of the Donald’s hair?

Maddie Crum  Culture Writer, The Huffington Post

Hair today, gone tomorrow.

Thanks to a clever guerrilla art project created by Doug Cameron and Tommy Noonan, you can protest your least favorite combover-wearin’ 2016 presidential candidate by camping out in a hairy hut built to comment on his luxurious lifestyle. 

 “We aim to stand out from typical activism, such as holding protest placards, because that sort of activism tends to at best generate eye rolls from the people you are trying to sway, and at worst, polarizes them,” Cameron told The Huffington Post. “We prefer to go lowbrow than highbrow. We start by identifying a cultural tension and then we respond with absurdist humor.”

And from the BBC comes this video:

Armada portrait saved after £10.3m appeal

Considered a masterpiece of the English Renaissance, a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I celebrating the defeat of the Spanish Armada will soon be owned by the British public.

It follows the success of a £10.3m fundraising campaign to keep the oil painting in the country.