Overnight News Digest: Africa, South Asia -- the news out 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 are 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.

Since you woke up this morning the world hasn’t gotten much better.  The Washington Post begins our coverage tonight:

India and Pakistan clashed again in Kashmir. Here’s what you need to know.

By Paul Staniland  Early on Thursday morning, the Indian army claims its special forces attacked “launchpads” used by militants to infiltrate across the Line of Control between the Indian and Pakistani administered areas of Jammu and Kashmir. Though it has made similar raids in the past, this is the first time the Indian government has openly acknowledged a raid across the LOC, both in public statements and in leaks to the media. Two Pakistan army soldiers and an unknown number of militants were killed in what the Indian army referred to as “surgical strikes.”

This is not the first time that India and Pakistan have clashed in Kashmir. Multiple past wars — most recently the Kargil conflict in 1999 — have been joined by regular skirmishes, cross-LOC artillery exchanges and raids, especially before a cease-fire in 2003. Why, after a long period of relative calm, have we seen this new escalation?

The raid is clear retaliation for a Sept. 18 militant attack that killed 18 soldiers in an Indian army camp near Uri in Indian-administered Kashmir. Since the Uri attack, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been seeking to put diplomatic pressure on Pakistan, ranging from condemning it at the United Nations to orchestrating a boycott of the SAARC summit to be held in Islamabad, to bringing up government human rights abuses in the Pakistani province of Balochistan.

On the other side of Pakistan, Anadolu Agency reports there are other problems:

Pakistan downplays Iran firing shells across border

Pakistan and Iran are brotherly countries, and have no disputes, says Pakistani official, downplaying incident

By Aamir Latif

At a time when Pakistan is locked in border clashes with its archrival India, Iran has fired mortar shells into Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, but Islamabad quickly downplayed the incident.

Iranian border guards fired 3 mortar shells into Baluchistan’s remote Pangur district on Thursday, hours after India claimed it had carried out “surgical strikes” on the Pakistani part of the disputed Kashmir valley causing no loss to life and property, officials said.

“It was just a coincidence that this happened on the same day that India violated the ceasefire across the Line of Control [de facto border that divides Kashmir between Pakistan and India]. Otherwise there is no comparison between the two incidents,” a Pakistani Foreign Office official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking with the media, told Anadolu Agency.

Moving south from Pakistan, this story from CNN:

US sisters died in Seychelles of excess fluid in lungs: Report

By Faith Karimi and Ralph Ellis, CNN

 They both died of excess fluid in the lungs, the Seychelles News Agency reports  No visible signs of injuries are found on their bodies (CNN)Two American sisters found dead in their hotel room in the Seychelles died of excess fluid in their lungs, the Seychelles News Agency reported, citing the Seychelles police.

Autopsies performed Wednesday showed that Robin Marie Korkki, 42, of Chicago and Anne Marie Korkki, 37, of Denver died from acute pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs, SNA reported. Cerebral endema, or excess fluid in the brain, also contributed to Anne Korkki's death, SNA reported. Resort management discovered the women unresponsive September 22 in their villa, Seychelles Police spokesman Jean Toussaint said. CNN affiliate KBJR reported they were staying at the Maia resort on Seychelles' main island, Mahe.

Nigeria is celebrating her 56th anniversary.  There are a series of stories in Vanguard (Nigeria) bout what this means for a wide variety of constituencies.  As an example:

Nigeria at 56: Fond memories of ex-beauty queens

By Benjamin Njoku & Aderonke Adeyeri

Today, as Nigeria celebrates her 56 years of independence, it’s imperative we take a trip into the past to relive memories of some of the events that thrilled us in the past. One of such memorable events was the pioneering of Miss Nigeria beauty pageant by the old Daily Times of Nigeria.

The beauty pageants, from time, represented the pride of the nation. Back in the days, these beauty queens walked around with so much pride and dignity. But it’s a different story today, as controversy and sexual harassment have taken the place of the prestige that came with the crown and office of a beauty queen in the country. The glamour has waned with the passage of time even as some of the ex-beauty queens have faded into oblivion.

If you celebrate such things, there is a recipe for a West African rice dish, the rice/jambalya dish of Jollof in the Pulse of Ghana.

And a few art stories to finish out the evening,  with one from Reuters:

Missing Van Gogh paintings turn up in Italian mafia country house

By Toby Sterling and Steve Scherer

AMSTERDAM/ROME (Reuters) - Two stolen Vincent Van Gogh paintings worth millions of euros were found in an Italian country house belonging to an alleged mafia drug smuggler, police said on Friday, 14 years after they disappeared in a daring heist in Amsterdam.

Italian investigators displayed the recovered artworks - a sea scene and a church where the painter's father was minister - to reporters in Naples, saying each was worth an estimated 50 million euros (£43 million).

"It is a great day for us today to see the works and to know that they are safe and that they are in safe hands," said Axel Ruger, director of Amsterdam's Van Gogh museum, who was present when the paintings were shown to reporters.

A related story from The New York Times:

After Van Gogh Recoveries, Remembering Other Tales of Art Lost and Found 

By CHRISTOPHER D. SHEA 

LONDON — Two missing van Gogh paintingswere recovered this week in Italy, nearly 14 years after being stolen from an Amsterdam museum. “Only 5 to 10 percent of stolen art ever returns, so it’s very good that they got these back,” Arthur Brand, a Dutch independent art crimes investigator, said. Here is a sampling of other masterworks that have been lost, and improbably found:

And the last one, from Paper Magazine:

ACTIVIST GROUP GUERRILLA GIRLS CALL OUT 383 EUROPEAN ART INSTITUTIONS ON DIVERSITY

Claire McCartney

The Guerrilla Girls, a self-described "group of female artists, writers, performers and other arts professionals who fight discrimination through humor, activism, and the arts," took on 383 European art institutions in their latest work, "Is it even worse in Europe?"

Guerrilla Girls' Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz introduced the work today at London's Whitechapel Gallery. The two artists sent 400 surveys to 383 European museum directors of contemporary and modern art institutions, asking them specific questions about the diversity of their institutions, collections, exhibitions and artists represented in shows. The results are fascinating.