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.
As often happens it is hard to find happy news in the international highlights, but there are two not-so-bad ones. We begin with CNN:
Put away those bunny ears and crank up the heat, it’s time to say goodbye to the Rabbit and enter the Year of the Dragon – the only mythical creature among the 12 Chinese zodiac signs.
In addition to eating auspicious food and giving/receiving blessings, Lunar New Year – which falls on February 10 this year – is also a time for many to consult the stars and find out what’s in store for the months to come.
And from the BBC:
Sofia Ferreira Santos
A model of the Eiffel Tower has been officially deemed the world's tallest matchstick building a day after being ruled out by Guinness World Records (GWR).
The 7.19m (23ft) tower had been disqualified on Wednesday for being made out of the wrong type of matches.
There are a lot of elections going on around the world. It isn’t just the US and Russia. Let’s take some from east to west, beginning with Indonesia and the BBC:
Budiman Sujatmiko has lost none of the passion that he used to show as one of the boldest student opponents of Suharto, the soft-spoken but ruthless dictator who ruled Indonesia for 32 years.
"In the 1990s our challenge was authoritarianism. We needed democracy. Today our challenge is inequality and backwardness," Budiman says in his campaign office, ahead of Indonesia's presidential race on 14 February.
From Al Jazeera:
Elections in Taiwan highlight dissatisfaction in China with a political system that Beijing says works best for Chinese people.
From CNN:
Independent candidates affiliated with jailed Pakistani political leader Imran Khan’s party won the most National Assembly seats in Pakistan’s general election, delivering a surprise victory in a vote marred by a slow count and rigging allegations.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, independent candidates won 98 seats so far, with 22 seats still unclaimed. The majority of the independents are affiliated with Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
From the Associated Press:
HELSINKI (AP) — Finns on Sunday will choose either of two experienced politicians to be their next head of state, whose main task will be to steer the Nordic country’s foreign and security policy now that it is a member of NATO, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ex-Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, 55, on the center right, and former foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, 65, from the green left, largely agree on Finland’s foreign policy and security priorities. These include maintaining a hard line toward Moscow and Russia’s current leadership, strengthening security ties with Washington, and the need to help Ukraine both militarily and at a civilian level.
From Al Jazeera:
Parliament voted to push the polls back to December after President Macky Sall announced a postponement last week.
And on to other news, with This from the Associated Press:
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s top court on Friday struck down Shariah-based criminal laws in an opposition-run state, saying they encroached on federal authority. Islamists denounced the decision and said it could undermine religious courts across the Muslim-majority nation.
In an 8-1 ruling, the nine-member Federal Court panel invalidated 16 laws created by the Kelantan state government, which imposed punishments rooted in Islam for offenses that included sodomy, sexual harassment, incest, cross-dressing and destroying or defiling places of worship.
And this from NDTV:
The finance minister also attacked Rahul Gandhi for "tearing up" his own government's proposed ordinance in 2013.
New Delhi:
Mounting an all-out offensive against the Congress and the UPA government, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday that the previous regime was a "rudderless and leaderless" one and Sonia Gandhi acted as the "Super Prime Minister".
In her reply to the debate on the white paper - comparing the economy under the Congress-led UPA from 2004 to 2014 and the BJP-led NDA since then - Ms Sitharaman also tore into Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over the 2013 incident when he 'tore up' an ordinance proposed by the Manmohan Singh government. The finance minister dubbed him arrogant and called his act an insult of "his own Prime Minister".
From Al Jazeera:
Couples must register with the government, or risk going to jail. That’s in a law, which critics say is also part of the ruling BJP’s attempts to push its Hindu majoritarian agenda.
From The Hill:
BY ERIC MANDEL, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
Americans are debating whether President Biden’s retaliatory strikes against Iranian proxies for killing three U.S. service personnel will deter Iran. But they are asking the wrong question.
The current dispute centers on the best tactical approach to deter the theocratic regime and its Revolutionary Guards. The Biden camp believes that a significant strike in Iran is not worth the risk of entangling America in a full-scale war. The alternative and counterintuitive choice for the administration would be to attack the Islamic Republic directly and reinstate the full force of sanctions to deter the source of most of the mischief currently underway in the Middle East.
(editor: I haven’t forgotten to ask this. Have you?)
From Al Jazeera:
Every morning, Ibrahim visits the graves of his nine family members who were killed in the earthquake last year.
By Ali Haj Suleiman
Idlib, northwest Syria – At the top of a green hill separating the Syria-Turkey border from the small village of al-Allani in the northern countryside of Idlib, Ibrahim al-Aswad stands contemplating rubble that a year ago was a two-storey home.
“We were 15 people and only six of us survived,” Ibrahim still remembers the first seconds of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck – followed by a second, nearly as strong – southern Turkey and northwestern Syria at 4:17am on February 6, 2023.
And from NPR:
ANTAKYA, Turkey — Emine Tanrica survived the powerful earthquake last year that destroyed parts of Turkey and Syria and has been living in a temporary shelter in one of the many camps for displaced people that dot the landscape. She's wondering when she might see the new housing the Turkish government has promised for months.
"Life is not easy here," Tanrica, 47, says. She lived with her family "in big rooms before the earthquake, and afterwards we came to this narrow container, and I am sick," she adds. She explains she went to the hospital earlier in the day with difficulty breathing and a racing heartbeat.
From behind a paywall, but the first paragraph is worth reading even if you can’t get further. This is from Haaretz:
No cigarettes, electricity or potable water; a can of tuna goes for 100 shekels but the ATMs are shut down: A snapshot of the situation in the northern Gaza Strip
Morning breaks in the northern Gaza Strip. Devastation and scarcity reign here, but first things first: there's no coffee or cigarettes. Nerves are raw and frayed. For months it's been impossible to obtain coffee and cigarettes in the northern Strip – a basic fact that runs like a thread through the many conversations we held in recent days with people who stayed in Gaza City and the surrounding towns, even when many moved south. The sun also rises, but a new way has to be found to kick-start the day.
From The Guardian:
BMA votes for further five days of action after meeting with health secretary fails to resolve grievances
More than 100,000 patients in England face having their NHS care cancelled this month after junior doctors announced a fresh wave of strike action.
Health leaders expressed alarm, warning the five-day walkout would jeopardise all efforts to tackle the record waiting list and push other services to “breaking point”.
From the BBC:
Clapham chemical attack suspect Abdul Shokoor Ezedi may be dead after going into the River Thames, police say.
The 35-year-old has not been seen since the night of the attack on 31 January, when an alkali substance was thrown over a mother and her two children.
At a press conference on Friday police said their working hypothesis was that he had gone into the water after last being seen at Chelsea Bridge.
Opinion from The Guardian:
Abandoning its £28bn green plan betrays a lack of self-belief that has long bedevilled the party – a flaw it must address
In our punitive politics, the Labour party is almost always on probation. You can see it in Keir Starmer’s sometimes jumpy public manner, in the party’s dumping or scaling down of policies as a general election nears, and in its often cautious approach in power, even when it has a commanding majority.
Labour’s lingering insecurity and its related lack of credibility as a governing party in the eyes of others are clearest in how it handles, or is believed to handle, the public finances. State spending, investment, borrowing and deficits can seem dry topics. But they are also treacherous ones for the party which, since its founding, has been torn between seeking financial respectability – the terms of which are usually defined by establishment interests and Labour’s political enemies – and using government to create a more equal society.
From Al Jazeera:
Escalating violence in eastern DRC has displaced at least 150,000 people, more than half of them children.
And a few from the Americas, beginning with this, from Bleeping Computer:
The Canadian government plans to ban the Flipper Zero and similar devices after tagging them as tools thieves can use to steal cars.
The Flipper Zero is a portable and programmable pen-testing tool that helps experiment with and debug various hardware and digital devices over multiple protocols, including RFID, radio, NFC, infrared, and Bluetooth.
From the BBC (don’t just stop at the headline — this is a much more interesting story than I expected. The Egyptians often refer to Al-Sisi as “The Mexican”):
Egypt and Mexico are separated by thousands of miles of ocean and desert, with vastly different languages, cuisines, politics and cultures.
But as citizens in both countries rose to read the news on Friday morning, some unified behind a common sense of puzzlement - and in some cases levity - at US President Joe Biden.
At a contentious Thursday night news conference aimed at defending his cognitive abilities from detractors, Mr Biden inadvertently referred to Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi as the "president of Mexico".
From The Guardian:
Aerial evidence follows months of President Nicolás Maduro ramping up claim to Essequibo region
Venezuela is expanding military bases near its border with Guyana and deploying forces to the jungle frontier as President Nicolás Maduro ramps up his threats to annex the country’s oil-rich neighbour, satellite images have revealed.
Maduro pledged at mediation talks in December not to take military action against his neighbour but images shared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington today suggest a buildup of forces.
From Barrons (AFP):
By Clement MELKI and Alvaro VILLALOBOS
Argentine President Javier Milei will have his first meeting on Sunday with Pope Francis, a compatriot he once described as an "imbecile" who "promotes communism".
Milei will attend a mass at the Vatican for the canonisation of Argentina's first female saint, 18th-century missionary Mama Antula, over which the 87-year-old pontiff -- a former archbishop of Buenos Aires -- will preside.
One final one, which (like several of the above stories) has several countries involved in the story. This version of the story comes from eturbonews:
A German citizen passed away on a Lufthansa flight from Bangkok to Frankfurt after spitting up liters of blood. Should he have been allowed to board this flight? This may be a case for the courts.
Lufthansa flight 773 on February 8 from Bangkok to Frankfurt was categorized as a nightmare on social media posted by passengers on this plane.
A Lufthansa pilot had allowed a sick passenger to board LH773 even after fellow passengers alerted the crew before take-off of the critical condition of this passenger. He eventually had to declare an emergency and returned to Bangkok with the passenger deceased and covered in his own blood.