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.
Fun stuff above the fold, and the rest below. We begin with a story from The Guardian:
The Underdog: Josh Must Win challenges a group of celebrities to secretly fix a TV series so the nerdy bloke wins – without him knowing. It’s a joyful, subversive ride, with the least likely reality star ever
Reality TV is about to get an overdue shake-up. Hoax reality show The Underdog: Josh Must Win flips the entire genre on its head by putting an average bloke into a houseful of the usual tanned, tattooed, gym-buffed types. They all think they’re in an E4 popularity contest called The Favourite but, in fact, the underdog in their midst – a nice, nerdy 23-year-old called Josh who lives with his parents and four chocolate labradors in Bournemouth – is being backed by a panel of four celebrities, covertly controlling events from the house next door and trying to make Josh win.
From the BBC:
The world has seen the rise of J-pop and K-pop, but could I-pop be next to take over the global charts?
That's the aspiration of Indian girl group W.i.S.H. - an acronym of World inka Stage Hai, or "the world is their stage".
The foursome - Ri, Zo, Sim, and Suchi - are said to be India's first mainstream girl group in more than 20 years.
From Deutsche Welle (video):
15 hours ago
Ijeure Ezebuike Onwadike crafts extraordinary headwear from unconventional scrap materials. Her designs crown Nigerian celebrities at prestigious events such as the Oceans 8 Met Gala in Lagos.
Art news to begin with, from The Guardian:
Exclusive: Sculpture bought by US billionaires was made almost 20 years after date that appears in its name
A Damien Hirst shark preserved in formaldehyde that was purchased by American billionaires was dated to the 1990s even though it was not made until 2017.
The 4-metre (13ft) tiger shark, dissected into three parts, is the centrepiece of a luxury bar in the Palms casino resort in Las Vegas. It first appeared in the casino six years ago, with the title: The Unknown (Explored, Explained, Exploded), 1999.
And from Deutsche Welle:
Igor BurdygaMarch 21, 2024
Many Ukrainian museums have been looted since Russia's invasion in February 2022. Kyiv is now trying to locate art and valuables and speaks of a "network" behind the looting.
As a result of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2022, the Russian army was forced to withdraw from the area around Kherson. On November 11, the city was liberated by the Ukrainian army.
One of the many consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the months of turbulence in the Kherson region has been the devastation of the cultural sector.
Now from East to West, beginning with Oceania news from The Guardian:
Polyfest, held this week in Auckland, New Zealand, saw thousands of high school students gather to compete in music, dance and speech performances
And from the Guardian again:
Tour boat divers have long borne witness to mass bleaching events. Once reluctant to wade into discussions about global heating, they are now opening up
by Graham Readfearn
“You can see it on their faces,” says scuba diving instructor Elliot Peters. “There’s definitely some remorse and sadness.”
Peters works at a resort on Heron Island in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef and, in recent weeks, he’s had to tell curious guests why so many of the corals around the island are turning bone white.
Another from The Guardian (I couldn’t get through the paywall for the Sydney Morning Herald, which is why Australia news is not from a more local source):
Stadium designs have been ripped up, a suburban venue will host the 100m final and one public servant says work has been ‘half-baked and half-arsed’
The former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told bureaucrats charged with planning for the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane that they would be run “the Queensland way”.
Through the course of just this week, the state government has ripped up its unpopular designs for new and upgraded major stadiums, ignored the (more expensive) suggestions of its own review, and chose instead to plan a low-cost Olympics at existing venues.
On a very similar topic we have this, from Al Jazeera:
Announcement comes after the Australian state of Victoria withdrew as host last year over cost concerns.
More Southeast Asia news from Al Jazeera:
A recent surge in violence by armed groups in Myanmar is causing upheaval and displacement among Rohingya once again.
From the BBC:
When Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested on Thursday on claims of corruption, it came as no surprise.
Months earlier, in November, Mr Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had run a door to door campaign, asking residents of India's capital whether he should resign or run his government from jail.
Mr Kejriwal and other party seniors face corruption accusations under investigation by India's powerful federal financial crime agency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED)
From Al Jazeera:
Residents say they are facing the worst water crisis in decades as they witness an unusually hot February and March.
Bengaluru, the city of lavish headquarters of multiple global software companies in southern India, is drying up. Residents say they are facing the worst water crisis in decades as they witness an unusually hot February and March.
Water experts fear the worst is still to come in April and May when the summer sun is at its strongest in the city of 13 million residents.
From the BBC:
By Aalia Farzan & Flora Drury
Teenage girls have told the BBC they feel "mentally dead" as the Taliban's ban on their education prevents them from returning to school once again.
More than 900 days have now passed since girls over 12 were first banned.
The Taliban have repeatedly promised they would be readmitted once a number of issues were resolved - including ensuring the curriculum was "Islamic".
European stories and then we will finish with Africa below.
From Reuters:
Russia has added what it calls the "LGBT movement" to a list of extremist and terrorist organisations, state media said on Friday.
The move was in line with a
ruling by Russia's Supreme Court last November that LGBT activists should be designated as extremists, a move that representatives of gay and transgender people said they feared would lead to arrests and prosecutions.
From France 24:
Rumours that French pop star Aya Nakamura may sing at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics have triggered a flurry of attacks from the French far right, questioning the host country’s ability to appreciate the globally acclaimed talent emerging from its neglected suburbs with large immigrant populations.
With the Paris Olympics still months away, the host country has already won gold in a category it truly owns: divisive racial controversy with “made in France” flair.
That’s how public broadcaster France Inter summed up a row over unconfirmed rumours that Aya Nakamura would perform an Édith Piaf song during the Games’ opening ceremony in front of a crowd of 300,000 gathered along the River Seine.
From France 24:
At least 30 schools in the Paris region have this week received threatening messages accompanied by "shocking" footage of beheadings, the education ministry said on Thursday.
The establishments – mainly secondary schools – have received "serious threats" containing "justification of and incitement to terrorism," a representative of the education ministry told AFP.
The messages came through the ENT digital platform that serves as a link between teachers, pupils and parents; internal emails ; or the Pronote software used by the education ministry.
From The Guardian:
Proposals deter ‘death tourism’ by requiring applicants to have lived on the island for at least 12 months
Jersey could legalise assisted dying for people who are terminally ill or have an incurable condition with unbearable suffering under proposals to be debated in the island’s parliament.
The proposals, published on Friday, may lead to Jersey becoming the first jurisdiction in the British Isles to allow assisted dying.
Also from The Guardian:
The exclusion of women tells us something about the men who choose to be part of it
Where does the establishment reside in the 21st century? One of its homes is 15 Garrick Street, London. The membership list of the Garrick Club, as reported by the Guardian this week, includes senior judges and lawyers, peers and ministers, along with the heads of thinktanks and companies, rock stars, actors, senior journalists, the heads of MI6 and the civil service, and King Charles – but not a single woman. Men in charge of modern courts, government, business and culture relish membership of an institution which is 19th century not only in origin but mindset.
One last from The Guardian:
This England team are constantly battling toxic politics, so perhaps Nike and the FA should have been more careful
Flag. noun. A piece of bunting used as an emblem for military or naval purposes, signalling decoration, display, propaganda.
Flag. verb. To droop, to flap feebly, to grow spiritless.
Yep. That just about covers it. As the current
England shirt flag-desecration lesbian conspiracy-rage shemozzle (imagine explaining all this, in fine detail, to a time traveller from 1993) edges into its third day, both dictionary definitions of the four-letter word at its centre seem about right.
Now news from Africa, beginning with the BBC:
A mass grave containing the bodies of at least 65 migrants has been found in Libya, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said.
The IOM said the circumstances of their deaths and their nationalities are still unknown but they believe they died being smuggled through the desert towards the Mediterranean.
From Deutsche Welle:
Brutal battles and pillaged aid deliveries have turned Sudan into the world's biggest humanitarian crisis. Now life-saving community initiatives are also running out of food as millions face extreme hunger.
For the activists who have been running the communal kitchen in Sudan's regional capital El Fasher for the past year, the United Nation's latest warning of "catastrophic hunger" felt as if someone had finally found the right words for the brutality of the situation.
For months the activists have not been able to raise funds or obtain food. They were simply left to watch their stockpiles diminish.
From Al Jazeera:
After 38 years in power, the veteran leader has no rivals, leading many to believe he is grooming his son for the top job.
And from France24:
Twenty-three soldiers were killed in a “terrorist” ambush in western Niger during an offensive near the border with Burkina Faso and Mali, the defence ministry said.
The soldiers were engaged in a security sweep in Tillaberi, in the three borders area, on Tuesday and Wednesday and were killed during a “complex ambush”, it said late Thursday, adding that “about 30 terrorists had been neutralised”.
The army raids were “designed to reassure local people” who were being targeted by armed groups engaged in “murders, extortion and cattle rustling”, the ministry said.
The last two are about South American news. This is from Al Jazeera:
Four-year-old police unit rescues exotic wildlife sold on the international black market.
By Christina Noriega
Cali, Colombia – On January 20, 2023, a Colombian task force burst into a home in this city, looking for contraband. Nearly a dozen officers scattered throughout the house, searching every room, peering into cabinets and closets, and poking under beds and couches until they found what they came for in a cardboard box: a massive, yellow-spotted python that was three metres (10 feet) long.
Continuing to search, officers also uncovered two taricaya turtles– a species native to the Amazon’s freshwater tributaries, categorised as “vulnerable” by conservationists – hidden in a concrete patio.
From The Guardian:
There were many bones. We had no idea how they had got there
In 1966, when I was 10 years old, my mother and I moved to Gamboa, a neighbourhood by the waterfront in the Port Zone of Rio de Janeiro. When I got married in 1977, we stayed in the area, had three kids and set up a pest control company.
In 1990, we bought our first house there. It had a strange layout: when you entered, you had to go down a very long corridor. It was also very old, so we knew we would have to do some building work. We had dreams of adding a second floor, so each of our children could have their own room.