OND is a 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 12:00AM Eastern Time.
The OND concept was borne under the keen keyboard of Magnifico - proper respect is due.
Current Contributers are ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader,Oke, rfall, JML9999 and Neon Vincent.
Editorial note:Slipped in NY Times article on Iraq. Reuters&BBC don't seem to have the story yet.....
BBC:Syria: Clinton urges states to cut ties over crackdown
Syria: Clinton urges states to cut ties over crackdown
She said buying oil and gas from Syria and exporting arms there were giving President Bashar al-Assad "comfort in his brutality".
Mrs Clinton's comments came as large anti-government protests continued despite a harsh army crackdown.
Activists said at least 16 people died on Friday as protesters came under fire in towns and cities across the country.
More than 1,700 people have died and tens of thousands have reportedly been arrested since the uprising against the 41-year rule of Mr Assad's family began in March.
NY Times:Iraqi Leader Backs Syria, With a Nudge From Iran
Iraqi Leader Backs Syria, With a Nudge From Iran
BAGHDAD — As leaders in the Arab world and other countries condemn President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on demonstrators in Syria, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has struck a far friendlier tone, urging the protesters not to “sabotage” the state and hosting an official Syrian delegation.
BBC:Italian debt: PM Berlusconi announces new measures
Italian debt: PM Berlusconi announces new measures
The 45bn euro ($64bn: £40bn) plan aims to balance Italy's budget by 2013, a year earlier than had been planned by slashing public spending and jobs.
PM Silvio Berlusconi said the measures were painful but unavoidable.
On Monday the European Central Bank announced it would buy Italian debt in a successful effort to lower its cost of borrowing.
The new measures come on top of a previous round of spending cuts announced in July which aimed to balance the budget by 2014.
BBC:Riots: Police defend handling of crisis after criticism
Riots: Police defend handling of crisis after criticism
Association of Chief Police Officers president Sir Hugh Orde rejected suggestions that the restoration of calm was due to political intervention.
Acting Met Police commissioner Tim Godwin said comments were being made by people "who weren't there".
David Cameron said police did make mistakes over numbers and tactics - but also praised the bravery of officers.
Mr Godwin denied police had been too "timid" in their initial response to the riots on Saturday - but he said that "if police officers had the benefit of hindsight as foresight we would obviously do things slightly differently"
BBC:Brazil judge Patricia Acioli shot dead in Niteroi
Brazil judge Patricia Acioli shot dead in Niteroi
Patricia Acioli was gunned down outside her home in the city of Niteroi late on Thursday by masked men travelling on two motorbikes, officials said.
She was best known for convicting members of vigilante gangs and corrupt police officers.
The judge's family said she had received several death threats, but had not had a police escort.
Witnesses told AFP the gunmen intercepted the mother-of-three's car as she was arriving at home in Niteroi, just across Guanabara Bay from Rio de Janeiro.
BBC:Shell fights spill near North Sea oil platform
Shell fights spill near North Sea oil platform
The leak was found near the Gannet Alpha platform, 180 km (113 miles) from Aberdeen, Scotland.
The company would not say how much oil may have been spilt so far, though it said it had "stemmed the leak significantly".
One of the wells at the Gannet oilfield has been closed, but the company would not say if production was reduced.
The company says it has sent a clean-up vessel to the location and has a plane monitoring the surface.
BBC:Poland: Train passenger killed in derailment
Poland: Train passenger killed in derailment
The inter-city train from Warsaw to Katowice was derailed at the town of Baby, near the city of Piotrkow Trybunalski, emergency services said.
The engine and three of the carriages went off the tracks. It was not clear what caused the derailment.
Initial reports said four people had died, but police later revised the figure.
The accident happened at about 16:15 (14:15 GMT), around two hours after the train left the capital Warsaw.
Reuters:Libya rebels take casualties in fight for Brega
Libya rebels take casualties in fight for Brega
(Reuters) - Rebels on the eastern front of Libya's civil war lost 11 men in the past 24 hours fighting to capture the strategic oil terminal and refinery at Brega on the Mediterranean coast, hospital sources said.
Sources at a hospital in Ajdabiyah to the northeast said about 50 were wounded Thursday and Friday and one civilian in the almost deserted town was killed when a rocket fired by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces hit a house.
The rebels have taken the residential zone of New Brega. But that is 15 km (10 miles) from the terminal and port area.
They hope that capturing the port 750 km east of the capital Tripoli will be a tipping point in their nearly six-month campaign to oust Gaddafi. They want to begin exporting oil from Brega as quickly as possible.
Reuters:Peru's Humala breaks silence: vows hands-on style
Peru's Humala breaks silence: vows hands-on style
(Reuters) - Peruvian President Ollanta Humala on Friday promised "more action and fewer words," breaking two weeks of silence and speaking for the first time in public since taking office.
Humala, who has avoided taking a stand on divisive debates that could irk his leftist base, unnerve investors or cause strife in his ideologically-diverse cabinet, said he would be a hard-nosed leader that gets things done.
"My policy is to be a president who speaks publicly only on necessary topics. I do not want over-exposure to cameras because we are working hard," he told residents in the coastal city of Pisco, where many still live in tents because of a failed government program to rebuild after a devastating 2007 earthquake.
The former military officer, wearing jeans and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up, has sought to distinguish himself from his predecessor, Alan Garcia, a florid speaker who enjoyed mugging for cameras but was criticized for showing little interest in hands-on governing.
Reuters:UK's Cameron seeks U.S. advice on gangs after riots
UK's Cameron seeks U.S. advice on gangs after riots
(Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron, under attack over his leadership during the rioting and looting that swept English cities this week, has enlisted U.S. street crime expert William Bratton to advise the government on handling gang violence.
"I'm being hired by the British government to consult with them on the issue of gangs, gang violence and gang intervention from the American experience and to offer some advice and counsel on their experience," Bratton told Reuters in New York.
British police flooded the streets again on Friday night to ensure weekend drinking does not reignite the rioting that shocked Britons and sullied the country's image a year before it hosts the Olympic Games.
Steve Kavanagh, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said 16,000 officers, instead of the usual 2,500, would remain on duty in London in their biggest peacetime deployment -- a measure of the perceived public order challenge.
Reuters:Wild week on Wall Street ends with subdued gains
Wild week on Wall Street ends with subdued gains
(Reuters) - After one of the most volatile weeks in memory, U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday in a tentative sign that the worst of the selling may be over.
Volume was much lighter than on any other day of the week and intraday swings were far less violent than in previous days. Both signs suggested a drop in investor anxiety.
Still, the market was down for the week and posted its worst three-week decline since March 2009 when it hit 12-year lows.
About 9 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Amex and Nasdaq, sharply lower than the daily average of nearly 16 billion shares traded earlier this week. It was the busiest week in terms of volume since October 2008.
Reuters:Obama to name Pimco VP, Harvard economist to Fed: report
Obama to name Pimco VP, Harvard economist to Fed: report
(Reuters) - The White House has identified two economists to fill vacant seats on the Federal Reserve's powerful seven-member board, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.
However, the White House said in a statement that Obama had not yet decided whom to nominate.
"The President is considering a range of highly qualified nominees for the Federal Reserve but has not made any decisions about whom he would appoint to fill these critically important openings," said White House spokesman Matt Lehrich.
The newspaper said Jeremy Stein, a Harvard University specialist in finance, and Richard Clarida, an executive vice president at money manager Pimco and professor of economics and international affairs at Columbia University, were President Barack Obama's picks for the posts.
LA Times:Google turns to social network to trump Bing
Google turns to social network to trump Bing
Google will start to populate individual users' search results with posts that have been shared publicly by their connections on Google+, the company said Friday.
The new feature, which works only when users are signed in to their Google accounts, aims to tailor results to individual tastes. The idea is if a user posts a note on Google+ about a link--be it to a restaurant's Web site, a news story, or a retail store's site--their Google+ connections are going to be more likely to want to see that site as well.