Welcome to the Overnight News Digest
(graphic by palantir)
The OND is published each night around midnight, Eastern Time.
The originator of OND was Magnifico.
Current Contributors are ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, JML9999 and NeonVincent who also serves as chief cat herder.
BBC: Costa Concordia cruise ship captain 'went off course'
The captain of a cruise ship that ran aground off Italy made an "unapproved, unauthorised" deviation in course, the vessel's owners say.
Costa Cruises boss Pier Luigi Foschi accused Capt Francesco Schettino of sailing too close to a nearby island in order to show the ship to locals.
The captain blamed the crash on rocks that he said were not on his chart.
Six people died and 29 are said to be missing after the Costa Concordia's hull was torn open on Friday.
East Germany | 15.01.2012
Deutsche Welle: Stasi chief's office reopened in new exhibition
Until 1989, it was the Stasi's job to spy on East German citizens. The office of Erich Mielke, who led the secret police for more than 30 years, has been restored for a new exhibition on the body's dark past.
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The newly restored office is part of a new exhibition "Feind ist, wer anders denkt" ("The enemy is he who thinks differently").
All this could not have gone on show had it not been for a group of courageous men and women who stormed the Stasi headquarters at "Haus 1" 22 years ago on January 15, 1990.
They saved millions of documents from being destroyed and preserved important pieces of furniture from Mielke's office.
Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license. Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R0522-177 / CC-BY-SA
BBC: La Nina 'may abet' flu pandemics
Richard Black By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
La Nina events may make flu pandemics more likely, research suggests.
US-based scientists found that the last four pandemics all occurred after La Nina events, which bring cool waters to the surface of the eastern Pacific.
In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they say that flu-carrying birds may change migratory patterns during La Nina conditions.
However, many other La Nina events have not seen novel flu strains spread around the world, they caution.
BBC: Nigerian fuel subsidy: Strike suspended
Nigeria's unions have suspended their strike after the president agreed to cut the cost of petrol following a week of protests.
The strike was called after prices doubled when President Goodluck Jonathan removed a fuel subsidy on 1 January.
Earlier on Monday, he announced that he would restore part of this subsidy.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer but it imports almost all of its refined fuel.
Correspondents say many Nigerians see cheap fuel as the only benefit they get from their country's oil wealth, much of which is pocketed by corrupt officials.
BBC: Pakistan PM Gilani faces Supreme Court contempt order
Pakistan's Supreme Court has issued a contempt order against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, raising the prospect of his prosecution.
The court has been considering what to do about the government's refusal to reopen corruption cases against the president and other political figures.
Mr Gilani says that he will appear in person at the court on Thursday to defend himself.
His announcement came on a day of several challenges for the government.
It is locked in a war of words with the army in addition to its tussle with the judiciary.
BBC: Rupert Murdoch Sopa attack rebuffed by Google
Google has hit back at Rupert Murdoch after he branded the search giant a "piracy leader".
The News Corporation chairman tweeted that Google "streams movies free" and "sells [adverts] around them".
In response, Google said that it fought pirates and counterfeiters "every day".
Mr Murdoch was tweeting in response to the White House's apparent opposition to some aspects of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa).
BBC: London's Science Museum to scan visitors' faces in 3D
By Neil Bowdler Health reporter, BBC News
Visitors to London's Science Museum are being invited to have their faces scanned in 3D.
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Data from participants will be used by Great Ormond Street Hospital, University College Hospital and Eastman Dental Hospital and Institute to provide better treatment and surgery for patients with disfigurements and congenital conditions.
"It's a very simple process using simultaneous photography by nine cameras and then some software modification to produce a 3D image," says Dr Chris Abela, a senior craniofacial fellow at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
"Any visitor to the stand will be able to spin their image around, look at themselves from behind their ear or from the worm's eye view as we call it and really see themselves in another dimension."
Visitors, who must first sign a consent form so that their data can be used for research, will also have the option of rendering their 3D faces in zebra and crocodile skin, just for fun.
LA TIMES: Wikipedia blackout to protest SOPA progress in Congress
Most people probably haven't paid much attention to the huge corporations waging war in Washington, D.C., over legislation designed to crack down on theft of movies, music and other content from the Internet. But the conflict will hit consumers in the face Wednesday, when Wikipedia and a growing number of other websites intend to go dark to protest the proposed changes.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced Monday that the hugely popular online encyclopedia would shut down to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and related legislation, which opponents say could kill websites without due process.
Wikipedia joins Reddit, Boing Boing and dozens of lesser-known sites in what some have dubbed the SOPA Strike, an attempt to widen their complaints about proposals supported by the movie industry and other media companies.
sfgate: Stephen Colbert’s satirical SuperPAC ad: Mitt Romney is a “serial killer”
sfgate: Black pastors urge followers to join Occupy fold
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Rev. Harold Mayberry stood before his First African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation Sunday morning in Oakland and outlined how it was time for members to connect with the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Nationally, many African American leaders have acknowledged a disconnect between the Occupy Wall Street movement and the larger black community.
Mayberry is among nearly two dozen prominent African American Bay Area pastors trying to bridge that gap at the community level through a gr
owing national effort that is ramping up today - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - called Occupy the Dream.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/...
nytimes: Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia Aim to Raise Their Higher Education Profile
PRAGUE — Charles University in Prague was founded in 1348. Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, has been around since 1364, while Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest has been operating since 1635.
But after 40 years of communism, the educational systems of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have fallen behind those of their Western neighbors. Now, education ministers from those countries — who cooperate on a variety of issues under the umbrella of the Visegrad Group — have decided to band together to learn from each other and make strides toward reform.
“We have seen a rapid development of our higher education systems over the last 20 years,” Josef Dobes, the education, youth and sports minister for the Czech Republic, said during an interview last month in Prague. He added that the influence of the Bologna Process, which created a European Higher Education Area to facilitate international cooperation and academic exchange, has changed the way the four countries view their educational systems.
thestar.com: Labour leaders call on premiers to unite and defend health care
The future of Canada’s health-care system is at a critical stage.
As leaders of the provincial and territorial federations of labour, we are calling on the country’s premiers, who are meeting in Victoria, to put forward a united front and stand up for Canada’s universal health-care system and the millions of Canadians who depend on it.
In December, the Harper government sent a clear message that it intends to abrogate its responsibility to defend national health-care standards and universality. It plans to walk away from its responsibility to lead the negotiations to develop a new health accord. The current accord ends in 2014.
Instead, the federal government has laid out a take-it-or-leave-it funding formula that will see Ottawa contributing a lot less to health care by 2017, tying increases in funding to economic growth.
This is an attempt by the Harper government to hijack the real debate.
nytimes: Oversight of Cruise Lines at Issue After Disaster
[A]s shares in the ship’s parent company — Carnival Corporation of Miami, the world’s biggest cruise line operator — slid by nearly a fifth and the owners and insurers tried to add up the cost of the disaster, there were more troubling issues raised about how the cruise industry is supervised and controlled.
Those issues included how much safety information and training are required for the crew and passengers, and how much discretion a captain has to alter routes, especially in an age when electronic radar, charts, GPS and other guidance systems are supposed to keep these large, sleek ships on course.
“There are legitimate questions as these vessels have substantially evolved in recent years,” said Helen Kearns, a spokeswoman for Siim Kallas, the European Union transportation commissioner. “The boats have gotten a lot bigger, as it’s economically advantageous to have more passengers,” she said. “But the way these vessels have grown in size does mean finding the right balance to make sure regulations are stringent enough to ensure there are procedures like safe evacuations.”
nytimes: U.S. to Force Drug Firms to Report Money Paid to Doctors
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: January 16, 2012
WASHINGTON — To head off medical conflicts of interest, the Obama administration is poised to require drug companies to disclose the payments they make to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment.
Many researchers have found evidence that such payments can influence doctors’ treatment decisions and contribute to higher costs by encouraging the use of more expensive drugs and medical devices.
Consumer advocates and members of Congress say patients may benefit from the new standards, being issued by the government under the new health care law. Officials said the disclosures increased the likelihood that doctors would make decisions in the best interests of patients, without regard to the doctors’ financial interests.
nytimes:Suspect in Killings of Homeless Men Has Family Link to Homelessness
YORBA LINDA, Calif. — The man suspected in the killings of four homeless men in Orange County over the last month, Itzcoatl Ocampo, has a personal connection to the area’s group of homeless: his father lives among them.
Mr. Ocampo’s father has lived for the past three years in the sleeping cab of a big rig or under a bridge and has bounced around among friends and relatives, said Itzcoatl Ocampo’s younger brother, Mixcoatl Ocampo. Before the fourth killing, the suspect visited his father and warned him to be careful
The suspect is also a veteran of the American-Iraqi War (from the same article):
After a 2008 tour of duty in Iraq, Itzcoatl became traumatized and depressed, family members said, presenting another challenge to a family in crisis. “He changed — everyone comes back changed,” Mixcoatl said. “Not everyone is the same. My brother is different.”
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After he returned from Iraq, Mr. Ocampo remained with the Marines until he was honorably discharged in 2010. Severe depression did not seem to set in until after his discharge, which was followed by the death of Claudio Patino IV, a close childhood friend with whom Mr. Ocampo had enlisted in the Marines. Mr. Patino was killed in combat in Afghanistan in June 2010.
“He was trying to come back to civilian life, getting adjusted. But once his friend passed away, though, that traumatized him,” Mixcoatl Ocampo said. “He felt very depressed. He got severe headaches. He felt lonely.”
Afghanistan: 3 U.S. Contractors Are Killed in Helicopter Crash
Three American private contractors working for the Defense Department were killed ...
nytimes: Young U.S. Citizens in Mexico Brave Risks for American Schools
In the raging debate over immigration, almost all sides have come to agree on tougher enforcement at the border. But nearly unnoticed, frustration is focusing locally on border-crossers who are not illegal immigrants but young American citizens, whose families have returned to Mexico yet want their children to attend American schools.
Called “transfronterizos,” these students migrate between two cultures, two languages and two nations every day, straining the resources of public school districts and sparking debate among educators and sociologists over whether it is in American interests that they be taught in the United States. Although some Mexican families pay the steep tuition required of out-of-district students, most do not, and many that pay taxes out of their paychecks do not pay the property taxes that support public services.
Some of the students’ parents are American citizens and some are Mexican.
Students like Martha fly under the radar in some school districts, while other districts assign truancy officers to find who they are. They live with the anxiety of potentially having to lie about their residency and the very real possibility that the prize they are after — a decent education — will be taken from them. Though their exact numbers are unknown, their presence reflects the daily complexities of border life — among them, economic and educational disparities between the United States and Mexico and families splintered by deportation and unemployment.