The Overnight News Digest is an ongoing evening series dedicated to chronicling the day's news that the editor de la nuit finds of import or interest. Everyone is welcome to add their own news items in the comments. Tonight, I offer a brief hodgepodge of news that was of interest to me.
Top Story
- NYT - U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against Iran
A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials…
The game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policy makers over the consequences of any Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those in the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.
The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there. |
Other News
- OECD - Act now on climate change or face costly consequences, warns OECD
As countries struggle with the immediate challenges of stretched public finances and high unemployment, they must not neglect the longer term. Action needs to be taken now to prevent irreversible damage to the environment.
“Greener sources of growth can help governments today as they tackle these pressing challenges. Greening agriculture, water and energy supply and manufacturing will be critical by 2050 to meet the needs of over 9 billion people.” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría…
To avert the grim future painted by the Environmental Outlook to 2050, the report recommends a cocktail of policy solutions: using environmental taxes and emissions trading schemes to make pollution more costly than greener alternatives; valuing and pricing natural assets and ecosystem services like clean air, water and biodiversity for their true worth; removing environmentally harmful subsidies to fossil fuels or wasteful irrigation schemes; and encouraging green innovation by making polluting production and consumption modes more expensive while providing public support for basic R&D. |
- NYT - Brazil Bars Oil Workers From Leaving After Spill
A Brazilian court has ordered 17 employees from two American companies, the oil giant Chevron and the rig operator Transocean, to surrender their passports, barring them from leaving Brazil as authorities prepare to file criminal charges in days in connection with an offshore oil spill involving the companies.
The ruling by Judge Vlamir Costa Magalhães, issued late Friday night, adds to Chevron’s woes in Brazil, which began last November when oil was found to be leaking from an offshore field controlled by Chevron. Prosecutors have already filed a civil lawsuit seeking damages of 20 billion reais, or about $11.2 billion, from the company.
Brazil’s Navy and Chevron said Friday that they had detected a new oil sheen from the field where the earlier spill occurred…
Chevron, the foreign oil company with the largest operations in Brazil, has argued that the country’s response to the November spill, which was a tiny fraction of the size of the 2010 BP spill, was an “overreaction.” |
- WaPo - Goldman Sachs’s long history of duping its clients
There are numerous examples of Goldman putting its own interests first. But one will suffice: the June 1970 bankruptcy of Penn Central Transportation Company, the nation’s largest railroad.
At the time, Penn Central operated 20,530 miles of track in 16 states and two Canadian provinces and provided 35 percent of all railroad passenger service in the United States. The company also had substantial real estate holdings, including Grand Central Terminal in New York, along with much of the land on Park Avenue between Grand Central and the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Nevertheless, Penn Central ended up defaulting on $87 million of its short-term unsecured debt — known in the industry as “commercial paper” — and Goldman was at the epicenter of its financial difficulties…
After Penn Central filed for bankruptcy, an SEC investigation discovered that Goldman had continued to sell the railroad’s debt to its clients at 100 cents on the dollar — even though, by the end of 1969, the firm knew that Penn Central’s finances were deteriorating rapidly. Not only was Goldman privy to Penn Central’s internal numbers, it also heard repeatedly from the railroad’s executives that it was rapidly running out of cash…
But, according to the SEC, while Goldman did not share the bad news with its customers and continued to sell them the increasingly squirrelly Penn Central commercial paper, it did use the public and nonpublic information to protect itself and its partners from having any of the paper on their books when the music stopped. After all, back then, Goldman was a private partnership with only its partners’ capital at risk, not that of outside investors, like today. |
- NSF - Early Spring Drives Butterfly Population Declines
Early snowmelt caused by climate change in the Colorado Rocky Mountains snowballs into two chains of events: a decrease in the number of flowers, which, in turn, decreases available nectar. The result is decline in a population of the Mormon Fritillary butterfly, Speyeria mormonia.
Using long-term data on date of snowmelt, butterfly population sizes and flower numbers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Carol Boggs, a biologist at Stanford University, and colleagues uncovered multiple effects of early snowmelt on the growth rate of an insect population.
"Predicting effects of climate change on organisms' population sizes will be difficult in some cases due to lack of knowledge of the species' biology," said Boggs, lead author of a paper reporting the results online in this week's journal Ecology Letters. |
- Politico - Santorum steps in it on unemployment
Rick Santorum gaffe in Illinois this afternoon, as the Pennsylvania senator — already viewed as a candidate who may be more of a culture warrior than a job creator — said the following: "We need a candidate who's going to be a fighter for freedom. Who's going to get up and make that the central theme in this race because it is the central theme in this race. I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. Doesn't matter to me." |
- The Daily - 8 years later, abuse soldier Lynndie England tells of her anguish – but won’t apologize to ‘enemy’
Eight years before an American soldier shot 16 civilians in Afghanistan, there was another case of tragic military misconduct that ruined lives and threatened to derail a war effort.
Today, the former soldier who became the callous, “thumbs-up” emblem of the Abu Ghraib scandal lives with her parents in rural West Virginia, raising the son of the man who perpetrated the worst of the torture at the Iraqi prison. Things are so rough for her, Lynndie England told The Daily in a wide-ranging interview, that she has trouble finding much reason to feel bad for the detainees she and her colleagues abused.
“Their lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” England said. “They weren’t innocent. They’re trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.” |
- Telegraph - Syria: 'I am the real dictator', declares Asma al-Assad
Despite the ambitions she expressed for liberalising Syria before the uprising, Mrs Assad, 36, displays no misgivings about the regime’s bloody crackdown, which has accounted for most of the estimated 8,000 lives lost…
Mrs Assad’s “dictator” comment was made partly in jest during an exchange with a friend about how much attention spouses typically pay to each other.
“As for listening – I am the REAL dictator, he has no choice ...” she wrote on Dec 14. Her use of the word in reference to her husband suggests she understands how others regard him. |
- ABC - Russian Anti-Terror Troops Arrive in Syria
Russia, one of President Bashar al-Assad's strongest allies despite international condemnation of the government's violent crackdown on the country's uprising, has repeatedly blocked the United Nations Security Council's attempts to halt the violence, accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to start another war.
Now the Russian Black Sea fleet's Iman tanker has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea with an anti-terror squad from the Russian Marines aboard according to the Interfax news agency. The Assad government has insisted it is fighting a terrorist insurgency. The Russian news reports did not elaborate on the Russian troops' mission in Syria or if they are expected to leave the port.
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- Guardian - Climate change: make industry pay for carbon emissions, US congressman says
The way Henry Waxman sees it, Congress faces two huge challenges: cutting the deficit and protecting the country from the worst consequences of climate change. Why not act on both together? Cutting the US government deficit and protecting the country from the worst consequences of climate change can go hand in hand, according to a congressman who wants to put a price on carbon emission from industry…
The start of 2013 is crunch time for deficit reduction. Both available options – raising taxes or cutting social spending – come with a heavy political price. But by finding a way to make industry pay for the emissions that cause global warming, Congress could find a new revenue stream, Waxman argued. "A price on carbon can bring in a substantial amount of money to deal with our fiscal problems," he said.
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- WaPo - Mexico’s middle class is becoming its majority
A wary but tenacious middle class is fast becoming the majority in Mexico, breaking down the rich-poor divide in a profound demographic transformation that has far-reaching implications here and in the United States…
The Mexican middle class is heterogeneous, anxious and divided among the major political parties; its members are socially moderate but fiscally conservative, cynical about political promises and fearful that recent gains could be lost in a financial crisis or social upheaval — the kind that buffeted Mexico in the 1990s.
“The middle class in this country doesn’t want to lose what it’s gained,” said Gabriel Paulin, 30, living in a mod condo in a new subdivision in Queretaro. On his coffee table: a Spanish-language copy of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” — essential reading for the striving class — alongside a boxed DVD set of the “Mad Men” television series. |
- Guardian - Winds of change blow through China as spending on renewable energy soars
The remote, wind-blasted desert of northwestern Gansu could be the most unloved, environmentally abused corner of China. It is home to the country's first oilfield and several of the coalmines and steel factories that have contributed to China's notoriety as the planet's biggest polluter and carbon dioxide emitter.
But in the past few years, the landscape has started to undergo a transformation as Gansu has moved to the frontline of government efforts to reinvent China's economy with a massive investment in renewable energy. The change is evident soon after driving across the plains from Jiuquan, an ancient garrison town on the Silk Road that is now a base for more than 50 energy companies.
Wind turbines, which were almost unknown five years ago, stretch into the distance, competing only with far mountains and new pylons for space on the horizon. Jiuquan alone now has the capacity to generate 6GW of wind energy – roughly equivalent to that of the whole UK. The plan is to more than triple that by 2015, when this area could become the biggest windfarm in the world. |
- LAT - China puts a stop to Maoist revival
In the latest political tumult in China, it is the Maoists who find themselves in trouble.
Maoist websites have been shut down, ostensibly for "maintenance." A public park in Chongqing where retirees sang and twirled to patriotic anthems while waving red flags posted a notice saying the music was now banned because it disturbed the neighborhood. A former television host, known for his Maoist views, found his scheduled speeches abruptly canceled.
The crackdown started late last week during the conclusion of the National People's Congress. On Thursday, Premier Wen Jiabao called for political reforms to protect the nation's economy, warning that without change, China could be revisiting the cruelty of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Tse-tung's 1966-76 purge of intellectuals. The following day, Bo Xilai, the Communist Party chief in Chongqing and a popular figure for leftists, was sacked from his post. |