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 am featuring news from around the world.
Top Story
- NYT - New and Frozen Frontier Awaits Offshore Oil Drilling
Shortly before Thanksgiving in 2010, the leaders of the commission President Obama had appointed to investigate the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico sat down in the Oval Office to brief him.
After listening to their findings about the BP accident and the safety of deepwater drilling, the president abruptly changed the subject.
“Where are you coming out on the offshore Arctic?” he asked.
William K. Reilly, a former chief of the Environmental Protection Agency and a commission co-chairman, was startled, as was Carol M. Browner, the president’s top adviser at the time on energy and climate change. Although a proposal by Shell to drill in the Arctic had been a source of dissension, it was not a major focus of the panel’s work.
“It’s not deep water, right?” the president said, noting that Shell’s proposal involved low-pressure wells in 150 feet of water, nothing like BP’s 5,000-foot high-pressure well that blew out in the gulf.
“What that told me,” Mr. Reilly later recounted, “was that the president had already gotten deeply into this issue and was prepared to go forward.” |
USA
- Portsmouth Herald - 6 injured as fire still burns aboard nuclear-powered USS Miami
Six hours after it began, a fire continued to burn aboard a nuclear-powered submarine undergoing overhaul at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, injuring six people on Wednesday night, according to the yard's commander.
While the fire - located mainly in the USS Miami's living areas and in control spaces - continues to burn, the situation is improving, said Base Commander Capt. Bryant Fuller in a statement to the media at about 11:30 p.m. Six people were injured fighting the fire and were either treated at the scene or transported to a hospital, he said. One of the injured was a firefighter who suffered heat exhaustion but who was conscious and alert, said Fuller.
According to Fuller, the cause of the fire is still unknown but a full investigation would follow. He said the nuclear reactor is not active and that there are no weapons aboard the ship. |
- McClatchy - Secret Service chief says there’s no culture of misbehavior
Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan apologized Wednesday before a Senate panel for the prostitution scandal that’s embarrassed his agency, but he said he didn’t believe that it had arisen from an agency culture of misbehavior…
The chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, said he did find a record of 64 instances of sexual misconduct in the past five years. But Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said he’d found no pattern in the events, which included a number of reports of sexually explicit emails or material on a government computer. Three involved an "inappropriate relationship" with a foreign national, he said.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called the behavior of agents who took prostitutes back to their hotel rooms before a presidential visit to Colombia “morally repugnant” and said she doesn’t believe that it was an isolated incident. She noted that some of the participants were supervisors. |
Europe
- Reuters - Stage set for Hollande-Merkel showdown at EU summit
European leaders will try to breathe life into their stricken economies at a summit over dinner on Wednesday, but disagreement over the issue of mutual euro-zone bonds and whether they can alleviate two years of debt turmoil will dominate the gathering.
For the first time in more than two years of debt-crisis meetings, the leaders of France and Germany have not held their own mini-summit beforehand to agree positions, marking a significant shift in the traditional Franco-German axis…
[New French President Francois] Hollande's election victory has significantly changed the terms of the debate in Europe, with his call for greater emphasis on growth now a rallying cry for other leaders.
That has set up a showdown with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who supports growth but whose primary objective is budget austerity and structural reform. While she and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy did not always see eye-to-eye, in Hollande she is faced by someone with a different vision. |
- Bloomberg - War-Gaming Greek Euro Exit Shows Hazards In 46-Hour Weekend
Greece may have only a 46-hour window of opportunity should it need to plot a route out of the euro.
That’s how much time the country’s leaders would probably have to enact any departure from the single currency while global markets are largely closed, from the end of trading in New York on a Friday to Monday’s market opening in Wellington, New Zealand, based on a synthesis of euro-exit scenarios from 21 economists, analysts and academics.
Over the two days, leaders would have to calm civil unrest while managing a potential sovereign default, planning a new currency, recapitalizing the banks, stemming the outflow of capital and seeking a way to pay bills once the bailout lifeline is cut. The risk is that the task would overwhelm any new government in a country that has had to be rescued twice since 2010 because it couldn’t manage its public finances. |
- RIA Novosti - Russia Faces Full-Scale Political Crisis – Report
Russia is facing a full-scale political crisis which may lead to a radical transformation of the country’s ruling system as a result of the growing rivalry between the government and opposition, a report issued by the Moscow-based Center for Strategic Research (TsSR) said.
The report, entitled “Society and Authorities in the Situation of Political Crisis,” sums up the results of a public survey conducted at the request of the Committee of Civil Initiatives, a public organization headed by former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
“The survey shows that the current state of Russia’s society and authorities has many features of a full-fledged political crisis,” the document reads.
“From the society’s side, the crisis reflects not so much the spread of protest-prone social groups as increasing tiredness of political leaders and the ruling elite as a whole,” it states, adding: “Political demands of the population have become more mature and pragmatic.” |
Africa
- AJE - Egyptians go back to polls to elect president
Egypt is set to resume its first free presidential election after voting passed off calmly on the first day apart from a stone-throwing attack on candidate Ahmed Shafiq, who was premier for a few days before Hosni Mubarak fell.
The race broadly pits religious conservative candidates against secular ones like Shafiq and Amr Moussa, the former Arab League chief who previously served as Mubarak's foreign minister.
Long queues formed at polling stations early on Wednesday, and some were packed late into the evening. But turnout, so far, seemed lower than an earlier parliamentary vote when conservatives swept up most seats. The scorching sun deterred some. |
- BBC - Ivorian minister sacked over toxic waste fund scandal
A minister in Ivory Coast has been sacked over his alleged role in the disappearance of millions of dollars meant for victims of pollution.
Adama Bictogo says he has not done anything wrong. The case relates to a 2006 incident in which thousands became ill after toxic waste was dumped in Abidjan.
Multinational Trafigura, which shipped it, denied any wrongdoing but made a series of payments in relation to the case without admitting liability. |
Middle East
- McClatchy - U.S., allies may drop demand that Iran completely halt uranium enrichment
The United States and five other major powers exchanged extensive proposals with Iran on Wednesday over that country’s nuclear program amid signs that the U.S. and its negotiating partners were dropping demands that Iran completely halt the enrichment of uranium.
Instead, the six powers formally asked Iran to halt enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, a proposal that would allow it to continue enriching uranium to the 5 percent level Iran says it needs for electrical power generation…
Iran, which says that its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, cautiously welcomed the six-power proposal. |
- Guardian - African asylum seekers injured in Tel Aviv race riots
Dozens of African asylum seekers were injured as race riots broke out in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night.
Thousands of protesters joined politicians to protest against the arrival of an estimated 60,000 asylum seekers in Israel in recent years. But after inflammatory speeches the demonstration broke out into violence.
Witnesses reported seeing men and women being beaten and shops and properties being attacked. Police said nine people were arrested. |
- WaPo - U.S. hacks Web sites of al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen
State Department cyber experts recently hacked into Web sites being used by al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen and substituted the group’s anti-American rhetoric with information about civilians killed in terrorist strikes, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.
When al-Qaeda recruitment propaganda appeared on tribal sites in Yemen, Clinton said, “within 48 hours, our team plastered the same sites with altered versions . . . that showed the toll al-Qaeda attacks have taken on the Yemeni people.”
The revelation provided an unusual window into low-level cyberwarfare activities that the government rarely discusses. |
- AFP - Iraq attacks kill eight
Attacks in Iraq killed eight people and wounded 33 on Wednesday, security officials said, as Baghdad hosted key nuclear talks in its latest effort to emerge from decades of isolation.
Three people were killed and 14 wounded in a shooting and three roadside bombings in Baquba, capital of Diyala province north of the capital, a police lieutenant colonel and Dr Ahmed Ibrahim of Baquba General Hospital said.
And a roadside bomb exploded near a bus carrying Lebanese Shiite pilgrims near Ramadi, capital of Anbar, a Sunni Arab province west of Baghdad, killing three and wounding 10 others, police and medical sources said. |
- Gulfnews - Saudi king warns of Lebanon civil war threat
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz is "deeply concerned" about the sectarian violence in Lebanon, state news agency SPA said, in an apparent reference to the killing of a Lebanese Sunni cleric opposed to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
"Saudi Arabia is deeply concerned and is following up on the recent developments of Tripoli events, especially the targeting of a main sect in the country's social fabric," Saudi state news agency SPA cited King Abdullah as saying in a letter to Lebanese President Michel Sulaiman.
"Due to the gravity of the crisis and the possibility of it causing sectarian strife in Lebanon and putting it back in the shadow of the civil war, we are looking at your ... attempts to interfere to end the crisis... and keeping Lebanon away from foreign struggles especially with the Syrian crisis nearby," the letter said. |
South Asia
- Reuters - Pakistani doctor jailed for helping CIA find bin Laden
Pakistani authorities have sentenced a doctor accused of helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden to 33 years in jail on charges of treason, officials said, a move almost certain to further strain ties between Washington and Islamabad.
Shakil Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign, in which he collected DNA samples, that is believed to have helped the American intelligence agency track down bin Laden in a Pakistani town…
"Dr Shakil has been sentenced to 33 years imprisonment and a fine of 320,000 Pakistani rupees ($3,477)," said Mohammad Nasir, a government official in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where the jail term will be served. He gave no further details. |
- AJE - Deaths in US drone attack in Pakistan
A US drone strike on a compound has killed at least ten people in northwest Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said.
"The drone fired two missiles on a house in Hassokhel town," 25km east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, a security official said on Thursday, a day after a similar attack killed four people in the same region.
North Waziristan is a stronghold of the Haqqani network - Afghan fighters blamed for a series of spectacular attacks on Western targets in Kabul - and Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud. |
- CNN - 122 girls, 3 teachers poisoned at Afghan school
More than 120 girls and three teachers were admitted to an Afghanistan hospital Wednesday after being poisoned in their classes with a type of spray, a Takhar provincial official said.
The incident occurred in the provincial capital of Talokhan, in the Bibi Hajera girls school, said Dr. Hafizullah Safi, director of public health for the northern Afghanistan province.
Forty of the 122 girls were still hospitalized, he said, with symptoms including dizziness, vomiting, headaches and loss of consciousness. |
- WaPo - India raises gasoline price to stem falling currency
Struggling with a sinking rupee and rising fiscal deficit, India announced a roughly 10 percent hike — the country’s steepest ever — in the price of gasoline Wednesday, prompting anger across the political spectrum.
State-owned oil companies, which are saddled with huge losses because the government requires them to sell fuel at subsidized rates to protect the poor, announced that gas prices across the country would rise by an average 50 cents a gallon. They have been prohibited from raising prices since November because the government feared a public backlash in state elections earlier this year.
The hike brings India’s fuel price into parity with international prices and also addresses the severe devaluation of the currency in recent weeks. |
- Guardian - Indian state to let forest guards shoot poachers on sight
A western Indian state has declared war on animal poaching, allowing forest guards to shoot hunters on sight to curb attacks on tigers, elephants and other wildlife.
The government in Maharashtra says injuring or killing suspected poachers will no longer be considered a crime.
Forest guards should not be "booked for human rights violations when they have taken action against poachers", the Maharashtra forest minister, Patangrao Kadam, said on Tuesday. The state will also send more rangers and jeeps into forests, and will offer secret payments to informers who give tips about poachers and animal smugglers, he said. |
Asia
- China Daily - Govt urges stability; analysts fear slowdown
China's Cabinet on Wednesday sought to shore up economic weakness in the country, pledging more attention to "stabilizing economic growth" amid fears that the world's second-largest economy may slow further in coming months.
Authorities should give more priority to stabilizing growth and actively boost domestic demand as the economy faces "increasing downward pressure," the State Council said Wednesday.
The government should "place stabilizing growth in a more important position and carry out preemptive policy adjustments and fine-tuning more forcefully according to the changing situation," according to a statement issued after an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao. |
- WaPo - Kidnapped fishermen’s case angers Chinese public
The plight of 28 Chinese fishermen who were kidnapped, robbed, stripped and held for 13 days by North Koreans has inflamed Chinese public opinion, with many Internet users taking to microblogging sites to question the Beijing government’s close relationship with its reclusive ally in Pyongyang.
But for the moment, experts and diplomats said, the episode seems unlikely to either shake the alliance or lead Beijing’s Communist authorities to heed Washington’s call to apply more pressure on North Korea to limit its nuclear ambitions.
The fishermen, who were in three boats, were seized May 8 in what the vessels’ owners said were Chinese waters. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not report the incident for several days. |
- NYT - Malaysian Opposition Leader Denies Protest Charges
The Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges relating to his involvement last month in a protest that drew thousands of demonstrators into the streets calling for free and fair elections.
Mr. Anwar condemned the charges against him and two other leaders of his political party as political intimidation, an accusation the government rejected.
The three men were charged with participating in an illegal street protest and with inciting protesters to break through barriers that had been set up around Independence Square here in the capital. |
- BBC - Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi to travel to forum in Thailand
Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to attend the World Economic Forum in Bangkok next week, leaving Burma for the first time in 24 years.
She will attend the summit which takes place from 30 May to 1 June, a spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party told the BBC. Burma's President Thein Sein is also expected to attend the event.
Ms Suu Kyi has spent much of the past two decades under house arrest as a political prisoner. |
Oceana
- SMH - Small step for a man, great get for accountants
Notoriously reclusive Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong gives a surprising interview to Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia.
As the first person to walk on the moon, he is a man whose name will be remembered for generations to come. But perhaps one of the other well-known things about Neil Armstrong is that he hardly ever gives interviews.
It was therefore a coup for Alex Malley, chief executive of Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia, to secure almost an hour of Armstrong's time to discuss the astronaut's trip to the moon.
In the illuminating conversation - posted as a four part series on the CPA Australia website - Armstrong, now 81, revealed how he thought his mission, Apollo 11, only had a 50 per cent chance of landing safely on the moon's surface and said it was "sad" that the US government's ambitions for Nasa were so reduced compared with the achievements of the 1960s. |
Americas
- MercoPress - Peru says dolphins died of natural causes; environmental groups unconvinced
Nearly 900 dolphins that washed up along Peru's northern coast since the start of the year died of natural causes, a top official said Tuesday, citing a government report.
Environmental groups, however, remained unconvinced and said they were certain the massive dolphin losses was linked to offshore oil exploration in the area.
“We have reached the conclusion that the deaths were from natural causes,” said Gladys Trevino, Peru's Production Minister, speaking on local radio as she announced the results of a government investigation. Trevino said the study by the government-run Institute of Peru's Ocean (IMARPE) had ruled out other explanations such as offshore oil exploration or viral or bacterial infections. |
- LAHT - Venezuela’s Chavez Back in the Public Eye
President Hugo Chavez made his first public appearance since returning to Venezuela 11 days ago after completing what is supposed to be his final round of anti-cancer radiation treatment in Cuba.
The leftist head of state was in high spirits Tuesday as he chaired a two-hour Cabinet meeting that was broadcast live on all radio and television networks…
[Chavez] expressed regret that his cancer treatment prevented him from attending April’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, where he would have liked to “say something” to U.S. President Barack Obama about “the madness of the Yankee empire and its European allies.” |
- LAT - Mexico political party suspends former official in drug-money scandal
The political party expected to win Mexico's upcoming presidential election sought Wednesday to distance itself from a former high-ranking official embroiled in a drug-trafficking and money-laundering scandal.
Tomas Yarrington, a former governor of the border state of Tamaulipas from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has been accused in U.S. federal court papers of receiving millions of dollars from drug gangs. He allegedly used the money to buy property in Mexico and Texas.
U.S. prosecutors Tuesday filed two civil forfeiture cases that are aimed at confiscation of some of the properties. Yarrington has not been charged with a crime and has denied wrongdoing. |
- Montreal Gazette - Night demo illegal but peaceful
Thousands of students marched through Montreal streets on Wednesday—the 30th consecutive evening protest against a hike in university tuition rates. They chanted, sang and banged pots and pans. And they cheered at people who waved red fabric from their balconies in support.
Near 11 p.m. Montreal police said two protests were still going on. A third in Verdun had ended. The demonstrations were peaceful, police said. One woman was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer.
Police declared the march that set out from Place Émilie-Gamelin illegal before it began, citing the new municipal bylaw that bans face coverings during demonstrations. Police tweeted that people could march provided “they follow the instructions of the field commander.” They also warned the crowd not to go against traffic. |
World
- Amnesty International - Report 2012: No longer business as usual for tyranny and injustice
The courage shown by protesters in the past 12 months has been matched by a failure of leadership that makes the UN Security Council seem tired, out of step and increasingly unfit for purpose, Amnesty International said as it launched its 50th global human rights report with a call for a strong global Arms Trade Treaty later this year.
“Failed leadership has gone global in the last year, with politicians responding to protests with brutality or indifference. Governments must show legitimate leadership and reject injustice by protecting the powerless and restraining the powerful. It is time to put people before corporations and rights before profits,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International Secretary General.
The vocal and enthusiastic support for the protest movements shown by many global and regional powers in the early months of 2011, has not translated into action. As Egyptians go to the polls to vote for a new president, it looks increasingly as if the opportunities for change created by the protesters are being squandered.
“In the last year it has all too often become clear that opportunistic alliances and financial interests have trumped human rights as global powers jockey for influence in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Salil Shetty. |