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
- LAT - For-profit colleges slammed in Democratic Senate staff report
For-profit colleges are failing their students and saddling taxpayers with an enormous bill, a two-year investigation by the Senate education panel's Democratic staff concluded.
The harsh report, released Monday by the committee's chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), found that federal taxpayers spent $32 billion on for-profit colleges in 2009-10, while more than half of the students who enrolled in them dropped out without degrees after about four months in 2008-09.
"In this report, you will find overwhelming documentation of exorbitant tuition, aggressive recruiting practices, abysmal student outcomes, taxpayer dollars spent on marketing and pocketed as profit, and regulatory evasion and manipulation," Harkin said. "These practices are not the exception — they are the norm." |
USA
- NYT - A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away
From his computer console here in the Syracuse suburbs, Col. D. Scott Brenton remotely flies a Reaper drone that beams back hundreds of hours of live video of insurgents, his intended targets, going about their daily lives 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan. Sometimes he and his team watch the same family compound for weeks.
“I see mothers with children, I see fathers with children, I see fathers with mothers, I see kids playing soccer,” Colonel Brenton said.
When the call comes for him to fire a missile and kill a militant — and only, Colonel Brenton said, when the women and children are not around — the hair on the back of his neck stands up, just as it did when he used to line up targets in his F-16 fighter jet.
Afterward, just like the old days, he compartmentalizes. “I feel no emotional attachment to the enemy,” he said. “I have a duty, and I execute the duty.” |
- McClatchy - M1 Abrams tank builder pushes Congress to keep contract going
The M1 Abrams tank has survived the Cold War, two conflicts in Iraq and a decade of war in Afghanistan. No wonder: It weighs as much as nine elephants and it’s fitted with a cannon that’s capable of turning a building to rubble from two and a half miles away. But now the machine is a target in an unusual battle between the Defense Department and lawmakers who are the beneficiaries of large campaign donations by its manufacturer.
The Pentagon, facing smaller budgets and looking toward a new global strategy, wants to save as much as $3 billion by freezing refurbishing work on the M1 from 2014 to 2017, so it can redesign the vehicle from top to bottom. Its proposal would idle a large factory in Lima, Ohio, as well as halt work at dozens of subcontractors in Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states.
Abrams manufacturer General Dynamics, a nationwide employer that’s pumped millions of dollars into congressional elections over the past decade, opposes the Pentagon’s plans. |
- Reuters - Enbridge to replace leaky Wisconsin oil pipeline Monday
Canada's Enbridge Inc prepared on Sunday to replace part of a pipeline that leaked more than 1,000 barrels of oil in a Wisconsin field, shutting down a key conduit from Canada and provoking fresh ire from Washington.
The spill on Friday is the latest in a series of incidents that threaten to damage the reputation of a company that launched its most ambitious expansion program ever just two months ago. It came almost two years to the day after a ruptured Enbridge line fouled part of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.
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Europe
- Reuters - Pussy Riot trial over Putin altar protest begins
Three members of the band Pussy Riot, rejected charges of hooliganism for performing a "punk prayer" in Moscow's main cathedral against Vladimir Putin's return as president as a trial against them opened in earnest on Monday. The charges could carry a punishment of up to seven years in prison.
The trial, say observers, will reveal how much power the resurgent Russian Orthodox church and its head, Patriarch Kirill, wields. He has called the "punk prayer" blasphemy, casting it as part of a sinister anti-clerical campaign.
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were arrested in March after taking to the altar of Moscow's Christ the Saviour cathedral and singing a song calling on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out". |
- Yahoo - Dutch field hockey gains worldwide attention for reasons beyond field hockey
The women’s field hockey team from The Netherlands, [is] the best looking team in the Games. The orange-clad squad won its first match 3-0 against Belgium on Sunday, a big step to advancing to the knockout round from Group A and defending its Olympic title. Victories come and go, however. The enduring power of this field hockey team is that it transcends on-field results. |
Africa
- Telegraph - Ebola virus spreads to Uganda capital
Fourteen people have already died and as many as 26 more are feared to be carrying the disease, which kills nine out of ten people who become infected.
Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s President, went on national television to tell people to avoid those who appeared to have Ebola symptoms, which include fever, headaches, diarrhoea and vomiting…
The outbreak began almost a month ago in a village in western Uganda, but medical workers initially failed to diagnose the illness because it did not present typical symptoms. |
- Guardian - South African schoolboy wows Google with Kruger wildlife-tracking website
Today's tourists, armed with cameras instead of guns, still find timing is everything when scanning the savannah for buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion and rhino.
However, A 16-year-old schoolboy has found a hi-tech solution. Nadav Ossendryver's website, Kruger Sightings, provides real-time updates on wildlife sightings in South Africa's world famous Kruger national park.
"Leopard feeding in tree", said one post on Monday. "3 wild dogs" read another. "2 male lions 4km south of lower Sabie across river bank", noted a third.
Ossendryver has taken a familiar concept, crowdsourcing, and transposed it to an African setting. |
Middle East
- Bloomberg - Syria's Aleppo Claim Disputed By Reports Rebels Fight On
Syria’s army has “purged” Aleppo’s Salaheddine district of armed groups and is pursuing others in several neighborhoods as it tries to regain control of the city, state television said.
Al Arabiya television and Al Jazeera, which had a news crew in the Salaheddine district, reported that the area was still under rebels’ control. An Al Jazeera correspondent in Aleppo, Omar Khashram, was injured by mortar fire and brought for treatment to Turkey, where he was reported in stable condition.
Troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been battling rebels who seized several neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city and its commercial hub, since last week. The army pounded the city with heavy artillery and helicopter gunships, opposition groups said. |
- WaPo - Romney praises health care in Israel, where research says ‘strong government influence’ has driven down costs
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had some very kind things to say about the Israeli health care system at a fundraiser there Monday. He praised Israel for spending just 8 percent of its GDP on health care and still remaining a “pretty healthy nation:”
When our health care costs are completely out of control. Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the GDP in Israel? 8 percent. You spend 8 percent of GDP on health care. And you’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our GDP on health care. 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, let me compare that with the size of our military. Our military budget is 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of GDP. We have to find ways, not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our health care costs.
Romney’s point about Israel’s success in controlling health care costs is spot on: Its health care system has seen health care costs grow much slower than other industrialized nations. |
- LAT - More than $200 million wasted on Iraq police training, audit says
The United States wasted more than $200 million on an Iraqi police-training program that has little backing on the ground, a new U.S. government audit released Monday found.
Training the Iraqi police was originally envisioned as the biggest single program run by the U.S. Department of State in the world, spanning five years and costing billions of dollars. But the program has been gutted as Iraqi officials show dimming interest. The U.S. slashed the number of advisors from 85 to 36 this month; it had once planned to have 350.
As Iraqi enthusiasm for the idea has flagged, the program has been downsized so much that the Baghdad Police College Annex -- built at an $108 million cost to help house the program -- will be closed. The U.S. also chipped in an additional $98 million to a Basra facility where training will be halted, making the money a “de facto waste,” the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found. |
South Asia
- AJE - US building projects in Afghanistan 'a waste'
Costly US efforts to build major infrastructure projects in Afghanistan are running far behind schedule, and may fall short of counter-insurgency goals central to the US military campaign there, a government watchdog has warned.
Almost $400m in power grid, roads and other construction projects from fiscal 2011 "may not achieve the desired COIN effects," the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said.
The COIN acronym refers to the military strategy, credited with helping turn around the war in Iraq, that is now a mainstay of the Pentagon's bid to weaken the Afghan Taliban. |
- LAT - In Afghanistan, targeted attacks on leaders an ominous trend
Tamim Nuristani used to own a pizza chain in California. Now he's a marked man in Afghanistan.
This month, insurgents ambushed the provincial governor's convoy in northeastern Afghanistan, sparking a fierce battle that pinned down his entourage for the night. When the motorcade tried to move in the morning, the assailants struck again. Miraculously, all those in the convoy survived.
It was not the first attempt on Nuristani's life; he did not expect it to be the last. Not long ago, security forces discovered and defused a remote-controlled explosive device apparently meant for him, and a defecting Taliban fighter told officials that he had been personally tasked with assassinating the Nuristan governor. |
- CBS - Pakistan unrelenting in demanding drone strike end
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States says her country will not relent from demanding that the CIA end its drone strikes.
In a debate with White House war adviser Douglas Lute at the Aspen Security Forum, Sherry Rehman said drone attacks have damaged al-Qaida but are now only serving to recruit new militants.
"I am not saying drones have not assisted in the war against terror, but they have diminishing rate of returns," Rehman said by video teleconference from Washington.
With Pakistan's spy chief, Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam, expected to hold his first meeting with CIA Director David Petraeus at CIA headquarters in Virginia next week, the ambassador said, "We will seek an end to drone strikes and there will be no compromise on that." |
- AP - 370M people swelter in summer heat as Indian power grid crashes under high demand
Northern India's power grid crashed Monday, halting trains, forcing hospitals and airports onto backup power and providing a dark reminder of the nation's inability to feed a growing hunger for energy as it strives to become an economic power…
Some small businesses were forced to shut for the day. Buildings were without water because the pumps weren't working, and the vaunted New Delhi Metro, with 1.8 million daily riders, was paralyzed during the busy morning commute.
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Asia
- China Daily - China reforms railway court system
China's railway courts are now being integrated into civilian courts as part of reforms that are intended to help build a unified judicial system.
Railway courts handle criminal and civil cases concerning railway transportation, safety and property. They were operated by the Ministry of Railways in the past.
All of the country's railways courts will be funded by local finances and the appointment of relevant posts in such courts will be decided by local legislatures, according to a statement from the Supreme People's Court. |
- Reuters - Japan flags China military's policy role as potential risk
Japan on Tuesday flagged as a potential risk a possible rise in Chinese military's role in shaping Beijing's foreign policy and said aspiring nuclear power North Korea remained a serious regional threat under its new leader.
In its annual defense white paper, Tokyo cited views that relations between China's army and the Communist Party were "getting complex" and said they were a matter of concern. It did not elaborate on how ties between the military and Party had changed.
"This situation calls for attention as a risk management issue," the paper said. |
- BusinessWeek - Japan Anti-Nuclear Candidate Loses Governor Race, Changes Debate
Renewable energy advocate Tetsunari Iida lost the race for Yamaguchi governor yesterday though his office said he forced a change in the debate that made his opponent come out against building a nuclear plant in the area.
The new governor -- Shigetaro Yamamoto, a former bureaucrat at the land and transport ministry -- said he would suspend plans by Chugoku Electric Power Co. to build the Kaminoseki atomic plant. Iida ran on scrapping the plan.
“Yamamoto changed his opinion on the Kaminoseki project after Iida entered the election,” Kaoru Matsuda, a spokesman for Iida’s election office, said by phone today. “Calling for a suspension is convenient” as he can lift it later, Matsuda said. An official at Yamamoto’s election office who declined to be named denied he shifted views during the campaign. |
Oceana
- SMH - Australian envoy to return to Fiji after Carr notes democratic progress
Australia has restored diplomatic ties with the Pacific pariah Fiji as a reward for democratic reforms.
There will be an Australian high commissioner in Suva for the first time since 2009, when the military regime kicked out the last envoy, accusing him of meddling in local politics.
At a meeting in Sydney yesterday the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bob Carr, and his counterparts from Fiji and New Zealand agreed to restore official relations to ensure ''open and effective'' dialogue. |
Americas
- MercoPress - Violent land disputes between tribes and ranchers on the rise in Brazil
Violent disputes over indigenous land are on the rise in Brazil, sparking heightened militancy by natives angered by broken promises of compensation and slower government registrations.
A report by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), cited by the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper on Sunday, said the number of territorial conflicts jumped from 82 in 2006 to 99 last year.
Indigenous peoples are fighting to protect their resource-rich lands from invasions or encroachment by huge cattle ranchers, industrial-scale farmers, illegal gold miners and loggers. |
- BBC - Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya's death 'an accident'
The two foreigners who survived the car crash in Cuba in which well-known dissident Oswaldo Paya was killed have dismissed reports that their vehicle had been pushed off the road.
Spanish politician Angel Carromero said he lost control of the car in a bad stretch of road in eastern Granma province on 22 July. An official report blamed the driver for the accident.
Swedish politician Jens Aron Modig said he had no memory of a car hitting them. The family of Mr Paya had suggested that the human rights campaigner had been killed for his political activities in Cuba. |
- LAHT - Mexican Left Makes Big Push Against Election Results
The Mexican left shifted its effort to dig up evidence of irregularities in this month’s presidential election into high gear over the weekend with the backing of supporters who have set up nearly 150 people’s assemblies.
“These assemblies have the purpose of informing all citizens about what we are doing to get the Electoral Tribunal to invalidate the presidential election,” leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told the gathering Sunday in Nezahualcóytl, a city in Mexico state…
The leftist politician, who was accompanied by his wife, Beatriz Gutierrez, urged his supporters to work hard to document the election irregularities. |
- Globe and Mail - B.C. natives willing to 'go to the wall' against Enbridge pipeline
The proposed Enbridge pipeline is the largest issue ever faced by B.C.’s aboriginal community, native leader Stewart Phillip declared Monday, as he vowed a long, protracted fight, including blockades and mass protests, against the project, if it is allowed to proceed.
“Our people are prepared to go to the wall against this. There is no doubt about that,” warned Grand Chief Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. “There is absolutely no way we will tolerate a project that would violate the environmental integrity of our traditional territories along the pipeline route and along the B.C. coast.”
He was speaking at a gathering of high-profile opponents of the controversial, $6-billion pipeline project known as Northern Gateway, that would carry Alberta oil across northern B.C. to Kitimat. There, the oil would be transferred to supertankers for transport through the province’s coastal channels on its way to Asia. |