Welcome to Sunday OND, tonight's edition of the daily feature. The Overnight News Digest crew consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir and ScottyUrb, guest editors maggiejean and annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent.
WAR
Afghan attack: Dead NZ trio named
Troops will not leave Afghanistan early - PM
Earlier this morning Prime Minister John Key said New Zealand troops will not be pulled from Afghanistan ahead of schedule.
The attack comes a fortnight after Lance Corporals Pralli Durrer and Rory Malone were killed during a gunfight in the same province.
Mr Key said the Government was still deciding the "exact time'' troops would leave the war-torn country and it was possible it would be early rather than later next year.
Afghan in police uniform kills GI, in upsurge of turncoat attacks
A man in an Afghan police uniform shot and killed a U.S. service member on Sunday, a U.S. Defense Department official said, raising the death toll to 10 in such attacks in the space of just two weeks.
The surge in violence by Afghan allies against their international partners has raised doubts about the ability of the two forces to work together at a key transition time. Afghan forces are expected to take over security for the country by the end of 2014, when the majority of international combat forces are scheduled to leave.
On the other side, a coalition airstrike killed dozens of Taliban militants, including one of their leaders, officials said.
AROUND OUR WORLD
When Does Consciousness Arise in Human Babies?
It is well recognized that infants have no awareness of their own state, emotions and motivations. Even older children who can speak have very limited insight into their own actions. Anybody who has raised a boy is familiar with the blank look on your teenager’s face when you ask him why he did something particularly rash. A shrug and “I dunno—it seemed like a good idea at the time” is the most you’ll hear.
Although a newborn lacks self-awareness, the baby processes complex visual stimuli and attends to sounds and sights in its world, preferentially looking at faces. The infant’s visual acuity permits it to see only blobs, but the basic thalamo-cortical circuitry necessary to support simple visual and other conscious percepts is in place. And linguistic capacities in babies are shaped by the environment they grow up in. Exposure to maternal speech sounds in the muffled confines of the womb enables the fetus to pick up statistical regularities so that the newborn can distinguish its mother’s voice and even her language from others. A more complex behavior is imitation: if Dad sticks out his tongue and waggles it, the infant mimics his gesture by combining visual information with proprioceptive feedback from its own movements. It is therefore likely that the baby has some basic level of unreflective, present-oriented consciousness.
Sprinter Norman may get apology
BLACKLISTED for his involvement in the Black Power protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, the late Australian sprinter Peter Norman may receive an apology from the Australian Parliament.
Norman, who won silver in the 200 metres, stood alongside gold medallist Tommie Smith and bronze medallist John Carlos wearing the Olympic Project for Human Rights badge while they gave a Black Power salute.
The sprinter was punished for his involvement and blacklisted for the 1972 Munich Games, despite qualifying. He quit athletics in protest. Norman died in 2006, with Smith and Carlos giving eulogies at his funeral.
Dave Zirin in The Nation, same topic.Better penultimate and ultimate paragraphs. This is the closing:
But true reconciliation for a man like Peter Norman could never come from a parliamentary apology for a past wrong. It would come from a national commitment to an anti-racist future.
Mobile services to be suspended in some parts of country: Malik
Talking to media on Sunday here after presiding over a high- level meeting with the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) officials, the minister said that terror threats existed during the Eid holidays due to which mobile services would be shut down.
The minister said it could not be said at what specific time the mobile service would be suspended due to security reasons.
“The cellular service would be suspended in a surprise manner in the sensitive parts of the country, however, timeframe could not be given,” he said. He has apologised to the people for any inconvenience this could cause them.
Giant religious and family holiday. Transportation issues galore. Let's shut down mobile service to prevent the terrarists! /snark
Guwahati Gogoi's fix for northeast exodus: end special trains
The Assam government on Sunday went into emergency mode to check any possibility of post-Eid violence as chief minister Tarun Gogoi asked his counterparts across the country not to allow the running of special trains in a bid to stem the exodus of northeasterners.
"This (exodus) sends the wrong signal to our people and to people elsewhere," he said.
Blaming the communal clashes in western Assam on "outside forces in collaboration with certain internal forces", Gogoi invited three former police chiefs for a brainstorming session with the state’s chief secretary and top administration and police officials to tackle a possible outbreak of violence after Eid on Monday.
Another government, similar problem, another stoopid idea.
South Korea, Japan islands dispute grow fierce
The territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea is growing increasingly fierce. The islands are known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan. South Korea has stationed soldiers on the largely uninhabited islets. Then South Korean President Lee Myung Bak paid a visit last Friday. This drew an angry rebuke from Tokyo.
A polarized territorial dispute. Japan and South Korea both claim sovereignty over the islets known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Seoul won’t "compromise on issues of history".
Island issues all over the place.
Years After Haiti Quake, Safe Housing Is a Dream for Many
But to spend a week exploring the disaster zone is to discover striking disparities in living conditions, often glaringly juxtaposed: Givenson’s dead-end camp adjacent to a quarter that is a beehive of construction; William Saint Eloi’s good fortune next to his family’s trials; a devastated community revitalized on one side of a ravine but not the other.
In the absence of an overarching housing policy, Haiti’s shelter problem has been tackled unsystematically, in a way that has favored rural over urban victims and homeowners over renters because their needs were more easily met. Many families with the least resources have been neglected unless they happened to belong to a tent camp, neighborhood or vulnerable population targeted by a particular program.
“It’s the project syndrome — one neighborhood gets incredible resources, the next is in total limbo, or one camp gets rental subsidies, the next gets nothing,” said Maggie Stephenson, a senior technical adviser to U.N.-Habitat in Haiti. “We have to spread the remaining resources more equitably. Equity is essential, and so are durable solutions.”
Yes, it's the New York Times. This story deserves to be here.
Sudan officials killed in plane crash
A cabinet minister was among 32 government officials killed in a plane crash in Sudan, according to state media.
SUNA's report blamed the crash on "bad weather conditions" but did not give further details.
Accidents are common among Sudan's ageing fleet of aircraft, and Europe bans all Sudanese airlines for safety reasons.
Oil-producing Southern Kordofan borders South Sudan, which seceded over a year ago. The border state has been the site of an insurgency since shortly before South Sudan's independence.
Khartoum accused rebels of killing a state official and seven other people there in July. A spokesman for the man rebel group in the army, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement North, said the insurgents had nothing to do with Sunday's plane crash.
Get back to work, or else, Lonmin warns
The London-listed company issued a final ultimatum to workers to end their wildcat stayaway three days after the country's worst police violence since the end of apartheid at its Marikana mine.
"The final ultimatum provides RDOs [rock drill operators] with a last opportunity to return to work or face possible dismissal," the company said in a statement.
"Employees could therefore be dismissed if they fail to heed the final ultimatum."
But workers at the mine in the North West province said they will press on with wage demands and slammed a return to work as "an insult" to their colleagues who were gunned down after police failed to disperse strikers on Thursday.
"Expecting us to go back is like an insult. Many of our friends and colleagues are dead, then they expect us to resume work. Never," said worker Zachariah Mbewu, adding that no one would return to work as long as they were still in mourning.
Young Turks Increasingly Favor Integration and Religion
It is the latter trend that is perhaps the most surprising. Hardly a year goes by in Germany without a bout of highly public hand-wringing over the country's population of 4 million Muslims (out of roughly 82 million total inhabitants). This year, it was the Salafists and their subsequent violence in response to anti-Islam agitation at the hands of the right-wing populist party Pro-NRW -- and the brief debate about circumcision. In 2010 and 2011, it was an extended debate kicked off by the breathtakingly facile book on Muslims by Germany's provocateur-in-chief Thilo Sarrazin, which argued among other things that immigration was bringing down the country's IQ.
Yet, despite the at times shrill nature of the debate, the survey published on Friday seemed to indicate that overtly racist verbal assaults on those with Turkish backgrounds are dropping. Whereas a similar survey in 2010 found that 42 percent of respondents claimed to have been publicly insulted because of their Turkish appearance, that number has now dropped to 29 percent, though it is close to 50 percent among those under 30.
Furthermore, the willingness of Turkish migrants and their descendents to integrate into German society remains high and is climbing. Whereas 70 percent said in 2010 that they want to "absolutely and without reservations integrate into German society," the new survey found that 78 percent of respondents agreed. Similarly, whereas 59 percent said two years ago that they wanted to belong to German society, 75 percent say so now. Fully 95 percent say that all children with Turkish backgrounds should go to day care facilities so as to learn German prior to entering school.
AROUND THE USA
Voting in Ohio | Fight over poll hours isn’t just political
But from a political and perhaps cultural standpoint, not all absentee ballots are created equal. Republicans are much more likely to mail their absentee ballots, while Democrats (and African-Americans) prefer to cast their absentee ballots in person.
Thus, when Husted expands absentee balloting by mail but shrinks the opportunity for in-person balloting, most Republican party leaders are happy but many Democrats howl.
A study by the Franklin County Board of Elections shows that 82 percent of early, in-person votes in 2008 were cast after hours on weekdays, on weekends or on the Monday before the election — almost none of which is available to 2012 voters.
And those late ballots came predominantly from blacks and Democrats, the research shows. In all, 8 percent of whites cast early in-person ballots, while 13.3 percent of blacks did, said the study, which used census data to estimate the racial breakdown of voters.
This is some context for the loser quote about "accommodating" voters.
Central Florida's young black men battle stereotypes
For many, the fear of ending up like Trayvon Martin — the unarmed teen shot to death by Sanford Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman — is far too tangible. At the least, their age, gender and skin color make them regularly subject to suspicion. They felt they had to be better than the next guy just to stay even.
"Sometimes it hurts," says Jaboris Haynes, 19, who grew up in poverty with his mother and sister in Apopka. "When I was younger, I thought of being a different race and wondered what it would be like. The message I got about being a young black man wasn't a good message. I always felt like somebody was after me, like they were judging me, just because I'm a black male."
Having escaped the pressure of gangs to win a scholarship to Florida A&M University to study civil engineering, he still feels pressure "not to be a statistic."
"I want people to know that I'm a lovable person, I'm kind, I can be a good friend, I'm reliable, trustworthy," he says on a break from his summer job as a camp counselor. He slumps forward, shaking his head. "But being a young black man, you have a lot of people talking down on you."
No matter how wealthy, how educated, how well-dressed and well-mannered, all the young men interviewed reported being profiled because of their skin color.
HERE IN UTAH
UVU student stuck in Canada for ‘honest mistake’ at border
Kraig Jacobson and his brother Kevin were 10 days into their six-week nationwide motorcycle adventure and fundraiser for the American Cancer Society when they crossed a bridge and entered Canada. The duo were camping in the wilderness at many stops, so Jacobson brought a handgun for protection from bears and other wildlife.
-----
Jacobson, a Utah Valley University business major, was arrested on the spot, and his family initially thought what they called an honest mistake would just turn into a fine and a deportation, but it was far worse.
An initial gun charge was dropped, but he is still being charged with smuggling with malicious intent and lying to a border official. The two charges together carry a four- to six-month prison term.
Kaysville Boy Scout earns all 133 merit badges
A 14-year-old Kaysville boy didn’t stop when he became an Eagle Scout. He went above and beyond, earning every scouting merit badge possible.
Isaac Loveland had a goal to earn every merit badge by the time he turned fifteen. The 14-year-old is one of the youngest Boy Scouts – if not the youngest – to ever earn every badge.
When he first set the goal, Isaac knew it would be hard, but it became even harder when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
OTHER STUFF
Holy Cuteness: Baby Flamingo
Dispatch from Mars