Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Doctor RJ, rfall, JML9999 and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Tonight I am subbing for editor maggiejean.
BBC
Global shares nosedive on China economic woes
Stock markets across the world have fallen sharply as fears of a Chinese economic slowdown continue to haunt investors.
London's FTSE 100 index closed down 4.6% at 5,898.87, with major markets in France and Germany down by 5.5% and 4.96% respectively.
In total, £73.75bn was wiped off the FTSE 100 as a result of Monday's falls.
In volatile trading, Wall Street's Dow Jones fell 6%, then almost recovered its losses before closing 3.6% lower.
At one point it fell below 16,000 for the first time since February 2014, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq index closed 3.8% lower, recovering from an earlier plunge of 8%.
The S&P 500 ended trading 3.9% lower and 11% below its May record, putting it officially in "correction" territory - a fall of 10% or more from its peak.
Shares in Asia were hit overnight, with the Shanghai Composite in China closing down 8.5%, its worst close since 2007.
At its lowest point in the day, the FTSE 100 had lost as much as 6%, wiping some £100bn off its value.
Global investors are worried about growth in the world's second largest economy.
[snip]
Minutes after the opening bell, the Dow fell a staggering 1089 points, its biggest ever points drop.
Raw Story
Global stocks have lost $5 trillion since China devalued its currency
The dramatic fall in global stocks Monday that rattled investor concerns is only the latest development in the financial turmoil that has been brewing since China abruptly devalued its currency, the yuan, just two weeks ago. More than $5 trillion has been wiped from global stocks since the August 11 move, underscoring the panic that has ensued from China’s economic slowdown. The massive selloffs have triggered fears that China’s economic troubles are worse than they initially appeared.
L A Times
California officials eyeing stock market plunge, hope it won't last
Gyrations in the stock market have taken California’s fragile finances for a ride before -- when the dot-com bubble burst, when the Wall Street crash sank the national economy less than a decade ago.
So when the market continued its dive Monday, state officials began glancing around for their seat belts.
More than most states, California depends heavily on taxes from the wealthy, pulling about half of its income tax revenue from just 1% of residents in recent years.
A sustained, significant drop in capital gains could mean a return to budget crises after a period of financial recovery, and the turmoil on Wall Street is a reminder of that vulnerability.
Al Jazeera
China’s stocks tank, but full-blown crisis far from certain
China’s summer of economic troubles got even worse on Monday with a spectacular 9-point stock market dive, its poorest one-day showing since 2007. But even with the market’s gains for the year wiped out, and as global bourses reacted with anxiety and sell-offs, analysts said suggestions of a full-blown economic crisis are premature.
The shock to China was severe enough that Xinhua, the government-controlled news agency, labeled the plunge “Black Monday.” But the overall impact on the health of China’s economy — for which the country’s leaders have pushed to maintain an annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 7 percent for years — remains uncertain.
“China’s a big question mark right now,” said Scott Kennedy, Director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in Washington, D.C. “There is no consensus on anything right now on where China’s economy is going. … The leadership has done a terrible job of clarifying what their goals are.”
Since China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite index (SSE) shed some 30 percent at the beginning of July, the government has taken a number of major steps to try and shore up the stock market, including injecting about $200 billion into the economy.
Al Jazeera
US, Turkey to launch 'comprehensive' anti-ISIL operation
Turkey and the United States will soon launch "comprehensive" air operations to flush Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters from a zone in northern Syria bordering Turkey, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Reuters on Monday.
Detailed talks between Washington and Ankara on the plans were completed on Sunday and regional allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan as well as Britain and France may also take part, Cavusoglu said in an interview.
"The technical talks have been concluded, yesterday, and soon we will start this operation, comprehensive operations, against Daesh," he said, using another name for the armed group.
The United States and Turkey plan to provide air cover for what Washington judges to be moderate Syrian rebels as part of the operations, which aim to flush ISIL from a rectangle of border territory roughly 50 miles long, officials familiar with the plans have said.
Diplomats say cutting ISIL's access to the Turkish border, across which it has been able to bring foreign fighters and supplies, could be a game-changer. U.S. jets have already begun airstrikes from Turkish bases in advance of the campaign.
N Y Times
ISIS Accelerates Destruction of Antiquities in Syria
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Islamic State militants have razed a fifth-century Roman Catholic monastery and blown up one of the best-preserved first-century temples in Palmyra, the ancient Syrian city that is one of the world’s most important archaeological sites, according to government officials and local activists.
And that was just this past week — in one Syrian province.
Much like the grinding slaughter of human beings, the ravaging of irreplaceable antiquities in Syria and Iraq has become something of a grim wartime routine. Yet the cumulative destruction of antiquities has reached staggering levels that represent an irreversible loss to world heritage and future scholarship, archaeological experts and antiquities officials say.
It has accelerated in recent months as the self-declared Islamic State has stepped up its deliberate demolition and looting, piling onto battle damage wreaked by government forces and other insurgents in Syria’s four-year civil war. That has brought antiquities lovers on all sides to a new level of despair.
As it expanded across Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State destroyed many archaeological sites, looting them for profit and damaging some for propaganda.
“I feel very weak, very pessimistic,” Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director general of antiquities, said Monday in a phone interview from Damascus, adding that with his inability to protect Palmyra, “I became the saddest director general in the world.”
CNN
Tensions defused as Koreas reach deal on apology, loudspeakers
North Korea and South Korea have reached an agreement to de-escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea's national security chief, Kim Kwan-jin, announced Tuesday.
South Korea will get the apology it demanded over recent military escalation by the North, and the South will stop broadcasting propaganda that infuriated the North.
North Korea says it "regrets" that South Korean soldiers were injured by landmines and lifts its "semi-state of war" under an agreement by the two countries, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
South Korea will stop its propaganda broadcasts over the border on Tuesday, Kim said.
Christian Science Monitor
In Honduras, battle to help sex assault victims spotlights 'missing tool'
TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS — Dr. Cinthia Gómez is on a mission to help victims of sexual assault.
It's a major undertaking in Honduras, where domestic violence and murders targeting women occur with impunity – and where half of babies born to girls ages 15 to 19 are the result of rape.
When victims of sexual assault arrive at Tegucigalpa's largest public hospital, where Dr. Gómez's program is based, they are met by both physicians and psychologists. They are tested and given medication to help diminish their chances of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases.
But ever since 2009, doctors like Gómez have lacked what many global experts say is a vital tool in treating female rape victims: emergency contraception.
The sources of such high rates of sexual abuse across the country and within families remain a complex problem, with officials pointing to factors including increased organized crime and violence, sweeping poverty, low levels of education, blended families due to migration, and cultural taboos on talking about sex.
L A Times
Satellite data reveal silver lining of Middle East conflict — cleaner air
The political turmoil in the Middle East is so dramatic that scientists say they can see it from space.
Satellite data from the troubled region reveal marked drops in atmospheric pollutants that can’t be linked to clean-air laws or other policy changes, according to a new study. However, the pollution trends are often right in line with armed conflicts and the resulting movement of refugees.
Reductions in the levels of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide contain clear signatures of the civil war in Syria, incursions by the so-called Islamic State into major Iraqi cities, and the international community’s economic sanctions against Iran.
The cleaner air is the result of “international boycotts, armed conflict and related mass migration of people,” said study leader Jos Lelieveld, director of the atmospheric chemistry department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. “The changes are so large that they can be seen from space.”
L A Times
Dozens of large blazes roaring across Northwest and West
Washington wildfire grew to be the largest in state history Monday as tens of thousands of firefighters battled to get the upper hand against dozens of large blazes across the West and Northwest.
The Okanogan Complex fire in northern Washington had grown to 256,657 acres as of Monday, according to firefighting officials — an area almost five times the size of Seattle.
It surged past last summer’s Carlton Complex fire, which claimed 256,108 acres, or just over 400 square miles.
More than 1,200 firefighters and support personnel were battling the Okanogan Complex fire, according to Carol Connolly, a spokeswoman for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.
Environment
Raw Story
Iceberg big enough to cover Manhattan breaks off from Greenland glacier
The European Space Agency has spotted one of the biggest icebergs ever seen, The Register reported Monday. The iceberg was estimated to be nearly 5 square miles in size, which could cover Manhattan by a layer of ice about 300 meters thick.
The iceberg emerged as a result of a calving event that took place on Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier Aug. 14-16. An iceberg calving happens when chunks of ice break off the edge of a glacier and is considered a form of ice disruption. The calving was spotted by one the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellites.
"Icebergs are often so large that they cannot float away easily," said the European Space Agency, The Register reported. "They remain, sometimes for years, stuck on the bottom in shallower areas of the fjord until they finally melt enough to disperse, break into pieces or are pushed out by icebergs coming up from behind."