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 with guest editors annetteboardman and Chitown Kev. 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's featured story is an anniversary: East and West Germany reunified 25 years ago
this weekend.
The Guardian's Kate Connolly writes from Berlin:
German reunification 25 years on: how different are east and west really
After two and a half decades of growing back together, huge gaps remain between the two former halves. We take a look at how they compare
When East and West Germany reunited 25 years ago this weekend, the country was drunk on euphoria and a sense of heightened optimism. While reigning chancellor Helmut Kohl promised “flourishing landscapes”, his predecessor Willy Brandt produced the now legendary sentence: “What belongs together, will grow together”. But how united is Germany a generation on?
The Berlin Institute for Population and Development concluded in a recent study that half of all Germans believe there are more differences between “Ossis” (easterners) and “Wessis” (westerners) than commonalities.
Follow me below the Oktoberfest river of beer and pretzels for some of the better known and other not-so-well-publicized stories in today's international news.
More news from Europe:
First, this developing story from The Express:
Chaos as HUNDREDS of migrants storm Channel Tunnel in 'massive planned invasion'
THE Channel Tunnel has been thrown into chaos after hundreds of migrants broke down fences and stormed in during a "massive invasion".
By Scott Campbell
Eurotunnel services between Folkestone and Calais are affected in both directions – with passengers facing delays of up to six hours.
Officials believe the "large and co-ordinated" group planned the intrusion before attempting to reach Britain at around 12.30am on Saturday.
Also on the subject of refugees, this from
Agence France Presse:
Croatia braces for winter as shivering migrants pour in
AFP By Simon Valmary
More than 90,000 migrants, many of them fleeing conflict in the Middle East, have transited through Croatia since mid-September after EU member Hungary closed its border with Serbia, forcing them to find a new route.
"It's starting to get really cold. For someone of my origin, it's not easy!" said Syrian student Ahmad, 22, dressed in a hooded jacket and waterproof cape.
And regarding that other crisis that straddles the connections between Europe and the Middle East, this analysis from
The Atlantic warns to
watch what Putin does:
Watch What Putin Does, Not What He Says
Nothing in the Russian president’s UN speech suggested he was about to bomb Syria or withdraw from Ukraine. But that’s what he did.
by Samuel Greene
The thing about Vladimir Putin is, it really doesn’t matter what he says.
When the Russian president took to the tribune at the UN General Assembly earlier this week, he did so amid rampant expectations that he would say something extraordinary—something capable of either ending his standoff with the West, or else sending it to new heights. In the end, he did neither. He said what he’s said countless times before: that the West is full of itself and hypocritical, that the world needs no policeman, and that Russia will do what it pleases.
Nothing in what he said on that UN podium suggested that he was about to bomb Syria, or that he was about to pull his guns back from the frontlines in eastern Ukraine. But that’s what he did. Two days later. Both on the same day. For good measure, he confiscated another year of his citizens’ pension savings, too, but we’ll get to that later.
From Asia:
CNN has this item about the cotton harvest in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan:
Why you could be wearing cotton picked by forced labor
Klara Skrivankova, Special to CNN
"Klara Skrivankova is Europe Program and Advocacy Co-ordinator at Anti-Slavery International. The opinions expressed are her own."
(CNN)Cotton is ever-present in our lives. It is in the clothes we wear, the towels in our bathrooms, our bed linen, even bank notes we pay with are made with cotton.
What is little known however is that vast amounts of the world's cotton are produced in slavery-like conditions in Central Asia. And while many are concerned about the sweatshops of Bangladesh and India, few would have heard about the forced labor of their own citizens organized by the governments of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
And from Eurasianet.org comes a story about an important election in
Kyrgyzstan:
Kyrgyzstan: Osh Voters Warily Eye Watershed Election
by Joanna Lillis
The sense of tranquility in a sleepy village near Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s southern capital, was shattered by an election campaign van blaring out patriotic songs as it jostled for space with a herd of cows.
With the campaign before October 4 parliamentary polls wrapping up, the 14 parties in the running have been making their last pitches to an electorate that seems impressed less by razzmatazz than reassurances of continuity.
“If only it all passes off quietly,” sighed Koldashbay Taylakov, a pensioner observing the Butun Kyrgyzstan-Emgek (All Kyrgyzstan-Labor) party vehicle trundling through the village of VLKSM on October 2. The village still bears its Soviet-era name, which is the acronym for the young communists’ league.
From the
Irish Times, but news on
Japan:
Japan pulls up the drawbridge as refugee problem grows
Although a generous cash contributor, Japan baulks at accepting many displaced people
Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe finally answered critics of his government’s asylum policies this week with a short blast of realpolitik: Japan must come first. “Before accepting immigrants or refugees, we need to have more activities by women, elderly people – and we must raise our birth rate,” he said.
The reply, at the UN headquarters in New York, struck some as odd, because it seemed to conflate Japan’s plummeting population with the refugee crisis. “It showed that Abe doesn’t understand anything about Europe’s refugee problem,” says Shogo Watanabe, an immigration lawyer. “It was shameful.”
African news:
Olabisi Deji-Folutile, a columnist for Punch of Nigeria, writes about rankings for universities in Africa:
Beyond QS World Universities’ ranking
Olabisi Deji-Folutile
So much has been said about Nigerian universities’ woeful performance in the latest QS World Universities Rankings. Many Nigerians have expressed dissatisfaction that none of the 147 universities in the country was included among the top 700 in the world. Out of the 18 institutions that made the list in Africa, South Africa had nine, Egypt, five, while Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania had one each.
It ranked Massachusetts Institute of Technology as number one university in the world, followed by Harvard University, while the University of Cambridge and Stanford University both came third. The University of Cape Town in South Africa was ranked first in Africa; Stellenbosch University, also in South Africa, second; while the University of Witwatersrand came third. Others on the list included The American University in Cairo, Egypt; Cairo University, Egypt; Rhodes University, South Africa; University of Ghana; University of Nairobi and Makerere University.
CBS Chicago reporter Lisa Fielding has the
story of a project connecting with Africa:
Northwestern Graduate Teams Up With UN To Give Bicycles To Needy African Girls
CHICAGO (CBS) — A Northwestern University graduate who traveled to Africa has been using her journalism degree to do more than just tell stories there, she has been giving back to the girls of one of the world’s poorest nations.
Lauren Bohn graduated from Medill School of Journalism in 2010. After reporting in Egypt during the Arab Spring, she traveled to Malawi on a United Nations Foundation reporting fellowship.
“Malawi is one of the world’s poorest countries, but I didn’t know much about it outside the fact that Madonna adopted two kids from there,” she laughed.
What she found was eye opening.
“There isn’t electricity. No amenities of the 21st century that we are used to in the rest of the world,” Bohn said.
She saw extreme poverty and huge challenges for the people living there.
Reuters' Julia Payne and Felix Onuah report about
political developments in Nigeria:
Nigeria's ex-oil minister Alison-Madueke arrested in London: sources
LAGOS/ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's former oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke was arrested in London on Friday, a source from Nigeria's presidency circle and another with links to her family said.
Alison-Madueke was minister from 2010 until May 2015 under former president Goodluck Jonathan, who was defeated by Muhammadu Buhari at the polls in March.
And last but not least, news from the Americas. As sometimes happens in early October, the weather is the news. This from the AP comes from the
Bahamas:
Joaquin batters Bahamas; fate of cargo ship uncertain
BEN FOX, Associated Press
ELEUTHERA, Bahamas— Hurricane Joaquin destroyed houses, uprooted trees and unleashed heavy flooding as it hurled torrents of rain across the Bahamas on Friday, and the U.S. Coast Guard said it was trying to reach a disabled cargo ship with 33 people aboard that lost contact during the storm.
The Coast Guard said the 735-foot (224-meter) ship named El Faro had taken on water and was listing at 15 degrees near Crooked Island, one of the islands most battered by the hurricane. Officials said the crew includes 28 U. S. citizens and five from Poland.
"This vessel is disabled basically right near the eye of Hurricane Joaquin," said Capt. Mark Fedor. "We're going to go and try and save lives. We're going to push it to the operational limits as far as we can."