Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but are not limited to) palantir, wader, 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 12:00 AM Eastern Time (or if it is Friday night and the editor is me, a bit later).
EUROVISION!!!
While we are just messed up, across the pond Europe is in the madness that is Eurovision 2017! The grand finale is May 13th (this Saturday evening). You can watch and hear all the songs online, if you want to do so. Follow me below the fold for a sampling of the rest of the night’s world news.
The rest of the news is not so fun, of course. There is the news about ransomware around the world. And there is this from the BBC:
Ebola: WHO declares outbreak in DR Congo
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
At least one person has died after contracting the virus in the country's north-east, the WHO says.
The Congolese health ministry had notified the WHO of a "lab-confirmed case" of Ebola, it added on Twitter.
More than 11,000 people died in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2015, mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Better news from Brazil, via AP in The Guardian:
Brazil announces end to Zika public health emergency
Fall in cases brings end to the emergency 18 months after the virus hit headlines around the world
Brazil has declared an end to its public health emergency over the Zika virus, 18 months after a surge in cases drew headlines around the world.
The mosquito-borne virus was not considered a major health threat until the 2015 outbreak revealed that Zika can lead to severe birth defects. One of those defects, microcephaly, causes babies to be born with skulls much smaller than expected.
Photos of babies with the defect spread panic around the globe as the virus was reported in dozens of countries. Many would-be travellers cancelled their trips to Zika-infected places. The concern spread even more widely when health officials said it could also be transmitted through sexual contact with an infected person.
Also from the Beeb, another health story:
Lack of dust makes China's air pollution much worse
By Matt McGrath
Airborne dust is normally seen as an environmental problem, but the lack of it is making air pollution over China considerably worse.
A new study suggests less dust means more solar radiation hits the land surface, which reduces wind speed.
That lack of wind in turn leads to an accumulation of air pollution over heavily populated parts of China.
The researchers found that reduced dust levels cause a 13% increase in human-made pollution in the region.
From Agence France Presse, via Gulf News:
Life in Kenya’s arid north is a relentless battle for scarce resources
Lowarengak, Kenya:The beach looks ready for war: in the sparse lakeshore shade hundreds wait, sweaty from the heat, weapons at their feet.
In Kenya’s hot, dry and lawless north even the fishermen are armed, but guns will not save them.
They live on Lake Turkana, the biggest desert lake on earth and a World Heritage Site, but the lake is threatened and so is their way of life.
“There are fewer and fewer fish,” said 41-year-old Maurice Echerait, sitting next to handmade nets with discarded plastic bottles for floats by the ramshackle row of improvised shelters that make up Nayenae camp.
The Guardian has news from the Iranian election:
Hassan Rouhani's attacks on rivals for president cross Iran's red lines
Moderate’s presidential campaign includes jabs at Revolutionary Guard and conservative challenger
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has taken a combative tone in campaigning as conservative rivals pull out all the stops to prevent him from being re-elected.
The favourite among reformists of the six candidates running for president on 19 May, Rouhani has crossed red lines in Iranian politics with attacks on the elite Revolutionary Guards and the characterisation of one of his main challengers as someone whose only talent was execution and imprisonment.
The president had been put on the defensive during two televised debates in which conservative rivals Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Tehran mayor, and hardliner Ebrahim Raisi attacked the country’s economic performance since he made the 2015 nuclear deal with the west, which lifted some sanctions.
From the BBC, an old mystery from the Norwegian wilderness:
Isdal Woman: The mystery death haunting Norway for 46 years
By Helier Cheung
It's a mystery that has intrigued Norway for nearly 50 years.
In November 1970, the badly burnt body of a woman was found in a remote spot in Norway's Isdalen valley.
Someone had cut the labels off her clothes, and scraped distinctive marks off her belongings - as if to stop her from being identified.
And as police started investigating her death, they uncovered a trail of coded messages, disguises, and fake identities - but never cracked the case.
Forty-six years later, Norwegian police and NRK journalists have decided to reopen the investigation.
This is the story of the Isdal Woman - and the perplexing trail of clues she left behind.
The Guardian with new news of the same old story:
Thailand threatens Facebook with legal action over anti-monarchy posts
Junta, which has led a focused crackdown since it took power in a 2014 coup, gives the site until Tuesday morning to remove 131 ‘illicit’ posts
Thailand has threatened Facebook with legal action unless it removes 131 pages it considers illegal, including posts critical of the monarchy, within four days.
“If even a single illicit page remains, we will immediately discuss what legal steps to take against Facebook Thailand,” Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, told reporters.
“Every person must comply with Thai laws, and strictly follow rulings by local courts,” Takorn was quoted as saying in the Bangkok Post.
He set the deadline for the social media giant to comply at 10am local time on Tuesday.
From Shanghai Daily:
Saving old to promote the new
WANG Jianxin knows the ancient Silk Road like the back of his hand. He has visited hundreds of sites along the routes in the past 20 years and believes he is almost ready to lay bare the secrets of the Greater Yuezhi, an ancient nomadic kingdom.
Wang, 64, is a professor at the Northwest University of China in Xi’an, capital of the country during the peak years of the Silk Road’s glories. He specializes in the corridor of territory which stretches from the city then known as Chang’an to Central Asia, home to many minority ethnic groups that have since vanished.
The disappearance of the Greater Yuezhi people has been a mystery to historians, anthropologists and linguists for many years, he says.
The ancient nomads were a branch split from the Yuezhi people who were first reported in Chinese histories living in the west of the modern Chinese province of Gansu. An answer to the mystery of their whereabouts is also about the ethnic origin and composition in Central Asian countries.
And as always, let us end with arts news. This first item comes from The Guardian:
Beyond Bollywood: where India's biggest movie hits really come from
The global success of fantasy epic Baahubali 2: The Conclusion underscores the power of the country’s billion-dollar ‘regional’ film industry
The global success of SS Rajamouli’s fantasy epic sequel Baahubali 2: The Conclusion has once again brought Indian cinema to the attention of the world. Its forerunner, the $31m-budgeted Baahubali: The Beginning (2015), grossed $100m worldwide but caused little more than a ripple outside India. Within the country, it made waves because the film, made in the south Indian Telugu and Tamil languages, saw the Hindi-dubbed version alone gross more than $20m.
It is a common misconception that the Hindi-language, Mumbai-based film industry – known as Bollywood – is India’s national cinema. The numbers tell a different story. India produces an astonishing 1,900 films a year on average, of which Hindi-language Bollywood accounts for about 340. The bulk of the rest comes from the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi and Gujarati languages. Domestic box office has remained stagnant at about $1.5bn and, while Bollywood might produce more films (Tamil had 291, Telugu 275, and Kannada 204 films in 2016), it contributes just a third of the box office gross. In short, Bollywood has the visibility, but not the profits, with the under-performers far outweighing the hits.
I didn’t know whether to include this in the above section or keep it in the Arts, but it belongs here, I think, because of the medium, not the message. From blavity.com:
This Amazing Ethiopian Animated Series Is All About Girl Power, Fighting For Women's Rights
Tibeb Girls is truly serving Powerpuff Girl realness!
From Kazakhstan (inform.kz):
Five new geoglyphs created in Mangistau region
The residents and guests of Mangistau region will be able henceforth to visit a gallery of geoglyphs in Airakty-Shomanay valley.
The author of the project is archaeologist and historian Andrey Astafyev.
The geoglyphs vary in size; the biggest of them is 350mx270m. Andrey Astafyev says he has always considered the natural sites from the viewpoint of their attractiveness for tourists.
A fun item from The Times (London):
Bloody past of India’s cursed jewel was all a writer’s hoax
The curse of the Delhi Purple Sapphire has driven its owners to suicide and ruin and caused a singer to lose her voice, according to its melodramatic history, perpetuated by the Natural History Museum which inherited it more than 70 years ago.
The story goes that it was looted during the Indian Mutiny in 1857 and brought to England by Colonel W Ferris of the Bengal Cavalry.
But not a word of it is true. It is said to have changed hands many times, with apparently disastrous consequences, and was left to the museum by Edward Heron-Allen, an eccentric polymath who translated the works of Omar Khayyam and was an expert on violins and asparagus. He wrote: “This stone is trebly accursed and stained with blood, and the dishonour of everyone who has ever owned it.”