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).
As it seems there is yet another attempt to distribute wealth upwards in the U.S., I thought we would take a look this evening at examples of thoughtless and thoughtful treatments of class and gender around the world. We begin this evening with a story from the Voice of America:
A court in Belgium has convicted eight princesses from the United Arab Emirates of mistreating their servants during a stay at a luxury Brussels hotel.
The women, members of Abu Dhabi's ruling al-Nahyan family, each received suspended 15-month sentences for human trafficking and degrading treatment. Princess Sheikha Hamda Al-Nahyan and her seven daughters were fined $184,000 each.
And from the neighbor Germany, via New Europe:
Women in Germany work 50% but get half the pension of a man, according to a parliamentary progress report published on Wednesday.
Family Minister Katarina Barley, a member of the junior coalition partner SPD, told the public broadcaster ZDF that “there is still a lot to do.”
While promising renewed focus on gender equality ahead of the September legislative elections, Barley noted that the introduction of a minimum wage in Germany was particularly beneficial to women, who tend to be overrepresented in low-paying jobs. She also noted the benefits of introducing subsidized parental leave to look after newborns, which in practice only women take.
And in the past, still the same (from Tabletmag.com):
A new exhibit at the South Street Seaport Museum depicts ‘migrants and millionaires aboard the great liners’ at the turn of the century
“Millions: Migrants and Millionaires Aboard the Great Liners,” a new exhibit at the South Street Seaport Museum, compares the journeys of immigrants and millionaires cruising into New York Harbor at the turn of the century. It’s a smart idea for a show—the timing, of course, could not be more apt, given the swelling national discussion around immigration—and it offers a glimpse into the real lives of Titanic’s Jack and Rose… who in real life, of course, would never have met. The exhibit spotlights just how separate the lives of Third Class and First Class passengers really were.
From eurofound.europa.eu:
In the follow blog piece, originally posted on Social Europe, Carlos Vacas-Soriano and Enrique Fernández-Macías look at evolution of household disposable real income levels over the period 2004-2013, and the broader phenomenon on Europe's shrinking middle class.
The Great Recession depressed real income levels across European countries. But the impact was very unequal across countries and income groups. Countries in the European periphery have been more affected than those in the core, halting the process of income convergence between European countries that could be observed pre- crisis. Individuals at the bottom quintile of the income distribution have generally been more affected than their higher-income counterparts, resulting in growing income inequalities among many European countries and, what’s more, a shrinking middle class after years of expansion.
From Deutsche Welle:
Iran is refusing to implement UNESCO's education agenda. The country's religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, views it as a Western conspiracy. In doing so he's discriminating against women and minorities like the Baha'i.
A profound disappointment. The reform-oriented and recently re-elected president, Hassan Rouhani, has capitulated. A member of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, it was he after all who approved the decision not to implement the UNESCO education agenda in Iran.
Many Iranians tweeted comments such as: "Rouhani said: I will forgo many things, but not the Education 2030 agenda. Today, as chairman of the Council of the Cultural Revolution, he definitively scrapped the agenda's action plan."
And from Viet Nam News, something a bit more progressive:
HÀ NỘI — The corporate sector in Việt Nam is ahead of every other country in Asia in terms of gender diversity, with women accounting for 17.6 per cent of the country’s total company board members.
The fifth edition of “Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective”, put out by Deloitte Global, says Việt Nam has the continent’s largest percentage of women holding top corporate jobs. If it achieves its plan, 35 per cent of the nation’s entrepreneurs will be female by 2020.
From the Deccan Chronicle:
JOHN SAMUEL
Norway is a country from which other countries can learn a lot.
Norway is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. It has the best quality of living and Human Development Index. Norway is also rich with oil and mineral resources and a social democratic country where people actively participate in the political process.
Though many countries claim to have a democratic system of the government, the society is often hierarchical with discrimination on the basis of gender, caste and creed. In this context, Norway is a country from which other countries can learn a lot.
From Agence France Presse:
Some two million revellers are expected in Madrid starting Friday as the Spanish capital hosts WorldPride 2017, one of the biggest celebrations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.
Forty years after Spain's gay community started to march for its rights in Barcelona, Madrid is about to celebrate its openness to all people "regardless of where they come from, who they are, or who they love", city representative Berta Cao said.
But Spain wasn't always so welcoming of homosexuals.
During the nearly 40-year reign of dictator Francisco Franco -- whose rule was blessed by the church in heavily Roman Catholic Spain -- homosexual acts were illegal and thousands of gays were shipped off to rehabilitation centres, or even jailed.
From Indian Express:
The FIR mentions that the two groups fought over seats. “They noticed we are Muslims because of our clothing and began taunting us. It would go on for a bit, then stop, then start again,” said Shaqir. “First they slapped us, then abused us, and then between Ballabhgarh and Asaoti stations, they stabbed us.”
Written by Somya Lakhani
When 15-year-old Junaid Khan left home in Ballabhgarh on Thursday morning, he thought he’ll return with a new set of kurta-pyjama, a pair of shoes and some khushboo. Little did he know that the journey to Delhi, for Eid shopping, would cost him his life.
On his way home in a Mathura-bound train, with his elder brother Hashim and two friends, Junaid was stabbed to death, allegedly by “a group of 10-12 men between 7-8 pm”. His brothers Hashim and Shaqir, who boarded the train later, also sustained stab wounds.
Speaking to The Indian Express, 23-year-old Shaqir, admitted to the AIIMS Trauma Centre in Delhi, alleged that the accused started taunting Junaid and the others over their clothing, and also made references to “beef eating”.
From Global Indonesian Voices:
How do Indonesian diaspora communities celebrate Idul Fitri in different parts of the world?
Jakarta, GIVnews.com – Indonesian diaspora are spread around the world. With Idul Fitri celebration approaching, it is interesting to gain some insights about how Idul Fitri is celebrated by the Indonesian diaspora in different countries.
While many countries have officially declared Id
And in other news, this item from Reuters:
A toilet charity has renamed an Indian village after U.S. President Donald Trump as part of a promotional push to raise cash and support for better sanitation.
Aid group Sulabh International, which says it has built 1.5 million toilets across the country, has set up "Trump Village" signs around the small community in the northern state of Haryana, each bearing a grinning portrait of the president.
Neither the White House, nor the Trump family's commercial empire, has given permission for the rebranding of the village, still better known locally as Marora, the charity said.
From The Guardian, an editorial about the rich getting to play in space:
The race between wealthy tech billionaires to get to Mars is a distraction from mortality
For science fiction writers ranged across the astronomical distance that separates Edgar Rice Burroughs and Kim Stanley Robinson, Mars has been a theatre of dreams, variously realistic. Now the tech billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are competing to see who will make it first there in reality.
Bezos is spending a billion dollars a year out of his Amazon stock to keep his project going;
Musk has announced he wants the first manned private flights to set off by 2026.
He hopes that the price can be brought down from around $10bn to $200,000 and that reusable spaceships will ferry a million people to Mars over a period of decades until they can start a self-sustaining civilisation there. This, of course, is only the beginning: once the technology of reusable spacecraft fuelled by methane made from raw materials found at their destination has been mastered, Musk foresees no limit to their explorations.
And finally, this “Experience” from The Guardian:
I jumped over a wall. The snow was shin deep, and that’s where I lost my footing. I started falling
Geoff, Ben, Simon and I go walking twice a year, and in March 2016 we decided on Helvellyn in the Lake District – England’s third highest peak, at 3,117ft. It was particularly cold for March. There was snow on the mountain and a freezing wind.
We arrived at a campsite by Ullswater on the Friday afternoon. The next day, we got up early and put our cold weather gear on. We would follow a horseshoe-shaped path to the peak, via two exposed ridges, Striding Edge and Swirral Edge. High winds made the walk tough. We laughed at a couple in front of us with pickaxes and crampons. With hindsight, we could have done with those.
An hour in, we reached Striding Edge. It’s a metre wide, with sheer drops either side. It was quite hairy, but I’m not a nervous person. We stopped to take a photo, then went off the track to find somewhere out of the wind to eat our sandwiches on Swirral Edge. There was a queue of people waiting to pass through a gap in a wall about waist high, but I was impatient and jumped over. The snow was shin deep, and that’s where I lost my footing. I remember nothing much after that, but people have filled in the gaps for me.
I started falling. The tiny stones were like an avalanche, slipping beneath me. I desperately tried to keep my head upright to protect my brain. I hit a big rock, mid-fall, and went face forward, but managed to turn myself back around. I hit another rock which stopped my fall just short of the bottom. I had fallen 650ft and was unconscious.
And, as always on a Friday night, let’s end with some arts news!
From The Guardian:
Born in 1799, Anna Atkins captured plants, shells and algae in ghostly wisps and ravishing blues. Why isn’t she famous?
Joanna Moorhead
‘Photography pioneer” conjures up an image of a Victorian gentleman under a drape with an outsize wooden box on a tripod. Yet one of the biggest landmark moments of early photography was down to a woman who didn’t even use a camera, and was born decades before Victoria became queen.
Anna Atkins is considered to have been the first female photographer. She was born in Kent in 1799, and she made her most significant contribution across 10 years in the mid-19th century in which she created at least 10,000 images by hand. But it was what she did with those pictures that gave her a place in art history. Atkins realised what millions of social media users know today: that images are for sharing. She created the first book to contain photographs, and she paved the way for photography’s power to connect people
From NBC Los Angeles:
If you can't get enough of these little canine cream buns, there's a new art exhibit made for you, in Alhambra.
By Alysia Gray Painter
When you hear the news that hundreds of corgis regularly gather at Huntington Dog Beach to joyfully waddle, strut about in wacky costumes, and wolf down treats, you likely don't think to yourself "my goodness, that sure is a lot of corgis."
You probably think "...but, honestly now, could there be even more corgis? Maybe?"
Because the only answer accepted on any exam or test is, yes, there can always be more corgis, regardless of the setting or situation.
From the Muscatine Journal:
MUSCATINE — When the Muscatine Art Center’s Musser-McColm House reopened a few weeks ago, staff added in one new thing that wasn’t an art piece or an interesting historical artifact. They added six blank posters, each with its own title, to the hallway near the entrance with a simple request: vote for your favorite.
“We had several things that are new at the Art Center, all coming on kind of at the same time, with the reopening of the Musser House,” said director Melanie Alexander. “One thing that we want to get better at is evaluation and really understanding what people would like to experience when they come in and trying to gather feedback but in a way that isn’t terribly burdensome and can be a little fun at the same time.”
From the LA Times:
Holmberg’s new paintings at Michael Benevento Gallery are aerial views looking down on the porcelain throne. All are the same size (30 by 24 inches), and the color schemes are dominated by neutrals and pretty pastels. The floor is either an incongruous solid color like royal blue or an atmospheric range of soft hues, such as peach sliding into hot pink. Four floors are depicted as classic tiled checkerboards.
The torn paper covering the seats is layered, creating geometric interlaces whose edges cast shadows through the water below. Holmberg paints the paper interlaces as nearly translucent; where they overlap, the surface breaks up into irregular patterns of colored shapes.