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, perhaps a bit later).
I guess this week we have to deal with what I was trying to avoid last week, the US position viz-a-viz the world. We begin with the analysis from The Miami Herald:
President Donald Trump’s unexpected suggestion Friday that he might rely on military force to deal with Venezuela’s pressing political crisis was an astonishing statement that strained not only credulity but also the White House’s hard-won new friendships in Latin America.
“I’m not going to rule out a military option,” Trump declared to reporters in Bedminster, N.J. “This is our neighbor. We’re all over the world, and we have troops all over the world, in places that are very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are suffering, and they’re dying.”
But elsewhere is not particularly stable. NPR has details:
India has increased a military alert along its eastern border with China, moving troops and weapons into the region amid a weeks-long standoff between the two countries that shows no signs of resolution.
As NPR's Julie McCarthy reported last month, New Delhi and Beijing have been at odds over a strategic region called the Doklam Plateau, which is claimed both by China and by India's tiny ally, Bhutan.
In June, China began construction to extend a road there in an apparent effort to press its claim. In response, India sent troops as a show of force, sparking anger from China which says the affair is none of its business.
Beijing demanded that Indian forces withdrawal, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused.
But there are attempts, apparently, to calm things down. This comes from express.co.uk:
SWEDEN could potentially prevent an all-out nuclear war between North Korea and the US, according to an expert on the country’s relationship with Pyongyang.
According to Ulv Hanssen, research assistant and associate fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, the Scandinavian nation could use its special relationship with North Korea as a stepping stone for intermediary talks.
Sweden has a long standing diplomatic relationship with North Korea, predominantly exercised when acting on behalf of Western nationals who find themselves on the wrong side of the secretive government’s laws.
Mr Hanssen said: "Sweden has done so on numerous occasions before, especially in relation to imprisoned Americans.
Gizmondo provides us with the final item about this topic (they have it tagged with the phrase “NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON”):
George Dvorsky
Data visualization artist Neil Halloran has a knack for turning incomprehensibly large and complex data sets into content that’s both coherent and engrossing. In his latest project, the filmmaker uses his skills to convey the unthinkable: the total number of deaths caused by an all-out nuclear war.
A couple of years ago, Halloran used animated data visualizations to illustrate how many soldiers and civilians were killed during the Second World War, but he’s now turned his attention to something that’s potentially far worse—the next world war.
In his new 15-minute video, The Shadow Peace, Halloran uses inverted population pyramids to show how global population figures and death rates are tracked over long timescales, and how these pyramids sometimes “spike” during calamitous events, such as WWII. But when projecting the effects of global nuclear war, the size of these spikes enter into the absurd.
Other news now, this from Egypt, via The Guardian:
The furore caused by a student project on sex education highlights the attitudes that have hampered Egypt as it attempts to deal with overpopulation
Ruth Michaelson
When a group of Egyptian university students submitted a magazine on sex education for their final-year assignment, they hardly imagined they would fail their course and spark a media backlash.
Yet that is exactly what happened when the project, submitted to the media and mass communications department at Cairo’s al-Azhar University, was rejected as unsuitable. Articles about the “scandal” appeared in the local media, and the students feared expulsion.
In a statement, the group said: “We assure everyone that our magazine, Secrets, is a social magazine.
“We stress that the project doesn’t deal with pornography or sex education in general, but rather with social problems. Harassment, myths and superstitions, addiction to pornography sites, the loss of wives’ rights, calling for teaching materials for sex education in schools and universities … we discussed these topics without any indecency, as we have learned from our professors.”
Also from North Africa, from The National (an Associated Press story):
Deadline day submission challenges the only other contender so far - a joint bid by the US, Mexico and Canada
Morocco announced on Friday that it will bid to host the 2026 World Cup, providing a challenge to a joint North American project that aims to bring soccer's main event back to the United States for the first time in more than 30 years.
The Moroccan Football Federation released a two-sentence statement confirming its intention to bid on the deadline day for countries to express their interest in hosting in 2026.
The United States, Canada and Mexico launched a joint bid in April and had hoped to be awarded the 2026 World Cup unchallenged. But Fifa decided to keep the contest open and Morocco said it had met Friday's deadline.
From Reuters, as we move across the African continent:
AKUKU-TORU, Nigeria (Reuters) - Hundreds of Nigerians stormed a crude oil facility and gas plant owned by Shell in the Niger Delta on Friday demanding jobs and infrastructure development, a Reuters witness said.
Echoing a common complaint in the impoverished swampland that produces most of Nigeria's oil, the protesters said they were not benefiting from the region's oil wealth and wanted an end to the oil pollution that has ruined much of the land.
From The Telegraph, not exactly a news story, but worth reading:
By Chris Leadbeater
There are niche travel destinations, there are far-out travel destinations, and there are travel destinations which are so beyond the obvious that you have to seek them on a map to check if they really exist. Chad is one of those places, an African country which sits a long way down on the list of African countries you are ever likely to wish to visit. And yet – for the truly intrepid, there is much to enjoy in a place where the beaten path is just an ethereal concept. Today (August 11) is its Independence Day – which is, perhaps, a good enough reason to unveil 13 facts about an outpost on the periphery of perception…
1. Visiting is not for the faint-hearted…
Let’s start at the start, and make this clear. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not really like the idea of you going to Chad. Its security map of the country is entirely coloured in red (“advise against all travel”) and yellow (“advise against all but essential travel”). “Before considering any travel, take professional security advice,” the warning runs. “You should follow your employer’s security advice and make sure the correct Chadian authorities are aware of your journey, you have in place the right permits if required, and you hold comprehensive travel insurance.” In other words, it isn’t a picnic.
2. …but going there is not impossible
If you are prepared for dirt, desert and a country of very few roads, then you can go to Chad. Undiscovered Destinations (0191 296 2674; undiscovered-destinations.com) sells a 17-day “Chad: Soul of the Sahara” group jaunt which dissects the country in considerable detail (from £4,149 per person, including flights. Next departure on October 20). Natural World Safaris (01273 691 642; naturalworldsafaris.com) offers a “Big Cats, Big Game & Big Crocs” trip which, as its name suggests, focuses on wildlife (from £6,285 per person, not including flights). Responsible Travel (01273 823 700; responsibletravel.com) serves up a wide range of breaks in the country. If you have the willpower then Chad is possible.
From The Independent:
‘I do not believe in building walls but building bridges,’ pacifist Noa Gur Golan says in rare case of IDF draft refusal
“When I was little, I dreamt of being an IDF war pilot,” says 19-year-old Noa Gur Golan.
Now, however, the teenager is sitting in Military Prison 396 near Haifa. She’s been branded a traitor and a coward. It’s not clear when she is going to be released – she’s being detained for refusing to do her military service with the Israel Defence Force (IDF).
A bit further east (and south), here is an article about dinosaurs, because I am told it is always a good time for dinosaurs (from the Dallas News):
The Tyrannosaurus Bataar skulls were dug out of the Gobi desert and illegally smuggled out of Mongolia, federal officials say.
From there, they wound up in the hands of U.S. private collectors who dished out six figures for the fossils, including a Hollywood actor, a New York developer and a North Texas anesthesiologist.
Since federal authorities began a crackdown in 2012 on the little-known black market in dinosaur bones, more than 18 specimens were returned to Mongolia. Two men were convicted in federal court of smuggling fossils into the U.S.
Another fossil story I am unable to paste anything from, but there was an old water bird discovered in Japan.
And a second story about Japan comes from The Christian Science Monitor:
Women in Japan often feel forced to choose between motherhood and a career, keeping many out of the full-time workforce for decades. For these entrepreneurs, though, 'retirement age' presented an opportunity to start a business venture.
August 11, 2017 Iida, Japan—In this sleepy, mountainous city, 85-year-old Yoshiko Zakoji starts her day with exercises before cooking rice and simmering vegetables for pre-ordered boxed lunches – as she has done for more than a decade.
“I need to keep myself fit to continue my business,” says Ms. Zakoji, who owns a shop in Iida, located 110 miles west of Tokyo. She calls it Waraku: a name that evokes opening up to each other, and having a good time.
Zakoji opened the shop in 1992, after her husband’s retirement. She was a homemaker with no work experience, and 60 years old – just when her generation was starting to rely on the pension system.
It is that point of the evening and the week when we turn to arts news. The first item comes from Mongolia, via Reuters:
ULAANBAATAR (Reuters) - A statue of the Beatles in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar could be at risk amid an alleged land grab, protesters say, as rapid development turns a city once famed for wide open spaces into a cluttered metropolis.
Residents are protesting against plans to build commercial properties in an area known as Beatles Square, where a bronze bas-relief monument to the "Fab Four" commemorates the former Soviet satellite's transition to democracy in 1990.
From The Daily Beast:
Architecture of An Existential Threat provides a visually compelling insight to the cultural and geographical perspective of bomb shelters in Israel today.
Architecture of An Existential Threat provides a visually compelling insight to the cultural and geographical perspective of bomb shelters in Israel today. Adam Reynolds refers to these ubiquitous bomb shelters as "doomsday spaces." He approaches these interior spaces by capturing the importance of proportion and scale.
From the Huffington Post:
Jed Ryan
For most Americans, “Syria” is unfortunately no more than a fleeting subject in our daily lives: yet another trending topic reduced to a capsule article in our internet news feed, or an issue occasionally getting a few minutes of airtime on TV. The humanitarian aspects of the concurrent Syrian civil war and refugee crisis have often been overshadowed by political slants, and/or reduced to soulless statistics. While the numbers are astonishing (To escape the violence, about 9.5 million Syrians— half the population— have been displaced since the outbreak of the civil war in March 2011.), the horror stories which occasionally reach the masses are often quickly forgotten in the Western world as we move on to another competing issue. Sadly, it’s a safe bet that most Americans can’t even find Syria on a map, much less get the opportunity to speak with anyone affected directly by the crisis. In the stunning new play Lost and Guided, writer/director Irene Kapustina explores the lives of four young men and women behind the numbers. Ninety percent of the words of Lost and Guided are taken directly from the transcripts of Kapustina’s interviews with Syrian refugees in the United States. Those words are brought to vivid life by a young and dynamic cast.
And we end about the place we began, with this from USA Today:
Kelly Lawler
With rhetoric between President Trump and and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un escalating, some people worried about the advent of nuclear war. Filmmakers, long fascinated with nuclear conflict, have tackled the idea of this fallout numerous times, from comedies and dramas to documentaries and teen TV series.
If movies are where you turn for understanding or perspective during world events, here are five films worth watching available to rent or stream that take on the topic.