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 and annetteboardman. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, planter, JML9999, 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.
Pictures of the week from Al Jazeera, NBC, the BBC, the BBC again (these the Beeb’s pics from Africa), and The Guardian’s week in wildlife.
We will concentrate on the news in Europe this evening, beginning with this item from euronews:
Romanian prosecutors announced Thursday that charges against seven ministers had been thrown out as indictments came too late.
Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) has dropped charges against seven ministers after an investigation revealed the indictments came too late.
The errors came to light after the prosecutor who originally worked on the case was fired in the summer, leaving judicial inspectors to examine whether legal procedures had been properly followed.
Also from euronews:
By Cristina Abellan Matamoros
The Baltic country had the highest share of environmental taxes in 2016, while the small western nation of Luxembourg scored the lowest.
Latvia had the highest share of environmental taxes (11.7%) in the European Union in 2016, scoring well above the EU average of 6.3%. The Baltic country was ahead of all western members of the EU.
Latvia's share is also the one to have made the most significant jump since 2007. The nation's share jumped from 7.22% to 11.7% in the nine years.
From study international:
Already known for having among the best schools in the world, Finland has decided to again revolutionise its public education system.
Finnish students have consistently performed among the world’s best in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings in recent years.
Now, the northern European nation is currently undergoing a major overhaul of its schools’ physical environments, with some 57 out of 4800 public schools nationwide being chosen for refurbishment and new construction in late 2017, according to CityLab.
From The Local (Sweden):
A man in western Sweden managed to photograph the unusual sight of a white squirrel, after the animal started visiting his garden to steal bird food.
Staffan Åström from Aspås first saw the squirrel in December, and it has been coming to his house ever since.
"I thought it was quite special the first time I saw it. It has been coming since December until now, and I saw it yesterday," Åström told The Local.
The squirrel isn't albino – the lack of red eyes makes that clear according to Åström.
From the Smithsonian Magazine:
Researchers test it out on a medieval epic to investigate whether the Battle of Clontarf was fought against the Vikings or was part of an Irish civil war
By Jason Daley
In 1014, the famous high king of all Ireland and founder of the O’Brien dynasty, Brian Boru— Brian of Béal Bóraimhe Bóraimhe, near Killaloe in Co Clare —fought Viking forces that controlled Leinster and Dublin at the Battle of Clontarf. Boru’s victory finally broke the power of the Norsemen on the island and united the nation. Supposedly.
As Michael Price at Science reports, over the centuries, some historians have suggested the battle may have been fought as more of a civil war between Boru’s forces and opposing Irish factions instead, and that the Norsemen were bit players.
From The Week (UK):
Former UKIP leader’s Dublin visit fuels fears of “Irish Brexit” bid
Ireland has shown little indication that it regrets joining the EU in 1973, but Nigel Farage hopes to change that with a trip to Dublin this weekend.
The former UKIP leader will address Trinity College later today and is backing a so-called Irexit conference on Saturday. “Both events are stirring up controversy,” Bloomberg reports.
Fine Gael Senator Neale Richmond has called Farage’s Irexit: Freedom to Prosper conference a “sham gathering” aimed at promoting incorrect information about Ireland’s role in the EU, according to the Irish Independent. Among other things, the promotional video for the conference claims that Ireland’s low corporation tax rate - incorrectly stated as 12% rather than the actual 12.5% - is under attack from Brussels, but Richmond insists Ireland has a “rock-solid veto on this area”.
Farage has called Richmond an “EU federalist fanatic” and insists that the EU is preparing to “shaft” Ireland’s corporate tax regime, says the newspaper.
From the Telegraph:
Hannah Strange, barcelona
Carles Puigdemont has reportedly rented a six-bedroom, €4,400-a-month house in the Belgian town of Waterloo, a move seized upon by opponents as a sign that the Catalan independence leader plans to remain in his self-imposed exile.
The expansive 550 square metre home was rented this week on Mr Puigdemont’s behalf, Belgian media reported, amid a stand-off over his bid to return as Catalonia’s president.
From The Netherland Times:
By Janene Pieters
Gas production in Loppersum, Groningen has been shut down with immediate effect, Dutch petroleum company NAM announced on Friday. Closing the Loppersum gas fields immediately was one of the measures the state supervisor on mines SoDM advised following an earthquake in the region last month, the strongest earthquake to hit Groningen in five years.
On Thursday Minister Eric Wiebes of Economic Affairs and Climate asked NAM to stop gas extraction at the Loppersum gas fields "as soon as reasonably possible", as per the SoDM's advice. "NAM immediately responded to the order that the Minister gave to stop the 5 Loppersum clusters. As can be seen on the image, the production from those clusters is now 0", NAM said on Twitter.
From Science Trends:
by Mohendra Shiwnarain
Indicating its hopeful recovery, a Eurasian wolf has been seen in the forests of Belgium for the first time in 100 years. In fairy tales and bedtime stories, a wolf in the forest is generally a bad thing that indicates only terror to come. In this case, it is not a fairy tale and it is no terror looming in the dark. This recovery marks an important point in the wild population of these Eurasian wolves.
From Vice News:
A German politician for a far-right, anti-Islam party shocked the country by converting to Islam. Now he’s revealed the reason: He didn’t like that his Protestant faith was accepting of gay marriage.
Arthur Wagner — who now goes by the first name Ahmed—– has been thrust the spotlight since German media reported last week that he had secretly converted to Islam last year.
The revelation mystified members of his Alternative for Germany (Alternativ für Deutschland, or AfD) party, which is staunchly opposed to Islam and holds that the religion has no place in Germany.
From The Guardian:
Relatives of victims who faced terror at Hamburg’s Gestapo HQ protest at scant memorial to past
Kate Connolly in Berlin
The relatives of some of the thousands of Nazi victims who were tortured and murdered in the Hamburg headquarters of the Gestapo have accused authorities and property developers of insulting their memory following the transformation of the building into a luxury complex with scant reference to its past.
The Stadthöfe (city courts) in the centre of the German port city, has been marketed under the title Hommage to Life by its owners, Quantum Immobilien.
Opponents of the scheme, which authorities and developers say will inject new life into a hitherto underdeveloped part of the city, object to the fact that reference to the thousands who resisted the Nazis and were interrogated there before often being deported to concentration camps has been restricted to a small room in a shop on the ground floor.
From The Independent (Malta):
When the deadline elapsed on Wednesday, Lm15,638,748 remained ‘missing’, as they were not exchanged into euros, the Central Bank of Malta said.
The public had until Wednesday at 12:30pm to exchange their old lira notes for euros. The old Maltese currency has now ceased to be exchangeable and is worthless.
Now to news of the arts, beginning with The Guardian:
Previous workers on Golden Age manuscript The Orphan’s Story died, leading to rumours of curse
Sam Jones in Madrid
Four hundred years after it was written, a lost and supposedly cursed Golden Age novel chronicling the splendour, adventure and violence of Spain’s imperial zenith has been published for the first time.
Historia del Huérfano, or The Orphan’s Story, charts the progress of a 14-year-old Spaniard who leaves Granada and heads to the Americas to seek his fortune. Its hero ricochets around the Spanish empire, from the high-society fiestas of Lima to the mephitic mines of Potosí, and goes on to witness Sir Francis Drake’s attack on Puerto Rico and the sacking of Cádiz.
After romantic escapades and the odd shipwreck and run-in with pirates, the soldier-cum-missionary finally manages to embrace the calm of monastic life in the capital of viceregal Peru.
From Arch Daily:
by Patrick Lynch
For all those Game of Thrones fans looking to go face to face with a White Walker (or snuggle up like Jon and Dany), here’s your chance: Lapland Hotels Snowvillage in northern Finland has opened its very own Game of Thrones-themed ice hotel, complete with ice-carvings of the show’s best settings and sigils.
Located in the resort town Kittilä, 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle, the Snowvillage is constructed each year once temperatures reach below -10C in late October or early November. Featuring a hotel, restaurant, bar and chapel, all carved from ice, the Snowvillage is a verifiable winter wonderland, covering an area of 215,000 square feet (20,000 square meters).
From The Washington Post:
PARIS — The two small rooms are hidden off to the side, far from the crowds that surge through France’s most famous museum in search of the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.
At first, it is unclear what unites the 31 paintings now on permanent display in those rooms — among them works from Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Golden Age and pre-revolutionary France. From outside, no prominent sign announces a theme, and the art is crammed into the space in a way that recalls the packed, haphazardly arranged halls of the 19th-century Louvre more than the curated galleries of today.
From The Denver Post:
The Denver Art Museum’s new exhibit, “Linking Asia: Art, Trade and Devotion,” offers visitors an enjoyable and compact way to see the museum’s impressive collection of objects from an incredibly vast region that spans China, Japan, Korea, India, Iraq and Iran and other points east.
But it’s also an economical lesson in current geopolitics.
The exhibit documents, through ceramics, textiles, stone, ink and paint, how the historic trade route, known as the Silk Road, changed the world as we know it. The route — which connected Asia to Europe and Africa — famously provided a way for countries to exchange commercial goods for many centuries.
From Hyperallergic:
The 80,000-pound sculpture is still being fabricated, but already an association representing 255 French art dealers wants it moved.
On Tuesday, Jeff Koons met with France’s Minister of Culture, Françoise Nyssen, to discuss his embattled gift to the country, “Bouquet of Tulips” (2016). Though the content of their conversation is not known exactly, the outcome was clear. Deputy Mayor of Paris Christophe Girard told Europe 1that “we will welcome Jeff Koons’s work at the right site.” That may mean finding a new spot for it, after the announced location — a pedestrian plaza between the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris and the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art space — has proved extremely contentious.
Indeed, a group representing some 255 French art galleries, the Professional Committee of Art Galleries (PCAT), issued a statement this week demanding that the sculpture be installed elsewhere. The statement, attributed to the organization’s president, gallerist Georges-Philippe Vallois, makes a point of noting that it is not objecting to “the aesthetic qualities or the relevance of the sculpture as an homage to the victims of the attacks in France,” as others have. Rather, the art dealers want the sculpture’s location to be one that won’t compete with or be impacted by the programming of adjacent museums.