Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Besame, 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.
While we wait for the results of the Irish referendum, take a look at these images from the Emerald Isle (found in the Irish Times), as well as pictures of the week from the BBC, BBC Africa, , and The Guardian (wildlife). In addition check out photos of sharks from the Azores (from the Daily Mail).
We begin with an opinion piece from The Guardian:
The 1918 Spanish flu outbreak killed more people than both world wars. Don’t imagine such a thing could never happen again
This year marks a century since some women got the vote; a century since the end of the first world war; 50 years since the 1968 revolts; 70 since the founding of Israel and the NHS. All have been well marked. So it is striking that the centenary of one of the most devastating events in human history has been allowed to pass thus far with almost no public reflection of any kind.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Estimates about its impact vary. But when you read that a third of the entire global population probably caught the Spanish flu and that it killed between 50 and 100 million people in all corners of the globe – up to 5% of all human beings on the planet at the time – you get an inkling of its scale.
More cheerful news from the BBC:
By Jessica Bateman
When a Syrian stonemason and his family were granted asylum in Greece last year they immediately made their way to the island of Crete - completing a journey begun by their great-grandparents 130 years ago.
Entering a small shop in Chania, on Crete's north-west coast, Ahmed began to introduce himself. The owner looked at him open-mouthed. He understood what Ahmed was saying, but some of the words he was using were unfamiliar and old-fashioned, and others he didn't understand at all. It was as though Ahmed had arrived not just from Syria, but from another age.
"He could not believe that someone was still speaking the old language today," says Ahmed.
One more from the BBC before we move on from Europe (actually it’s all about moving on from Europe...):
By Samantha Fenwick
Sir Richard Branson says he's training to be an astronaut and will take his first trip into space soon.
He told BBC Radio 4's You and Yours programme: "We're talking about months away, not years away - so it's close. There are exciting times ahead.
"I'm going for astronaut training; I'm going for fitness training, centrifuge and other training, so that my body will hopefully cope well when I go to space."
From The Cable (Nigeria):
Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the last governorship election in Edo, spent Thursday night in Benin Prison, after failing to meet the bail conditions given by a federal high court in the state.
Dan Orbih, the state chairman of the party; Lucky Imasuen, a former deputy governor of the state; Tony Azegbemi, a former member house of representatives member; and Efe Anthony, all slept in the prison.
From The Independent (UK):
Zacouma National Park had lost 90 per cent of its elephants to poachers before the Central African country decided to fight back. Now the task is to attract herds of tourists to help pay for what has become an uplifting wildlife conservation effort
“If everyone’s stomachs are up to it, we can go see the elephants,” said Rian Labuschagne, his voice crackling through my aviation headset.
Receiving the thumbs-up from his three passengers, Labuschagne, who was then manager of Zakouma National Park in Chad, steered the fixed-wing Cessna C180 towards a spot 12 miles south. Earlier that morning, his rangers had spotted the elephants there.
From Al Monitor:
CAIRO — In an effort to break the stalemate between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the round of negotiations held between the three countries' foreign ministers, irrigation and water ministers, and heads of intelligence ended May 15 in Addis Ababa with the signing of a document containing five clauses.
The aim of the document is to create a new road map that would avoid procrastination and have the three countries renew their pledge to cooperate in accordance with the Declaration of Principles signed in March 2015.
However, while the document was issued after 16 hours of back-to-back meetings, it failed to resolve the fundamental differences between Egypt and Ethiopia over the technical studies aimed at determining the negative effects of the dam on Egypt. It also failed to reach an agreement over a storage and operation mechanism in the dam that would avoid causing severe damage to Cairo.
Also from Al Monitor:
Egypt's Ministry of Transport
hiked Cairo's metro fares by up to 250% in a sudden move that angered more than 3 million Egyptian commuters. The decision adds to the already high costs of living amid recent austerity measures taken as part of a $12 billion
IMF loan agreement signed in 2016.
Effective May 11, the base fare will be 3 Egyptian pounds ($0.17) for up to nine stops, 5 pounds ($0.28) for 10-16 stops and 7 pounds ($0.39) for more than 16 stops. The increase will not affect students, the elderly and people with special needs. The ministry had previously raised the fare from 1 to 2 pounds for an unlimited number of stops in March 2017.
The metro fares and the expected third round of energy subsidy cuts in July will burden Egyptians who have already been hit hard since Egypt floated its currency in late 2016. The inflation rate reached a record high after the government lifted fuel subsidies in July last year for the second time.
From Gulf News:
Holy month combines intense spirituality, pious commitments and social activities
Manama: For most Bahrainis, Ramadan, the month of fasting, is closely associated with the plethora of food that families invariably set on their table when they break the fast or as they while the evening away.
The paradox is part of the local culture that encourages people to reward themselves for a day of fasting with the best culinary delights they can savour.
And from the BBC, yet another less-than-happy story about health:
A mother and her three-year-old daughter have been killed in India after the woman was bitten by a snake.
Not realising she had been attacked, the woman began breastfeeding her child. Both died before they could reach a hospital.
The news comes the same day as the World Health Organization declared snake bites a "global health priority".
Between 81,000 and 138,000 people are killed by snake bites each year, with around half of all deaths in India.
And as usual, on the Friday evening OND, we finish with some art stories, beginning with this from Forbes:
The latest contemporary art sale at Sotheby’s auction house turned up the heat surrounding black art. Three living black artists set auction records including Kerry James Marshall’s “Past Times” painting which sold for $21.1 million. How important are these milestones to help move black artists into the mainstream art spotlight?
The Breakdown You Need to Know
Pieces by black artists drew dozens of bidders and even celebrities like Swizz Beatz and Diddy got in on the action. One of the highest selling black art pieces was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Flesh and Spirit” which sold for $30.7 million, more than 2,000 times its purchase price from 35 years ago. The art piece was sold by the estate of Dolores Ormandy Neumann who was an early champion of 1980s New York graffiti artists. Neuman originally acquired the work in 1983 for $15,000.
And from The Economist:
The Zeppelin Museum colour-codes its works based on how likely they are to have been looted by the Nazis
BETWEEN 1933 and 1945, in a systematic effort, Germany’s Nazi party stole or forced compulsory purchase of a vast number of artworks, both from museums around Europe and from Jewish collectors. The exact figures are impossible to know, but estimates suggest the number of looted paintings alone totalled 650,000—a fifth of all paintings in Europe at the time.
Restitution efforts for private claims in particular have been slow, and it wasn’t until 1998 that an international set of principles to deal with the problem of Nazi-looted art was created. Forty-four countries came together to establish the Washington Principles, which encourage public collections to undertake provenance research, and if necessary, return stolen artworks in their possession to the rightful owners or their descendants, particularly in the case of Jewish collectors who were forced to flee. Time is of the essence: these processes become more and more difficult as trails grow colder and original owners (and their memories) grow older.
And from Hyperallergic:
An arts festival in Athens created an opportunity for international artists to think through the power and impact of archeology on nationalism and history.
ATHENS — The material culture of a city like Athens, spanning millennia, has always been a fertile ground for artistic interventions, testing the role of history in the construction of our lived realities. Sites abound throughout the Attica region, bearers of complex and multilayered narratives, even those still shrouded in mystery. For instance, a mass grave containing eighty bodies at Faliron Delta, in the south of Athens, has been cloaked in mystery since its uncovering in 2016, during the construction of a park located beside the cultural center of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. While the site has been excavated and documented, the findings are not conclusive. According to archaeologist Stella Chrysoulaki, it is, apparently, one of the most extensive archaic cemeteries in Attica. Inspired by this discovery and research, Japanese artist and film-maker Hikaru Fujii, dedicates his multidisciplinary project “The Primary Fact”, recently on view at the Library of the School of Law to explore these singular deaths. These men were executed sometime in the late seventh century BCE Athens (a rather poorly documented period in Greek history), and many other details are known. At the time of their execution, the men were young and healthy, but they were dehydrated to the point of near-death, their hands were tied behind behind their back with iron bonds, and they were clothed. But the main question remains: how exactly did they die, who killed and why were they buried like that?