Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) 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 sometimes a little bit later if the diarist is me. I have a terrible habit of cutting things close.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Photos of the week come from the New York Post, CNN, Buzzfeed, BBC, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Roll Call.
Nothing suspicious about this at all… (from Ghana Web):
The Tema Community One District Police Command has initiated investigations into circumstances surrounding how a bank teller at the Tema main branch of the National Investment Bank (NIB), forgot to lock-up cash of GH¢35,520 in the vault on a day robbers broke into the banking hall at night.
Mrs Medina Ablorh is said to have left the cash wrapped in polythene back near her desk and went home on Saturday, April 7, 2019, at about 4pm.
Similarly, circumstances surrounding how a security officer, Bernard Baah also discovered the GH¢35,520 which had been left behind, picked and hid it in the boot of a vehicle belonging to the bank and failed to inform his supervisor is also to be investigated.
Speaking of night, this comes from Morocco World News:
Moroccan users of the Sleep Cycle app sleep longer than the app’s users in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE.
Rabat – Based on data from the Sleep Cycle app, Morocco gets the longest night-time sleeping hours among the five MENA region countries included and another 28 countries, including China, Poland, Russia, and Italy.
The data shows that Moroccan users of the app get an average of seven hours and 15 minutes of shut-eye per night.
From advox.globalvoices.org:
They are out of prison, but not really free.
Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, spent five years in prison for simply doing his job as a journalist.
He was detained on August 14, 2013 as he was photographing the deadly dispersal of the Rabaa El Adaweya sit-in, in which supporters of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi gathered to protest a military coup that ended his presidency on July 3 that same year. Egyptian security forces killed at least 817 people and injured many more, according to Human Rights Watch, when they dispersed the sit-in.
Shawkan, who was working for Demotix at the time of his arrest, spent almost four years in pre-trial detention before his trial, along with 739 other defendants in what came to be known as the “Rabaa Dispersal Case,” began. In September 2018, a Cairo Criminal Court convicted him on spurious charges of murder and affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, and a few months later he was released from jail.
A video from africanews.com:
Africa stills lags behind the rest of the world in achieving universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Also from africanews:
Africa boasts some of the world’s deadliest snakes, yet it has an alarming shortage of the life-saving snakebite treatment.
And one more from the continent, this from Bloomberg:
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Egg-toast index offers insight into global wage-diet divide
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Morning meal is light on wallet in Geneva, hard work in Accra
Whether scrambled, sunny-side up or as part of an omelet, eggs are a global breakfast staple. But not all eggs are equal when it comes to cost and affordability.
A morning meal has become increasingly easy to acquire for residents of tech hubs such as San Francisco and across Switzerland’s finance capitals, while people in Egypt, along with
much of Sub-Saharan Africa have to work much longer to pay for their first meal of the day.
Moving to South America, we begin with Dialogo Americas:
The vessel fished illegally in Argentine waters and attempted to crash into an Argentine Naval Prefecture’s coast guard ship.
Juan Delgado/Diálogo
In February 2019, Argentine Naval Prefecture personnel captured a South Korean vessel that fished illegally in Argentine waters. (Photo: Argentine Naval Prefecture)
In early March, the Argentine Naval Prefecture (PNA, in Spanish) chased a Chinese-flagged ship that fished illegally in Argentina’s southern Patagonia waters. The Chinese fishing boat managed to flee the scene, leading the Argentine justice system to request an international warrant for its arrest, PNA reported.
And from InSight Crime:
Customs authorities in Bolivia have seized nearly two tons of contraband medicine this year, highlighting the scale of an illegal industry that many countries throughout Latin America are struggling to combat.
In just the first three months of 2019, customs officials in Bolivia have seized 1.9 tons of contraband pharmaceutical drugs worth an estimated 1.3 million bolivianos (around $188,000), La Prensa reported.
From The Daily Star:
As human civilization has grown ever more mechanized, an instinct deep within us has created a yearning for the wild and the untamed. Thus, watching wildlife in their natural habitat has become a sought-after and rewarding adventure in today's world. It combines the excitement of the unexpected with surprises and revelations of the unknown. It is impossible to describe the thrill and excitement of finding an unsual or rare animal in its home turf. Depending on the terrain and the risks involved, many methods have evolved to allow us, Homo sapiens, to watch our fellow passengers on this planet going about their normal business.
And from the National Geographic:
Forest guardians are working to protect their land from a recent rash of new migrants, many of them breaking the law.
By Lyndsie Bourgon
Puerto Maldonado, PeruOn March 14, 2018, an alarm sounded in the ears of Jose Vargas, who was sitting at his desk in this Peruvian Amazon city. Embedded in the amber wood of a cedar tree, a small tracking device developed to spring to life at the whir of a chainsaw or crunching of boots on earth sent an alert via satellite to the offices of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), where Vargas works as a GIS specialist.
And on to news from the Art world, beginning with this from Eater New York:
Watch parties and food and drink specials around NYC themed to the wildly popular HBO show
Despite what meteorologists say, for many in New York City, winter arrives on Sunday — with the final season premiere of HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones. For this monumental event, several restaurants are cashing in on the hype.
Fear not, non-HBO account holders, these are the places airing the premiere on Sunday, some with unlimited drink specials that would make Tyrion Lannister feel at home. Here’s a guide to the best viewing parties in town, plus extra GOT-inspired gimmicks like a Shake Shack burger named after the word for “dragon fire” in High Valyrian.
From Reuters:
OXFORD, England (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Films telling the stories of innovators in Africa have the power to transform the way people see the continent and drive social change, Oscar-nominated actor Chiwetel Ejiofor said on Friday.
Ejiofor’s comments came as he appeared at Britain’s leading conference on social entrepreneurship, the Skoll World Forum, to discuss his latest film, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.”
Form inverse.com:
It changed furniture forever.
By Danny Paez
Every time you plop yourself down in a chair at work, rush to your favorite seat in class, or lounge at your desk at home, you can think the Bauhaus Movement. The Bauhaus was originally a German arts school started in 1919, whose teachings eventually developed into an art and thought movement that inspired a generation of artisans, architects, and designers around the world. Friday was the centennial celebration of Bauhaus, and Google marked the occasion with a front-page doodle.
And finally from the Star Tribune (Minneapolis):
Ziggy's Art Bus gives homebound kids a chance to show their creative side
The cheery activity center on wheels invites children with mobility issues to come inside and get creative.
By Imani Cruzen
Gina Zaffarano-Keller’s dog, Ziggy, has a goofy personality and an innocent spirit. Those qualities, Zaffarano-Keller said, make Ziggy a good match for Twin Cities children dealing with significant health problems.
“Most people love dogs and dogs are, unilaterally I think, friend-makers,” she said. “And so we felt that she was the right face for this bus because children love her.”
The bus is aptly named Ziggy’s Art Bus — a cheery activity center on wheels that invites children with mobility issues to come inside and spend an hour or more molding clay, painting pictures and being creative. The bus includes a wheelchair ramp, seating, shelves with jars of art supplies and space for tables that can be turned into easels.