OND Editors OND is a 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 12:00AM Eastern Time.
OND Editors Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, rfall, Doctor RJ and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
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BBC:Greek debt: Merkel urges deal before Monday summit
Greek debt: Merkel urges deal before Monday summit
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned there must be a deal between Greece and its creditors ahead of Monday's emergency EU summit.
Otherwise, she said, the summit would not be able to make any decision.
Greece has less than two weeks remaining to strike a deal or face defaulting on a €1.6bn (£1.1bn) IMF loan repayment.
There are fears about the health of Greek banks, amid reports more than €4bn has been withdrawn this week.
BBC:Tunisian consular workers freed 'in exchange for Libyan commander'
Tunisian consular workers freed 'in exchange for Libyan commander'
Ten Tunisian diplomatic staff who were kidnapped in Libya a week ago have been freed and returned home.
Foreign Minister Taieb Bakouch said the consulate had now been closed and urged all Tunisians to leave the country.
He denied reports that the workers were freed in exchange for a Libyan militia commander.
Walid Kalib, who leads a brigade in the "Libya Dawn" alliance which controls Tripoli, was recently arrested in Tunisia on terrorism charges.
BBC:Thailand confirms first Mers case in visitor from Oman
Thailand confirms first Mers case in visitor from Oman
Thailand has confirmed its first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), the deadly virus that has killed 24 people in South Korea.
The man - whose name has not been released - is now in quarantine at an infectious diseases facility outside the capital Bangkok.
Thai health officials said the 75-year-old from Oman was seeking treatment for a heart problem in Bangkok.
Nearly 60 people who came into contact with the patient have been identified.
BBC:Toyota apologises after Japan arrests top US executive
Toyota apologises after Japan arrests top US executive
Car maker Toyota has apologised after one of its top executives was arrested on suspicion of illegally importing painkillers into Japan.
Company president Akio Toyoda said at a news conference that US national Julie Hamp had not intended to break the law.
Ms Hamp serves as Toyota's head of public relations and is its first senior woman executive.
She is accused of sending herself 57 tablets of the painkiller oxycodone in a package marked "necklaces".
BBC:India monsoon rains bring busy Mumbai to grinding halt
India monsoon rains bring busy Mumbai to grinding halt
Heavy monsoon rains in India's financial capital, Mumbai, have brought the city to a standstill.
Waterlogged roads have caused severe traffic blocks along arterial roads and all flights have been delayed.
The local train service, used by hundreds of thousands of commuters daily, has been suspended, with many stranded at stations.
The annual monsoon often causes a complete breakdown of infrastructure and transport services in Mumbai.
BBC:Petrobras scandal: Top construction bosses arrested in Brazil
Petrobras scandal: Top construction bosses arrested in Brazil
Two top Brazilian businessmen have been arrested as part of a major investigation into corruption at state-owned oil giant Petrobras.
Marcelo Odebrecht heads the Odebrecht group - Latin America's largest construction conglomerate.
Also detained is Otavio Azevedo, boss of Andrade Gutierrez, another top construction company.
Investigators allege firms paid c
Reuters:Oil spills from Petrobras pipeline into Brazil coastal
Oil spills from Petrobras pipeline into Brazil coastal
Oil spilled from a pipeline linking a main Atlantic Ocean terminal with a refinery near Rio de Janeiro on Friday, Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA said.
The spill contaminated a coastal wetland area and leaked into the ocean, a spokesman for the union representing employees at the refinery said.
The narrow coastal region where the spill occurred is in Rio de Janeiro's Costa Verde or "Green Coast" - one of Brazil's most beloved tourist regions and home to one of the last stands of the endangered Atlantic-Forest ecosystem.
Petrobras, as the company is known, said 600 liters (3.77 barrels) of oil leaked from the pipeline, 50 liters of which reached the ocean.
Reuters:Not the time to pull peacekeepers from Darfur: U.S. envoy
Not the time to pull peacekeepers from Darfur: U.S. envoy
Now is not the time to withdraw international peacekeepers from Sudan's Darfur region, where violence is increasing and tens of thousands of people have been forced to abandon their homes, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Friday.
Khartoum has called for the joint United Nations-African Union force in the remote region of western Sudan to withdraw. The mission, known as UNAMID, has been targeted by armed groups while Western governments have accused it of not doing enough to protect civilians.
The worsening bloodshed in Darfur and the confrontational approach of the Khartoum government were the focus of an informal, closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Friday. Abdelrahman Gasim, a lawyer from Sudan, and Hawa Abdallah Mohammed Salih, an activist from Darfur, spoke at the meeting.
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They told journalists later that they pleaded with council members to take bolder action to stop the bloodshed and protect the people of Darfur
Reuters:Putin says Russia weathering sanctions, lectures West
Putin says Russia weathering sanctions, lectures West
President Vladimir Putin boasted on Friday that Russia had found the "inner strength" to prevent sanctions causing a deep economic crisis, and told the West to stop using "the language of ultimatums."
Investment in Russia has slowed to a trickle, capital flight has risen and the economy has been sliding into recession since oil prices tumbled last year and the West imposed economic sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.
But in a 29-minute speech to a business forum and a question-and-answer session that lasted more than an hour, Putin ignored calls by many investors to unveil new plans to end the downturn.
Instead, he warned the West not to meddle in Moscow's affairs and shifted blame for the conflict in Ukraine onto the West, primarily the United States.
Reuters:Graft stalls Niger's bid to end migrant route to Europe
Graft stalls Niger's bid to end migrant route to Europe
In the desert town of Agadez in central Niger, almost anyone can tell you where to find the smugglers' compounds concealing African migrants headed for Europe and when the weekly convoy departs across the Sahara.
Almost anyone, except the police.
At a checkpoint on the outskirts of town, police officers turned a blind eye as dozens of smuggler's trucks packed with migrants drove past at nightfall on a regular Monday convoy, starting a three-day drive across the desert to Libya.
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"We cannot stop the migrant trucks. They do not pass by here," said one of the policemen, gesturing vaguely to the blackness. "They go around us, far off in the desert."
Reuters:Yemen talks end without ceasefire, air strikes hit Republican Guards
Yemen talks end without ceasefire, air strikes hit Republican Guards
U.N.-sponsored talks in Geneva on a ceasefire between Yemen's warring parties ended on Friday without a deal as Saudi-led warplanes staged further strikes on the dominant Houthi armed faction and allies including elite Republican Guards.
More than 2,800 people have been killed since an Arab alliance began air raids on March 26 to try to roll back the Iranian-backed Houthis' advances across much of Yemen and reinstate exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said that in five days of "proximity talks" - in which he shuttled between factions who refused to sit at the same table - the two sides agreed in principle on the need for a ceasefire and withdrawal of forces in keeping with U.N. Security Council Resolution 2216.
"There is a certain willingness from all the parties to discuss issues around a ceasefire accompanied by withdrawal ... I personally come out from these few days with a certain degree of optimism that we can achieve this (in further consultations) in the coming days," he told a news conference in Geneva.
Reuters:China rejects patent linked to Gilead hepatitis C drug
China rejects patent linked to Gilead hepatitis C drug
China has rejected a Gilead Sciences Inc patent application related to its costly hepatitis C drug, a U.S. advocacy group said, adding the move may lead to other countries to consider rejecting patents for the controversial treatment.
Gilead has drawn fire for the cost of its top-selling drug Sovaldi, priced at $1,000 per pill in the United States or $84,000 for a typical 12-week course and its patents have been challenged in the U.S., India and Europe.
The application China has rejected was for a so-called prodrug, the inactive form of the drug which then converts into the chemically active compound once in the body, the New York-based Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK) said.
Gilead, however, holds the China patent to the base compound in the drug, also known by its generic name sofosbuvir and China's rejection of the prodrug patent does not open the way for copycat drugs to be made in the world's No. 2 drug market.
Forbes:Apple App Security Fails Leave Macs And iPhones Vulnerable To 'Devastating' Attacks
Apple App Security Fails Leave Macs And iPhones Vulnerable To 'Devastating' Attacks
It’s become almost axiomatic that Apple AAPL -0.98% devices and the apps on them are more secure than the competition. But researchers continue to blow up that notion and today a group of academics have ripped apart the security protections in Mac OS X and iOS to show it’s not only possible to create malware and get it onto the App Store, but it’s also feasible to launch “devastating” attacks using rogue software to steal the most sensitive personal data around, from iCloud passwords and Evernote notes to dodgy selfies and more.
The attacks, known as unauthorized cross-app resource access or XARA, expose design flaws that allow a bad app to access critical pieces of data in other apps. As a result, Apple has struggled to fix the issues, according to a paper released today from Indiana University Bloomington, Peking University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Analysis of 1,612 of the most popular Mac apps and 200 iOS apps found more than 88.6 per cent of the kit using the flawed pieces of the operating systems were exposed to the XARA attacks, leaving all kinds of data out in the open for willing hackers.
Apple had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication, though the researchers said they had disclosed the problems to the tech titan. The researchers have also built a program that detects exploit attempts on OS X, though it’s not yet publicly available. Luyi Xing of Indiana University Bloomington told FORBES the tool would go live on its XARA site when ready.