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.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
BBC:Tunisia to revive Syria ties to track jihadists
Tunisia to revive Syria ties to track jihadists
Tunisia says it plans to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria in order to track its citizens who have gone to fight alongside Islamist militants.
Some 3,000 Tunisian jihadists are thought to have gone to Syria and Iraq.
Tunisian concerns about home-grown militants have been heightened by last month's attack on a Tunis museum.
The country - birthplace of the Arab Spring protests - cut ties with Syria in 2011, where similar unrest had provoked a government crackdown.
BBC:Malaysian cartoonist charged with sedition
Malaysian cartoonist charged with sedition
Malaysian authorities have charged a prominent cartoonist with sedition over his criticism of the jailing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, known as Zunar, faces court action over tweets he sent about the widely condemned ruling.
Zunar said the nine charges - one for each tweet he sent - were a bid by the government to silence him.
Rights groups have accused Malaysian authorities of using the sedition laws to suppress dissent.
BBC:Yemen crisis: China evacuates citizens and foreigners from Aden
Yemen crisis: China evacuates citizens and foreigners from Aden
China's navy has evacuated 225 foreign nationals and almost 600 Chinese citizens from Yemen's southern port of Aden, amid fierce fighting there.
China says it is the first time its military has rescued foreign nationals from a danger zone.
Houthi rebels in the city have been fighting troops loyal to ousted Yemeni President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
On Friday, the rebels withdrew from the presidential palace, following Saudi-led air strikes.
BBC:North Korea 'test-fires missiles'
North Korea 'test-fires missiles'
North Korea has test-fired four short-range missiles into the sea off its west coast, say South Korean military officials.
In a statement, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the missiles had a range of about 140km (87 miles).
They were fired from Dongchang-ri in the north of the country on Friday afternoon local time, it said.
The North often conducts missile tests in protest at US-South Korean military drills, one of which is ongoing.
BBC:China ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang charged
China ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang charged
China's former security chief Zhou Yongkang has been charged with bribery, abuse of power and the intentional disclosure of state secrets, state media report.
Mr Zhou was, until his retirement in 2012, one of China's most powerful men.
He headed the Ministry of Public Security and was a member of China's top decision-making body.
Once Xi Jinping took over as president in 2013, however, he was put under investigation.
BBC:UK 'spied on Argentina' over Falklands, claims Edward Snowden
UK 'spied on Argentina' over Falklands, claims Edward Snowden
Documents released by the American whistle-blower Edward Snowden claim that Britain spied for several years on the Argentine government.
According to reports in the Argentine media, Britain was concerned that Argentina could launch another attempt to reclaim the Falkland Islands.
The two nations fought a war over the islands in 1982.
Last month the British government announced it was upgrading its military presence on the islands.
Reuters:Yemeni fighters repel Houthis in Aden after arms drop
Yemeni fighters repel Houthis in Aden after arms drop
(Reuters) - Fighters loyal to Yemen's president pushed Houthi fighters back from central Aden on Friday after they were reinforced with weapons parachuted into their beleaguered section of the southern port city by Saudi-led warplanes.
The military setback for the Shi'ite Houthis came after days of advances in Aden, the last major foothold of fighters loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, despite a week-old Saudi campaign of air strikes to halt the Houthis and bolster Hadi.
Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia, alarmed by the Iranian-allied Houthis' march on Hadi's powerbase in Aden, launched its air campaign nine days ago along with regional backers.
The intervention marks Riyadh's most assertive move yet to counter what it sees as a spread of Shi'ite Iran's power in the region, a proxy struggle also playing out in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
Reuters:Greece says ready to make IMF payment on April 9
Greece says ready to make IMF payment on April 9
(Reuters) - Greece will repay a loan tranche to the IMF on time on April 9, its deputy finance minister said on Friday, seeking to quell fears of default after a flurry of contradictory statements on the issue in recent days.
Greece is fast running out of cash and its euro zone and International Monetary Fund lenders have frozen bailout aid until the new leftist-led government reaches agreement on a package of reforms.
That prompted the interior minister to suggest this week that Athens would prioritize wages and pensions over the roughly 450 million euro ($490 million) payment to the IMF, though the government denied that was its stance.
Euro zone officials then quoted Greece as saying it will run out of money on April 9, which the finance ministry denied.
Reuters:Japan's ruling party wants 20 percent nuclear power in energy mix: media
Japan's ruling party wants 20 percent nuclear power in energy mix: media
(Reuters) - Japan's ruling party wants a revived nuclear power sector to eventually make up a fifth of electricity generation, local media said, a controversial move for a public opposed to nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.
A panel of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party approved a proposal in a closed-door session on Thursday that would boost stable "baseload" energy supplies - nuclear, coal, hydroelectric and geothermal - to about 60 percent by 2030 from 40 percent now, according to reports in several major media outlets.
This can only be achieved, the Asahi newspaper said, by getting nuclear back up to 20 percent of the energy mix, given the difficulty of burning more goal amid a global push to cut greenhouse gases or wringing more hydro power out of Japan's heavily dammed rivers.
The LDP will present the proposal as early as next week to Abe, the Asahi said. Abe's government supports reviving nuclear power, but must walk a delicate line as it deliberates the best energy mix for the world's third-biggest economy.
Reuters:Pentagon chief to visit Japan, Korea on first Asia-Pacific trip
Pentagon chief to visit Japan, Korea on first Asia-Pacific trip
(Reuters) - Defense Secretary Ash Carter will travel to Japan and South Korea next week on his first trip to the Asia-Pacific region since becoming Pentagon chief, working to boost the U.S. strategic rebalance to the region, the department said on Friday.
The trip, which begins on Monday, is one of two trips Carter plans to make to the region over the next two months. In May, he will visit Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue, where he will meet partners from Southeast Asia, and then travel on to India.
The visits come at a time of tensions in the region as China and its closest neighbors jockey for control of resources in the contested waters, reefs and islands of the South China and East China seas. The United States has urged China and its neighbors to resolve their maritime and territorial disputes peacefully.
Carter will stop at Arizona State University on the first leg of his journey to speak to students about the links between national security and economic security, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Reuters:Canada passed on U.S.-Mexico climate announcement: sources
Canada passed on U.S.-Mexico climate announcement: sources
(Reuters) - Canada declined a U.S. invitation last week to jointly announce climate policy cooperation with Mexico, with Ottawa saying it has not yet finalized its own domestic strategy, sources from both countries familiar with the discussions said on Thursday.
On March 24, three days before the United States and Mexico announced they would partner on a high-level bilateral clean energy and climate policy task force, U.S. officials approached Canadian counterparts asking them to join the effort, three sources said.
One source said that, while Canadian officials said they were supportive of North American harmonization of climate policy, they were not yet prepared to join the continental partners.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the suggestion that Canada declined to participate was incorrect.
Reuters:Lithuania to increase military spending to counter Russian threat
Lithuania to increase military spending to counter Russian threat
(Reuters) - Lithuania, spooked by Russian military assertiveness, outlined plans on Friday to raise defense spending by a third in 2016, contributing the highest share of its economy to defense since it joined NATO in 2004.
The Baltic country has never met the informal NATO rule of spending 2 percent of its economy on defense and curbed its defense budget during the 2009-2010 financial crisis. By 2013, Lithuania was spending just 0.8 percent of GDP on defense, the second smallest share of NATO countries after Luxemburg.
The attitude changed in 2014, however, when Russia took over the Crimea peninsula and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin denies sending troops and weapons to the region.
The Lithuanian Defense Council, a defense policy setting body, on Friday proposed raising military spending by 149 million euros ($164 million) in 2016, to 574 million euros, or about 1.46 percent of the economy, the Ministry of Defense told Reuters in an email.
Post Pioneer:Your Finest Apple Watch Glimpse However In 4 Official Videos
Your Finest Apple Watch Glimpse However In 4 Official Videos
Will the Apple Watch be so radically distinctive we won’t realize how to use it at 1st? Probably so: Apple has produced a series of videos to teach Watch-wearers how the interface will work—videos which give us the greatest appear yet at what our wrist-laptop or computer future could hold. (They also double as handy advertising tools.)
Four videos are up at Apple.com that not only act as tutorials, but also clarify why Apple made particular choices about the user inteface design.
Initial, there’s an all round introduction to the watch that explains significant attributes and components, like how to use the “digital crown” wheel on the side of the watch as a scrolling device. Even though you can navigate with your finger on the watch’s face—it’s a touchscreen, following all—the digital crown makes it possible for for more precision. The digital crown also can be pressed in, letting you pick content material or take you back to the house screen. We also get a peek at “force touch,” the technologies by which pressing additional firmly down on the screen offers you different selections, sort of like an option-click / appropriate-click on a mouse. The third button, on the bottom appropriate, which oddly does not have a name, often goes straight to your contacts, which aids confirm sneaking suspicions that the device will aid replace your telephone.
There’s also an explainer on messages, which you can see basically by raising your wrist when you get a notification that 1 has arrived. Apple shows a selection of methods to respond to messages: with a pre-written text reply (you can also write your own), a voice message, or Apple’s weird animated emoji.