5: We Asked New Zealanders How They Will Remember John Key
Like a smack to the head, John Key unexpectedly announced he will resign as Prime Minister next Monday.
In his official statement he said his wife Bronagh had made a significant sacrifice during his time in politics, “and now is the right time for me to take a step back in my career and spend more time at home. I do not believe that if I was asked to commit to serving out a full fourth term I could look the public in the eye and say yes”.
The National Party caucus is holding a special meeting to elect a new leader on December 12. Key has endorsed Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, yet there’ve been rumblings that Paula Bennett, Gerry Brownlee and Judith Collins will fight for the leadership.
Elected to the role in 2008, Key has survived the global financial crisis, the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes, and the Pike River and Rena disasters.VICE took to the streets to ask how people will remember Teflon John.
Vice News
4: Army advances in Aleppo ahead of UN ceasefire vote
Syrian government forces gained more ground in the battle for Aleppo on Monday, as the UN Security Council prepared to vote on a resolution demanding a ceasefire in the battered city.
Three weeks into their offensive, the army and allied militias seized the Qadi Askar neighbourhood overnight and were in control of about two-thirds of former rebel territory in east Aleppo.
“The Syrian government and its allies are now about 800 metres from the citadel … They’re now in control of about 60 percent of what used to be the rebel-controlled east,” Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker said, reporting from Gaziantep along the Turkey-Syria border.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the latest advances had left the large al-Shaar neighbourhood effectively encircled by government forces.
Aljazeera
3: Ben Carson nominated for housing secretary in Trump administration
Donald Trump has nominated former opponent Ben Carson as the secretary of housing and urban development, according to an announcement from the president-elect’s transition team.
In a statement on Monday, Trump said he was “thrilled to nominate” Carson, saying he “has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities”.
“Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans.”
The Guardian
In an historic win for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota and the environment, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline, a permit to drill underneath Lake Oahe on the Missouri River—officially halting construction on the Dakota Access pipeline. The project has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota, members of more than 200 indigenous nations from across the Americas and thousands of their non-Native allies—all concerned the pipeline’s construction will destroy sacred Sioux sites and that a pipeline leak could contaminate the Missouri River, which serves as a water supply for millions. We get reaction from Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II.
Democracy Now
1: IRAQ WAS PROBABLY A “MISTAKE,” SAID GEN. JAMES MATTIS, TRUMP’S DEFENSE PICK
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense called the 2003 invasion of Iraq a “mistake,” according to a recording obtained by The Intercept.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mattis said, “we will probably look back on the invasion of Iraq as a mistake — as a strategic mistake.”
The Intercept
