5:

No transparency in PPP savings, Labour says

Education Minister Hekia Parata announced today that the new PPP schools will be built in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch.

The schools would be built to meet population growth in Auckland, Hamilton, or as part of the Christchurch schools rebuild programme.

It would normally cost the government between $150 and $200 million upfront to build these schools, but the PPP was expected to save between 3 percent and 8 percent over the life of the project, Ms Parata said.

Labour Party finance spokesman Grant Robertson said putting schools into private ownership undermined the value schools have in their community.

There was no transparency from the government in how they came up with the calculations, he said.

“They’ve said they think they’re going to save millions of dollars over 25 years as a result of these projects but the projects haven’t even been tended or let yet.”

RNZ

4:

Threats and Violent Attacks Against Muslims in the U.S., Just From This Week

This week in the United States:

The Intercept

3:

Russian warship fires warning shots near Turkish vessel

Unresponsive ship came within 600 metres of Russian destroyer before it opened fire with small arms: defence ministry.

Aljazeera

2:

Video Appears to Show Texas Police Open Fire After Man Raises Arms to Surrender

New footage of a fatal police shooting in Texas that appears to show a man surrendering with his arms up as officers open fire was released two days after a grand jury declined to indict the cops involved in the incident.

On Friday, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office released bystander video of the deadly August 28 confrontation with 41-year-old Gilbert Flores, as well as an audio recording of the 911 call that brought police to the scene.

The video, which was shot from a neighbor’s window across the street, shows a residential home flanked by police cars. When Flores enters the frame, a male voice on the video whispers, “He’s got a knife in his hand.” In an earlier video of the shooting, which was obtained and released by local media outlet KSAT-12 in September, it wasn’t clear whether Flores had a knife or not, because his arm was obstructed by a telephone pole.

Vice News

1:

Shaker Aamer: Blair and Straw face questions over complicity in treatment

Tony Blair and Jack Straw must reveal what they knew about the alleged torture of the former Guantánamo Bay detainee Shaker Aamer, Alex Salmond has said.

In his first interview since returning home to London in October after being detained without charge for 14 years in the US military facility in Cuba, British resident Aamer suggested the former prime minister and the former foreign secretary were aware that he was being tortured.

“The not unreasonable allegation that Shaker Aamer makes is that both the [then] prime minister Tony Blair and … Jack Straw must have known not just about his illegal abduction, but also about his torture at the hands of the US authorities,” Salmond told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show.

The SNP foreign affairs spokesman and former Scottish first minister said that “as with so many other things”, Blair and Straw had a great deal to answer for. “They have to be asked the straight question of how could they possibly not have known about the fate that had befallen a British citizen,” he said.

“Governments have many responsibilities, but the primary responsibility of all governments is to keep their own citizens safe from harm, and governments aren’t meant to collaborate on the illegal abduction and the torture of one of their own citizens. So both the then prime minister and home secretary have to face up and tell us exactly what they knew and when they knew it.”

The Guardian