5: Major U.S. corporations urge Trump to keep Paris climate deal in place
If President-elect Donald Trump wants to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal, he’ll face an unlikely foe: corporate America. More than 300 companies and major investors signed a letter urging Trump to roll back his campaign promises and leave low-emissions policies in place.
In the joint letter sent from Marrakesh, Morocco, where the fine points of implementing the Paris Climate Agreement are being hammered out, major American companies like Gap, General Mills, Intel, and Monsanto wrote to “re-affirm our deep commitment to addressing climate change through the implementation of the historic Paris Climate Agreement.”
Vice News
4: IPHONES SECRETLY SEND CALL HISTORY TO APPLE, SECURITY FIRM SAYS
APPLE EMERGED AS a guardian of user privacy this year after fighting FBI demands to help crack into San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone. The company has gone to great lengths to secure customer data in recent years, by implementing better encryption for all phones and refusing to undermine that encryption.
But private information still escapes from Apple products under some circumstances. The latest involves the company’s online syncing service iCloud.
Russian digital forensics firm Elcomsoft has found that Apple’s mobile devices automatically send a user’s call history to the company’s servers if iCloud is enabled — but the data gets uploaded in many instances without user choice or notification.
“You only need to have iCloud itself enabled” for the data to be sent, said Vladimir Katalov, CEO of Elcomsoft.
The logs surreptitiously uploaded to Apple contain a list of all calls made and received on an iOS device, complete with phone numbers, dates and times, and duration. They also include missed and bypassed calls. Elcomsoft said Apple retains the data in a user’s iCloud account for up to four months, providing a boon to law enforcement who may not be able to obtain the data either from the user’s phone, if it’s encrypted with an unbreakable passcode, or from the carrier. Although large carriers in the U.S. retain call logs for a year or more, this may not be the case with carrier outside the US.
The Intercept
3: Baghdad, Kurds at odds over control of post-ISIL Mosul
Clear divisions have emerged between Iraqi and Kurdish leaders over territorial control after the recapture of Mosul, even though the battle for ISIL’s last stronghold in Iraq is far from over as it enters its second month.
Backed by US-led coalition air strikes, Iraqi forces launched a massive operation to retake the northern city on October 17, with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters also playing a major role in the offensive.
The military push has seen the autonomous Kurdistan region gain or solidify control over swathes of disputed territory in northern Iraq.
And in recent days, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi have given contrasting interpretations of understandings on who will control territory in the Mosul area after the city is retaken.
“We are in agreement with the United States on not withdrawing from the areas of Kurdistan,” Barzani said on Wednesday during a visit to Kurdish Peshmerga frontline fighters in the recaptured town of Bashiqa.
Aljazeera
2:Ex-Irish President Mary Robinson: U.S. Will Become Rogue Nation If Trump Pulls Out of Climate Deal
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would end all immigration to the U.S. by Syrian refugees and others from what he called “terror-prone nations,” and on Wednesday, a spokesman for the pro-Trump Great America PAC defended a proposed registry for all Muslim immigrants by citing World War II Japanese-American internment camps. “It’s such a contradiction from the reality as we know it in the world,” responds our guest Mary Robinson, “and the importance of actually having more inclusive societies.” Robinson served as president of Ireland from 1990 to 1997 and U.N. high commissioner for human rights from 1997 to 2002.
Democracy Now
1: Obama urges Trump against realpolitik in relations with Russia
Barack Obama has warned the US president-elect, Donald Trump, against a purely “realpolitik approach” to relations with Russia and encouraged his successor to continue standing up for American values.
“I’ve sought a constructive relationship with Russia but what I have also been is realistic in recognising there are some significant differences in how Russia views the world and how we view the world,” Obama said at a press conference with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Berlin.
While not expecting Trump to “follow exactly our blueprint or our approach”, Obama said he was hopeful that his successor would pursue constructive policies that defend democratic values and the rule of law.
The Guardian
