5: Evacuation of east Aleppo under way during ceasefire
The evacuation of the eastern part of the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo has begun with ambulances and buses carrying the wounded and sick leaving the rebel-held territory in the city under a fragile exit deal.
A slow-moving convoy of around two dozen vehicles snaked out of Al-Amiriyah district and crossed into government-held Ramussa en route to rebel-held territory in the west of Aleppo province.
Later in the day, two more convoys comprising over 15 buses left for the countryside to the west, Syrian state television reported.
The evacuation got off to a shaky start. Ibrahim Abu Allaith of the Syrian Civil Defence told Al Jazeera that militias loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reportedly killed at least one person and injured four more while firing on the first convoy of injured evacuees.
AFP news agency reported that the first batch of convoy was led by vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, followed by ambulances and then green government buses.
Aljazeera
4: Facebook to flag fake news with help of its users and fact-checkers
Facebook will begin flagging fake news stories, the company announced on Thursday, responding to a torrent of criticism of its promotion of fake news during the US election.
Readers will be able to alert Facebook to possible fake news stories, which the social media behemoth will then send to outside fact-checking organizations. If those organizations identify the article as fake, then the link will appear on Facebook with an alert noting: “Disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers.”
The Guardian
When President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, it likely won’t take long for the controversial TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline to get the rubber stamp. A spate of recent cabinet picks indicate the incoming U.S. leader won’t be wasting any time getting it built.
“[Regarding] the Keystone pipeline, you’re going to have a decision fairly quickly, and you’ll see that,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday.
Vice News
At least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen. That’s the conclusion of a report just published by the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF. The report also found that there has been a 200 percent increase since 2014 in children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, with almost half a million affected. Nearly 2.2 million children are in need of urgent care. This comes as the country’s health system is on the verge of collapse, in part due to the ongoing U.S.-backed Saudi bombing of Yemen. Since the bombing began in March 2015, more than 10,000 people have died and 3 million have been displaced in the conflict. The U.S. has been a major backer of Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign. In 2015 alone, the United States approved more than $20 billion in military sales to Saudi Arabia. U.S.-made munitions have repeatedly been found at the scene of Saudi-led bombings where civilians have been killed. For more, we speak with award-winning journalist Iona Craig. She was based in Sana’a from 2010 to 2015 as the Yemen correspondent for The Times of London.
Democracy Now
1: If Donald Trump Is So Upset About Iraq WMD Lies, Why Would He Want to Hire John Bolton?
DONALD TRUMP’S REACTION to news that some U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf was to fire back: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”
He might have had a point – were it not for the fact that he was being so obviously and ludicrously insincere. Case in point: Trump is said to be on the brink of appointing John Bolton as deputy secretary of state, arguably the man most responsible for hiding the truth about Iraq’s non-existent WMDs.
The Bush administration, with Bolton as undersecretary of state for arms control, arrived in Washington, D.C. in 2001 with the goal of invading Iraq. They weren’t motivated by whatever WMD Iraq might or might not have, but, as a senior administration official later explained, by the simple and highly galling fact of Saddam Hussein’s “defiance” of the U.S.
The Intercept
