Says rejoining Paris Climate Agreement is "not enough."

Former Secretary of State John Kerry attended a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum during which he asserted that a great reset was urgently needed to stop the rise of populism.

Kerry vowed that under a Biden administration, America would rejoin the job-killing Paris Climate Agreement but that this was "not enough."

"The notion of a reset is more important than ever before," Kerry said. "I personally believe ... we're at the dawn of an extremely exciting time."

The former Senator made it clear that this "reset," which is merely a re-branding of the same new world order that has faced stiff resistance for the past two decades, is necessary to extinguish populism.

We have been discussing the campaign of The Lincoln Project and others to harass and abuse lawyers who represent the Trump campaign or other parties bringing election challenges. Similar campaigns have targeted election officials who object to counting irregularities. Now, the Michigan Attorney General and others are suggesting that Republicans who oppose certification or even meet with President Donald Trump on the issue could be criminally investigated or charged. Once again, the media is silent on this clearly abusive use of the criminal code target members of the opposing party in their raising objections under state law.

On Friday afternoon, leaders of Michigan's Republican-controlled state legislature met with Trump in the White House at his invitation. My column today explores the difficulty in any strategy to trigger an electoral college fight. However, the objections from legislators could focus on an host of sworn complaints from voters or irregularities in voting counts. We have not seen evidence establishing the type of systemic problems that would flip a state, let alone the election as a whole. While the legal team did raise some credible electoral concerns, I was also critical of Rudy Giuliani's global communist conspiracy claim at the press conference this week. Some of these questions are being addressed in the courts. In the meantime, state legislators have a right to raise electoral objections and seek resolution in the legislative branch.

Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt wants Brits to take a monthly coronavirus test, with a negative result earning them "freedom passes." His idea angered some commenters, who called it "Orwellian."

Writing in The Times on Friday, Hunt described an effective vaccine as Britain's best shot at returning to normal life. However, the Conservative MP said that the country needs a "plan B" in the form of monthly tests for the whole population, with the freedom to live a normal life awarded only to those who show negative results.

Hunt suggested "offering people who comply with testing and isolation requirements a 'freedom pass' that removes the requirement to follow lockdown regulations." Slovakia rolled out a similar system less than a month earlier, with those testing negative earning a certificate exempting them from curfew.

President Trump on Friday announced two major actions aimed at lowering the price of prescription drugs, as he seeks to make a mark on the issue in the final months of his administration.

One rule announced Friday would lower drug prices in Medicare Part B to match the lower prices paid in other wealthy countries, a proposal known as "most favored nation."

The second action would eliminate the rebates that drugmakers pay to "middlemen" known as pharmacy benefit managers, in a bid to simplify the drug pricing system and pass the discounts on to consumers instead.

Swiss prosecutors plan to close a nearly decade-old money laundering investigation into allegations made by the late lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Swiss prosecutors opened the money-laundering probe in 2011 after Hermitage Capital, once the largest foreign investor in Russia, claimed that a former Russian tax official moved fraudulent tax refunds through Swiss bank accounts. Magnitsky, who died of untreated illness in Russian jail in 2009, alleged that Russian Interior Ministry officials fraudulently collected a $230 million tax refund on behalf of Hermitage.

In a Nov. 6 letter to Hermitage, Swiss federal prosecutors outlined their intention to close the case soon and confiscate as much as $4 million from Swiss bank accounts controlled by entities in the case, according to Bloomberg.

Hermitage reportedly responded by saying that Swiss law enforcement "capitulated to the Russians." The London-based firm vowed to challenge the decision and request further investigation before a Dec. 8 deadline, Bloomberg reported.

The Daily Beast reported that the Swiss prosecutors used "sophisticated financial analysis to dilute the value of the laundered money so that most of it can be returned."

The outlet estimated that the Swiss prosecutors will return 99% of the frozen assets to one Russian national implicated in the tax fraud case and 100% to another. A third figure is expected to receive between 55-87% of the frozen funds.

If taking claims to court undermines democracy, how to defend Democrats' vociferous and repeated claims that Donald Trump stole the election in 2016 with the help of Russia?

A prominent liberal legal academic who spent the last four years pushing outrageous, discredited, and debunked conspiracy theories about Donald Trump stealing the 2016 election said on Fox News Sunday that refusal to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election threatens the country.

"He is undermining democracy because there are millions of people who will believe him even though there is nothing to his arguments and no evidence to back them," Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe said of President Trump's litigation regarding the November election.

As Trump and many of his 74 million voters express concern about the security of the 2020 election, in which many states rushed to expand mail-in balloting while dramatically lowering scrutiny of mail-in ballots, many media figures have condemned their efforts to litigate the results.

Joe Biden has been accused painting a false picture about hate crimes against transgender people, as well as using politically incorrect language, in a tweet vowing to "fight" for the "dignity and justice" they have been "denied."

"At least 37 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed this year, most of them Black and Brown transgender women," Biden tweeted on Friday, recognized as Transgender Day of Remembrance.

The presumed president-elect said the deaths are "intolerable" and promised to "fight" to end the "epidemic of violence."

The US secretary of state became the first in his position to visit an Israeli settlement in the West Bank and Golan Heights when he toured the Psagot Winery and was hailed a hero by many Israelis for denouncing the BDS movement.

The last act of a desperate man is the only explanation for America's spiteful attack on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.

Donald Trump's loyal lieutenant Mike Pompeo brandished his claws on a visit to Israel. Standing side-by-side with another member of the Trump VIP Club, Benjamin Netanyahu, he branded BDS "a cancer" and professed that the USA is "committed to countering the Global BDS Campaign as a manifestation of anti-Semitism." A giddy Netanyahu applauded and called it all "wonderful."

Australian defence force releases long-awaited Brereton report into allegations SAS committed war crimes in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2016.

Brereton report release: what we learned

That is where I will leave things for now. You can find the full story on the release of the Brereton report by my colleague Christopher Knaus here.

Here are the key findings:

• The report found there was "credible information" that 39 Afghans were allegedly murdered by Australian special forces in 23 incidents. Two more were cruelly treated.
• The report redacts much detail about the individual incidents, but the defence force chief Angus Campbell said none of the alleged killings took place in the heat of the battle. Most are alleged to have occurred while the Afghan victims were detained or under Australian forces' control. None of the alleged victims were combatants.
• Brereton said the circumstances of each, were they to be eventually accepted by a jury, would constitute the war crime of murder, and recommended the investigation of criminal charges against 19 Australian service personnel.
• The report revealed an alleged practice known as "blooding", or initiation, of young special forces soldiers. It describes a process in which young special forces soldiers would be instructed by their patrol commander to execute a detainee to gain their first kill. Weapons or radios, known as "throwdowns", were allegedly placed on the body and a "cover story" was created to mask the crime and deflect any scrutiny. A culture of secrecy and cover-up pervaded the special forces. Campbell called blooding an "appalling practice".
• The report clearly shows complaints about the Australians' conduct were made, including by Afghan nationals and local human rights groups. They were ignored or dismissed as Taliban propaganda or attempts to secure compensation.
• Campbell apologised to the Afghan people, its leaders, and to the Australian people. He described the alleged conduct of the SAS soldiers as "shameful", "deeply disturbing" and "appalling". Brereton described it as "disgraceful and a profound betrayal" of all the Australian defence force stood for. He similarly described some of the alleged conduct as "possibly the most disgraceful episode in Australia's military history".
• Campbell announced the disbanding of the second squadron of the SAS. He also said he would recommended to the governor general that the group meritorious citation for special forces, given to personnel serving from 2007 onwards, be withdrawn.
• The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, called his counterpart in Afghanistan, president Ashraf Ghani, to express his "deepest sorrow" over the findings.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told G20 leaders that there is nothing to replace the World Trade Organization (WTO), but it should be able to cope with current challenges and needs modernization. The Russian leader, taking part in the G20 summit on Saturday, said:

"The G20 group needs to continue efforts to find common approaches to reforming the World Trade Organization in accordance with modern challenges. It is impossible to achieve this goal without a stable, effective and multilateral trading system based on universal rules and principles, and there is no alternative to the World Trade Organization at the moment."

Many global leaders have previously said that the Geneva-based body, which acts as an international arbiter for trading disputes, needs urgent changes and the issue has been on the agenda of multiple international meetings. After their virtual meeting earlier this week, the leaders of BRICS group nations, that apart from Russian includes Brazil, India, China and South Africa, also voiced support for WTO reform.

In their final declaration, the five nations said the changes are to make the body "more resilient and effective in confronting global economic challenges and to improve its key functions" in the interest of its members.